ned him; together they heated the long pieces of steel
and pounded their biting faces to the sharpness necessary to drilling
in the hard rock of the hanging wall, tempering them in the bucket of
water near by, working silently, slowly,--hampered by the weight of
defeat. They were being whipped; they felt it in every atom of their
beings. But they had not given up their fight. Two blows were left in
the struggle, and two blows they meant to strike before the end came.
The next morning they started at their new task, each drilling holes at
points five feet apart in the hanging wall, to send them in as far as
possible, then at the end of the day to blast them out, tearing away
the rock and stopping their work at drilling that they might muck away
the refuse. The stope began to take on the appearance of a vast
chamber, as day after day, banging away at their drill holes, stopping
only to sharpen the bits or to rest their aching muscles, they pursued
into the entrails of the hills the vagrant vein which had escaped them.
And day after day, each, without mentioning it to the other, was
tortured by the thought of that offer of riches, that mysterious
proffer of wealth for the Blue Poppy mine,--tortured like men who are
chained in the sight of gold and cannot reach it. For the offer
carried always the hint that wealth was there, somewhere, that Squint
Rodaine knew it, but that they could not find it. Either that--or flat
failure. Either wealth that would yield Squint a hundredfold for his
purchase, or a sneer that would answer their offer to sell. And each
man gritted his teeth and said nothing. But they worked on.

October gave up its fight. The first day of November came, to find the
chamber a wide, vacuous thing now, sheltering stone and refuse and two
struggling men,--nothing more. Fairchild ceased his labors and mopped
his forehead, dripping from the heat engendered by frenzied labor;
without the tunnel opening, the snow lay deep upon the mountain sides,
for it had been more than a week since the first of the white blasts
had scurried over the hills to begin the placid, cold enwrapment of the
winter. A long moment, then:

"Harry."

"Aye."

"I 'm going after the other side. We 've been playing a half-horsed
game here."

"I 've been thinking that, Boy."

"Then I 'm going to tackle the foot wall. You stay where you are, for
a few more shots; it can't do much good, the way things are going, and
it can't d