ated with the hate
that only death can end, but for the peace of his soul he strove to
conquer it. The hate slumbered, yet at times it stirred, and into the
old man's eyes there came the tiger-look that had once made him a force
and a fear. Woe betide his enemy if that tiger ever woke.

"I've been a-thinkin' out a scheme," said Jim suddenly, "an' I'm a-goin'
to put all of that twenty-five thousand of mine back into the ground.
You know us old miners are gamblers to the end. It's not the gold, but
the gettin' of it. It's the excitement, the hope, the anticipation of
one's luck that counts. We're fighters, an' we've just got to keep on
fightin'. We can't quit. There's the ground, and there's the precious
metals it's a-tryin' to hold back on us. It's up to us to get them out.
It's for the good of humanity. The miner an' the farmer rob no one. They
just get down to that old ground an' coax it an' beat it an' bully it
till it gives up. They're working for the good of humanity--the farmer
an' the miner." The old man paused sententiously.

"Well, I can't quit this minin' business. I've just got to go on so
long's I've got health an' strength; an' I'm a-goin' to shove all I've
got once more into the muck. I stand to make a big pile, or lose my
wad."

"What's your scheme, Jim?"

"It's just this: I'm goin' to install a hydraulic plant on my Ophir
Creek claim, I've got a great notion of that claim. It's an
out-of-sight proposition for workin' with water. There's a little stream
runs down the hill, an' the hill's steep right there. There's one
hundred feet of fall, an' in Spring a mighty powerful bunch of water
comes a-tumblin' down. Well, I'm goin' to dam it up above, bring it down
a flume, hitch on a little giant, an' turn it loose to rip an' tear at
that there ground. I'm goin' to begin a new era in Klondike minin'."

"Bully for you, Jim."

"The values are there in the ground, an' I'm sick of the old slow way of
gettin' them out. This looks mighty good to me. Anyway, I'm a-goin' to
give it a trial. It's just the start of things; you'll see others will
follow suit. The individual miner's got to go; it's only a matter of
time. Some day you'll see this whole country worked over by them big
power dredges they've got down in Californy. You mark my words, boys;
the old-fashioned miner's got to go."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, I've written out for piping an' a monitor, an' next Spring I hope
I'll have the plant in wo