buildings were crowded with shouting
miners. First the men who were to compete in the single-jack contests
mounted the platform one by one; and the sharp, _peck_,
_peck_, of their hammers made music that the miners knew well.
Then, as their holes were cleaned out and the depth of each measured,
the first team of double-jackers climbed up to the platform amid the
frantic plaudits of the crowd. The announcer introduced them, they laid
out their drills and the hammer-man poised his double-jack; then at the
word from the umpire they leapt into action, striking and turning like
men gone mad.

There were five teams entered, of which Denver's was the last, but when
Meacham and his partner were announced as the next contestants his
impatience would not brook further delay. With his own precious drills
tied securely in a bundle and Owen and the coach behind him he fought
his way to the base of the platform and sat down where he could watch
every blow. They came on together, a team hard to match; Meacham
stripped to the waist, his ponderous head thrust forward, the muscles
swelling to great knots in his arms. His partner wore the heavy, yellow
undershirt of a miner, his trousers draped low on his hips; and to hold
them up he had a strand of black fuse twisted loosely in place of a
belt. He was a hard, hairy man, with grim, deep-set eyes and a jaw that
jutted out like a crag and as he raised his hammer to strike Denver saw
that he was out to win.

"Go!" called the umpire and the hammer smote the drill-head till it made
the blue granite smoke; and then for thirty seconds he flailed away
while Slogger Meacham turned the short starter-drill.

"Change!" called their coach and with a single swoop Meacham flung his
drill back into the crowd and caught up his hammer to strike. His
partner dropped his hammer and chucked in a fresh drill--_smash_,
the hammer struck it into the rock--and so they turned and struck while
the ramping miners below them looked on in envious amazement. As each
drill was thrown out it was brought back from where it fell and examined
by the quick-eyed coach, and as he called off the half minutes he
announced their probable depth as indicated by the mud marks on the
drills. Across the block from the two drillers knelt a man with a rubber
tube who poured water into the churning hole; and at each blow of the
hammer the gray mud leapt up, splashing turner and hammer-man alike.

At the end of five minutes they were