ent. Yetmore pays the company a certain
percentage of all the ore he gets out, and it is specially provided in
the lease that should he come upon any of the well-known tellurium ore,
the company is to have three-fifths of the proceeds and Yetmore only
two-fifths. He'll make a good thing out of it though, anyway."

"You say there's about five hundred pounds of the ore: have they taken
it all out already?" asked Joe.

"Yes, taken it out, sorted it, sacked it in little fifty-pound sacks,
sewed up the sacks and piled them in one of the drifts, all ready to
ship down to San Remo to-morrow by express."

"Why do they leave it in the mine?" I asked. "Is it safer than taking it
down to the express office?"

"Yes: it would be pretty difficult to steal it out of the mine, with all
the lights going and all the miners about, whereas, if it was just
stacked in the express office, somebody might----"

"Somebody might cut a hole in the floor and drop it through," remarked
Joe, laughing.

"That's so," said Tom, adding, "I tell you what it is, boys: I begin to
think I wasn't quite so smart as I thought I was when I got back that
coal oil for the widow. I wouldn't wonder a particle if it wasn't just
that that decided Yetmore to come and blow my house to smithereens."

"I shouldn't either," said Joe.

Tom having departed to his work again, Joe and I once more went into
town, where we spent the time going about, listening to the talk of the
people, who were still standing in groups on the street corners,
discussing the great events of the day.

But if the people were excited, as they certainly were, their excitement
was a mere flutter in comparison with the storm which swept over the
community next morning.

The ten sacks of high-grade ore had been stolen during the night!

The news came down about eight o'clock in the morning, when, at once,
and with one accord, all the men in the place who could get away swarmed
up to the Pelican--we among them.

The thief, whoever he was, was evidently familiar with the workings of
the mine, for, going round into Stony Gulch, he had forced the door at
the exit of the old tunnel, cutting out the staple with auger and saw,
and then, clambering through the disused, waste-encumbered drifts, he
had carried out the little sacks one by one and made away with them
somehow.

Wrapping his feet in old rags in order to disguise his foot-prints, he
had taken the sacks of ore across the gulch to the st