So the talk ran on, from one thing to another. The stars twinkled in countless numbers above, giving just enough light so that they could see the mighty column of granite on either side, and to silhouette the gently-murmuring pines against the canyon wall. The air was chill and faintly scented by the bursting wild-cherry blossoms that grew in great profusion along the stream. Here and there, in a moist crevice, a glow-worm shed forth its greenish-yellow glow, to let you know it was night time and summer. Far away in the distance Phantom Falls was tumbling and splashing over a great pile of drift logs.

As the little company crossed the bridge and rounded a turn in the road, a campfire, built in a little sheltered nook back from the road, came into view. It cast long beams of light and grotesque shadows in every direction, while the odor of cherry blossoms changed to the aroma of good coffee.

"I hope Old Ben has as good a pot of coffee on the fire at the Inn," said one.

Presently "Old Night Cap" loomed up against the sky.

"This is as far as we could come a year or two ago," said Mr. Allen to Willis. "Before the railroad and the inn were built we used to think it was a long way even up here to the old mine."

"Did I ever tell you about the old Negro that owned this mine? Well, he came herein the early days and found a strange yellow outcropping here.

He built himself a funny little shanty on the hillside, which he thatched with spruce boughs. Here he spent a good many years of his life, digging.

His tunnel caved in soon after he left it, but he did find a little gold for his work. When his provisions gave out, he would take his old mule, which was his only companion, tramp into the city, sell his little bag of gold dust, and buy bacon, flour, and beans. After a little spree he would return to the mine, always sure that he would find the gold in larger quant.i.ties. Often I've stopped to talk with him as he brought a wheelbarrow load of dirt out of the tunnel to the edge of the little old dump.

"'Yep, I'se 'bout to fin' heaps an' heaps o' gol',' he'd say as he pulled at his stubby gray whiskers. 'Ma.r.s.e Spruce-tree, yondah, he done tole me to jes' keep a diggin' an' I'd sho fin' gol'. When I 'se jes' 'bout to gib up, an' I does sometimes, yes, sah, I does, ole Ma.r.s.e Spruce-tree he jes' stan' up yondah on de hillside an' laff an' say, "Why, Rufus, yuse is altogedder wufless." Ole Brer Rabbit, he nod he haid an' 'spress heself same way. "Jes keep a diggin', Unc' Rufus," he say, "Jes' keep a diggin'." They sho is gol' in this yere ole world if ye jes' keeps a diggin'.'

"He'd sing all day as he worked, and never seemed to lose faith; but when the canyon road was extended, and the inn built, it took away the quiet and solitude from the place. The old man just picked up his belongings and went farther back into the mountains--no one knew where; but somewhere, I suspect, he is still talking aloud to the trees and making friends with the wild things, still giving his life to digging up dreams and living for hopes that will never be realized. It's a strange disease, this gold fever. I've never had it, but I've heard Old Ben at the Inn tell how it's nearly impossible for a man to go back to his work in the city after he has once seen the golden glitter and dug the precious metal from the earth."

Willis had remained very quiet all through the story. A strange sadness seemed to have settled upon his spirit. Several times Mr. Allen addressed him, but upon receiving no reply turned and looked closely into the boy's face. His head was thrown back, and he seemed to be lost in the beauty of the starry night. In a very quiet tone Mr. Allen said, "A penny for your thoughts, boy."

Willis laughed a dry little laugh, and, turning to him, replied:

"O, I was just thinking. I hardly know what, exactly. I was thinking of how that old darky's tunnel caved in. Do all tunnels cave in? I was thinking of my father." He linked his arm through the "Chief's" as they walked on up the canyon. "My father was a miner, you know. That's how he lost his life." Mr. Allen understood the mood now.

"You must tell me more of him some time, Willis. Was he like you?"

"Not very much, but I'm going to be like him, if I can," replied Willis.

"Sometimes, since I've been here in Colorado, especially here in the mountains, I've fancied that he was near me again, watching and guiding and keeping me company. It's hard for a fellow like me not to have a father. Mr. Allen, I don't believe the fellows who have them half appreciate them, do you?"

A long, loud shout came from ahead, which was answered by a dog's bark.

"O you supper!" shouted Chuck.

"Ben, remember me," cried another.

The inn was a one-story log building, built of rough spruce trees, just as they had been cut from the mountain. On the side next to the stream was a rustic porch. On the down-canyon end was built an immense old, stone fireplace. From the chimney top there was a procession of tiny sparks making their way upwards from the roaring wood-fire within. Here and there on the wall hung the hides of denizens of the woods. Behind the pine door stood an old-fashioned, double-barreled shotgun and a later model Winchester rifle. In the opposite corner stood two short-handled shovels and a miner's pick, while on the wall just above the fireplace hung the head of a great buck that had one time roamed those very hills.

The fireplace, which occupied the center of the east wall, was large and very attractive. An old hand-made crane had been built into the firebox, and from it hung an old iron pot. The andirons were long, narrow slabs of granite, set on edge, upon which were piled logs of pine wood, burning merrily--not because it was a cold night, but because of its cheerfulness.

The hearth at once became the center of attraction. It was the mysterious fairy that bound all hearts together and welded all types of personality into a sympathetic friendship that gathered round it. It was the stern and fiery monarch, ordering all a.s.sembled to be quiet that it might sing and moan and whisper the messages that it had gathered from the winter storms or from the falling leaves.

At one side of the old fireplace, leaning back in his rickety old arm-chair, sat Ben, Old Ben the innkeeper, his long-stemmed cob pipe held quietly in one hand, while the other rested on the head of a huge Russian hound that lay on the floor in front of the fire. Ben's hair was long and gray, and on his nose rested a pair of large, old--fashioned, silver--rimmed spectacles. His head was partly bald, and his small, gray eyes were set well back under s.h.a.ggy eyebrows. His face was covered with a generous growth of dirty-gray whiskers, stained darkly about the mouth from his pipe. He was a typical old mountain prospector who had seen better days.

As the boys entered Old Ben rose, stretched his large, gaunt frame, and cried, "Howdy, fellers, must o' started day afore yestedy, didn't ye?

Took ye tarnal long to git here, anyhow. Supper's ben ready these two hours. Me'n the critter 'n Tad is most starved a waitin'. h.e.l.lo, Mr.

Allen, where'd ye git this lively bunch o' fellers, anyhow? D' they all b'long to ye? Come along, Tad, er these dratted youngsters 'll eat all yer grub fer ye." This as the fellows seated themselves about the table.

Tad, by the aid of a crutch, hobbled from the lean-to kitchen and took his seat at the table nearest the fire. Old Ben served the meal--beefsteak, baked potatoes, hot corn m.u.f.fins, and gravy, apple sauce, pickles, and coffee that fairly filled the room with its fragrance.

"Drat me for a young squirrel if you fellers ain't the hungriest bunch o'

yearlin's I ever set eyes on," muttered Ben as he hurried back and forth from table to kitchen supplying the urgent demand.

After the last drop of coffee had disappeared, the meeting was called to order around the table and the business of the evening was gotten under way. Willis, for the first time, found it difficult to pay attention to what Allen had to say. He was watching Old Ben and his friend as they sat by the fire, chatting and smoking, the very picture of contentment. Now and then a little of their conversation would reach him, but he could not make head nor tail of it. At the supper table the man with the crutch had eyed Willis many times. In his manner there was something that seemed to be so very familiar, yet his face, which was covered with a several weeks' beard, was strange to Willis.

"I never saw a face so like my old pard's," the stranger was saying to Ben. "And you know, Ben, I often wonder if some day I won't hear something from Bill's family. There was a wee boy, but what others, if any, I don't know. The day of the wreck I saw a lad that did a brave deed, and ever since I've been wondering if he might be Bill's boy--he looked so like him."

"Tad, what became of that tarnal critter, Williams, that ye told me about? The feller that jumped that placer claim up'n the gulch--do you ever see him any more?"

"Yes, Ben, he is still in the city. Has a mighty sick wife--tuberculosis, they say. He's crookeder than a cork-screw, they tell me; but he'll get caught yet, that kind always does. You know his wife is a sister to Bill's wife. If it hadn't been for that relationship to Bill, I'd have had it out with him long ago. But what's the use, anyway. The mine's no good and the ground's no good, and I haven't any money to fight him."

"Yep, but s'posin' the tunnel was good; what then?"

"I don't know, Ben. Old Williams has a good name, generally speaking, in the city, and he has money--I couldn't fight him. Dad Wright used to say he was a 'snake in the gra.s.s,' and Dad doesn't often misjudge a man."

"Who holds the key to that tarnal hole, anyway, Tad?"

"Williams was the last man in the tunnel, Ben, and I suppose he holds the keys. I've never been inside since I carried out poor Bill's broken body."

"Well, Tad, I was a pesterin' around there not long ago, an' I seed whar some tarnal critter hed tried to pry the lock off. You know, Tad, I b'lieve they is pay rock in that gulch, if the likes o' you an' me could jist light onto it. Ye can pan color anywhere around the shanty, if ye know how. I picked up some o' that quartz formation by the dump, an' drat it, Tad, it's fine lookin' stuff."

"Yes, Ben, I often think I'll go back and work a little longer on the old hole. Bill was certain we had struck it--talked in his fever before he died. But I haven't got the nerve.

"Ben, I'm going to tell you something. Just before Bill met his end, he had a letter from the firm that he installed machinery for concerning the final drawings of an ore-roaster that he had been working on for years. I have often wondered if he sent those drawings to the firm before his death, or if Williams got them and the letters. I've never seen a roaster like his was to be. Some way, I've thought Williams sold those drawings.

If he did, Ben, I'd kill him, I believe. That's what makes me keep a thinking of the boy. Those drawings would have brought enough then to have educated him, and perhaps he's poor--poor like you and me, and can't go to school, while that rascal, Williams, rides around in an automobile.

Some way, I feel like I'll find out, and then I'll--"

"Is that a fact! Well, that tarnal critter!" Ben puffed meditatively at his pipe and gazed into the fire.

"I have decided to go back, Ben, and work the other claim up in the gulch by Dad's. If I could get enough money ahead I'd get a detective and put him on the case. I'm kind of a father to that boy, Ben, wherever he is, and I ought to be finding him."

The meeting at the table was over, and the fellows crowded around the fire before starting home, and, perhaps, to hear one of Ben's stories of the early days. The stranger watched Willis closely for some minutes, then he called to him.

"Lad, ain't you the boy that was in the wreck of the Rocky Mountain Limited, early in the spring? I've been watching you, and you sure remind me of him." Willis's face brightened. In a flash he recognized the fireman. He advanced with extended hand.

"Why, yes, sir, I am the boy, and you are the fireman. I have been looking at you all evening and wondering where I had ever seen you before. It's the whiskers that threw me off. How is the broken leg?"

The stranger held the boy's hand in his own and looked into his face.

"We got out lucky, didn't we, lad? Have you ever seen the little Englishman since that day? He was a dandy, wasn't he?"

Chuck had been listening to the foregoing conversation.

"What wreck? What Englishman? Who is your friend?" he questioned.

The stranger spoke. "Why, don't you know about the wreck? Has he never told any of you?" In answer to a chorus of "No's," the stranger drew his chair closer to the fire and began to tell the story.

"So the lad has never told you, eh? He is a splendid fellow, this lad. I want to tell you boys there is no yellow in his system. He has cool, true nerve, like my old friend, that never thought of himself if there was trouble, always of the other folks that might suffer. That's the reason he slid off this mortal globe so soon. The lad here came near doing the same thing. Then he never told you about it. Well, well."

"I'll see you again," called the stranger as Willis pa.s.sed out into the night.