A choking came into Fairchild's throat.

He entered the tunnel slowly, ploddingly; with lagging muscles he hauled up the bucket which told of Harry's presence below, then slowly lowered himself into the recesses of the shaft and to the drift leading to the stope, where only a few days before they had found that gaunt, whitened, haunting thing which had brought with it a new misfortune.
A light gleamed ahead, and the sound of a single jack hammering on the end of a drill could be heard.

Fairchild called and went forward, to find Harry, grimy and sweating, pounding away at a narrow streak of black formation which centered in the top of the stope.
"It's the vein," he announced, after he had greeted Fairchild, "and it don't look like it's going to amount to much!" "No ?" Harry withdrew the drill from the hole he was making and mopped his forehead.
"It ain't a world-beater," came disconsolately.

"I doubt whether it 'll run more 'n twenty dollars to the ton, the wye smelting prices 'ave gone up! And there ain't much money in that.

What 'appened in Denver ?" "Another frame-up by the Rodaines to get the mine away from us.