meal, Welborn went out to tinker with the
Ford. Mrs. Gillis called Davy to the kitchen. "I want you to speak to
Welborn," she said. "He works too hard. From daylight to dark, he does
two men's work at that old mine. He'll kill himself before he gets the
money out of it. You can talk to him--he likes you. Why, he sat up all
night, the night before he went to Cheyenne after you, pressing his
pants, making your chair, tying his tie, tinkering on the Ford. He
cautioned all of us not to talk about your being smaller than common,
being a midget. He said you were coming out here to get away from "the
mob," the people who stared and commented. He wanted everything here
to be different. He likes you, would do anything for you, but he's got
something pushing him, driving him, faster and harder than one man can
stand. He'll break if he don't stop and take things easier. If you get
a chance, talk to him, tame him down, make him rest, change his mind
to something different. He's a fine man, big and rugged and a
gentleman. He never hints at what's eating his life out, and we don't
know. But it ought to stop."

"I think you are right, Mrs. Gillis. Sam does work too hard and too
long. I know nothing about his past, and I'll never ask him until he
gets ready to tell it all. This I know, he's well educated, has
trained in big business and is used to good society. I think he is
rather hot-headed and maybe stubborn, if he thinks he's right. It will
be a delicate thing to do, to try to switch him off from what he's
doing and the way he's doing it, but I'll try, because I think it
ought to be done."

Landy did not go in the return trip to "Pinnacle P'int" as he termed
the mine and its environments. He had some "cipherin' around" to do.
"With that pump a-goin' and the water a-flowin', hit don't resemble a
place of rest to me," he said.

Mrs. Gillis brought a loaf of bread out to the car. "There's enough
for your supper and breakfast, and you folks come back here for dinner
tomorrow."

"En say, Jim, you bring the kid's little saddle back with yer," called
Landy. "I want to lengthen the cinches to fit old Frosty. Me en the
kid are aimin' to do a lot of romancin' eround--mebbe tomorry."

Arriving at the cabin, Welborn took a can of gasoline through the
opening out to the pump. He tinkered with the engine and presently a
steady "chug-chug-chug" reverberated down the valley. Mechanical
mining was on at the Silver Falls Project.

Welborn l