match fo' Molly, when she comes
back with her eddication, w'udn't he?"

Sandy stopped in his stride suddenly, so that Sam halted and regarded
him curiously.

"Twist yo' foot?" he asked. "High heels is all right fo' stirrups but
they're tough on hill climbin'."

"No. I was jest thinkin'. Nothin' that amounts to shucks. Gettin' dahk.
We better git outside of our supper an' sneak up to the tunnel soon's it
gits dusk enough to light the lantern."

CHAPTER XIII

A ROPE BREAKS

The lantern, turned down, dimly illumined the tent and revealed the
figures of three men seated about some sort of rough table. The flap was
drawn and fastened. Occasionally a figure moved slightly. No passer-by
would have guessed that the three partners were ensconced in the black
mouth of the tunnel, ramparted by the dump heap, watching for
developments they were fairly sure would start with darkness. Every
little while Sandy twitched a line that was attached to a clumsy but
effective rocker he had contrived beneath one of the dummies they had
built from the stuff that Plimsoll had not reclaimed.

"Don't want to work the blamed thing too much," he said. "Might bu'st
it. It's on'y the one figger but I'll be derned if it don't look
natcherul."

After which they all relapsed into silence, restrained from smoking for
fear of a telltale spark or casual fragrance carried by the wind. It was
a dark night, the hillsides stood blurry against a blue-black sky in
which the stars glittered like metal points but failed to shed much
light. Later, much later, toward morning, a moon would rise.

Here and there on the slopes bright spots or glows of fire marked the
occupied claim-sites. From the camp itself there came a murmur that
sometimes swelled louder under the dull flare that hung over the lower
end of the valley; reflection and diffusion from the gasoline lights and
acetylene flares used by the owners of the eating-houses, the bars and
gambling shacks, all open for business during miners' hours, which meant
two shifts, of night and day.

From the mouth of the tunnel the three watched the march of the stars,
the wheel of the Big Dipper around its pivot, the North Star; marking
time by the sidereal clock of the heavens, each with a variant emotion.

Mormon shifted his position more frequently than the others. None of
them was especially comfortable, but Mormon wanted to keep as limber as
possible, he was afraid of stiffening up, thinking a