mpossible, that all should have changed. It was but
yesterday that he had returned to the mine with finances assured,
confidence restored, and the certainty that Joan Presby loved him, and
could come to his side when his work was accomplished.

He looked at his watch and the bar of sunlight. It was four o'clock,
and the day was gone. Everything was real. Everything was horrible. He
crawled stiffly from his bed, thrust his head into the cold water of
the basin, and, unshaven, stepped out to the porch and down the
trail.

The plumes of smoke still wreathed upward from two stacks. Bill was
still driving downward unceasingly. The mellow clang of the smith's
hammer, sharpening drills, smote his ears, and the rumble of the cars.
The cook, in a high, thin tenor, sang the songs with which he
habitually whiled away his work. Everything was the same, save him!
And his air castles had been blown away as by the wind.

In a fever of uncertainty, he stood on the hillside and thought of
what he should do. He believed that it was his duty to be the one to
break the harsh news to Joan, and wondered whether or not she might be
found at the tryst. He remembered that, once before when he had not
appeared, she had ridden over there in the afternoon. Perhaps,
expecting him, and being disappointed, she might be there again.

He hurried down the slope, and back up across the divide and along the
trail, his hopes and uncertainties alone rendering him certain that
she must be there, and paused when the long, black line shone dully
outlined in its course around the swelling boss of the hill. He
experienced a thrill of disappointment when he saw that she was not
waiting, and, again consulting his watch feverishly, tramped backward
and forward along the confines of the hallowed place.

At last, certain from the fresh hoof marks on the yielding slope, that
she had come and gone, he turned, and went slowly back to the mine. He
had a longing to see his partner, and learn whether or not Mathews,
with that strange, resourceful logic of his, had evolved some way out
of the predicament. But Bill was nowhere in sight. He was not in the
office, and the mill door was locked. The cook had not seen him; and
the blacksmith, busy, stopped only long enough to say that he thought
he had seen the superintendent going toward the hoisting-house.

"Have you seen Bill?" Dick asked of the engineer, who stood at his
levers, and waited for a signal.

"He's below,"