t
at the instant Stutter Brown had the fellow by the throat, dragging him
back into the security of the cedars, and Winston, lamp and dinner-pail
in hand, was edging his way into the crowded cage, his face turned to
the black wall.

That was five hours before. At the very edge of the black, concealing
chaparral, within easy rifle range of the "Independence" shaft-house,
Hicks and Brown lay flat on their faces, waiting and watching for some
occasion to take a hand. Back behind the little cabin old Mike sat
calmly smoking his black dudheen, apparently utterly oblivious to all
the world save the bound and cursing Swede he was vigilantly guarding,
and whose spirits he occasionally refreshed with some choice bit of
Hibernian philosophy. Beneath the flaring gleam of numerous gasoline
torches, half a dozen men constantly passed and repassed between
shaft-house and dump heap, casting weird shadows along the rough
planking, and occasionally calling to each other, their gruff voices
clear in the still night. Every now and then those two silent watchers
could hear the dismal clank of the windlass chain, and a rattle of ore
on the dump, when the huge buckets were hoisted to the surface and
emptied of their spoil. Once--it must have been after three
o'clock--other men seemed suddenly to mingle among those perspiring
surface workers and the unmistakable neigh of a horse came faintly from
out the blackness of a distant thicket. The two lying in the chaparral
rose to their knees, bending anxiously forward. Brown drew back the
hammer of his rifle, while Hicks swore savagely under his breath. But
those new figures vanished in some mysterious way before either could
decide who they might be--into the shaft-house, or else beyond, where
denser shadows intervened. The two watchers sank back again into their
cover, silently waiting, ever wondering what was happening beyond their
ken, down below in the heart of the hill.

Some of this even Winston never knew, although he was a portion of it.
He had gone down with the descending cage, standing silent among the
grimy workmen crowding it, and quickly discerning from their speech
that they were largely Swedes and Poles, of a class inclined to ask few
questions, provided their wages were promptly paid. There was a
deserted gallery opening from the shaft-hole some forty feet below the
surface; he saw the glimmer of light reflected along its wall as they
passed, but the cage dropped to a