d and walked up a
steep hill trail with his guide. The miner asked no questions of the New
Mexican as to his business with Gordon, nor did the latter volunteer any
information. They discussed instead the output of the camp for the
preceding year, comparing it with that of the other famous gold
districts of the world.

Just as they entered the shafthouse the cage shot to the surface. From
it stepped two men.

Several miners crowded toward them with eager greetings, but they moved
aside at sight of Pesquiera's companion, who made straight for those
from below.

"What's new, Tregarth?" he asked of one of them, a huge Cornishman.

"The drill have brook into the Last Dollar tunnel. The watter of un do
be leaking through, Measter Davis. The boss sent us oop while Tom and
him stayed to put the charges in the drill holes to blow oot the wall.
He wouldna coom and let me stay."

Davis thought a moment.

"I'll go down the shaft and wait at the foot of it. There'll be
something doing soon. Keep your eye peeled for signals, Smith, and when
you git the bell to raise, shoot her up sudden. If the water's coming,
we'll be in a hurry, and don't you forget it. Want to come down with me,
Tregarth?"

"I do that, sir." The man stepped into the cage and grinned. "We'll
bring the byes back all right. Bet un we do, lads."

The cage shot down, and the New Mexican sat on a bench to wait its
return. Beside him was a young doctor, who had come prepared for a
possible disaster. Such conversation as the men carried on was in low
tones, for all felt the strain of the long minutes. The engineer's eye
was glued to his machinery, his hand constantly on the lever.

It must have been an hour before the bell rang sharply in the silence
and the lever swept back instantly. A dozen men started to their feet
and waited tensely. Next moment there was a wild, exultant cheer.

For Tregarth had stepped from the cage with a limp figure in his arms,
and after him Davis, his arm around the shoulder of a drenched,
staggering youth, who had a bleeding cut across his cheek. Through all
the grime that covered the wounded miner the pallor of exhaustion showed
itself.

But beaten and buffeted as the man had plainly been in his fight for
life, the clean, supple strength and the invincible courage of him still
shone in his eye and trod in his bearing. It was even now the salient
thing about him, though he had but come, alive and no more, from a
wrestle with dea