ering, who was agile and athletic, had no
difficulty in keeping up with the miner, but Madeira had to be watchful.
The miner would not let Miss Madeira come far out on the crag, though he
let the men follow him, calling warnings to them as they came.

"From where you stand, Miss Sally," Throcker turned toward the girl who
waited below the summit of the crag, "from where you stand up to here,
the loose ore is worth about sixty-five thousand dollars!"

The girl looked up at them responsively. Standing there under the
strange flickering light of her torch, with the black folds of the
rubber coat swathing her, her face, with its fine eyes, was cut out for
Steering sharp as a cameo.

"I am delighted for your sake, Mr. Throcker," she called gaily, but with
a little uneasiness in her voice. "Father, please be careful."

"Sixty-five thousand dollars! Why, Lord love you, Throcker, a hundred
thousand, if one." Madeira, taking charge of the probabilities in the
case, moved toward the edge to support his estimate by measuring with
his eye the distance down the crag.

"Father, please be careful. Watch him, Mr. Steering,--O-h-h-h!" A
woman's cry of horror rang though the tunnelled walls as Madeira's great
frame toppled on the edge of the crag, and disappeared.

Throwing out his right arm protectingly, as though in answer to the girl
below, Steering had been able to knot the sinewy fingers of one hand
about Madeira's collar as the latter fell. The force of the fall brought
Steering to his knees, then flat out across the ledge, to get all the
purchase power he could. Madeira's weight was terrific, even after
Steering had brought his other hand into requisition; and though
Throcker sprang to the rescue, Throcker was a weak man and the best aid
that he could render was to assume a small share of Madeira's weight by
getting down flat upon the ledge, after Steering's fashion. In the black
hole below the miners saw what had happened and two burly men began to
clamber up the treacherous slope.

"Gently, boys, gently," warned Throcker, as the men came on; he and
Steering could feel the rock upon which they lay vibrate; there was a
rending and splitting going on all through the ledge. "Can you hold on a
minute alone, sir?" gasped Throcker suddenly. "I have a bad heart and
it's going back on me,"--he fell weakly beside Steering.

"Yes, I can hold on alone." Steering's face was in the loose crush, and
his lips were cut by the rock when h