laugh! Where you been at?"

"Center City," confessed Harry cheerily.

"And you knew all the time?" Mother Howard wagged a finger under his
nose.

"Well," and the Cornishman chuckled, "I did n't 'ave any money. I 'ad
to get that shaft unwatered, did n't I?"

"Get a rail!" Another irate--but laughing--pumpman had come forward.
"Think you can pull that on us? Get a rail!"

Some one seized a small, dead pine which lay on the ground near by.
Others helped to strip it of the scraggly limbs which still clung to
it. Harry watched them and chuckled--for he knew that in none was
there malice. He had played his joke and won. It was their turn now.
Shouting in mock anger, calling for all dire things, from lynchings on
down to burnings at the stake, they dragged Harry to the pine tree,
threw him astraddle of it, then, with willing hands volunteering on
every side, hoisted the tree high above them and started down the
mountain side, Sam Herbenfelder trotting in the rear and forgetting his
anger in the joyful knowledge that his ring at last was safe.

Behind the throng of men with their mock threats trailed the women and
children, some throwing pine cones at the booming Harry, juggling
himself on the narrow pole; and in the crowd, Fairchild found some one
he could watch with more than ordinary interest,--Anita Richmond,
trudging along with the rest, apparently remonstrating with the sullen,
mean-visaged young man at her side. Instinctively Fairchild knew that
young Rodaine was not pleased with the return of Harkins. As for the
father--

Fairchild whirled at a voice by his side and looked straight into the
crooked eyes of Thornton Fairchild's enemy. The blue-white scar had
turned almost black now, the eyes were red from swollen, blood-stained
veins, the evil, thin, crooked lips were working in sullen fury. They
were practically alone at the mouth of the mine, Fairchild with a laugh
dying on his lips, Rodaine with all the hate and anger and futile
malice that a human being can know typified in his scarred, hawklike
features. A thin, taloned hand came upward, to double, leaving one
bony, curved finger extending in emphasis of the words which streamed
from the slit of a mouth:

"Funny, weren't you? Played your cheap jokes and got away with 'em.
But everybody ain't like them fools!" he pointed to the crowd just
rounding the rocks, Harry bobbing in the foreground. "There 's some
that remember--and I 'm one of 'em.