as not there to eat it. Dusk came, and
then, nervous over the continued absence of his eccentric partner,
Fairchild started uptown.

The usual groups were in front of the stores, and before the largest of
them Fairchild stopped.

"Do any of you happen to know a fellow named Harry Harkins?" he asked
somewhat anxiously. The answer was in the affirmative. A miner
stretched out a foot and surveyed it studiously.

"Ain't seen him since about five o'clock," he said at last. "He was
just starting up to the mine then."

"To the mine? That late? Are you sure?"

"Well--I dunno. May have been going to Center City. Can't say. All I
know is he said somethin' about goin' to th' mine earlier in th'
afternoon, an' long about five I seen him starting up Kentucky Gulch."

"Who 's that?" The interruption had come in a sharp, yet gruff voice.
Fairchild turned to see before him a man he recognized, a tall, thin,
wiry figure, with narrowed, slanting eyes, and a scar that went
straight up his forehead. He evidently had just rounded the corner in
time to hear the conversation. Fairchild straightened, and in spite of
himself his voice was strained and hard.

"I was merely asking about my partner in the Blue Poppy mine."

"The Blue Poppy?" the squint eyes narrowed more than ever. "You 're
Fairchild, ain't you? Well, I guess you 're going to have to get along
without a partner from now on."

"Get along without--?"

A crooked smile came to the other man's lips.

"That is, unless you want to work with a dead man. Harry Harkins got
drowned, about an hour ago, in the Blue Poppy shaft!"

CHAPTER VIII

The news caused Fairchild to recoil and stand gasping. And before he
could speak, a new voice had cut in, one full of excitement, tremulous,
anxious.

"Drowned? Where 's his body?"

"How do I know?" Squint Rodaine turned upon his questioner. "Guess
it's at the foot of the shaft. All I saw was his hat. What 're you so
interested for?"

The questioner, small, goggle-eyed and given to rubbing his hands,
stared a moment speechlessly. Then he reached forward and grasped at
the lapels of Rodaine's coat.

"He--he bought a diamond from me this morning--on the installment plan!"

Rodaine smiled again in his crooked fashion. Then he pushed the
clawlike hands of the excited jeweler away from his lapels.

"That's your own fault, Sam," he announced curtly. "If he 's at the
bottom of the shaft, your diamond 's ther