junction when a cheery voice rang out of the
gloom ahead of them, saying,

"Holloa there! where's your mule? and where's your light? You wouldn't
run over a stranger, would you?"

"I'm the mule," replied Derrick, as, panting and perspiring with his
exertions, he looked around a rear corner of the car to see who was
coming.

"Why, Derrick, is that you?" inquired the voice, in a tone of great
surprise. "What has happened? where are the ladies?"

"Oh, Warren!" exclaimed Mrs. Halford, from somewhere back in the
darkness, "I'm so thankful to see--I mean to hear--you. Here we are."

"But I don't understand," said Mr. Jones, for it was he who had so
unexpectedly come to their assistance. "What is the meaning of all this?
Where's the bumping-mule?"

"We had a collision with a door," explained Miss Nellie, "and poor Harry
Mule got crushed. His leg's broken, and he's all cut up. But oh, Uncle
Warren, you won't have him killed, will you?"

"I can't promise until I find out how badly he is injured."

"Oh, but you must, Uncle Warren. If you have him killed, I'll never love
you again," insisted Miss Nellie, repeating the threat she had already
made.

"Well, dear, I'll promise this: he shall not be killed unless I can show
you that it is the best thing to be done, and you give your consent."

"Then he'll live to be an old, old mule!" cried Miss Nellie, joyfully;
"for I'll never, never consent to have him killed."

As the ladies once more got into the car, and the mine boss helped
Derrick push it towards the junction, Mrs. Halford said, "How do you
happen to be back so early, Warren? I thought you were to be gone all
day."

"Why, so I have been," he answered, with some surprise. "Don't you call
from six o'clock in the morning to nearly the same hour of the evening
all day?"

"You don't mean to say that it is nearly six o'clock?"

"I do; for that witching hour is certainly near at hand."

"Well, I never knew a day to pass so quickly in my life. I didn't
suppose it was more than three o'clock, at the latest."

"It is, though; and to understand how time passes down in a mine, you
have but to remember two often quoted sayings. One is, 'Time is money,'
and the other, 'Money vanishes down the throat of a mine more quickly
than smoke up a chimney.' Ergo, time vanishes quickly down in a mine. Is
not that a good bit of logic for you?"

Both the ladies laughed at this nonsense, but it served to divert their
minds from the p