Chapter XVI. How Kalman Found His Mine

The girl's enthusiasm for her new-found friend was such that the whole party decided to accept his invitation. And so they did, spending a full day and night on the ranch, exploring, under French's guidance, the beauty spots, and investigating with the greatest interest, especially on Miss Marjorie's part, the farming operations, over which Kalman was presiding.

That young man, in dumb and abashed confusion of face, strictly avoided the party, appearing only at meals. There, while he made a brave show, he was torn between the conflicting emotions of admiration of the easy nonchalance and self-possession with which Jack played the host, and of furious rage at the air of proprietorship which Mr. Edgar Penny showed towards Miss Marjorie. Gladly would he have crushed into a shapeless pulp the ruddy, chubby face of that young man. Kalman found himself at times with his eyes fixed upon the very spot where his fingers itched to grip that thick-set neck, but in spite of these passing moments of fury, the whole world was new to him. The blue of the sky, the shimmer of the lake, the golden yellow of the poplars, all things in earth and heaven, were shining with a new glory. For him the day's work had no weariness. He no longer trod the solid ground, but through paths of airy bliss his soul marched to the strains of celestial music.

Poor Kalman! When on that fateful morning upon his virgin soul there dawned the vision of the maid, the hour of fate struck for him. That most ancient and most divine of frenzies smote him. He was deliciously, madly in love, though he knew it not. It is something to his credit, however, that he allowed the maiden to depart without giving visible token of this divine frenzy raging within his breast, unless it were that in the blue of his eyes there came a deeper blue, and that under the tan of his cheek a pallor crept. But when on their going the girl suddenly turned in her saddle and, waving her hand, cried, "Good-by, Kalman," the pallor fled, chased from his cheek by a hot rush of Slavic blood as he turned to answer, "Good-by." He held his hat high in a farewell salutation, as he had seen Jack do, and then in another moment she was gone, and with her all the glory of that golden autumn day.

To Kalman it seemed as if months or years must have passed since he first saw her by her Aunt's tent on that eventful morning. To take up the ordinary routine was impossible to him. That very night, rolling up his blankets and grub for three days, and strapping on to his saddle an axe and a shovel, Kalman rode off down the Night Hawk Creek, telling Mackenzie gruffly, as he called his dogs to follow, that he purposed digging out a coyote's den that he knew lay somewhere between the lake and the Creek mouth.

The afternoon of the second day found him far down the Creek, where it plunged headlong into the black ravine below, not having discovered his wolf den and not much caring