tion in their voices, asking how it could have happened; their
comments: "An awful thing!" "I suppose Pippin is doing the best he can!"
"Wire him on no account to leave the mine idle!" "Poor devils!" "A
fund? Of course, what ought we to give?" He had a strong conviction that
nothing of all this would disturb the commonsense with which they would
go home and eat their mutton. A good thing too; the less it was taken to
heart the better! But Scorrier felt angry. The fight was so unfair! A
fellow all nerves--with not a soul to help him! Well, it was his own
lookout! He had chosen to centre it all in himself, to make himself its
very soul. If he gave way now, the ship must go down! By a thin thread,
Scorrier's hero-worship still held. 'Man against nature,' he thought, 'I
back the man.' The struggle in which he was so powerless to give aid,
became intensely personal to him, as if he had engaged his own good faith
therein.

The next day they went down again to the pit-head; and Scorrier himself
descended. The fumes had almost cleared, but there were some places
which would never be reached. At the end of the day all but four bodies
had been recovered. "In the day o' judgment," a miner said, "they
four'll come out of here." Those unclaimed bodies haunted Scorrier. He
came on sentences of writing, where men waiting to be suffocated had
written down their feelings. In one place, the hour, the word "Sleepy,"
and a signature. In another, "A. F.--done for." When he came up at last
Pippin was still waiting, pocket-book in hand; they again departed at a
furious pace.

Two days later Scorrier, visiting the shaft, found its neighbourhood
deserted--not a living thing of any sort was there except one Chinaman
poking his stick into the rubbish. Pippin was away down the coast
engaging an engineer; and on his return, Scorrier had not the heart to
tell him of the desertion. He was spared the effort, for Pippin said:
"Don't be afraid--you've got bad news? The men have gone on strike."

Scorrier sighed. "Lock, stock, and barrel"

"I thought so--see what I have here!" He put before Scorrier a telegram:

"At all costs keep working--fatal to stop--manage this somehow.
--HEMMINGS."

Breathing quickly, he added: "As if I didn't know! 'Manage this
somehow'--a little hard!"

"What's to be done?" asked Scorrier.

"You see I am commanded!" Pippin answered bitterly. "And they're quite
right; we must keep working--our co