‘No, no, no; o’ course not.  P’raps he ain’t hurt ez bad ez you think.’

‘Tain’t the hurt, it’s this.  I on’y thought of it comin’ up the ladders.  Did yer notice where he fell?  He went back down the incline, fallin’ with his head a few feet up from the pumps.  Know what that means?  Harry Hardy’ll be found drowned!’

Dick heard Shine gasping for breath, and Rogers went on coolly: 

’He was in the Sunday afternoon shift at the pumps.  The water in the incline’ll rise up over him before the first workin’ shift goes down.’

‘Let’s go back, an’ drag him out.  Let’s go back!

‘Sit still, damn you!  Go back an’ be trapped, or be recognised if his senses return?  His candle was burnin’.’

’But it’s murder—­it’s murder!

‘Is it?  Listen here.  I noticed a lump o’ rock had fallen out o’ the roof.  It’ll be thought he was stunned by it, an’ drowned in the water as it rose.’

‘Man, it’s terrible.  Two brothers!  My sin is findin’ me out, Joe Rogers!

‘Shut up cant, d’you hear!  It served him thunderin’ well right.  What’d he want to come pokin’ into the mine at all fer?  What the devil did the other one interfere in what didn’t concern him fer?  But we’ve got it in spite of ’em.’  Rogers had plunged his hands into the skin bag.

‘All, Rogers, all!’ For the moment Shine’s cupidity triumphed over his fears.  ‘Every blessed ounce.  All the stuff I’ve been puddlin’ away in the floor o’ that drive fer weeks.  An’ the nugget, ain’t it a beauty—­ain’t it a beauty?  An’ to think I’ve been shepherdin’ that daisy fer ten shifts!

Dick crept closer and, peering through a slit in the great hollow trunk of the tree, saw that Rogers was handling the contents of the bag.  On his knee lay a gleaming mass that the boy knew to be a beautiful nugget.

’What devil’s luck brought that young fool to the ‘T’ drive?’

’He must ‘a’ heard you splashin’.  You wasn’t careful.’

’Ez careful ez I could be.  I had to scoop the stuff outer holes in the wet floor o’ the drive where I’d puddled it away in the mud.’

‘Ain’t there a chance fer him—­not a single hope?’

’Oh, yes, but it’s a bad un fer us if he recognised you.  There’s the chance o’ him recoverin’, an’ draggin’ himself out o’ the water.  Hullo! what in hell’s name’s happenin’ now?  Quick, cut for the scrub; someone’s comin’.  I’ll hide the bag here.  Come back when they’ve passed.’

Dick heard Rogers throw the calfskin bag into the hollow of the tree and scrape the loose rubbish over it, and then both glided away in the shadow of the Red Hand tips.  From beyond the tips came the beat of a horse’s hoofs, and the sound of human voices.  Dick’s first thought was of his pursuers, the troopers; his second of his escape; his third sent the blood surging through his veins and his heart beating like a piston.  A grand thought, a magnificent thought!  He could have cried out with exultation