down fifteen inches, at ten they
still held their pace; but as Denver glanced doubtfully at his coach and
Owen the sound of the drilling changed. There was a grating noise, a
curse from the turner, and as he flung out the drill and thrust in
another a murmur went up from the crowd. They had broken the bit from
the brittle edge of their drill and the new drill was grinding away on
the fragment, which dulled the keen edge of the steel. The quick ears of
the miners could sense the different sound as the drill champed the
fragment to pieces, and when the next change was made the mud-marks on
the drill showed that over an inch had been lost. A team working at top
speed averaged three inches to the minute, driving down through hard
Gunnison granite; but Meacham and his partner had lost their fast start
and they had yet four minutes to go. The tall Cornishman's eyes
gleamed--he struck harder than ever--but Meacham had begun to lose
heart. The accident upset him, and the grate of the broken steel as the
drill bit down on chance fragments; and as his coach urged him on he
glanced up from his turning with a look that Denver knew well. It was
the old pig-eyed glare, the look of unreasoning resentment, that he had
seen on the Fourth of July.

"He's quitting," chuckled Owen when Meacham rose to strike; but when the
hole was measured it came to forty-three and fifteen-sixteenths of an
inch. The big Cornishman had done it in spite of his partner, he had
refused to accept defeat; and now, with only two more teams to compete,
they led by nearly an inch.

"You can beat it!" cried Denver's coach, "I've done better than that
myself! Forty-four! You can make forty-six!"

"I'm game," answered Denver, "but it takes two to win. Do you think you
can stick it out, Tom?"

"I'll be up there, trying," returned Owen grimly and Denver nodded to
the coach.

The next team did no better, for it is a heart-breaking test and the sun
was getting hot, and when Denver and Owen mounted up on the platform a
hush fell upon the crowd. Denver Russell they knew, but Owen was a new
man; and a drilling contest is won on pure nerve. Would he crack, like
Meacham, as the end approached, or would he stand up to the punishment?
They looked on in silence as Denver spread out his drills--a full
twenty, oil-tempered, of the best Norway steel, each narrower by a hair
than its predecessor. The starter was short and heavy, with an
inch-and-a-quarter bit; and the last lon