hanty," he
said. "How happy I was then! Fourteen years brings strange things into a
man's life. My boy, I hope you will never get the gold fever. Steer clear
of it."

"But Tad, I have it already," replied Willis, "and I am following where
it leads me."

Tad looked at him, and a strange, sad expression came to his face.

"How much you talk like your father, and you're so like him, too! I'm
sorry."

He reached deep into his trousers' pocket, pulled out the key, then got
slowly to his feet. Twice he changed his mind; but Willis persisted, and
at last he yielded. The new lock opened easily, but not so the great log
door. Its hinges were rusted from the storms of many seasons. As Willis
pulled hard, the old hinges groaned, as if regretting that they were to
be disturbed after so long a rest. As the door swung back, and the mouth
of the tunnel was disclosed, Tad caught Willis by the arm and held him.
"Wait, my boy," he said, "you must let the old place air out. Remember,
it has been bottled up a long time. I'll wager a light won't even burn
in there just now."

"Have you a candle?" asked Willis, his tone betraying his excitement.

"I'll get some," volunteered Ham, and off he started down the trail for
the cabin.

The tunnel was a round, irregular hole a little higher than a man's head,
and in width it varied with the width of the dyke. The floor had been
covered with rough-hewn planks to make the pushing of the loaded
wheelbarrows easier. These old planks were black and wet, but still quite
sound. As they stood, waiting for Ham to return, Tad told Willis
something more of the early history of the mine:

"You see, the dyke seems to follow an ancient crevice in the granite,
which runs straight in for a hundred and fifty feet, then turns abruptly
to the west. Here it widens out, and just at that point the strata shifts
and is folded. We found a small quantity of quartz just there. The day of
the accident I was replacing some of the floor planks near the entrance
and your father was preparing to make a series of blasts on the new
strata. I was to help him shoot them when he was ready. He was very
pleased at the new outcropping of quartz, and was very anxious to open
up the vein before we quit work for the day. The farther in you go, the
more shaly the black rock seems to get, and in some places we were forced
to roof the drift with mine props in order to keep the ceiling up. I was
bending over, chopping the end of a pla