‘Your father is coming,’ he offered.  ’That Murray woman is going to meet him.’

Helen had paused in her activities.  But he could not guess how her expression had changed.  ‘That Murray woman,’ as he spoke the words, did sound convincing.  Still she did not come out.  She knew that it would be a full ten minutes before Longstreet would make his way down the steep slope and come to the cabin.  She resumed her occupation and remembered to accompany it with her tantalizing bit of song.  Howard began to hate that air whole-heartedly.

The longest day has its end, the longest ten minutes fall something short of an eternity.  At length, walking side by side, leading the white mare and chatting gaily, Longstreet and Sanchia approached the house.  Longstreet saw Howard and put out a friendly hand.

‘Glad to see you, my boy,’ he called warmly.  ’Helen and I have talked of you every day; we’ve missed you like the very mischief.  Where is Helen, by the way?’

‘Inside,’ Howard told him sombrely.  ’Changing things around and making them all over.’

Helen opened the door.  Howard wondered how she had found the time to lay aside her hat, give a new effect to her hair and pin on those field flowers.  Her cheeks were only delicately flushed, her eyes were filled with dancing lights.

‘Back again, pops?’ She appeared to see only her father, though Howard still had a foot on the step and Sanchia was fluttering close at his elbow.  ‘And no new gold mine to-day!’ It was quite as though a gold mine were virtually an everyday occurrence.  She patted his dusty shoulder.

‘No,’ said Longstreet lightly.  ’No new mine to-day, my dear.  But I’m right; I’m getting all the signs I want and expected.  To-morrow or maybe the next day, we’ll have it.  I know right where it is.  Take the trail by——­’

‘Papa,’ said Helen hastily and a trifle impatiently, ’can’t you ever learn, even after you have been bitten?  If you do stumble on anything, I should think you would remember and not talk about it.’

‘But, my dear,’ he expostulated, ‘we are among friends.’

‘Are we?’ Helen demanded coolly.  ’We were among the same friends before.’

Longstreet looked frankly displeased, vaguely distressed.  Sanchia was listening eagerly, her eyes stony in their covetousness.  Howard, staring only at Helen, had hardly heard.

‘Well, well,’ said Longstreet.  ’I haven’t found anything, so that’s all there is to to-day’s tale, anyway.’  He got his first view of the cabin’s interior.  ‘What in the world has happened in there?’ he demanded, in amazement.

‘Nothing,’ answered Helen.  ‘I’m just packing; that’s all.’

‘Packing, my dear?  Packing what?  And, pray, with what intention?’

‘Packing everything, of course.  And with the intention of travelling.’

Longstreet looked perplexed.  He turned to both Howard and Sanchia as though he suspected that they must share the secret.