They heard, faintly though it came to them--once, twice, three times, four, five--the firing of a gun! John Aldous straightened, and a great breath fell from his lips.
"Five times!" he said.

"It is an answer.

There is no longer doubt." He was holding out his arms to her, and she came into them with a choking cry; and now she sobbed like a little child with her head against his breast, and for many minutes he held her close, kissing her wet face, and her damp hair, and her quivering lips, while the beat of the picks and the crash of the rock-hammers came steadily nearer.
Where those picks and rock-hammers fell a score of men were working like fiends: Blackton, his arms stripped to the shoulders; Gregg, sweating and urging the men; and among them--lifting and tearing at the rock like a madman--old Donald MacDonald, his shirt open, his great hands bleeding, his hair and beard tossing about him in the wind.

Behind them, her hands clasped to her breast--crying out to them to hurry, _hurry_--stood Peggy Blackton.

The strength of five men was in every pair of arms.