So this explained, after a fashion, Harry’s disappearance. This revealed why the search through the mountains had failed. This-

But Fairchild suddenly realized that now was not a time for conjecturing upon the past. The man on the bed was unconscious, incapable of helping himself. Far below, a white-haired woman, her toothless jaws uttering one weird chant after another, was digging for him a quicklime grave, in the insane belief that she was aiding in accomplishing some miracle of immortality. In time-and Fairchild did not know how long-an evil-visaged, scar-faced man would return to help her carry the inert frame of the unconscious man below and bury it. Nor could Fairchild tell from the conversation whether he even intended to perform the merciful act of killing the poor, broken being before he covered it with acids and quick-eating lime in a grave that soon would remove all vestige of human identity forever. Certainly now was not a time for thought; it was one for action!

And for caution. Instinct told Fairchild that for the present, at least, Rodaine must believe that Harry had escaped unaided. There were too many other things in which Robert felt sure Rodaine had played a part, too many other mysterious happenings which must be met and coped with, before the man of the blue-white scar could know that finally the underling was beginning to show fight, that at last the crushed had begun to rise. Fairchild bent and unlaced his shoes, taking off also the heavy woolen socks which protected his feet from the biting cold. Steeling himself to the ordeal which he must undergo, he tied the laces together and slung the footgear over a shoulder. Then he went to the bed.

As carefully as possible, he wrapped Harry in the blankets, seeking to protect him in every way against the cold. With a great effort, he lifted him, the sick man’s frame huddled in his arms like some gigantic baby, and started out of the eerie, darkened house.

The stairs-the landing-the hall! Then a query from below:

“Is that you, Roady?”

The breath pulled sharp into Fairchild’s lungs. He answered in the best imitation he could give of the voice of Squint Rodaine:

“Yes. Go on with your digging, Honey. I ’ll be there soon.”

“And you’ll kiss me?”

“Yes. Just like I kissed you the night our boy was born.”

It was sufficient. The chanting began again, accompanied by the swish of the spade as it sank into the earth and the cludding roll of the clods as they were thrown to one side. Fairchild gained the door. A moment more and he staggered with his burden into the protecting darkness of the night.

The snow crept about his ankles, seeming to freeze them at every touch, but Fairchild did not desist. His original purpose must be carried out if Rodaine were not to know,-the appearance that Harry had aroused himself sufficiently to wrap the blankets about him and wander off by himself. And this could be accomplished only by the pain and cold and torture of a barefoot trip.

Some way, by shifting the big frame of his unconscious partner now and then, Fairchild made the trip to the main road and veered toward the pumphouse of the Diamond J. mine, running as it often did without attendance while the engineer made a trip with the electric motor into the hill. Cautiously he peered through the windows. No one was there. Beyond lay warmth and comfort-and a telephone. Fairchild went within and placed Harry on the floor. Then he reached for the ’phone and called the hospital.

“Hello!” he announced in a husky, disguised voice. “This is Jeb Gresham of Georgeville. I ’ve just found a man lying by the side of the Diamond J. pumphouse, unconscious, with a big cut in his head. I ’ve brought him inside. You ’ll find him there; I ’ve got to go on. Looks like he ’s liable to die unless you can send the ambulance for him.”

“We ’ll make it a rush trip,” came the answer, and Fairchild hung up the ’phone, to rub his half-frozen, aching feet a moment, then to reclothe them in the socks and shoes, watching the entrance of the Diamond J. tunnel as he did so. A long minute-then he left the pumphouse, made a few tracks in the snow around the entrance, and walked swiftly down the road. Fifteen minutes later, from a hiding place at the side of the Clear Creek bridge, he saw the lights of the ambulance as it swerved to the pumphouse. Out came the stretcher. The attendants went in search of the injured man. When they came forth again, they bore the form of Harry Harkins, and the heart of Fairchild began to beat once more with something resembling regularity. His partner-at least such was his hope and his prayer-was on the way to aid and to recovery, while Squint Rodaine would know nothing other than that he had wandered away! Grateful, lighter in heart than he had been for days. Fairchild plodded along the road in the tracks of the ambulance, as it headed back for town.

The news already had spread by the time he reached there; news travels fast in a small mining camp. Fairchild went to the hospital, and to the side of the cot where Harry had been taken, to find the doctor there before him, already bandaging the wound on Harry’s head and looking with concern now and then at the pupils of the unconscious man’s eyes.

“Are you going to stay here with him?” the physician asked, after he had finished the dressing of the laceration.

“Yes,” Fairchild said, in spite of aching fatigue and heavy eyes. The doctor nodded.

“Good. I don’t know whether he ’s going to pull through or not. Of course, I can’t say-but it looks to me from his breathing and his heart action that he ’s not suffering as much from this wound as he is from some sort of poisoning.

“We ’ve given him apomorphine and it should begin to take effect soon. We ’re using the batteries too. You say that you ’re going to be here? That’s a help. They ’re shy a nurse on this floor to-night, and I ’m having a pretty busy time of it. I ’m very much afraid that poor old Judge Richmond ’s going to lay down his cross before morning.”

“He ’s dying?” Fairchild said it with a clutching sensation at his throat. The physician nodded.

“There ’s hardly a chance for him.”

“You ’re going there?”

“Yes.”

“Will you please give ?”

The physician waited. Finally Fairchild shook his head.

“Never mind,” he finished. “I thought I would ask you something-but it would be too much of a favor. Thank you just the same. Is there anything I can do here?”

“Nothing except to keep watch on his general condition. If he seems to be getting worse, call the interne. I ’ve left instructions with him.”

“Very good.”

The physician went on, and Fairchild took his place beside the bed of the unconscious Harry, his mind divided between concern for his faithful partner and the girl who, some time in the night, must say good-by forever to the father she loved. It had been on Fairchild’s tongue to send her some sort of message by the physician, some word that would show her he was thinking of her and hoping for her. But he had reconsidered. Among those in the house of death might be Maurice Rodaine, and Fairchild did not care again to be the cause of such a scene as had happened on the night of the Old Times dance.

Judge Richmond was dying. What would that mean? What effect would it have upon the engagement of Anita and the man Fairchild hoped that she detested? What-then he turned at the entrance of the interne with the batteries.

“If you ’re going to be here all night,” said the white-coated individual, “it ’ll help me out a lot if you ’ll use these batteries for me. Put them on at their full force and apply them to his cheeks, his hands, his wrists and the soles of his feet alternately. From the way he acts, there ’s some sort of morphinic poisoning. We can’t tell what it is-except that it acts like a narcotic. And about the only way we can pull him out is with these applications.”

The interne turned over the batteries and went on about his work, while Fairchild, hoping within his heart that he had not placed an impediment in the way of Harry’s recovery by not telling what he knew of Crazy Laura and her concoctions, began his task. Yet he was relieved by the knowledge that such information could aid but little. Nothing but a chemical analysis could show the contents of the strange brews which the insane woman made from her graveyard herbiage, and long before that could come, Harry might be dead. And so he pressed the batteries against the unconscious man’s cheeks, holding them there tightly, that the full shock of the electricity might permeate the skin and arouse the sluggish blood once more to action. Then to the hands, the wrists, the feet and back again; it was the beginning of a routine that was to last for hours.

Midnight came and early morning. With dawn, the figure on the bed stirred slightly and groaned. Fairchild looked up, to see the doctor just entering.

“I think he ’s regaining consciousness.”

“Good.” The physician brought forth his hypodermic. “That means a bit of rest for me. A little shot in the arm, and he ought to be out of danger in a few hours.”

Fairchild watched him as he boiled the needle over the little gas jet at the head of the cot, then dissolved a white pellet preparatory to sending a resuscitory fluid into Harry’s arm.

“You ’ve been to Judge Richmond’s?” he asked at last.

“Yes.” Then the doctor stepped close to the bed. “I ’ve just closed his eyes-forever.”

Ten minutes later, after another examination of Harry’s pupils, he was gone, a weary, tired figure, stumbling home to his rest-rest that might be disturbed at any moment-the reward of the physician. As for Fairchild, he sat a long time in thought, striving to find some way to send consolation to the girl who was grieving now, struggling to figure a means of telling her that he cared, that he was sorry, and that his heart hurt too. But there was none.

Again a moan from the man on the bed, and at last a slight resistance to the sting of the batteries. An hour passed, two; gradually Harry came to himself, to stare about him in a wondering, vacant manner and then to fasten his eyes upon Fairchild. He seemed to be struggling for speech, for cooerdination of ideas. Finally, after many minutes-

“That’s you, Boy?”

“Yes, Harry.”

“But where are we?”

Fairchild laughed softly.

“We ’re in a hospital, and you ’re knocked out. Don’t you know where you ’ve been?”

“I don’t know anything, since I slid down the wall.”

“Since you what?”

But Harry had lapsed back into semi-consciousness again, to lie for hours a mumbling, dazed thing, incapable of thought or action. And it was not until late in the night after the rescue, following a few hours of rest forced upon him by the interne, that Fairchild once more could converse with his stricken partner.

“It’s something I ’ll ’ave to show you to explain,” said Harry. “I can’t tell you about it. You know where that little fissure is in the ’anging wall, away back in the stope?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s it. That’s where I got out.”

“But what happened before that?”

“What didn’t ’appen?” asked Harry, with a painful grin. “Everything in the world ’appened. I-but what did the assay show?”

Fairchild reached forth and laid a hand on the brawny one of his partner.

“We ’re rich, Harry,” he said, “richer than I ever dreamed we could be. The ore’s as good as that of the Silver Queen!”

“The bloody ’ell it is!” Then Harry dropped back on his pillow for a long time and simply grinned at the ceiling. Somewhat anxious. Fairchild leaned forward, but his partner’s eyes were open and smiling. “I ’m just letting it sink in!” he announced, and Fairchild was silent, saving his questions until “it” had sunk. Then:

“You were saying something about that fissure?”

“But there is other things first. After you went to the assayers, I fooled around there in the chamber, and I thought I ’d just take a flyer and blow up them ’olés that I ’d drilled in the ’anging wall at the same time that I shot the other. So I put in the powder and fuses, tamped ’em down and then I thinks thinks I, that there’s somebody moving around in the drift. But I did n’t pay any attention to it-you know. I was busy and all that, and you often ’ear noises that sound funny. So I set ’em off-that is, I lit the fuses and I started to run. Well, I ’ad n’t any more ’n started when bloeyy-y-y-y, right in front of me, the whole world turned upside down, and I felt myself knocked back into the chamber. And there was them fuses. All of ’em burning. Well, I managed to pull out the one from the foot wall and stamp it out, but I didn’t ’ave time to get at the others. And the only place where there was a chance for me was clear at the end of the chamber. Already I was bleeding like a stuck hog where a whole ’arf the mountain ’ad ’it me on the ’ead, and I did n’t know much what I was doing. I just wanted to get be’ind something-that’s all I could think of. So I shied for that fissure in the rocks and crawled back in there, trying to squeeze as far along as I could. And ’ere ’s the funny part of it-I kept on going!”

“You what?”

“Kept on going. I ’d always thought it was just a place where the ’anging wall ’ad slipped, and that it stopped a few feet back. But it don’t-it goes on. I crawled along it as fast as I could-I was about woozy, anyway-and by and by I ’eard the shots go off be’ind me. But there was n’t any use in going back-the tunnel was caved in. So I kept on.

“I don’t know ’ow long I went or where I went at. It was all dark-and I was about knocked out. After while, I ran into a stream of water that came out of the inside of the ’ill somewhere, and I took a drink. It gave me a bit of strength. And then I kept on some more-until all of a sudden, I slipped and fell, just when I was beginning to see dyelight. And that’s all I know. ’Ow long ’ave I been gone?”

“Long enough to make me gray-headed,” Fairchild answered with a little laugh. Then his brow furrowed. “You say you slipped and fell just as you were beginning to see daylight?”

“Yes. It looked like it was reflected from below, somewyes.”

Fairchild nodded.

“Is n’t there quite a spring right by Crazy Laura’s house?”

“Yes; it keeps going all year; there ’s a current and it don’t freeze up. It comes out like it was a waterfall-and there ’s a roaring noise be’ind it.”

“Then that’s the explanation. You followed the fissure until it joined the natural tunnel that the spring has made through the hills. And when you reached the waterfall-well, you fell with it.”

“But ’ow did I get ’ere?”

Briefly Fairchild told him, while Harry pawed at his still magnificent mustache. Robert continued:

“But the time ’s not ripe yet, Harry, to spring it. We ’ve got to find out more about Rodaine first and what other tricks he ’s been up to. And we ’ve got to get other evidence than merely our own word. For instance, in this case, you can’t remember anything. All the testimony I could give would be unsupported. They ’d run me out of town if I even tried to start any such accusation. But one thing ’s certain: We ’re on the open road at last, we know who we ’re fighting and the weapons he fights with. And if we ’re only given enough time, we ’ll whip him. I ’m going home to bed now; I ’ve got to be up early in the morning and get hold of Farrell. Your case comes up at court.”

“And I ’m up in a ’ospital!”

Which fact the court the next morning recognized, on the testimony of the interne, the physician and the day nurses of the hospital, to the extent of a continuance until the January term in the trial of the case. A thing which the court further recognized was the substitution of five thousand dollars in cash for the deeds of the Blue Poppy mine as security for the bailee. And with this done, the deeds to his mine safe in his pocket, Fairchild went to the bank, placed the papers behind the great steel gates of the safety deposit vault, and then crossed the street to the telegraph office. A long message was the result, and a money order to Denver that ran beyond a hundred dollars. The instructions that went with it to the biggest florist in town were for the most elaborate floral design possible to be sent by express for Judge Richmond’s funeral-minus a card denoting the sender. Following this, Fairchild returned to the hospital, only to find Mother Howard taking his place beside the bed of Harry. One more place called for his attention,-the mine.

The feverish work was over now. The day and night shifts no longer were needed until Harry and Fairchild could actively assume control of operations and themselves dig out the wealth to put in the improvements necessary to procure the compressed air and machine drills, and organize the working of the mine upon the scale which its value demanded. But there was one thing essential, and Fairchild procured it,-guards. Then he turned his attention to his giant partner.

Health returned slowly to the big Cornishman. The effects of nearly a week of slow poisoning left his system grudgingly; it would be a matter of weeks before he could be the genial, strong giant that he once had represented. And in those weeks Fairchild was constantly beside him.

Not that there were no other things which were represented in Robert’s desires,-far from it. Stronger than ever was Anita Richmond in Fairchild’s thoughts now, and it was with avidity that he learned every scrap of news regarding her, as brought to him by Mother Howard. Hungrily he listened for the details of how she had weathered the shock of her father’s death; anxiously he inquired for her return in the days following the information-via Mother Howard-that she had gone on a short trip to Denver to look after matters pertaining to her father’s estate. Dully he heard that she had come back, and that Maurice Rodaine had told friends that the passing of the Judge had caused only a slight postponement in their marital plans. And perhaps it was this which held Fairchild in check, which caused him to wonder at the vagaries of the girl-a girl who had thwarted the murderous plans of a future father-in-law-and to cause him to fight down a desire to see her, an attempt to talk to her and to learn directly from her lips her position toward him,-and toward the Rodaines.

Finally, back to his normal strength once more, Harry rose from the armchair by the window of the boarding house and turned to Fairchild.

“We ’re going to work to-night,” he announced calmly.

“When?” Fairchild did not believe he understood. Harry grinned. “To-night. I ’ve taken a notion. Rodaine ’ll expect us to work in the daytime. We ’ll fool ’im. We ’ll leave the guards on in the daytime and work at night. And what’s more, we ’ll keep a guard on at the mouth of the shaft while we ’re inside, not to let nobody down. See?”

Fairchild agreed. He knew Squint Rodaine was not through. And he knew also that the fight against the man with the blue-white scar had only begun. The cross-cut had brought wealth and the promise of riches to Fairchild and Harry for the rest of their lives. But it had not freed them from the danger of one man,-a man who was willing to kill, willing to maim, willing to do anything in the world, it seemed, to achieve his purpose. Harry’s suggestion was a good one.

Together, when night came, they bundled their greatcoats about them and pulled their caps low over their ears. Winter had come in earnest, winter with a blizzard raging through the town on the breast of a fifty-mile gale. Out into it the two men went, to fight their way though the swirling, frigid fleece to Kentucky Gulch and upward. At last they passed the guard, huddled just within the tunnel, and clambered down the ladder which had been put in place by the sight-seers on the day of the strike. Then-

Well, then Harry ran, to do much as Fairchild had done, to chuckle and laugh and toss the heavy bits of ore about, to stare at them in the light of his carbide torch, and finally to hurry into the new stope which had been fashioned by the hired miners in Fairchild’s employ and stare upward at the heavy vein of riches above him.

“Wouldn’t it knock your eyes out?” he exclaimed, beaming. “That vein ’s certainly five feet wide.”

“And two hundred dollars to the ton,” added Fairchild, laughing. “No wonder Rodaine wanted it.”

“I ’ll sye so!” exclaimed Harry, again to stand and stare, his mouth open, his mustache spraying about on his upper lip in more directions than ever. A long time of congratulatory celebration, then Harry led the way to the far end of the great cavern. “’Ere it is!” he announced, as he pointed to what had seemed to both of them never to be anything more than a fissure in the rocks. “It’s the thing that saved my life.”

Fairchild stared into the darkness of the hole in the earth, a narrow crack in the rocks barely large enough to allow a human form to squeeze within. He laughed.

“You must have made yourself pretty small, Harry.”

“What? When I went through there? Sye, I could ’ave gone through the eye of a needle. There were six charges of dynamite just about to go off be’ind me!”

Again the men chuckled as they looked at the fissure, a natural, usual thing in a mine, and often leading, as this one did, by subterranean breaks and slips to the underground bed of some tumbling spring. Suddenly, however, Fairchild whirled with a thought.

“Harry! I wonder-couldn’t it have been possible for my father to have escaped from this mine in the same way?”

“’E must ’ave.”

“And that there might not have been any killing connected with Larsen at all? Why couldn’t Larsen have been knocked out by a flying stone-just like you were? And why ?”

“’E might of, Boy.” But Harry’s voice was negative. “The only thing about it was the fact that your father ’ad a bullet ’olé in ’is ’ead.” Harry leaned forward and pointed to his own scar. “It ’it right about ’ere, and glanced. It did n’t ’urt ’im much, and I bandaged it and then covered it with ’is ’at, so nobody could see.”

“But the gun? We did n’t find any.”

“’E ’ad it with ’im. It was Sissie Larsen’s. No, Boy, there must ’ave been a fight-but don’t think that I mean your father murdered anybody. If Sissie Larsen attacked ’im with a gun, then ’e ’ad a right to kill. But as I ’ve told you before-there would n’t ’ave been a chance for ’im to prove ’is story with Squint working against ’im. And that’s one reason why I did n’t ask any questions. And neither did Mother ’Oward. We were willing to take your father’s word that ’e ’ad n’t done anything wrong-and we were willing to ’elp ’im to the limit.”

“You did it, Harry.”

“We tried to-” He ceased and perked his head toward the bottom of the shaft, listening intently. “Did n’t you ’ear something?”

“I thought so. Like a woman’s voice.”

“Listen-there it is again!”

They were both silent, waiting for a repetition of the sound. Faintly it came, for the third time:

“Mr. Fairchild!”

They ran to the foot of the shaft, and Fairchild stared upward. But he could see no one. He cupped his hands and called:

“Who wants me?”

“It’s me.” The voice was plainer now-a voice that Fairchild recognized immediately.

“I ’m-I ’m under arrest or something up here,” was added with a laugh. “The guard won’t let me come down.”

“Wait, and I ’ll raise the bucket for you. All right, guard!” Then, blinking with surprise, he turned to the staring Harry. “It’s Anita Richmond,” he whispered. Harry pawed for his mustache.

“On a night like this? And what the bloody ’ell is she doing ’ere, any’ow?”

“Search me!” The bucket was at the top now.

A signal from above, and Fairchild lowered it, to extend a hand and to aid the girl to the ground, looking at her with wondering, eager eyes. In the light of the carbide torch, she was the same boyish appearing little person he had met on the Denver road, except that snow had taken the place of dust now upon the whipcord riding habit, and the brown hair which caressed the corners of her eyes was moist with the breath of the blizzard. Some way Fairchild found his voice, lost for a moment.

“Are-are you in trouble?”

“No.” She smiled at him.

“But out on a night like this-in a blizzard. How did you get up here?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I walked. Oh,” she added, with a smile, “it did n’t hurt me any. The wind was pretty stiff-but then I ’m fairly strong. I rather enjoyed it.”

“But what’s happened-what’s gone wrong? Can I help you with anything-or-”

Then it was that Harry, with a roll of his blue eyes and a funny waggle of his big shoulders, moved down the drift toward the stope, leaving them alone together. Anita Richmond watched after him with a smile, waiting until he was out of hearing distance. Then she turned seriously.

“Mother Howard told me where you were,” came quietly. “It was the only chance I had to see you. I-I-maybe I was a little lonely or-or something. But, anyway, I wanted to see you and thank you and-”

“Thank me? For what?”

“For everything. For that day on the Denver road, and for the night after the Old Times dance when you came to help me. I-I have n’t had an easy time. And I ’ve been in rather an unusual position. Most of the people I know are afraid and-some of them are n’t to be trusted. I-I could n’t go to them and confide in them. And-you-well, I knew the Rodaines were your enemies-and I ’ve rather liked you for it.”

“Thank you. But-” and Fairchild’s voice became a bit frigid-“I have n’t been able to understand everything. You are engaged to Maurice Rodaine.”

“I was, you mean.”

“Then-”

“My engagement ended with my father’s death,” came slowly-and there was a catch in her voice. “He wanted it-it was the one thing that held the Rodaines off him. And he was dying slowly-it was all I could do to help him, and I promised. But-when he went-I felt that my-my duty was over. I don’t consider myself bound to him any longer.”

“You ’ve told Rodaine so?”

“Not yet. I-I think that maybe that was one reason I wanted to see some one whom I believed to be a friend. He ’s coming after me at midnight. We ’re to go away somewhere.”

“Rodaine? Impossible!”

“They ’ve made all their plans. I-I wondered if you-if you ’d be somewhere around the house-if you ’d-”

“I ’ll be there. I understand.” Fairchild had reached out and touched her arm. “I-want to thank you for the opportunity. I-yes, I ’ll be there,” came with a short laugh. “And Harry too. There’ll be no trouble-from the Rodaines!”

She came a little closer to him then and looked up at him with trustful eyes, all the brighter in the spluttering light of the carbide.

“Thank you-it seems that I ’m always thanking you. I was afraid-I did n’t know where to go-to whom to turn. I thought of you. I knew you ’d help me-women can guess those things.”

“Can they?” Fairchild asked it eagerly. “Then you ’ve guessed all along that-”

But she smiled and cut in.

“I want to thank you for those flowers. They were beautiful.”

“You knew that too? I didn’t send a card.”

“They told me at the telegraph office that you had wired for them. They-meant a great deal to me.”

“It meant more to me to be able to send them.” Then Fairchild stared with a sudden idea. “Maurice ’s coming for you at midnight. Why is it necessary that you be there?”

“Why-” the idea had struck her too-“it is n’t. I-I just had n’t thought of it. I was too badly scared, I guess. Everything ’s been happening so swiftly since-since you made the strike up here.”

“With them?”

“Yes, they ’ve been simply crazy about something. You got my note?”

“Yes.”

“That was the beginning. The minute Squint Rodaine heard of the strike, I thought he would go out of his head. I was in the office-I ’m vice-president of the firm, you know,” she added with a sarcastic laugh. “They had to do something to make up for the fact that every cent of father’s money was in it.”

“How much?” Fairchild asked the question with no thought of being rude-and she answered in the same vein.

“A quarter of a million. They ’d been getting their hands on it more and more ever since father became ill. But they could n’t entirely get it into their own power until the Silver Queen strike-and then they persuaded him to sign it all over in my name into the company. That’s why I ’m vice-president.”

“And is that why you arranged things to buy this mine?” Fairchild knew the answer before it was given.

“I? I arrange-I never thought of such a thing.”

“I felt that from the beginning. An effort was made through a lawyer in Denver who hinted you were behind it. Some way, I felt differently. I refused. But you said they were going away?”

“Yes. They ’ve been holding conferences-father and son-one after another. I ’ve had more peace since the strike here than at any time in months. They ’re both excited about something. Last night Maurice came to me and told me that it was necessary for them all to go to Chicago where the head offices would be established, and that I must go with him. I did n’t have the strength to fight him then-there was n’t anybody near by who could help me. So I-I told him I ’d go. Then I lay awake all night, trying to think out a plan-and I thought of you.”

“I ’m glad.” Fairchild touched her small gloved hand then, and she did not draw it away. His fingers moved slowly under hers. There was no resistance. At last his hand closed with a tender pressure,-only to release her again. For there had come a laugh-shy, embarrassed, almost fearful-and the plea:

“Can we go back where Harry is? Can I see the strike again?”

Obediently Fairchild led the way, beyond the big cavern, through the cross-cut and into the new stope, where Harry was picking about with a gad, striving to find a soft spot in which to sink a drill. He looked over his shoulder as they entered and grinned broadly.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, “a new miner!”

“I wish I were,” she answered. “I wish I could help you.”

“You ’ve done that, all right, all right.” Harry waved his gad. “’E told me-about the note!”

“Did it do any good?” she asked the question eagerly. Harry chuckled.

“I ’d ’ave been a dead mackerel if it ’ad n’t,” came his hearty explanation. “Where you going at all dressed up like that?”

“I ’m supposed,” she answered with a smile toward Fairchild, “to go to Center City at midnight. Squint Rodaine ’s there and Maurice and I are supposed to join him. But-but Mr. Fairchild ’s promised that you and he will arrange it otherwise.”

“Center City? What’s Squint doing there?”

“He does n’t want to take the train from Ohadi for some reason. We ’re all going East and-”

But Harry had turned and was staring upward, apparently oblivious of their presence. His eyes had become wide, his head had shot forward, his whole being had become one of strained attention. Once he cocked his head, then, with a sudden exclamation, he leaped backward.

“Look out!” he exclaimed. “’Urry, look out!”

“But what is it?”

“It’s coming down! I ’eard it!” Excitedly he pointed above, toward the black vein of lead and silver. “’Urry for that ’olé in the wall-’urry, I tell you!” He ran past them toward the fissure, yelling at Fairchild. “Pick ’er up and come on! I tell you I ’eard the wall moving-it’s coming down, and if it does, it ’ll bust in the ’olé tunnel!”