her waiting for you over there."

Just then another car-load of rescued men was drawn up, and again the
excited spectators broke forth in a tumult of cheers. Under cover of
this diversion, Derrick, half supported by Allan McClain, walked slowly
away towards the little vine-covered cottage at the end of the village
street. Here his mother awaited him, for she felt that their meeting was
something too sacred to be witnessed by stranger eyes.

At the mouth of the slope similar meetings were taking place between
others who had less self-control or less delicacy, but who, in their
way, showed equal affection and deep feeling. Wives greeted husbands who
appeared to them as risen from the dead, and mothers wept over sons whom
they had deemed lost to them forever.

As Monk Tooley stepped from the car, the first to hold out a hand to him
was his son Bill, leaning on a crutch, and still bearing traces of his
illness. His greeting was,

"Well, feyther, we've missed yer sad! Thought maybe yer wouldn't get
back no more."

"I'm not dat easy got rid of, lad. Had a plenty ter eat, hain't yer?"

"Plenty, feyther, sich as it was."

"Dat's more'n I have, an' I hope yer've saved a bite fer yer dad.
Starvin's hungry work."

Nothing else was overheard; but the tones of the rough man and his
equally rough son held an unwonted accent of tenderness. As they grasped
each other's hand, one gazed curiously at his father's haggard face, and
the other cast a pitying glance at his son's rude crutch.

Not the least interested spectator of these touching scenes was Mr.
Halford, who had arrived that morning from Philadelphia. When, after all
the rest had been sent safely to the surface the mine boss was drawn up
the slope, and was in turn greeted with a rousing cheer, that gentlemen
slipped an arm through his, and led him away, saying,

"You have done nobly, Warren, and I am proud to call you brother."

"I could have done nothing, Harold, if these brave fellows had not stood
by me as they have."

"And they could have done nothing without your level head to direct them
and your splendid example to stimulate them."

So the great colliery disaster was happily ended, and in Raven Brook
village great sorrow was turned to great joy.

As the two gentlemen sat talking together in the room that the mine boss
called his den, that evening, Mr. Halford said,

"By-the-way, Warren, I did not take this trip wholly out of curiosity to
witness your res