first attempt
had been enough to shelve that sort of program.

Hour after hour they toiled, until the gray mists hung low over the
mountain tops, until the shadows lengthened and twilight fell. The
engines ceased their chugging, the coughing swirl of the dirty water as
it came from the drift, far below, stopped. Slowly two weary men
jogged down the rutty road to the narrow, winding highway which led
through Kentucky Gulch and into town. But they were happy with a new
realization: that they were actively at work, that something had been
accomplished by their labors, and progress made in spite of the
machinations of malignant men, in spite of the malicious influences of
the past and of the present, and in spite of the powers of Nature.

It was a new, a grateful life to Fairchild. It gave him something else
to think about than the ponderings upon the mysterious events which
seemed to whirl, like a maelstrom, about him. And more, it gave him
little time to think at all, for that night he did not lie awake to
stare about him in the darkness. Muscles were aching in spite of their
inherent strength. His head pounded from the pressure of intensified
heart action. His eyes closed wearily, yet with a wholesome fatigue.
Nor did he wake until Harry was pounding on the door in the dawn of the
morning.

Their meal came before the dining room was regularly open. Mother
Howard herself flipping the flapjacks and frying the eggs which formed
their breakfast, meanwhile finding the time to pack their lunch
buckets. Then out into the crisp air of morning they went, and back to
their labors.

Once more the pumps; once more the struggle against the heavy timbers;
once more the "clunk" of the axe as it bit deep into wood, or the
pounding of hammers as great spikes were driven into place. Late that
afternoon they turned to a new duty,--that of mucking away the dirt and
rotted logs from a place that once had been impassable. The timbering
of the broken-down portion of the tunnel just behind the shaft had been
repaired, and Harry flipped the sweat away from his broad forehead with
an action of relief.

"Not that it does us any particular good," he announced. "There ain't
nothing back there that we can get at. But it's room we 'll need when
we start working down below, and we might as well 'ave it fixed up--"

He ceased suddenly and ran to the pumps. A peculiar gurgling sound had
come from the ends of the hose, and the flow