But now that his decision was made, he must act, and that promptly.  What was the first thing to be done?  Why, the first thing always was to confide in Uncle Billy, and to ask for his advice.

He seized his hat and started up the village street and across the hill to Burnham Breaker There was no lagging now, no indecision in his step, no doubt within his mind.

He was once more brave, hopeful, free-hearted, ready to do anything or all things, that justice might be done and truth become established.

The sun shone down upon him tenderly, the birds sang carols to him on the way, the blossoming trees cast white flowers at his feet; but he never stayed his steps nor turned his thought until the black heights of Burnham Breaker threw their shadows on his head.

CHAPTER XV.

AN EVENTFUL JOURNEY.

The shaft-tower of Burnham Breaker reached up so high from the surface of the earth that it seemed, sometimes, as if the low-hanging clouds were only a foot or two above its head.  In the winter time the wind swept wildly against it, the flying snow drifted in through the wide cracks and broken windows, and the men who worked there suffered from the piercing cold.  But when summer came, and the cool breeze floated across through the open places at the head, and one could look down always on the green fields far below, and the blossoming gardens, and the gray-roofed city, and the shining waters of the Lackawanna, winding southward, and the wooded hills rising like green waves to touch the far blue line of mountain peaks, ah, then it was a pleasant place to work in.  So Bachelor Billy thought, these warm spring days, as he pushed the dripping cars from the carriage, and dumped each load of coal into the slide, to be carried down between the iron-teethed rollers, to be crushed and divided and screened and re-screened, till it should pass beneath the sharp eyes and nimble fingers of the boys who cleansed it from its slate and stone.

Billy often thought, as he dumped a carload into the slide, and saw a huge lump of coal that glistened brightly, or glowed with iridescent tints, or was veined with fossil-marked or twisted slate, that perhaps, down below in the screen-room, Ralph’s eyes would see the brightness of the broken lump, or Ralph’s fingers pick the curious bits of slate from out the moving mass.  And as he fastened up the swing-board and pushed the empty car to the carriage, he imagined how the boy’s face would light up with pleasure, or his brown eyes gleam with wonder and delight in looking on these strange specimens of nature’s handiwork.

But to-day Ralph was not there.  In all probability he would never be there again to work.  Another boy was sitting on his bench in the screen-room, another boy was watching rainbow coal and fern-marked slate.  This thought in Bachelor Billy’s mind was a sad one.  He pushed the empty car on the carriage, and sat down on a bench by the window to consider the subject of Ralph’s absence.