ust be an enemy; for,
though Mary had not mentioned his name, she had described him as being
the one who had recently attempted to steal his logs from the
land-locked basin. Now he had no doubt that the chap was a
revenue-officer who had come to spy out his smuggling operations, and
only pretended to be in search of wrecked timber as a cloak for his
real designs. Else why should he still hang around, and especially in
the vicinity of the cavern, where there were no logs?

Mary even declared a belief that he had been in their carefully
concealed hiding-place, but, of course, she must be mistaken. Still,
no more cargo must be landed until the spy was located and driven from
that region.

"I sha'n't need to carry on the business much longer," said the old
man to himself; "but so long as I choose to remain in it I don't
propose to be interfered with."

So Mary was directed to go and display two lanterns at the mouth of
the cavern as a signal that no goods were to be landed that night,
while her father went out for the final look at his precious mining
property that he took every evening just after the men had quit work.

Ralph Darrell's heart was bound up in the new work he had recently
began, and so anxious was he to push it that he was engaging all
laborers who came that way. As yet his force was very small, but he
was in hopes of speedily increasing it. Thus, to discover that three
of his strongest men had suddenly thrown up their jobs and left him
without warning filled him with anger. So furious was he, even after
he entered the house, that poor Mary, who had just returned badly
frightened from the cavern, dared not confess to him that, through her
own carelessness, another stranger had been admitted to the hidden
storehouse of the cliffs.

Perhaps by morning this unwelcome visitor would have disappeared, as
the other had done; and, at any rate, he could never find the secret
passage, for it was too carefully concealed. By morning, too, her
father would be restored to his ordinary frame of mind, and it would
be easier to tell him what she had done, if, indeed, it should prove
necessary to tell him at all.

In the meantime Mike Connell was much puzzled by the nature of the
place in which he found himself after his climb, as well as by the
abrupt disappearance of the lad upon whom he had counted for guidance.
The darkness, with its accompanying profound silence, so affected him
that, while he called several times