ned against the sky, the signal-men waving their red flags, and
then plunging down the mountain-side out of danger, as the earth
rumbled and shook and vomited out a shower of stones and rubbish into
the calm hot air. It was a spectacle of desperate activity and
puzzling to the uninitiated, for it seemed to be scattered over an
unlimited extent, with no head nor direction, and with each man, or
each group of men, working alone, like rag-pickers on a heap of ashes.

After the first half-hour of curious interest Miss Langham admitted to
herself that she was disappointed. She confessed she had hoped that
Clay would explain the meaning of the mines to her, and act as her
escort over the mountains which he was blowing into pieces.

But it was King, somewhat bored by the ceaseless noise and heat, and
her brother, incoherently enthusiastic, who rode at her side, while
Clay moved on in advance and seemed to have forgotten her existence.
She watched him pointing up at the openings in the mountains and down
at the ore-road, or stooping to pick up a piece of ore from the ground
in cowboy fashion, without leaving his saddle, and pounding it on the
pommel before he passed it to the others. And, again, he would stand
for minutes at a time up to his boot-tops in the sliding waste, with
his bridle rein over his arm and his thumbs in his belt, listening to
what his lieutenants were saying, and glancing quickly from them to Mr.
Langham to see if he were following the technicalities of their speech.
All of the men who had welcomed the appearance of the women on their
arrival with such obvious delight and with so much embarrassment seemed
now as oblivious of their presence as Clay himself.

Miss Langham pushed her horse up into the group beside Hope, who had
kept her pony close at Clay's side from the beginning; but she could
not make out what it was they were saying, and no one seemed to think
it necessary to explain. She caught Clay's eye at last and smiled
brightly at him; but, after staring at her for fully a minute, until
Kirkland had finished speaking, she heard him say, "Yes, that's it
exactly; in open-face workings there is no other way," and so showed
her that he had not been even conscious of her presence. But a few
minutes later she saw him look up at Hope, folding his arms across his
chest tightly and shaking his head. "You see it was the only thing to
do," she heard him say, as though he were defending some course of
ac