Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-08-03

wise, and they stood and watched him as he
swung away down the lane toward the lake,
appearing as one who disappears into the
night as he stepped from the broadly Lit
path. Before he had found the boatman
they were again laughing and swaying
through the dance; although he was filled
with unusual bitterness and rebellion against
the inequalities of life.
CHAPTER III.
TIM arrived home late, and in his sleep was
again talking with Brewer and hearing
his predictions. He awoke with feeling
that his own life was hollow and worthless
compared with what other men were doing;
but took refuge in the thought that at least
he was no drone. His day opened as usual.
There was the same preparation for work,
the same starting of the little gang out to the
two ends of the tunnel from. vllich they
worked toward each other, and the veriica-
ton of his surveys. There was at least the
joyful knowledge that within short time
the bore would be complete, save at the lake,
where it would be necessary to construct a
cofferdam before blowing out the. last re-
naming barrier.
AS working partner Jim had Frenchy,
whose taciturnity always seemed to depart
after the camp was left behind, and whose
hard-earned knowledge of mining made him
an exceptionally competent man. Their end
of the work was that nearest the lake; while
Hardpan usually accompanied the other two
miners, Ridley and Osborne, to the other
end, which entered from the deep canyon
that they proposed to make their outlet.
Once there, the old man usually rumbled
some orders that were almost as necessary as
if they had been spoken in Arabic; for what
ever else may be said of Ridley, there was no
he af,,1lxr
directing how the holes should be planted
the old man usually spat profusely, took a
long look at the little stream that babbled in
the bed of the canyon below, and then re-
turned to begin work on the cofferdam. He
had served in almost every capacity in a mine,
and knew everything from the sharpening of
drill, and timbering, to the exact quantity
of rock that any shot should break in given
formation. He had but two boasts,-his
knowledge of mining, and the peaceable-
ness of his disposition. OF the latter he was
wont to assert that he had always found it
easier to run away than to fight, and that
he had never struck or shot man in anger
in his life.
Jim and Frenchy descended the shaft,
found their candles where they had left them
at the foot of the ladder made their way
round the crude car whose box was used as
bucket for hosting out, and trudged off down
the tunnel. From their end there was no
bad air to be fought, and at the opposite
end water blower, constructed by Hard
pan, and operated from the stream in the
canyons bed, kept the tunnel pure. At
their end the shattered rock was hoisted out
by mule power, and at the other end, where
gravity assisted, it was merely braked down
to the tunnels mouth and dumped over into
the gulch below.
WHEN Hardpan Brown told Miss
Waters that they would either make
or break on the venture, he had told the
truth, and as matter of cold calculation
Jim knew that the bore was being finished
only in time. They had taken a brave but
somewhat reckless chance. All they had to
go by was an old mans story, tradition, the
general slope of the ground around the edges
of the little lake they proposed to drain, and
that crude prospecting, made under diff
culties, which led them to know that for a
few feet from the shore at least there was
gold. And now, as Jim walked into the
tunnel and stood in front of the face they
were to assault that day, he was compelled
to admit that as their work neared finish
he was apprehensive of the outcome AS he
struck the drill his mind was merely review
irU oil tbot bod baa,, iona ua ra,,,a,,,lo~oJ