"How are you going to dispose of your money, then? You have a nice little
balance in cash, besides the shares."

"It has occurred to me that I might spend a few months in the Old
Country. Have you ever been over there?"

"I was across some time ago; but, if you like, I'll go along with you. We
could start as soon as we've arranged the few matters left open in
Vancouver."

Vane was glad to hear it. He knew little about Carroll's antecedents, but
his companion was obviously a man of education, and they had been staunch
comrades for the last three years. They had plodded through leagues of
rain-swept bush, had forded icy rivers, had slept in wet fern and
sometimes slushy snow, and had toiled together with pick and drill.
During that time they had learned to know and trust each other and to
bear with each other's idiosyncrasies.

Filling his pipe again as he lay in the fading sunlight, Vane looked back
on the nine years he had passed in Canada, and, allowing for the periods
of exposure to cold and wet and the almost ceaseless toil, he admitted
that he might have spent them more unpleasantly. He had a stout heart and
a muscular body, and the physical hardships had not troubled him. What
was more, he had a quick, almost instinctive, judgment and the faculty
for seizing an opportunity.

Having quarreled with his relatives and declined any favors from them, he
had come to Canada with only a few pounds and had promptly set about
earning a living with his hands. When he had been in the country several
years, a friend of the family had, however, sent him a small sum, and the