or him,
anyway."

Half an hour later, aided by two deputies who had been summoned from
their homes, Fairchild and the sheriff left for the hills to begin the
search for the missing Harry. Late the next afternoon, they returned
to town, tired, their horses almost crawling in their dragging pace
after sixteen hours of travel through the drifts of the hills and
gullies. Harry had not been found, and so Fairchild reported when,
with drooping shoulders, he returned to the boarding house and to the
waiting Mother Howard. And both knew that this time Harry's
disappearance was no joke, as it had been before. They realized that
back of it all was some sinister reason, some mystery which they could
not solve,--for the present at least. That night, Fairchild faced the
future and made his resolve.

There was only a week now until Harry's case should come to trial.
Only a week until the failure of the defendant to appear should throw
the deeds of the Blue Poppy mine into the hands of the court, to be
sold for the amount of the bail. And in spite of the fact that
Fairchild now felt his mine to be a bonanza, unless some sort of a
miracle could happen before that time, the mine was the same as lost.
True, it would go to the highest bidder at a public sale and any money
brought in above the amount of bail would be returned to him. But who
would be that bidder? Who would get the mine--perhaps for twenty or
twenty-five thousand dollars, when it now was worth millions?
Certainly not he. Already he and Harry had borrowed from Mother Howard
all that she could lend them. True she had friends; but none could
produce from twenty to two hundred thousand dollars for a mine, simply
on his word. And unless something should happen to intervene, unless
Harry should return, or in some way Fairchild could raise the necessary
five thousand dollars to furnish a cash bond and again recover the
deeds of the Blue Poppy, he was no better off than before the strike
was made. Long he thought, finally to come to his conclusion, and
then, with the air of a gambler who has placed his last bet to win or
lose, he went to bed.

But morning found him awake long before the rest of the house was
stirring. Downtown he hurried, to eat a hasty breakfast in the
all-night restaurant, then to start on a search for men. The first
workers on the street that morning found Fairchild offering them six
dollars a day. And by eight o'clock, ten of them were at wor