at he was sorry, and that his
heart hurt too. But there was none.

Again a moan from the man on the bed, and at last a slight resistance
to the sting of the batteries. An hour passed, two; gradually Harry
came to himself, to stare about him in a wondering, vacant manner and
then to fasten his eyes upon Fairchild. He seemed to be struggling for
speech, for cooerdination of ideas. Finally, after many minutes--

"That's you, Boy?"

"Yes, Harry."

"But where are we?"

Fairchild laughed softly.

"We 're in a hospital, and you 're knocked out. Don't you know where
you 've been?"

"I don't know anything, since I slid down the wall."

"Since you what?"

But Harry had lapsed back into semi-consciousness again, to lie for
hours a mumbling, dazed thing, incapable of thought or action. And it
was not until late in the night after the rescue, following a few hours
of rest forced upon him by the interne, that Fairchild once more could
converse with his stricken partner.

"It's something I 'll 'ave to show you to explain," said Harry. "I
can't tell you about it. You know where that little fissure is in the
'anging wall, away back in the stope?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's it. That's where I got out."

"But what happened before that?"

"What didn't 'appen?" asked Harry, with a painful grin. "Everything in
the world 'appened. I--but what did the assay show?"

Fairchild reached forth and laid a hand on the brawny one of his
partner.

"We 're rich, Harry," he said, "richer than I ever dreamed we could be.
The ore's as good as that of the Silver Queen!"

"The bloody 'ell it is!" Then Harry dropped back on his pillow for a
long time and simply grinned at the ceiling. Somewhat anxious.
Fairchild leaned forward, but his partner's eyes were open and smiling.
"I 'm just letting it sink in!" he announced, and Fairchild was silent,
saving his questions until "it" had sunk. Then:

"You were saying something about that fissure?"

"But there is other things first. After you went to the assayers, I
fooled around there in the chamber, and I thought I 'd just take a
flyer and blow up them 'oles that I 'd drilled in the 'anging wall at
the same time that I shot the other. So I put in the powder and fuses,
tamped 'em down and then I thinks thinks I, that there's somebody
moving around in the drift. But I did n't pay any attention to it--you
know. I was busy and all that, and you often 'ear noises that sound
funny.