"But--" then the laugh came again--"maybe if you 're good and--well, maybe I 'll tell you after a while." "Honest ?" "Of course I 'm honest! Is n't that the skip ?" Fairchild walked to the shaft.

But the skip was not in sight.

A long ten minutes they waited, while the great steel carrier made the trip to the surface with Harry and Sheriff Bardwell, then came lumbering down again.

Fairchild stepped in and lifted Anita to his side.
The journey was made in darkness,--darkness which Fairchild longed to turn to his advantage, darkness which seemed to call to him to throw his arms about the girl at his side, to crush her to him, to seek out with an instinct that needed no guiding light the laughing, pretty lips which had caused him many a day of happiness, many a day of worried wonderment.

He strove to talk away the desire--but the grinding of the wheels in the narrow shaft denied that.