against a possible night surprise, he set out to walk over the
newly-laid track of the day.

Another half-hour had elapsed, and a waning moon was clearing the
topmost crags of Pacific Peak when he came out on the high embankment
opposite the Rosemary, having traversed the entire length of the
lateral loop and inspected the trestle at the gulch head by the light
of a blazing spruce-branch.

The station with its two one-car trains, and the shacks of the little
mining-camp beyond, lay shimmering ghost-like in the new-born light of
the moon. The engine of the sheriff's car was humming softly with a
note like the distant swarming of bees, and from the dancehall in
Argentine the snort of a trombone and the tinkling clang of a cracked
piano floated out upon the frosty night air.

Winton turned to go back. The windows of the Rosemary were all dark,
and there was nothing to stay for. So he thought, at all events; but
if he had not been musing abstractedly upon things widely separated
from his present surroundings, he might have remarked two tiny stars
of lantern-light high on the placer ground above the embankment; or,
failing the sight, he might have heard the dull, measured _slumph_
of a churn-drill burrowing deep in the frozen earth of the slope.

As it was, a pair of brown eyes blinded him, and the tones of a voice
sweeter than the songs of Oberon's sea-maid filled his ears. Wherefore
he neither saw nor heard; and taking the short cut across the mouth of
the lateral gulch back to camp, he boarded the dinkey and went to bed
without disturbing Adams.