s
going to put him up to it, too, if--"

But Bep, frightened by the growing anger in the great man's face,
interposed. "Shall I shut her up for you, Mr. Pemberton?" she asked.

"What--what d' ye say? I wish to God you would, or that somebody could!"

"Fom," said Bep, authoritatively, "shut up!"

Fom jumped to her feet. There was appeal, wrath, rebellion in her
crimson face. She opened her lips as if to protest.

"Shut up, Fom," repeated Bep, distinctly. "I said _shut up_."

There came a deadly silence. Pemberton, in the act of stalking
ill-temperedly away, turned bewildered to regard the miracle.

"Say," asked Peter Cody, driven to speech by curiosity. "Say, Fom, do
you let your sister boss you like that? I thought you was twins."

Fom looked appealingly at Bep. If Bep would but explain the nature of a
shut-up--its power of suddenly depriving one of speech; of making one
temporarily dumb in the very midst of a sentence, at the bidding of the
winner of a wager, whenever, wherever the caprice to collect the debt of
honor occurred to her!

But Bep, after accompanying Mr. Pemberton a few steps, striving to
untell him what Fom had betrayed, turned her attention again to mining
matters. She knew well what Fom's eyes begged, but hid her head in the
Silver King, whence a subterranean giggle came, revealing her enjoyment
of the situation.

Fom's stormy eyes filled and the Silver King and the Diamond Heart
jigged back and forth till the tears splashed down and cleared her
vision.

"Ho--cry-baby!" called Peter Cody. Peter was one of those gallant
gentlemen who are never afraid of a playmate when some one else has
demonstrated that he can be downed.

At the taunt, a revengeful passion seized Fom, standing there--a lingual
Samson shorn of her tongue, two dirty channels plowed down her cheeks by
her tears. Deliberately lifting her foot, she brought it down, stamping
with all her might again and again.

The soft, loosely packed earth slid smoothly down. The Diamond Heart
caved in completely, the almost finished connecting tunnel was a wreck,
and the still rolling, moist gravel swept over Bep's head, filling up
the Silver King clear to the surface.

By the time Peter had realized their utter ruin, and Bep had shaken the
particles of sand and gravel from her hair and ears and throat, Fom was
nowhere in sight.

"Let's kill her," suggested Bep.

"Shall we?" asked Peter, with an air of stern justice.

They debated the