depreciated greatly;
instead of the steady gush of water, a slimy silt was coming out now,
spraying and splattering about on the sides of the drainage ditch.
Wildly Harry waved a monstrous paw.

"Shut 'em off!" he yelled to Fairchild in the dimness of the tunnel.
"It's sucking the muck out of the sump!"

"Out of the what?" Fairchild had killed the engines and run forward to
where Harry, one big hand behind the carbide flare, was peering down
the shaft.

"The sump--it's a little 'ole at the bottom of the shaft to 'old any
water that 'appens to seep in. That means the 'ole drift is unwatered."

"Then the pumping job 's over?"

"Yeh." Harry rose. "You stay 'ere and dismantle the pumps, so we can
send 'em back. I 'll go to town. We 've got to buy some stuff."

Then he started off down the trail, while Fairchild went to his work.
And he sang as he dragged at the heavy hose, pulling it out of the
shaft and coiling it at the entrance to the tunnel, as he put skids
under the engines, and moved them, inch by inch, to the outer air.
Work was before him, work which was progressing toward a goal that he
had determined to seek, in spite of all obstacles. The mysterious
offer which he had received gave evidence that something awaited him,
that some one knew the real value of the Blue Poppy mine, and that if
he could simply stick to his task, if he could hold to the unwavering
purpose to win in spite of all the blocking pitfalls that were put in
his path, some day, some time, the reward would be worth its price.

More, the conversation with Mother Howard on the previous morning had
been comforting; it had given a woman's viewpoint upon another woman's
actions. And Fairchild intuitively believed she was correct. True,
she had talked of others who might have hopes in regard to Anita
Richmond; in fact, Fairchild had met one of those persons in the
lawyer, Randolph Farrell. But just the same it all was cheering. It
is man's supreme privilege to hope.

And so Fairchild was happy and somewhat at ease for the first time in
weeks. Out at the edge of the mine, as he made his trips, he stopped
now and then to look at something he had disregarded previously,--the
valley stretching out beneath him, the three hummocks of the far-away
range, named Father, Mother and Child by some romantic mountaineer; the
blue-gray of the hills as they stretched on, farther and farther into
the distance, gradually whitening until they resolved