Old hopes, like ghosts, went skulking by, vain charlatans, ashamed.  But friendships stood about in every scene—­bright presences that cast a roseate glow on all the tribulations of his life.  And it seemed as if a failure here was half a failure only, after all.  It had not robbed him either of his youth, his strength, or a certain boyish credulity and trust in all his kind.  He still believed he should win his golden goal, and he loved the land that had tried him.

His last, his biggest venture, the Monte Cristo mine was, however, gone—­everything sold to meet the company debts.  Nevertheless, he had once more purchased a claim, with all but his very last dollar in the world, and he and his partners would soon be on the ground, assaulting the stubborn adamant with powder, pick, and drill, in the fever of the miner’s ceaseless dream.

To-day, as he rode beside the girl, he wondered at it all—­why he had labored so persistently.  The faint, far-off shadow of a sweetheart, long since left behind, failed to supply him a motive.  She had grown impatient, listened to a suitor more tangible than Van’s absent self, and so, blamelessly, had faded from his scheme of hopes, leaving no more than a fragrance in his thoughts, with certainly no bitterness or anger.

“Old New York,” he repeated, at the end of his reverie, and meeting once more the steady brown eyes of the girl with whom the fates had thrown him, he fetched up promptly with the present.

“How long has your brother been out here in Goldite?”

“About a month,” she answered.  “He’s been in the West for nearly a year, and wrote Mr. Bostwick to come.”

“Mr. Bostwick is doubtless a very particular friend of your family.”

“Why, yes, he’s my——­ That is, he was—­he always has been a very particular friend—­for several years,” she faltered suddenly turning red.  “We haven’t any family, Glen and I—­and he’s my half brother only—­but we’re just like chums—–­and that was why I wanted to come.  I expect to surprise him.  He doesn’t know I’m here.”

Van was silent and she presently added: 

“I hope you and Glen will be friends.  I know how much he’ll wish to thank you.”

He looked at her gravely.

“I hope he won’t.  It’s up to me to thank him.”

They had come to a road at the level of the valley—­a desert valley, treeless, grassless, gray, and desolate.  The sun was rapidly nearing the rim of the mountains, as if to escape pursuit of a monstrous bank of clouds.

Van spurred his chestnut to a gallop, and the horses bearing the women responded with no further need of urging.

CHAPTER VIII

A NIGHT’S EXPENSES

From Karrish to Goldite by the road was twenty-seven miles.  There were fifteen mile of bottles by the way—­all of them empty.  A blind man with a nose for glass could have smelled out the trail unerringly across that desert stretch.  Karrish was the nearest town for a very great distance around.