d himself to any unnecessary
hazard from falling stones. The man was softer, more human, and on
occasion whimsical.

For all that, the work was pushed on as determinedly as before, and
both Saunders and Devine experienced the same difficulty in keeping
pace with their comrade's efforts, though they had grown hard and lean
and their hands were deeply scarred. Yard by yard the adit crept on
along the dipping lode, and one evening they stood watching Weston,
who was carefully tamping a stick of giant-powder in a hole drilled in
the stone. The ore had shown signs of getting richer the last few
days, but their powder was rapidly running out, and they had not
decided yet where they were to obtain a fresh supply. His directors
had sent him neither the promised machines nor the money with which to
hire labor, and he chafed at the fact that, as it was a long and
arduous journey to the nearest station where he could reach the wires,
he could not ascertain the cause of the delay.

The storekeeper nodded when at length Weston carefully clamped down a
big copper cap on a length of snaky fuse and inserted it in another
hole.

"Well," he said, "I guess this shot will settle whether there's
high-grade ore in front of us."

He struck a sputtering sulphur match and touched the fuses.

"Now," he said, "we'll get out just as quickly as possible."

They ran down the adit, with Devine in front swinging a blinking lamp,
and crawled out, gasping, into the cold evening air as dusk was
closing down. Then they sat around and waited until there was a crash
and a muffled rumbling. Weston stood up, but Saunders made a sign of
expostulation.

"You just sit down again and take a smoke," he said. "We've got to
give her quite a while yet."

There was a reason for this. The fumes of giant-powder are apt to
prove overpowering in a confined space, and in case of some men the
distressful effects they produce last for several hours; but when
Weston filled his pipe he scattered a good deal of the tobacco he had
shredded upon the ground. A strike of really rich ore would, he knew,
send the Grenfell Consolidated up, and he had worked since morning in
a state of tense anticipation, for the signs had been propitious. He
contrived to sit still for some minutes, and then stood up resolutely.

"You may wait as long as you like," he said. "I'm going back to the
adit now."

They went with him, Saunders expostulating and Devine carrying the
lamp. Thin vap