At first it appeared only like a succession of disjointed, broken stones, lying in straggly fashion along the footwall of the drift where it widened into the stope, or upward slant on the vein.
Then, it came forth clearer, the thin outlines of something which clutched at the heart of Robert Fairchild, which sickened him, which caused him to fight down a sudden, panicky desire to shield his eyes and to run,--a heap of age-denuded bones, the scraps of a miner's costume still clinging to them, the heavy shoes protruding in comically tragic fashion over bony feet; a huddled, cramped skeleton of a human being! They could only stand and stare at it,--this reminder of a tragedy of a quarter of a century agone.

Their lips refused to utter the words that strove to travel past them; they were two men dumb, dumb through a discovery which they had forced themselves to face, through a fact which they had hoped against, each more or less silently, yet felt sure must, sooner or later, come before them.

And now it was here.
And this was the reason that twenty years before Thornton Fairchild, white, grim, had sought the aid of Harry and of Mother Howard.

This was the reason that a woman had played the part of a man, singing in maudlin fashion as they traveled down the center of the street at night, to all appearances only three disappointed miners seeking a new field.

And yet-- "I know what you 're thinking." It was Harry's voice, strangely hoarse and weak.