Wordlessly they made the trip back to the hole in the cave-in and then followed the trail of new-laid track to the shaft.

Up--up--the trip seemed endless as they jerked and pulled on the weighted rope, that their shaft bucket might travel to the surface.

Then, at the mouth of the tunnel, Robert Fairchild stood for a long time staring out over the soft hills and the radiance of the snowy range, far away.

It gave him a new strength, a new determination.

The light, the sunshine, the soft outlines of the scrub pines in the distance, the freedom and openness of the mountains seemed to instill into him a courage he could not feel down there in the dampness and darkness of the tunnel.