e fought fiercely, till she heard the boy laugh. That
cowed her, in some queer way. I heard Dunn say: "You'd better stay here
a while, Miss Wilbraham. It's safer--than with Macartney;" saw Charliet
run to help him, and the two of them placidly tie and gag Marcia
Wilbraham with anything they could take off themselves. It was with a
vivid impression of Charliet's none too clean neck-handkerchief playing
a large part in Marcia's toilette that Collins and I jumped, with one
accord, to Paulette. I don't know what he said to her. I saw her nod.

I said, "We're done for if Macartney gets in on us through Thompson's
stope and finds this place. He'll just send half his men to scout for
the other entrance; they'll find it from Charliet's and Marcia's tracks
and get at us both ways. You stay here with Charliet, while Collins and
I meet Macartney in Thompson's stope. When--if--you hear we can't best
him, run--with Charliet! Dunn'll look after Marcia."

She gave me a stunned sort of look, as if I were deserting her, as if I
didn't--care! I would have snatched her in my arms and kissed her,
Dudley or no Dudley lying dead in the bush, but I had no time. Collins
had me by the elbow, his fierce drawl close to my half-comprehending
ear. We'd no guns but Marcia's popgun and her rifle; two of us, even on
the shelf in Thompson's stope, would do little good with those against
all Macartney's men crowding into the stope and giving us a volley the
second our fire from the shelf drew theirs. We might pick off half a
dozen of them before our cartridges gave out. But there was no sense in
that business. We would have to try----But here I came alive to what
Collins was really talking about.

"That high explosive," he was saying. "It's a filthy trick, but God
knows they deserve it! If we blow them back far enough at the very
entrance of the tunnel, they may never come on again to get in."

I daresay I'd have recoiled in cold blood. But my blood ran hot that
morning. I did think, though; hard. I said, "Can't do it! No fuse."

"Heaps. Dunn's and mine!" I heard Collins grabbling for it, somewhere in
the dark of the tunnel.

Behind me somebody lit a candle; who, I never looked to see. In the
light of it I saw Collins pick up his bundle of blasting powder and
warned him sharply.

"Look out with that stuff! We don't know it; it may work anyway. If it
bursts up in the air the stope roof'll be down on us. It may fire back,
too--and we'd be hit behin