ew it aside and began to roll
down his sleeves.

"We 're going to 'ave a look at it."

"A look? What good would it--?"

"A cat can look at a king," said Harry. "They can't arrest us for
going up there like everybody else."

"But to go there and ask them to look at their riches--"

"There ain't no law against it!"

He reached for his carbide lamp, hooked to a small chink of the hanging
wall, and then pulled his hat over his bulging forehead. Carefully he
attempted to smooth his straying mustache, and failing, as always, gave
up the job.

"I 'd be 'appy, just to look at it," he announced. "Come on. Let's
forget 'oo they are and just be lookers-on."

Fairchild agreed against his will. Out of the shaft they went and on
up the hill to where the townspeople again were gathering about the
opening of the Silver Queen. A few were going in. Fairchild and 'Arry
joined them.

A long walk, stooping most of the way, as the progress was made through
the narrow, low-roofed tunnel; then a slight raise which traveled for a
fair distance at an easy grade--at last to stop; and there before them,
jammed between the rock, was the strike, a great, heavy streaking vein,
nearly six feet wide, in which the ore stuck forth in tremendous
chunks, embedded in a black background. Harry eyed it studiously.

"You can see the silver sticking out!" he announced at last. "It's
wonderful--even if the Rodaines did do it."

A form brushed past them, Blindeye Bozeman, returning from the
celebration. Picking up a drill, he studied it with care, finally to
lay it aside and reach for a gad, a sort of sharp, pointed prod, with
which to tear away the loose matter that he might prepare the way for
the biting drive of the drill beneath the five-pound hammer, or single
jack. His weak, watery eyes centered on Harry, and he grinned.

"Didn't believe it, huh?" came his query.

Harry pawed his mustache.

"I believed it, all right, but anybody likes to look at the United
States Mint!"

"You 've said it. She 's going to be more than that when we get a few
portable air compressors in here and start at this thing in earnest
with pneumatic drills. What's more, the old man has declared Taylor
Bill and me in on it--for a ten per cent. bonus. How's that sound to
you?"

"Like 'eaven," answered Harry truthfully. "Come on, Boy, let's us get
out of 'ere. I 'll be getting the blind staggers if I stay much
longer."

Fairchild accompanied him wo