s of dawn breaking through the
storm. He must hasten.

With a long knife he began cutting square cakes of snow and fitting them
into the entrance of the mine. Soon, save for a narrow gap well hidden
beneath a ledge of rock, the space was effectively blocked.

He stretched himself, then yawned sleepily.

"It's a poor game that two can't play at," he muttered. "Now, if I can get
this machinery singin', we'll see what Mine No. 3 has saved up for us.
Unless I miss my guess, from the way the rock lays, she'll be a rich
one."

With that he crept into his sleeping-bag and was soon lost in the land of
dreams.

Pant's first act, after awaking some six hours later, was to connect four
of his batteries in series, then to connect the ends of two wires to the
poles of the series. The wires were attached at the other end to a socket
for an electric light.

When the connections were completed he screwed in a small bulb. The
filament in the lamp glowed red, but gave no light.

Two batteries were added to the series, then two more. At this, the light
shone brightly, dispelling the gloom of the place and driving the shadows
into the deepest recesses.

With a smile on his lips, the boy twisted a wire into a coil, connected it
to the battery circuit, watched it redden, then set his coffee-pot over
it.

He was soon enjoying a cup of hot coffee and pilot bread.

"Not so bad! Not even half bad!" he muttered good-naturedly to himself.
"Electricity is great stuff. Now for the mining stunt!"

He listened for a moment to the howl of the blizzard outside, then began
busying himself with the machinery at hand. Connecting the batteries to
the gasoline generator to give it a "kick-off," he heard the pop of the
engine with evident satisfaction. He next connected all his batteries in
series and, having connected the engine, ran wires from it to the motor in
the strange, mining buzz-saw. There followed a moment of suspense, then a
grunt of disgust.

"Not enough voltage. Gotta get more batteries to-night. Dangerous, too.
Storm's going down. Bolsheviki coming in. Natives prowling an' yellow men,
don't know about. Gotta do it though."

At that he sat down on his sleeping-bag, and, with arms outstretched, like
Jack London's man of the wild, he slept the uneasy sleep of one who hunts
and is hunted.

Night came at last and, with it, wakefulness and action. Cutting a hole
through the snow-wall, which under the drive of the storm had grown to