unger pines. The _Brule_ slanted down to a roll of
rock and shingle and gravel above the City known as Coal Hill. It was
on the face of this hill that the mines lay. You could see the black
veins coming out on the face of the cliff; and into the cliff
penetrated two parallel tunnels. Up and down from these tunnels
rattled the trucks on serial tramways to and from the Smelter, weaving
in and out of the tunnel mouths like shuttles, run by gravitation
pressure. If the mines were worthless, or worth only the five, ten,
and three-hundred dollars that the Ring had paid the "dummy"
homesteaders for each quarter section, these shifts of a hundred men at
a time, and trucks and tramways would have offered a puzzle to any one
but the downy-lipped youth, who had come to examine them.

When Wayland arrived at the mine with Matthews and MacDonald, he found
the federal investigator on hand with Mr. Bat Brydges, who was out for
news features, and the news editor of the "Smelter City Herald," who
somehow gave the Ranger a look mingled of smothered anger and
friendliness. If Mr. Bat Brydges felt any embarrassment, he did not
show it. Indeed, the handy man would have felt proud of the very
things of which he had accused the Ranger; and it is to be doubted if
the door of decent shame remained open; if, indeed, the harboring of
thoughts like the flocking of the carrion bird to putridity does not
pre-suppose a kind of inner death. And as the party were donning blue
overalls to descend into the mine, who should come on the scene but Mr.
Sheriff Flood, "to see that ev'thing waz al' right," he explained,
exhibiting a protuberant rotundity due reverse of the compass that had
been most prominent when Wayland last saw him; and if the doughty
defender of the law felt any embarrassment, like the handy man, he did
not show it. Indeed, this mighty man of valor could truthfully be
described as fat of brain, fat of chops, fat of neck, and fattest of
all in the rotundity of this strutting stomach. In fact, he seemed
proud of that hummocky part of his anatomy and swung it round at you
and rested his hands clasped across it as he talked.

"Jis' thought I'd happen along! Wife didn't want me to: women are all
skeery that way; but I jis' thought I'd happen along an' nut let her
know!"

"All sorts o' things might chance in a mine, mightn't they?" cut in
Matthews with a twinkle of his eye more merry than good natured.

The Sheriff smiled a sickly