t she knew something of the mystery of the past,--and had
falsified to keep the knowledge from him.

It was too galling for thought. Robert Fairchild hastily made his
toilet, then answered the ringing of the dinner bell, to be introduced
to strong-shouldered men who gathered about the long tables;
Cornishmen, who talked an "h-less" language, ruddy-faced Americans, and
a sprinkling of English, all of whom conversed about things which were
to Fairchild as so much Greek,--of "levels" and "stopes" and "winzes",
of "skips" and "manways" and "raises", which meant nothing to the man
who yet must master them all, if he were to follow his ambition. Some
ate with their knives, meeting the food halfway from their plates; some
acted and spoke in a manner revealing a college education and the poise
that it gives. But all were as one, all talking together; the operator
no more enthusiastic than the man whose sole recompense was the five
dollars a day he received for drilling powder holes; all happy, all
optimistic, all engrossed in the hopes and dreams that only mining can
give. And among them Mother Howard moved, getting the latest gossip
from each, giving her views on every problem and incidentally seeing
that the plates were filled to the satisfaction of even the hungriest.

As for Robert Fairchild, he spoke but seldom, except to acknowledge the
introductions as Mother Howard made him known to each of his table
mates. But it was not aloofness; it was the fact that these men were
talking of things which Fairchild longed to know, but failed, for the
moment, to master. From the first, the newcomer had liked the men
about him, liked the ruggedness, the mingling of culture with the lack
of it, liked the enthusiasm, the muscle and brawn, liked them all,--all
but two.

Instinctively, from the first mention of his name, he felt they were
watching him, two men who sat far in the rear of the big dining room,
older than the other occupants, far less inviting in appearance. One
was small, though chunky in build, with sandy hair and eyebrows; with
weak, filmy blue eyes over which the lids blinked constantly. The
other, black-haired with streaks of gray, powerful in his build, and
with a walrus-like mustache drooping over hard lips, was the sort of
antithesis naturally to be found in the company of the smaller, sandy
complexioned man. Who they were, what they were, Fairchild did not
know, except from the general attributes which told