She had gone over to the Rodaines, she was engaged to marry the chalky-faced, hook-nosed son and she was vice-president of their two-million-dollar mining corporation.
Fairchild did not even strive to find a meaning for it all; women are women, and men do well sometimes if they diagnose themselves.
The summer began to grow old, and Fairchild felt that he was aging with it.

The long days beneath the ground had taught him many things about mining now, all to no advantage.

Soon they would be worth nothing, save as five-dollar-a-day single-jackers, working for some one else.
The bank deposits were thinning, and the vein was thinning with it.
Slowly but surely, as they fought, the strip of pay ore in the rocks was pinching out.

Soon would come the time when they could work it no longer.

And then,--but Fairchild did not like to think about that.
September came, and with it the grand jury.