hrough town a new interest spread.
The water was now only a few feet high in the shaft; it meant that the
whole great opening, together with the drift tunnel, soon would be
dewatered to an extent sufficient to permit of exploration. Again the
motor cars ground up the narrow roadway. Outside the tunnel the crowds
gathered. Fairchild saw Anita Richmond and gritted his teeth at the
fact that young Rodaine accompanied her. Farther in the background,
narrow eyes watching him closely, was Squint Rodaine. And still
farther--

Fairchild gasped as he noticed the figure plodding down the mountain
side. He put out a hand, then, seizing the nervous Herbenfelder by the
shoulder, whirled him around.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "Look there! Did n't I tell you! Did n't I
have a hunch?"

For, coming toward them jauntily, slowly, was a figure in beaming blue,
a Fedora on his head now, but with the rest of his wardrobe intact,
yellow, bump-toed shoes and all. Some one shouted. Everybody turned.
And as they did so, the figure hastened its pace. A moment later, a
booming voice sounded, the unmistakable voice of Harry Harkins:

"I sye! What's the matter over there? Did somebody fall in?"

The puffing of gasoline engines ceased. A moment more and the gurgling
cough of the pumps was stilled, while the shouting and laughter of a
great crowd sounded through the hills. A leaping form went forward,
Sam Herbenfelder, to seize Harry, to pat him and paw him, as though in
assurance that he really was alive, then to grasp wildly at the ring on
his finger. But Harry waved him aside.

"Ain't I paid the installment on it?" he remonstrated. "What's the
rumpus?"

Fairchild, with Mother Howard, both laughing happily, was just behind
Herbenfelder. And behind them was thronging half of Ohadi.

"We thought you were drowned!"

"Me?" Harry's laughter boomed again, in a way that was infectious.
"Me drowned, just because I let out a 'oller and dropped my 'at?"

"You did it on purpose?" Sam Herbenfelder shook a scrawny fist under
Harry's nose. The big Cornishman waved it aside as one would brush
away an obnoxious fly. Then he grinned at the townspeople about him.

"Well," he confessed, "there was an un'oly lot of water in there, and I
didn't 'ave any money. What else was I to do?"

"You--!" A pumpman had picked up a piece of heavy timbering and thrown
it at him in mock ferocity. "Work us to death and then come back and
give us the