broach the subject. Instead he went on to tell what he had planned with the Commissioner.
"You have only to sign these papers and take them to him the next time you go to Pioche," he said. "There are some small fees and then you will have your deed recorded and feel you own the place. I imagine records in your grandfather's day were few and far between. A man held his own by the force of his good right hand." He was conscious of her looking at him, curiously, anxiously. Thora had gone out on the verandah with Jackson. The girl gazed lovingly about the room.
"Dear grandad," she said. "I shall feel like a deserter, if I go."
"If you go?" Sheridan realized, with swift enlightenment, the stress he put into his exclamation. With her words the glamor of Quong's gold had departed, the glory of his project faded, the desire to aid his fellow man and reclaim the land died utterly. He knew that, without this slimsy lady, this Girl of Ghost Mountain, sitting opposite to him, her face a cameo in the light of the lamp, everything else was as dust and ashes. She looked swiftly at his face and averted hers.
"You brought me up a letter this afternoon," she said. "I told you we had no correspondents. I did not expect this one. It brings another fairy tale, like yours of the buried gold. I read it while you shot the birds for supper. Will you read it now?"
She took it from the bosom of her gown and handed it to him. He took it with a wondering dislike. It
