s credit was injured instead of helped by the
prudent step he had taken. It was regarded as a sure evidence of his
embarrassment, and it was much more difficult for him to obtain help than
if he had, instead of retrenching, launched into some new speculation.

Philip was greatly troubled, and exaggerated his own share in the
bringing about of the calamity.

"You must not look at it so!" Mr. Bolton wrote him. "You have neither
helped nor hindered--but you know you may help by and by. It would have
all happened just so, if we had never begun to dig that hole. That is
only a drop. Work away. I still have hope that something will occur to
relieve me. At any rate we must not give up the mine, so long as we have
any show."

Alas! the relief did not come. New misfortunes came instead. When the
extent of the Bigler swindle was disclosed there was no more hope that
Mr. Bolton could extricate himself, and he had, as an honest man, no
resource except to surrender all his property for the benefit of his
creditors.

The Autumn came and found Philip working with diminished force but still
with hope. He had again and again been encouraged by good "indications,"
but he had again and again been disappointed. He could not go on much
longer, and almost everybody except himself had thought it was useless to
go on as long as he had been doing.

When the news came of Mr. Bolton's failure, of course the work stopped.
The men were discharged, the tools were housed, the hopeful noise of
pickman and driver ceased, and the mining camp had that desolate and
mournful aspect which always hovers over a frustrated enterprise.

Philip sat down amid the ruins, and almost wished he were buried in them.
How distant Ruth was now from him, now, when she might need him most.
How changed was all the Philadelphia world, which had hitherto stood for
the exemplification of happiness and prosperity.

He still had faith that there was coal in that mountain. He made
a picture of himself living there a hermit in a shanty by the tunnel,
digging away with solitary pick and wheelbarrow, day after day and year
after year, until he grew gray and aged, and was known in all that region
as the old man of the mountain. Perhaps some day--he felt it must be so
some day--he should strike coal. But what if he did? Who would be alive
to care for it then? What would he care for it then? No, a man wants
riches in his youth, when the world is fresh to him.