ear."

"What is the nature of the improvement?"

"Why, simply an extension to every part of the mine of the cable system
by which the engine now hauls the coal and water up the slope."

"But where are we to get power?"

"By using what we already have. Our great engine is a double one. We are
using only one of its cylinders. We have only to connect the other in
order to have all the power we need."

"But what about steam?"

"That's easy to make. We have several unused boilers, and as we burn
nothing under our boilers but culm--the finely slaked coal for which
there isn't a market, even at a tenth of a cent a ton--it will cost us
absolutely not one cent to make all the steam we need."

"You seem to have thought it all out."

"I have done more than that. I have _worked_ it all out. I must work all
day in a heading, of course, in order to make bread and butter. I have
worked at night over these problems."

"And you are sure you've got the right answers?"

"Greatly more than sure--absolutely certain!"

"Very well. You are now chief engineer, or anything else you please, at
a chief engineer's salary. You are to go to work at once digging the new
ventilating and pumping shaft. You are to proceed at once to install
your other improvements, and, when you report to me that there is no
longer any use for the mules in the mine, I'll bring them all out and
sell them. I'll look to the payments incidental to your work. My mission
here is to make this mine a paying property. To that end, you are to
bear in mind, I have an entirely free hand, and all the money needed is
at my command. Now let that finish business for to-night. I want you to
spend the rest of the dark hours in telling me your story and Mary's. I
want to know all that has happened to both of you since--well, since she
told me she loved you and not--me. You don't mind sitting up for the
rest of the night?"

"Certainly not. I've sat up with you on far smaller provocation."

"But how about Mary?"

"She will sleep, or, if she doesn't--and I suppose she won't--she is
entirely happy. She will be glad to have me spend the night with you."

"Very well, then. Tell me the story of what has happened to you and Mary
since the day when we quarreled like a pair of idiots, and--like men of
sense--decided not to fight. I want to hear it all."

"I'll tell it all," said the other. And he did.

XIX

DICK TEMPLE'S STORY

This is the story that Richard Temple t