haking it
from their garments over the floor.

"A hell of a night to be out in," the one called Dave growled to his
fellow.

"Did you get the horses?" Moya asked timidly.

"They're in the tunnel." The ungracious answer was given without a
glance in her direction.

They were a black-a-vised, ill-favored pair, these miners upon whose
hospitality fate had thrown them. Foreigners of some sort they were,
Cornishmen, Moya guessed. But whatever their nationality they were
primeval savages untouched by the fourteen centuries of civilizing
influences since their forbears ravaged England. To the super-nervous
minds of these exhausted young women there was a suggestion of apes in
the huge musclebound shoulders and the great rough hands at the ends of
long gnarled arms. Small shifty black eyes, rimmed with red from drink,
suggested cunning, while the loose-lipped heavy mouths added more than a
hint of bestiality. It lent no comfort to the study of them that the
large whisky bottle was two-thirds empty.

They slouched back to their cards and their bottle. It had been bad
enough to find them sullen and inhospitable, but as the liquor
stimulated their unhealthy imaginations it was worse to feel the covert
looks stealing now and again toward them. Joyce, sleeping fitfully in
the arms of Moya, woke with a start to see them drinking together at the
table.

"I don't like them. I'm afraid of them," she whispered.

"We mustn't let them know it," Moya whispered in her ear.

For an hour she had been racked by fears, had faced unflinchingly their
low laughs and furtive glances.

Now one of the men spoke. "From Goldbanks?"

"Yes."

"You don't live there."

"No. We belong to the English party--Mr. Verinder's friends."

"Oh, Verinder's friends. And which of you is his particular friend?" The
sneer was unmistakable.

"We started out this afternoon for wild flowers and the storm caught
us," Moya hurried on.

"So you're Verinder's friends, are you? Well, we don't think a whole lot
of Mr. Verinder out here."

Moya knew now that the mention of Verinder's name had been a mistake.
The relations between the mine owners and the workmen in the camp were
strained, and as a foreign non-resident capitalist the English
millionaire was especially obnoxious. Moreover, his supercilious manners
had not helped to endear him since his arrival.

The man called Dave got to his feet with a reckless laugh. "No free
lodgings here for Mr. Verinder'