tion!

"You can't imagine what wonderful plans he has. He's a genius--that
young man is, Peter! And you--you--are to be his chief executive, the
viceroy of Len Yang! The chief of mines, of transportation, of labor!
He told me that millions of dollars of capital are at your disposal.

"Last night we planned a great railroad line, running from the mines to
Chosen and Peking and Tientsin! Think of it, Peter! What opportunity!

"While I," Eileen went on blithely, "am to start a hospital. No more
blindness, no more sickness, in Len Yang. And shorter working hours.
And an age limit. And schools. And good food, and lots of it!

"From now on our work is to assume a world-wide importance. Word came
over the wireless late last night that Germany has finally started the
long-expected European war. Kahn Meng believes every nation will be
drawn into it. So there is another menace for you to help stamp
out--the Dragon of Europe. Kahn Meng says these mines, and the copper
and iron mines, nearer the coast, can help--wonderfully!"

Peter felt vastly happy, too enthralled to believe that the state could
endure. He stood up from the cot and looked down into the bright face
of the one woman in the world. It was radiant, very pink, now, and her
round eyes were tender and meek. Perhaps she was a little frightened
by the fierceness which had developed in his expression.

She opened her arms with a little laugh. He crushed her close. Their
lips met and clung.

He pushed her away, and his blue eyes were impassioned.

Eileen smiled. "Look!"

The white snow on the high peaks across the valley glowed with the
heavy gold of sunrise. Far below them, midway to the green wall, he
saw a great mass of people. There were hundreds packed about the mouth
of the shaft. He wondered why they were waiting; then the shrill voice
of a crier penetrated the cool morning air. The thousands waited in
silence.

Peter wondered at their dumbness in the face of the news that the man
who had ridden them into blindness, into starvation and death, was no
longer to tyrannize over them.

The crier continued to shout his singsong.

How would the spirit of that mob react to the announcement?

The singsong halted, and for a breathless moment the miners, too, were
silent.

Then a great volume of sound disturbed the morning hush. It swelled in
volume, rose in key--a great thunder, the thunder of laughing voices,
the hysterical joy of a peo