at Escondido he would be watched for--not to say that, when he was
missed, some of the searching party would straightway go to Escondido to
frustrate him. Present escape was not to be thought of.

Instead, Mr. Long made a hearty meal from the simple viands that had
been in course of preparation when he was surprised, eked out by canned
corn fried in bacon grease to a crisp, golden brown. Then, after a
cigarette, he betook himself to sharpening tools with laudable industry.
The tools were already sharp, but that did not stop Mr. Long. He built a
fire in the forge, set up a stepladder of matched drills in the
blackened water of the tempering tub; he thrust a gad and one short
drill into the fire. When the gad was at a good cherry heat he thrust it
hissing into the tub to bring the water to a convincing temperature; and
when reheated he did it again. From time to time he held the one drill
to the anvil and shaped it, drawing it alternately to a chisel bit or a
bull bit. Mr. Long could sharpen a drill with any, having been, in very
truth, a miner of sorts--he could toy thus with one drill without giving
it any very careful attention, and his thoughts were now busy on how
best to be Mr. Long.

Accordingly from time to time he added an artistic touch to Mr.
Long--grime under his fingernails, a smudge of smut on an eyebrow. His
hands displeased him. After some experimenting to get the proper heat of
it he grasped the partially cooled gad with the drill-pincers and held
it very lightly to a favored few of those portions of the hand known to
chiromaniacs as the mounts of Jupiter, Saturn and other extinct
immortals.

Satisfactory blisters-while-you-wait were thus obtained. These were
pricked with a pin; some were torn to tatters, with dust and coal rubbed
in to give them a venerable appearance. The pain was no light matter;
but Mr. Long had a real affection for Mr. Bransford's neck, and it is
trifles like these that make perfection.

The next expedient was even more heroic. Mr. Long assiduously put
stone-dust in one eye, leaving it tearful, bloodshot and violently
inflamed; and the other one was sympathetically red. "Bit o' steel in my
eye," explained Mr. Long. Unselfish devotion such as this is all too
rare.

All this while, at proper intervals, Mr. Long sharpened and resharpened
that one long-suffering drill. He tripped into the tunnel and smote a
mighty blow upon the country rock with a pick--therefore qualifying that
p