Perhaps it's somewhat curious, but I seem certain that we shall strike that quartz lead one of these days." Ida was glad to let the conversation take this new turn, for she understood his eagerness now, and she had felt that they were skirting a crisis each time she had talked with him of late.

She had the courage to make a sacrifice, and, indeed, had the occasion arisen, would probably have considered none too costly; but it seemed due to him as well as to her that he should at least make some strenuous effort to pull down the barriers between them.
"Well," she said quietly, "it is very curious that you discovered no trace of it.

You said you found Grenfell's partner lying dead upon the range, and, as their provisions were running out when he left the lake, he could not have gone very far.

Was it a big lake ?" "It couldn't have been.

Grenfell said he walked round it in a couple of hours." Ida looked thoughtful.
"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.