against the tools in
dispute, while Bep got to her feet, red-faced and panting. "We're not
quarreling," said Florence, calmly.

Superintendent Warren Pemberton, still in his oilskins from a trip down
the mine, looked down at her and gasped. He did not know the Madigan
brunette twin, and actually thought she was lying. But Fom was never
known to lie; she only pettifogged.

"You're not quarreling!"

"Nope."

"Didn't I see you with my own eyes?" he demanded, piqued.

"People don't see people quarreling," said Fom, didactically. "They hear
them."

"Oh, that's it! Well, didn't I hear--"

"No, you didn't; for we're mad and don't speak to each other."

"But you're not quarreling?"

"Nope," repeated Fom, stoutly, "we're not."

Mr. Pemberton shook his head helplessly. "What are you doing?"

"I'm running a drift"--Fom misunderstood the drift of his
question--"from the Silver King to the Diamond Heart, and the earth
keeps coming down. Then Bep tries to make it harder by grabbing for the
tools and--"

"Why don't you timber?" suggested Pemberton, gravely.

"'Cause I don't have to," answered Fom, quite as seriously.

"Oh, you don't!" Pemberton, a man with no sense of humor, had been
unusually expansive; but he shrank angrily into himself now, as though
from a cold douche. It took some time for one to get accustomed to Fom's
way of instructing authorities upon the subjects which they were
supposed to know most about.

"No, that's silly," remarked Fom, superbly. "If the ground's sticky
enough, and you're not butter-fingered,"--with an insulting glance at
Bep,--"you can manage all right."

"But I'm not butter-fingered and I always timber." Warren Pemberton was
a slow man, but a dogged one; the elusiveness of this pert child
irritated him.

"That's 'cause you don't know any better," came from the expert, who had
returned to her task, the excited flourishes of her uplifted legs
betraying its difficulties.

"You're a little fool!" declared the superintendent. "Do you know who I
am? My name's Pemberton, and I--"

"Why don't you make your wife leave Crosby alone, then?" demanded Fom,
without seeming much impressed.

Warren Pemberton looked down upon her little body with an expression
that made Bep wonder why he refrained from stamping upon it.

"You don't think Mrs. Pemberton knows her business, either?" His ruddy,
full face looked apoplectic.

"Nope. Sissy says if she was Crosby she'd run away to sea. And she'