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Updated: May 29, 2025
Verneille must have kept the range, and I was in the valley. I was very sick when I struck the prospector's camp, and when I came round I had only the haziest memory of the journey." "If we can find a spot where the valley dies out into the range, it will probably be where you left him," said Weston. "It would give us a point to work from. In the meanwhile we want a place to camp."
"Since sunrise I've been troubled with a haunting sense of the familiar, though when I found the lake with Verneille we marched through no brûlée." "That's years ago, and this brûlée is probably not more than twelve months old I mean as a brûlée," said Weston, impatiently, for the strain of the long march was telling on him.
It was some time since they had found Verneille lying high upon the desolate range, and this was still the only thing which seemed to bear out his comrade's story. The latter had only a few very hazy recollections to guide him, and during the last week he had not come upon anything in the shape, of a mountain spur or frothing creek that appeared to fit in with them.
There was a curious huddled object in a crevice of the rocks not far in front of him. "Do you see that?" he asked. "What can it be?" Grenfell gazed at the thing steadily, and then turned to his companion. "I think it's Verneille," he said. They came a little nearer, and saw that he was right, for presently Grenfell stooped and picked up a discolored watch.
I never knew how I got out or where Verneille went, but when I struck a prospector's camp he wasn't with me." The track-grader nodded. He had been born among the ranges, and knew that the prospectors who went out on the gold trail did not invariably come back. He had heard of famishing men staggering along astonishing distances half-asleep or too dazed to notice where they were going.
"You see, I wanted to go into the thing systematically," continued Weston, who felt that he was safest when he kept on talking. "We have decided that Verneille couldn't have made more than forty miles from the lake, and, as he was heading south, that gives us at most a sweep of about a hundred and twenty miles to search, though the whole of it is practically a nest of mountains.
"Still, when you had the spot where you came upon Verneille to work from, you should have seen it from one of the spurs of the range." "Yes," admitted Weston, "that seems reasonably evident, though we certainly saw no sign of it." He broke off and laughed. "The whole thing sounds crazy, doesn't it? Still, as I said, I believe we are going to be successful."
You were heading south when you separated from Verneille, Grenfell?" "About south. I can't be sure."
"You're quite sure it's gold?" the other man inquired. "Am I sure!" Grenfell smiled compassionately. "I was Professor but guess I've told you that already." "The lead?" inquired the other man. "Outcrop, a few yards of it. Then it dips on a slight inclination, and evidently runs back toward the range. An easy drive for an adit. Stayed there two days, Verneille and I. Quite sure about that gold."
In the meanwhile Weston stood still, with the rain on his face and his battered hat in his hand. Verneille lay in a cleft of the rocks, where it seemed he had crawled when he broke down on his last weary march, but the sun and the rain had worked their will, and there was very little left of him. Indeed, part of the bony structure had rolled clear of the shreds of tattered rags.
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