l, warm, caressing
thing in spite of the purely casual grasp of an impersonal action.
Again Robert Fairchild felt a thrill that was new to him, and he stood
watching her until she had reached the motor car which had brought her
to the big curve, and had faded down the hill. Then he went back to
assist the sweating workmen and the anxious-faced Sam Herbenfelder.
The water was down seventy feet.

That night Robert Fairchild sought a few hours' sleep. Two days after,
the town still divided its attention between preparations for the Old
Times Dance and the progress in the dewatering of the Blue Poppy shaft.
Now and then the long hose was withdrawn, and dynamite lowered on
floats to the surface of the water, far below, a copper wire trailing
it. A push of the plunger, a detonation, and a wait of long moments;
it accomplished nothing, and the pumping went on. If the earthly
remains of Harry Harkins were below, they steadfastly refused to come
to the surface.

The volunteers had thinned now to only a few men at the pumps and the
gasoline engine, and Sam Herbenfelder was taking turns with Fairchild
in overseeing the job. Spectators were not as frequent either; they
came and went,--all except Mother Howard, who was silently constant.
The water had fallen to the level of the drift, two hundred feet down;
the pumps now were working on the main flood which still lay below,
while outside the townspeople came and went, and twice daily the owner
and proprietor and general assignment reporter of the _Daily Bugle_
called at the mouth of the tunnel for news of progress. But there was
no news, save that the water was lower. The excitement of it began to
dim. Besides, the night of the dance was approaching, and there were
other calls for volunteers, for men to set up the old-time bar in the
lodge rooms of the Elks Club; for others to dig out ancient roulette
wheels and oil them in preparation for a busy play at a ten-cent limit
instead of the sky-high boundaries of a day gone by; for some one to go
to Denver and raid the costume shops, to say nothing of buying the
innumerable paddles which must accompany any old-time game of keno.
But Sam stayed on--and Fairchild with him--and the loiterers, who would
refuse to work at anything else for less than six dollars a day, freely
giving their services at the pumps and the engines in return for a
share of Sam's good will and their names in the papers.

A day more and a day after that. T