cial duty in the night shaft." The priest's red
head wagged mournfully: "It was to the wife of Salvatore you gave an
extra goat because of her children!" But then he added, brightening a
little at the thought, "I am sure--of a truth I am sure, Signore, that
the brother had no hand in this!"

"Very well, then; we will take him to the house of Salvatore. We will
say merely that an accident has happened--do you hear? I do not want the
story of an attempted assassination to get about." Derby's voice had
grown quite weak as he spoke, and the priest and Porter were both too
concerned for him to think of opposing any wish he might express in
regard to the prisoner. So they laid the man across the saddle of Padre
Filippo's horse, and Porter and the _padre_ walked on either side of him
into camp. Derby rode his own horse, but by the time he reached the
mine, he had lost so much blood that he was pretty fit for the doctor
himself. Tiggs, a lean, wiry Yankee, sandy-haired and resourceful, was a
tolerable surgeon, and he plastered Derby up, pronouncing the injury
nothing more serious than a flesh wound.

Luigi Calluci meanwhile was carried into the hut of his brother and put
to bed. If Salvatore and his wife had any idea of the cause of his
"accident," they said nothing. They were among the most intelligent of
the miners, and their gratitude to Derby for the change in their
condition, was proportionate.

But it was not alone the Callucis who had made fast strides. The whole
settlement had undergone a change that was nothing short of
transformation. One reason for the rapid improvement was doubtless the
influence exerted by the Sicilian carpenter who had been to America and
who had returned a "great man" and rich. Through him as interpreter,
all things the American did were good; and the "land of plenty" lost
nothing in the telling. The people began to look upon the new mining
process as a miracle, and the American as sent by the Blessed Virgin.
The wages were stupendous--as much as sixty cents a day! But best of
all, they were wages for work that a human being could do. Around the
miners' houses were the beginnings of gardens, and several families had,
in addition to the goat, a few chickens.

Every day Derby went to the hut of the Calluci. Gradually consciousness
came back to Luigi. Slowly, as reason returned, the events of the past
weeks formed themselves in distinct sequence. He knew where he was
now--at the "Little Devil."