oulder
when the cage came up again. The men sprang out silently, and the hush
on the waiting throng seemed to deepen.

"We will set the pumps at work as soon as it can be done; that is the
only thing left for us to do," I heard Rutledge say, and his voice
sounded far away to my reeling senses as it might have sounded had I
heard it in some dreadful vision of the night. Then he came and knelt
down beside me; he took my hands in a close grasp. "Go home, Leslie,"
he said, "go home and do not come back. We will do all that can be
done."

Not many hours thereafter the pumps were at work, lifting the water
out of the mine--a Herculean task, but not so long a one, or so
hopeless, as had been anticipated by many. Soon fresh mounds of earth
began to appear in the lonely little hillside cemetery; mounds beneath
which the rescued bodies of the drowned miners were reverently laid.
Among them was one where father lay peacefully sleeping by mother's
side, and leaving him there at rest, we turned sadly away to take up
again the dreary routine of our every-day life.

CHAPTER IV

A PLOT FOILED

It was a full month after the mine accident, and things had settled
back as nearly into the old routine as was possible with the head of
the household gone. I doubt if Jessie and I could have carried the
burden of responsibility that now fell upon our unaccustomed shoulders
had it not been for Joe. The day after father's funeral he walked
quietly into the kitchen with the announcement:

"I'se come ter stay, chillen! Whar yo' gwine want me ter drap dis
bun'le?"

The bundle was done up in a handkerchief--not a large one at that--and
it contained all of Joe's worldly possessions. Jessie gave him the
little bed-room off the kitchen, and there Joe established himself,
to our great satisfaction. He was not less reticent than usual, but
there was immense comfort to us, even in Joe's silence. The only
explanation that he ever gave as to his intentions was contained in
the brief declaration:

"Yo's no 'casion fur t' worry yo'se'ves no mo', chillen; I'se come ter
tek holt."

And take hold he did. Early and late the faithful black hands were
toiling for the children of the man whom he had so devotedly loved.

On this particular morning Jessie and I were seated in the kitchen
busily employed in doing some much-needed mending, when I dropped my
work and said to Jessie: "I believe something is taking the chickens,
Jessie."

Jessie glan