had brought with it a new misfortune.

A light gleamed ahead, and the sound of a single jack hammering on the
end of a drill could be heard. Fairchild called and went forward, to
find Harry, grimy and sweating, pounding away at a narrow streak of
black formation which centered in the top of the stope.

"It's the vein," he announced, after he had greeted Fairchild, "and it
don't look like it's going to amount to much!"

"No?"

Harry withdrew the drill from the hole he was making and mopped his
forehead.

"It ain't a world-beater," came disconsolately. "I doubt whether it
'll run more 'n twenty dollars to the ton, the wye smelting prices 'ave
gone up! And there ain't much money in that. What 'appened in Denver?"

"Another frame-up by the Rodaines to get the mine away from us. It was
a lawyer. He stalled that the offer had been made to us by Miss
Richmond."

"How much?"

"Two hundred thousand dollars and us to get out of all the troubles we
are in."

"And you took it, of course?"

"I did not!"

"No?" Harry mopped his forehead again. "Well, maybe you 're right.
Maybe you 're wrong. But whatever you did--well, that's just the thing
I would 'ave done."

"Thanks, Harry."

"Only--" and Harry was staring lugubriously at the vein above him,
"it's going to take us a long time to get two hundred thousand dollars
out of things the wye they stand now."

"But--"

"I know what you're thinking--that there's silver 'ere and that we 're
going to find it. Maybe so. I know your father wrote some pretty
glowing accounts back to Beamish in St. Louis. It looked awful good
then. Then it started to pinch out, and now--well, it don't look so
good."

"But this is the same vein, is n't it?"

"I don't know. I guess it is. But it's pinching fast. It was about
this wye when we first started on it. It was n't worth much and it was
n't very wide. Then, all of a sudden, it broadened out, and there was
a lot more silver in it. We thought we 'd found a bonanza. But it
narrowed down again, and the old standard came back. I don't know what
it's going to do now--it may quit altogether."

"But we 're going to keep at it, Harry, sink or swim."

"You know it!"

"The Rodaines have hit--maybe we can have some good luck too."

"The Rodaines?" Harry stared. "'It what?"

"Two hundred dollar a ton ore!"

A long whistle. Then Harry, who had been balancing a single jack,
preparatory to going back to his work, thr