His face looked gray, but his mouth was hard and his eyes shone with savage rage.

Thirlwell thought the man's passion was dangerous, and running up, got in front of him and sent Drummond to the shaft.
"Load up that broken rock," he said.

"If you leave the job and come back here, I'll fire you out." He was disturbed by the quarrel, because he understood something of Driscoll's feelings when stung by the taunt.

Then he was curious about Drummond's object for making it, and wondered how much he knew.

He kept them apart and when they stopped at noon Driscoll came up to him.
"I want to quit when the week's up," he said.
"Why ?" Thirlwell asked, looking hard at him.
"For one thing, I've put up most of the new timbers and guess she'll hold for a while.