Johnson sat strangely silent.

“I’ll bolt the windows!” cried Nick.  Hardly had he disappeared into the dance-hall when a low whistle came to their ears.

“The signal—­they’re waiting,” said Johnson under his breath, and shot a quick look of inquiry at the Girl to see whether she had heard the sound.  A look told him that she had, and was uneasy over it.

“Don’t that sound horrid?” said the Girl, reaching the bar in a state of perturbation.  “Say, I’m awful glad you’re here.  Nick’s so nervous.  He knows what a lot o’ money I got.  Why, there’s a little fortune in that keg.”

Johnson started; then rising slowly he went over to the keg and examined it with interest.

“In there?” he asked, with difficulty concealing his excitement.

“Yes; the boys sleep around it nights,” she went on to confide.

Johnson looked at her curiously.

“But when they’re gone—­isn’t that rather a careless place to leave it?”

Quietly the Girl came from behind the bar and went over and stood beside the keg; when she spoke her eyes flashed dangerously.

“They’d have to kill me before they got it,” she said, with cool deliberation.

“Oh, I see—­it’s your money.”

“No, it’s the boys’.”

A look of relief crossed Johnson’s features.

“Oh, that’s different,” he contended; and then brightening up somewhat, he went on:  “Now, I wouldn’t risk my life for that.”

“Oh, yes, you would, yes, you would,” declared the Girl with feeling.  A moment later she was down on her knees putting bag after bag of the precious gold-dust and coins into the keg.  When they were all in she closed the lid, and putting her foot down hard to make it secure, she repeated:  “Oh, yes, you would, if you seen how hard they got it.  When I think of it, I nearly cry.”

Johnson had listened absorbedly, and was strangely affected by her words.  In her rapidly-filling eyes, in the wave of colour that surged in her cheeks, in the voice that shook despite her efforts to control it, he read how intense was her interest in the welfare of the miners.  How the men must adore her!

Unconsciously the Girl arose, and said: 

“There’s somethin’ awful pretty in the way the boys hold out before they strike it, somethin’ awful pretty in the face o’ rocks, an’ clay an’ alkali.  Oh, Lord, what a life it is anyway!  They eat dirt, they sleep in dirt, they breathe dirt ’til their backs are bent, their hands twisted an’ warped.  They’re all wind-swept an’ blear-eyed I tell you, an’ some o’ them jest lie down in their sweat beside the sluices, an’ they don’t never rise up again.  I’ve seen ’em there!” She paused reminiscently; then, pointing to the keg, she went on haltingly:  “I got some money there of Ol’ Brownie’s.  He was lyin’ out in the sun on a pile o’ clay two weeks ago, an’ I guess the only clean thing about him was his soul, an’ he was quittin’,