a meal. You don't know how hard that is--it's very
queer, if a man has money he can ask for credit or a meal, but if he
is broke he'll starve first. I could see Biddy waiting on the
tables--the smell that came out was the most delicious, yet
tantalizing, odor of beef-stew--it made me faint with hunger."

His voice grew weak and his throat dry as he spoke.

"When I did enter, Dan looked up and said respectfully, 'Good-evenin',
Mr. Clement,' and I felt so ashamed of my errand I turned to run.
Everything whirled then--and when I got my bearings again Dan had me
on one arm and Biddy was holding a bowl of soup to my lips."

The girl sighed. "Oh, she was good, wasn't she?"

"They fed me, for they could see I was starving, and I told them
about the mine--and, well, some way I got them to 'grub-stake' me that
night."

"What is that?"

"That is, they agreed to furnish me food and money for tools and share
in profits. Dan went to work with me, and do you know, it ended in
ruining them both. We organized a company called the 'Biddy Mining
Company.' I was president, and Dan was vice-president, and Biddy was
treasurer. Biddy kept us going by her eating-house, but eventually we
wanted machinery, and we mortgaged the eating-house, and the money
went into that hole in the ground. But I knew we would succeed. I
could hear voices call me, 'Come, come!'--whenever I was alone I could
hear them plainly."

His eyes, turned upon her, were full of mystery.

"I have always felt the stir of life around me in the dark, and there
in that mine--after we struck the spring of water--I thought I heard
voices all the time in the plash of the water. I suppose it seemed
like insanity, for I ruined Dan and Biddy without mercy. I couldn't
stop. I was sure if we could only hold out a little while we would
reach it. But we didn't. Biddy had to go to work as a cook, and Dan
and I went out to try to borrow some money. I couldn't bear to let in
somebody else after all the heat and toil Dan and Biddy and I had
endured, but it had to be done. We took in a fellow from Iowa by the
name of Eldred and went to work again.

"One day after our blast I was the first to enter, and the moment that
I saw the heap of rock I knew we had opened the vein. My wildest
dreams were realized!"

"And then your troubles ended," the girl said tenderly.

"No--for now a strange thing happened. The assayer tried our ore again
and again and found it very rich, but when we shi