er. Fairchild went forward, and with an
outstretched hand grasped him by the collar.

"Why don't you wait until we 've found out something before you get the
whole town excited?" he asked. "All we 've got is one man's word for
this."

"Yes," Sam spread his hands, "but look who it was! Squint Rodaine!
Ach--will I ever get back that diamond?"

"I 'm starting to the mine," Fairchild released him. "If you want to
go along and look for yourself, all right. But wait until you 're sure
about the thing before you go crazy over it."

However, Sam had other thoughts. Hastily he shot through the crowd,
organizing the bucket brigade and searching for news of the Argonaut
pump, which had not yet arrived. Half-disgusted, Fairchild turned and
started up the hill, a few miners, their carbide lamps swinging beside
them, following him. Far in the rear sounded the wails of Sam
Herbenfelder, organizing his units of search.

Fairchild turned at the entrance of the mine and waited for the first
of the miners and the accompanying gleam of his carbide. Then, they
went within and to the shaft, the light shining downward upon the oily,
black water below. Two objects floated there, a broken piece of
timber, torn from the side of the shaft, where some one evidently had
grasped hastily at it in an effort to stop a fall, and a new,
four-dented hat, gradually becoming water-soaked and sinking slowly
beneath the surface. And then, for the first time, fear clutched at
Fairchild's heart,--fear which hope could not ignore.

"There 's his hat." It was a miner staring downward.

Fairchild had seen it, but he strove to put aside the thought.

"True," he answered, "but any one could lose a hat, simply by looking
over the edge of the shaft." Then, as if in proof of the forlorn hope
which he himself did not believe; "Harry 's a strong man. Certainly he
would know how to swim. And in any event he should have been able to
have kept afloat for at least a few minutes. Rodaine says that he
heard a shout and ran right in here; but all that he could see was
ruffled water and a floating hat. I--" Then he paused suddenly. It
had come to him that Rodaine might have helped in the demise of Harry!

Shouts sounded from outside, and the roaring of a motor truck as it
made its slow, tortuous way up the boulder-strewn road with its gullies
and innumerable ruts. Voices came, rumbling and varied. Lights.
Gaining the mouth of the tunnel. Fairchild