tood and looked black.

Pinter tilted back his head and scratched the roots of his
chin-feathers, which stuck out all round like a dirty, ragged fan held
horizontally.

'Kullers is safe,' reflected Pinter.

'All right?' snapped Dave. 'I suppose we must let him into it.'

'Kullers' was a big American buck nigger, and had been Pinter's mate for
some time--Pinter was a man of odd mates; and what Pinter meant was that
Kullers was safe to hold his tongue.

Next morning Pinter and his coloured mate appeared on the ground early,
Pinter with some tools and the nigger with a windlass-bole on his
shoulders. Pinter chose a spot about three panels or thirty feet along
the other fence, the back fence of the cemetery, and started his hole.
He lost no time for the sake of appearances, he sunk his shaft and
started to drive straight for the point under the cemetery for which
Dave was making; he gave out that he had bottomed on good 'indications'
running in the other direction, and would work the ground outside the
fence. Meanwhile Dave rigged a fan--partly for the sake of appearances,
but mainly because his and Jim's lively imaginations made the air in the
drive worse than it really was. A 'fan' is a thing like a paddle-wheel
rigged in a box, about the size of a cradle, and something the shape of
a shoe, but rounded over the top. There is a small grooved wheel on the
axle of the fan outside, and an endless line, like a clothes-line, is
carried over this wheel and a groove in the edge of a high light wooden
driving-wheel rigged between two uprights in the rear and with a handle
to turn. That's how the thing is driven. A wind-chute, like an endless
pillow-slip, made of calico, with the mouth tacked over the open toe of
the fan-box, and the end taken down the shaft and along the drive--this
carries the fresh air into the workings.

Dave was working the ground on each side as he went, when one morning
a thought struck him that should have struck him the day Pinter went to
work. He felt mad that it hadn't struck him sooner.

Pinter and Kullers had also shifted their tent down into a nice quiet
place in the Bush close handy; so, early next Sunday morning, while
Pinter and Kullers were asleep, Dave posted Jim Bently to watch their
tent, and whistle an alarm if they stirred, and then dropped down into
Pinter's hole and saw at a glance what he was up to.

After that Dave lost no time: he drove straight on, encouraged by the
thuds of Pi