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There was nothing of the wraith, or phantom, however, in the broad-shouldered figure in a wide-brimmed Stetson sitting in the office watching Sprudell's approach with ominous intentness. With a fair semblance of cordiality Sprudell hastened forward with outstretched hand. "I'm amazed! Astonished " "I thought you would be," Bruce answered grimly, ignoring Sprudell's hand.
"By day, like primordial man, we crept around beetling crags and scaled inaccessible peaks in pursuit of the wild things " "Who crept with you?" inquired Miss Dunbar prosaically. "How far were you from a railroad?" A shade of irritation replaced the look of poetic exaltation upon Sprudell's face. It would have been far better if they had sent a man.
They concentrated finally upon the work which lay before him once he had demonstrated the truth or falsity of Sprudell's assertion that Slim's family were not to be found. He turned the situation over and over in his mind and always it resolved itself into the same thing, namely, his lack of money.
And when divine Providence led him at last to the lonely miner's cabin on the wild tributary of the Snake, and he had sunk, fainting and exhausted, to the floor with his inert burden on his back, Mr. Sprudell's eyes filled, touched to tears by the story of his own bravery. Miss Dunbar's wide, intent eyes and parted lips inspired him to go further.
Bruce's eyes blazed into Sprudell's. "The heirs could not be found, you were given up for dead, and in any event I've not exceeded my rights." "You have no rights upon that ground!" Bruce answered hotly, "My locations were properly made in 'Slim's' name and my own. The sampling and the cabin and the tunnel count for assessment work. I had not abandoned the claim."
Sprudell's pearl gray spats were twinkling up and down the corridor of Bartlesville's best hotel, and back and forth between the private dining-room and the Room of Mystery adjoining, where mechanics of various kinds had been busy under his direction, for some days.
"It'll turn up, of course," Sprudell replied soothingly. "And when it does I'll get it to you by the first mail." Bruce did not answer there seemed nothing more to say but there was something in Sprudell's voice and eyes that was not convincing. Bruce had the feeling strongly that he was holding back the letter and the picture, but why? What could they possibly mean to a stranger?
To find him here, perhaps already with formidable backing, for the moment scattered Sprudell's wits, upset him; the only thing in his mind which was fixed and real was the determination somehow to block him. A vaguely defined plan was already forming in his mind, and he wanted to be alone to perfect it and put it into immediate execution.
He looked deep into Sprudell's eyes. "You'll do it?" "As soon as I get out." "I'd just about come back and haunt you if you lied." There were no heroics when he left them; he simply fastened on his pack and went. "Don't try to hunt me if I stay too long," was all he said to Uncle Bill at parting. "If there's any way of getting there, I can make it just as well alone."
To die bravely in the sight of a crowd was sublime; but to perish alone, unnoted, side by side with the Chinese cook and chiefly for want of trousers in which to escape, was ignominious. He snatched his cold feet from the middle of the cook's back. Another wretched day passed, the event of which was the uncovering of Sprudell's fine field boots in a drift outside.
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