the enormous hole blown out of
the ground where the house had stood astonished even them. It was while
fossicking in this that the keen eye of the professional prospector was
at once attracted. A few more quick strokes with the pick, and the
yellow treasures of the earth lay revealed. Up went Peters' hat high in
the air, and from his throat a roaring hooray.

"We can put on our jackets now," he said. "We're rich men for life."

"It may be only a `pocket,'" was the more cautious comment of the other.

"Pocket or not--there's enough stuff there to get us a fat offer from
any syndicate. But there's more. Well, didn't I tell you we'd make our
fortunes here."

"Yes, but who'd have thought we should have to blow up the old shack to
do it?"

They had realised on it well--uncommonly well--declared those who knew;
and at once Lamont had set to work to clear off the encumbrances on his
ancestral home.

"Peters threatens to run across to see us, if we promise not to make him
wear a top-hat and a long-tailed coat. I've often told him he can wear
anything he likes. Hallo, here's a yarn from Ancram. Christmas cards
too--um--um. `Kind regards to Mrs Lamont.'"

"It was good of you to get him that berth, Piers. He behaved very
meanly to you at first, I thought."

"He couldn't help it. He's built that way. And even then--if the poor
devil got so desperately `stony'--when you see a chance of putting him
on his legs again, you naturally take it."

"_You_ do. You are always setting somebody on his legs again."

"Ah! ah!"--holding up a warning finger. "Who is likely to suffer from
`swelled head' now?"

"Well, it seems to me you are going to get no rest on earth. You spent
about six months pulling everybody out of holes, and now no sooner do we
get here for good than you start in the same line again," said Clare
softly.

"It's different, dearest. On that side one got them out of hot water;
on this side one gets them out of cold--oh, very!" with a shiver at the
recollection of his recent ice-bath.

Pearly and grey the Christmas gloaming deepens, a few stars peep
frostily out, and in the gloom of the fir-woods an owl is hooting
melodiously. And the stillness, with the peace of the hour, is sweet to
these two, as it rests upon them.

The End.

End of Project Gutenberg's In the Whirl of the Rising, by Bertram Mitford

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE WHIRL OF THE RISING ***

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