now when
it will be safe to venture out."

"Very well, sir; but don't deal harshly with Billings' crowd. They've
tried to do me the most harm one man can work another; but yet, for the
sake of their wives an' children, I'd not feel easy in mind if they was
turned away without warning."

"I promise to be as lenient as is consistent with the safety of others,"
Mr. Wright replied, as Fred and the miner left the slope, walking
rapidly lest they should be observed, and a few moments later Mrs. Byram
was clasping to her bosom the son whom she had feared was lost to her
forever on this earth.

It was not long that Fred could remain at home. He had promised to go to
the breaker, and after he and Brace partook of a hearty meal, at the
conclusion of which the latter was shown to a room where there was no
chance of his being seen, he started out, with the promise to his mother
that he would be very careful.

By some channel of information the news had been spread that the missing
boy returned home during the night, and no one paid any particular
attention to him as he walked down the street, but on entering the
breaker Skip Miller and his friends were decidedly disturbed. The leader
of the regulators glanced from Fred to Donovan, as if expecting he would
be called upon to give an account of his misdeeds; but Chunky, who had
evidently not been let into the secret, greeted his mate as if the
latter's return was something he had expected.

"Where was you last night?" he asked.

"I went out near the old shaft," Fred replied, and Skip, who overheard
the words, appeared to be very much relieved.

"I thought you'd run away."

"Why should I do anything like that?"

"I dunno, 'cept that you wanted to get clear of the thumpin' that the
regulators promised."

"I'm not such a fool as that," Fred replied carelessly, and then the
outpouring of coal put an end to further conversation.

CHAPTER V

THE MOB

Fred could not prevent himself from glancing now and then in the
direction of Skip Miller and his friends during the forenoon, and on
each occasion he found one or more of the party gazing at him as if in
wonderment. They failed to understand how he succeeded in leaving the
shaft, and this surprise was less than that called forth by the fact of
his remaining silent regarding their ill-treatment.

One, two, three hours passed much as usual, and then something happened
which caused the oldest worker in the mines unbound