And Marjorie, putting her arms around Jack’s neck, whispered through radiant tears, “It was Kalman, Jack.  Don’t listen to yon gommeril.  It was Kalman saved us; and oh, Jack, he is just lovely!”

And Jack, patting her cheek, said, “I know all about him.”

“Do you, indeed?” she answered, with a knowing smile.  “I doubt.  But oh! he has broken his foot or something.  And oh, Jack, he has got a mine!”

And Jack, not knowing what she meant, looked curiously into her face and wondered, till Brown, examining Kalman’s foot and finding a broken bone, exclaimed wrathfully, “Say, boy, you don’t tell me you have been walking on this foot?”

But Kalman answered nothing.

“He came for me—­for us, Mr. Brown, through that awful storm,” cried Marjorie penitently; “and is it broken?  Oh, Kalman, how could you?”

But Kalman still answered nothing.  His dream was passing from him.  She was restored to her world and was no longer in his care.

“And here’s his mine,” cried Marjorie, turning Jack toward the black seam.

“By Jove!” cried Mr. Penny, “and I never saw it.  You never showed it to me.”

But during those hours spent in the cave Kalman and Marjorie had something other to occupy their minds than mines.  Jack French examined the seam closely and in growing excitement.

“By the Lord Harry!  Kalman, did you find this?”

Kalman nodded indifferently.  Mines were nothing to him now.

“How did you light upon it?”

And Kalman told him how.

“He’s just half dead and starved,” said Marjorie in a voice that broke with pity.  “He watched all last night while we slept away like a pair o’ stirks.”

At the tone in her voice, Jack French turned and gave her a searching look.  The quick, hot blood flamed into her cheeks, and in her eyes dawned a frank shyness as she gave him back his look.

“I don’t care,” she said at length; “he’s fair dune oot.”

But Jack only nodded his head sagely while he whispered to her, “Happy boy, happy boy!  Two mines in one night!”

At which the red flamed up again and she fell to examining with greater diligence the seam of black running athwart the cave side.

In a few minutes they were mounted and away, Brown riding hard to bring the great news to the engineer’s camp and recall the hunting parties; the rest to make the ranch, Marjorie in front in happy sparkling converse with Jack French, and Kalman, haggard and gloomy, bringing up the rear.  A new man was being brought to birth within him, and sore were the parturition pangs.  For one brief night she had been his; now back to her world, she was his no more.