the
young woman from her feet. She was a coquette, of course, but when his
eyes fell like a plummet into hers they sounded depths beneath the
surface foam. At such times the beat of the surf sounded in his blood.
The spell of sex, with all its fire and passion, drew him to this lovely
creature so prodigal of allure.

The leading couples stood for a moment's breathing space near the
summit. Beneath them the squalid little town huddled in the draw and ran
sprawling up the hillsides. Shaft-houses and dumps disfigured even the
business street.

Joyce gave a laughing little shudder. "Isn't it a horrid little hole?"

Jack looked at her in surprise, but it was Moya that answered.

"Oh, I don't think so, Joyce. Of course it's not pretty, but--doesn't it
seem to stand for something big and--well, indomitable? Think of all the
miles of tunnels and stopes, of all the work that has gone into making
them." She stopped to laugh at her own enthusiasm before she added:
"Goldbanks stands to me for the hope in the human heart that rises in
spite of everything. It is the product of an idea."

Miss Seldon gave a little lift to her superb shoulders. "You're
incurably romantic, Moya. It's only a scramble for money, after all."

"Don't know about that, Miss Seldon," disagreed Captain Kilmeny. "Of
course it's gold they all want. But gold stands for any number of good
things, tangible and abstract--success, you know, and home, and love,
and kiddies, the better development of the race--all that sort of
thing."

"Is that what it means to the highgraders too?" Joyce let her smiling
eyes rest with innocent impudence in those of the miner.

Kilmeny showed no sign of discomfiture. His gaze met hers fully and
steadily. "Something of that sort, I suppose."

"Just what _is_ a highgrader?"

Moya held her breath. The debonair lightness of the question could not
rob it of its significance. Nobody but Joyce would have dared such a
home thrust.

Jack laughed dryly. "A highgrader is a miner who saves the company for
which he works the trouble of having valuable ore smelted."

"But doesn't the ore belong to the company?"

"There's a difference of opinion about that. Legally it does, morally it
doesn't--not all of it. The man who risks his life and the support of
his family by working underground is entitled to a share of the profit,
isn't he?"

"He gets his wages, doesn't he?"

"Enough to live on--if he doesn't want to live too high. But is