Landis he would serve her hand and foot until she had her will.

But all he said was simply: "I shall be back before it's dark."

"I shall be comfortable here," replied the girl, and smiled farewell at
him.

And while Donnegan went down the slope full of darkness he thought of
that smile.

The Corner spread more clearly before him with every step he made. It
was a type of the gold-rush town. Of course most of the dwellings were
tents--dog tents many of them; but there was a surprising sprinkling of
wooden shacks, some of them of considerable size. Beginning at the very
edge of the town and spread over the sand flats were the mines and the
black sprinkling of laborers. And the town itself was roughly jumbled
around one street. Over to the left the main road into The Corner
crossed the wide, shallow ford of the Young Muddy River and up this road
he saw half a dozen wagons coming, wagons of all sizes; but nothing went
out of The Corner. People who came stayed there, it seemed.

He dropped over the lower hills, and the voice of the gold town rose to
him. It was a murmur like that of an army preparing for battle. Now and
then a blast exploded, for what purpose he could not imagine in this
school of mining. But as a rule the sounds were subdued by the distance.
He caught the muttering of many voices, in which laughter and shouts
were brought to the level of a whisper at close hand; and through all
this there was a persistent clangor of metallic sounds. No doubt from
the blacksmith shops where picks and other implements were made or
sharpened and all sorts of repairing carried on. But the predominant