CHAPTER XXVIII.
WESTON STANDS FAST Business called Weston to Winnipeg a few days after his interview with Ida, and, as it happened, he met Stirling at the head of the companionway when the big lake steamer steamed out into Georgian Bay.
Neither of them had any other acquaintance on board, and they sat together in the shade of a deckhouse as the steamer ploughed her way smoothly across Lake Huron a few hours later.

Weston had arranged to meet a Chicago stock-jobber who had displayed some interest in the mine, and he had chosen to travel up the lakes because it was more comfortable than in the cars in the hot weather, besides being somewhat cheaper, which was a consideration with him.

Stirling, it seemed, was going to inspect the route for a railroad which an iron-mining company contemplated building.

He lay in a deck-chair, with a cigar in his hand, apparently looking out at the shining water which stretched away before them, a vast sheet of turquoise, to the far horizon.
"Well," he asked at length, "how's the Grenfell Consolidated progressing ?" "It seems to be making most progress backward," said Weston.

"Still, I suppose the fact that somebody evidently considered it worth while to send up men to jump our claim might be considered encouraging." He briefly related what had taken place at the mine, as far as Saunders' letter had acquainted him with the facts, and Stirling listened thoughtfully.
"It's a crude maneuver, so crude that, as you've nothing but suspicions to go upon, it would be wiser not to mention them to anybody else," he said.