ce thus indicated is always in
the opposite direction from that in which we now know them to lie."

"But--" began Peveril.

"Wait a minute. Of course those old fellows may merely have struck a
pocket and exhausted it, but I don't believe so, and am willing to
risk twenty thousand dollars on the continuance of the vein. If it is
there, that sum of money ought to enable us to reach it from your
present shaft; and if we do strike it, why, in the slang of the day,
the Copper Princess is simply a 'peach.' Are you game to accept my
offer and go in for raising that kind of fruit?"

"I certainly am."

"Good! Shake. The bargain is made, and the sooner we get to work the
better."

Ten days from that time sees the legal formalities of that quickly
concluded bargain settled, and the mining village of Copper Princess
presenting a vastly different appearance from what it did on the
melancholy day when Peveril was its sole occupant. All its houses are
now occupied, and from every window cheery lights stream out with the
coming of evening shadows.

Peveril occupies the comfortable quarters so long ago provided for the
manager, and until recently the home of the Darrells. With him lives a
young engineer of about his own age, recommended by Major Arkell, and
here, too, are the several offices. The nearest cottage to it is that
of our old friends the Trefethens--for Mark Trefethen is captain of
the mine, and Tom is shaft boss. Mrs. Trefethen and Nelly have their
hands full in caring for both these houses and in providing meals for
their occupants. Mike Connell is timber boss, and, in timbering the
ancient mine, as well as the new workings, is one of the busiest men
in the place.

Although he has a cottage of his own, it is still a lonely one, and he
is looking eagerly forward to the time when the anxiously expected
vein shall be struck. Then, and not until then--and, in case it is not
struck at all, perhaps never--will Nelly Trefethen become his wife. So
it is no wonder that the impatient fellow descends the shaft each day
to anxiously inspect the new work.

With nearly one hundred sturdy miners engaged on it, and the other
tasks necessary to its progress, it is driven by night as well as by
day, and in reality advances with great rapidity, though to Connell
it seems to creep by inches. The great chimney pours forth clouds of
smoke, heavy skips hurry up and down the shaft, there is always a
cheerful ring of anvils, rafts of log