ht. All through the dark hours he tossed on
his straw bed over the stable. Andrew Malden was going to sell the
Cove Mine for five hundred thousand dollars--and it was not worth one
cent! It was an outrageous fraud. The boy felt like going and telling
those capitalists. He felt a sense of personal guilt. Yet he almost
hated those men. What difference if they were cheated?--they would
never miss it; they deserved it. How much Uncle Andy needed the money!
And it would be his own some day.

That thought touched Job's conscience to the center. He was a partner
in the crime! He half rose in bed, resolving that he would face the
crowd and tell all--how he had stood by and seen the old man salt the
mine. Then he hesitated. What was it to him? If he told, it would ruin
Andy. What business had he with it, anyhow? But all night long the
wind whistled in through the cracks, "Thou shalt not steal," and Job
tossed in agony of soul, wishing he had never climbed down the Pine
Mountain trail to the Cove on that spring day when Andrew Malden
salted the mine.

The sun was well up the next morning when the procession of buckboards
was ready to start for Gold City. Andrew Malden and the shrewd fellow
had gone an hour before, the rest were off, and only the boorish
Devonshire was left to ride down with Tony. Job stood, with heart
palpitating and conscience goading him, down by the big pasture gate
to let them through. All his peace of mind was gone. A few moments and
the crime would be carried out to its end, and he would be equally
guilty with the avaricious old man who was the nearest one he had in
all the world.

Tony and the last man, the obnoxious Devonshire, were coming. How Job
hated to tell him, of all men! The hot flashes came and went on his
cheek; he turned away; he bit his lip; he would let it go--lose his
religion and go to the bad with Andy Malden. Then the old camp-meeting
days came back to him. He heard again Slim Jim's words in the dark
behind the church that Christmas night; he remembered his vows to God
and the church.

The horse and the buckboard had passed through the gate; the
Englishman had thrown him a dollar; he was trembling from head to
foot. He offered a quick prayer, then hurried after them, halted Tony,
and, looking up into the red face of his companion, said:

"Sir, the mine is salted; I saw the old man do it--it's salted sure!"

The load was gone, the consciousness of truthfulness filled his soul.
That