CHAPTER VIII
THE SECOND OFFER
It was a few days later and Tom Graves was sitting side by side with Gamble in front of the latter's cabin, contentedly rolling a brown paper cigarette, looking out at the dipping, peaking mountains and listening to the sounds of pickaxe and blast that drifted across from the tunnel of the Yankee Doodle Glory, where the miners had begun their early morning shift.
Directly below his feet lay the old stage route, long disused, last memory of the gold seekers who had once followed the glittering metal lure to the Hoadoos. It was still in fairly good condition, ruts and grooves apart, bottled up between rock ridges five hundred feet high, their crevices giving foothold to stunted pines, gnarled fir trees, and an occasional "bearberry" bush, their bases sheltering thick, lacy growths of young spruce. The rocks stood out sharply and threateningly, like gloomy sentinels silhouetted against the tight-stretched sky, while the road beneath lay bathed in purple and umber light.
It was quite early in the morning. The shivering sun rays blinked through the pines and gilded the opposite crags; they trickled down leisurely to a ribbon-shaped granite ledge and a sparkling little brook fringed by bush and willow.
"Lonely country," suggested Gamble, who was a
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