He used to smoke his pipe and watch the little woman and Babe go “high-grading” along the tunnel wall.  That was what she called it and pretended that she expected to find very rich ore concealed somewhere.  It struck him one day, quite suddenly, that the Little Woman (I may as well begin to use capitals, because Casey always called her that in his mind, and the capitals were growing bigger every day) the Little Woman never seemed to notice his smoking, or to realize that it is a filthy habit and immoral and degrading, as that other woman had done.

He began to notice other things, too; that the Little Woman helped him a lot, on afternoons when help was most likely to be appreciated.  She sometimes “put down a hole” all by herself, skinning a knuckle now and then with the lightest “single-jack” and saying "darn!" quite as a matter of course.

And once, when the rock was particularly hard, she happened along and volunteered to turn the drill while Casey used the “double-jack”, which I suppose you know is the big hammer that requires two hands to pound the drill while another turns it slightly after each blow, so that the bitted end will chew its way into hard rock.

You aren’t all of you miners, so I will explain further that to drill into rock with a double-jack and steel drill is not sport for greenhorns exactly.  The drill-turner needs a lot of faith and a little nerve, because one blow of the double-jack may break a hand clasped just below the head of the drill.  And the man with the double-jack needs a steady nerve, too, and some experience in swinging the big hammer true to the head of the drill,—­unless he enjoys cracking another man’s bones.

Casey Ryan prides himself upon being able to swing a double-jack as well as any man in the country.  It is his boast that he never yet broke the skin on the hand of his drill-turner.  So I shall have to let you take it for granted that the Little Woman’s presence and help was more unnerving than a wildcat on Casey’s back.  For, while the first, second and third blows fell true on the drill, the fourth went wild.  Casey owns that he was in a cold sweat for fear he might hit her.  So he did.  She was squatted on her heels, steadying one elbow on her knee.  The double-jack struck her hand, glanced and landed another blow on her knee; one of those terribly painful blows that take your breath and make you see stars without crippling you permanently.

Casey doesn’t like to talk about it, but once he growled that he did about every damn-fool thing he could with a double-jack, except brain her.  The Little Woman gave one small scream and went over backward in a faint, and Casey was just about ready to go off and shoot himself.

He took her up in his arms and carried her down to the cabin before she came to.  And when she did come to her senses, Babe immediately made matters worse.  She was whimpering beside her mother, and when she saw that mamma had waked up, she shrilled consolingly:  “It’s going to be all well in a minute.  Casey Ryan kissed it des like that! So now it’ll get all well!”