ear.
"Do you get anything?"

The girl's eyes shone.

"I know what that is," she said quickly. "I 've heard that same sort
of thing before--when you 're on another level and somebody 's working
above. Is n't that it, Mr. Harkins?"

Harry nodded.

"That's it," came tersely. Then bending, he reached for a pick, and
muffling the sound as best he could between his knees, knocked the head
from the handle. Following this, he lifted the piece of hickory
thoughtfully and turned to Fairchild. "Get yourself one," he ordered.
"Miss Richmond, I guess you 'll 'ave to stay 'ere. I don't see 'ow we
can do much else with you."

"But can't I go along--wherever you 're going?"

"There's going to be a fight," said Harry quietly. "And I 'm going to
knock somebody's block off!"

"But--I 'd rather be there than here. I--I don't have to get in it.
And--I 'd want to see how it comes out. Please--!" she turned to
Fairchild--"won't you let me go?"

"If you 'll stay out of danger."

"It's less danger for me there than--than home. And I 'd be scared to
death here. I wouldn't if I was along with you two, because I know--"
and she said it with almost childish conviction--"that you can whip
'em."

Harry chuckled.

"Come along, then. I 've got a 'unch, and I can't sye it now. But it
'll come out in the wash. Come along."

He led the way out through the shaft and into the blizzard, giving the
guard instructions to let no one pass in their absence. Then he
suddenly kneeled.

"Up, Miss Richmond. Up on my back. I 'm 'efty--and we 've got
snowdrifts to buck."

She laughed, looked at Fairchild as though for his consent, then
crawled to the broad back of Harry, sitting on his shoulders like a
child "playing horse."

They started up the mountain side, skirting the big gullies and edging
about the highest drifts, taking advantage of the cover of the pines,
and bending against the force of the blizzard, which seemed to threaten
to blow them back, step for step. No one spoke; instinctively
Fairchild and Anita had guessed Harry's conclusions. The nearest mine
to the Blue Poppy was the Silver Queen, situated several hundred feet
above it in altitude and less than a furlong away. And the metal of
the Silver Queen and the Blue Poppy, now that the strike had been made,
had assayed almost identically the same. It was easy to make
conclusions.

They reached the mouth of the Silver Queen. Harry relieved Anita from
her positi