't want to fight, but to know Purlrose
and his men. Yes, we must have pitch torches. I can bring any number
of them, for we use them sometimes in the big parts of the mine, where
the smoke doesn't matter. Well, it all seems easy enough. I don't
believe there'll be a door to batter down, only a curtain across to keep
the wind out, and it's a very narrow place, I remember. I went just
inside once."

"I went in fifty yards or more, with Nick Garth," said Ralph, "and we
had candles. We were looking for lead, but it was all stone shells."

"Oh, there's no lead there," said Mark confidently. "We've got all the
lead worth working at the Black Tor."

"Yes, I'm afraid so; but there's a warm spring of water in there, and
from where we stopped, you could hear water running and falling, ever so
far-off."

"But what was it like, as far as you went in?"

"Just as if the mountain had been cracked, and both sides of the crack
matched, only sometimes they were two feet apart, and sometimes twenty
or more, making big chambers."

"Yes; some of our mine's like that," said Mark thoughtfully. "I say,
enemy: think they set any sentries?"

"No, I don't believe they would."

"Then we'll rout them out; and if we can't do that, we'll drive them
farther in, and pile up big stones at the entrance, and starve them till
they surrender."

"Yes," cried Ralph eagerly, as he looked at his companion with the same
admiration Mark had displayed when he had proposed taking the torches.
"Capital: for the place is so big, that I don't believe we could find
them all. Yours will be the way."

"Well, I think it is right," said Mark suddenly; "but we must catch old
Purlrose to-night."

"We will if we can," said Ralph.

"Well then, that's all. It's as easy as easy. All we've got to do is
to get our best men together, and meet--Ah! where shall we meet?"

"At Steeple Stone, half-way there. That will be about the same distance
for you to come as for us."

"That's good," cried Mark gleefully. "But we must have a word to know
each other by. What do you say to `foes?'"

"Oh, that won't do," said Ralph. "`Friends?'"

"But we're not friends; we're--we're--what are we."

"Allies," said Ralph quietly.

"Why not that, then? Yes, of course. `Allies.' Can't be better."

"`Allies,' then," said Ralph.

"Well, what next?"

"To get the stuff together to fight with," replied Ralph.

"What, the men? Yes, of course. Then we'd better see