The big chamber was filled, leaving barely room for the men to work with their drills at the final holes that would be needed to clear the vein to the foot wall on the other side and enable the miners to start upward on their new stope.

Fairchild looked about him proudly, happily; it was his, his and Harry's--if Harry ever should come back again--the thing he had worked for, the thing he had dreamed of, planned for.
Some one brushed against him, and there came a slight tug at his coat.
Fairchild looked downward to see passing the form of Anita Richmond.

A moment later she looked toward him, but in her eyes there was no light of recognition, nothing to indicate that she had just given him a signal of greeting and congratulation.

And yet Fairchild felt that she had.

Uneasily he walked away, following her with his eyes as she made her way into the blackness of the tunnel and toward the shaft.