been a
better man if I'd had any luck," he said, with apparent irrelevance.

Jane made no moral observations. She did not point out that a man's
virtue ought not to depend altogether on his income. She said simply,
"Will that much do?"

Mr. Keene, controlling his emotion, said it would, and they parted upon
the understanding that they should meet at Lynn two days later, for the
transference of the fund.

Then Jane plodded wearily back to the pavilion, and mutely watched the
cow-ponies rush and buck around the course. She beheld Valentino
Cortes, a meteoric vision in white cotton trousers, girdled in crimson,
flash by to victory amid the wild "_Vivas!_" of his compatriots. She
saw the burros trot past in their little dog-trot of a race.

But although she essayed a pleased smile at these things, and listened
with enforced attention to the speeches and the music, there were
present with her foreboding and unrest. For usually the Dauntless
pursued no vigorous labor in summer, but merely kept the water out of
its slope and "took up" and sold to various smelters such "slack" as it
had made during the winter. There would be no royalties coming in to
Jane, since no coal would be mined; and presently it would be
September, and no money for Lola's school.

So Jane's cares were thickening. Not only did the mine soon enter on
its summer inactivity, but worse befell. The mine boss came one day to
tell Jane that, because of a certain "roll" in the east entries, it was
deemed inadvisable farther to work these levels.

"The coal over there makes too much slack, anyhow," said the mine boss,
"so we intend hereafter to stick to the west." Whereupon, unaware of
leaving doom behind him, he went cheerfully away.

Jane's horizons had always lain close about her. She had never been
one to scent trouble afar off. To be content in the present, to be
trustful in the future, was her unformulated creed. And now, as she
mused, it came to her swiftly that she need not despair so long as she
had over her head a substantial dwelling. This abode, in its mere
cubhood, had afforded her financial succor. It would be queer if such
an office were beyond it now. Only this time the doctor must not be
approached; his reasoning before had been too searching.

Jane therefore wrote to a lawyer in Trinidad, authorizing him to obtain
for her a certain amount of money. She felt assured of the outcome of
this letter, but presently there came a reply which stu