He was already morally convinced that the Farnham people were actively engaged in stealing the “Little Yankee” ore; that they were running their tunnel along the lead of the latter; that they were doing this systematically, and fully conscious of the danger of discovery.  His lines of survey, the nature of the ore bodies, the muffled sound of picks, plainly discernible in the silent breast of the “Little Yankee” while he lay listening with ear to the rock, as well as the close secrecy, all combined to convince him fully of the fact.  Yet such vague suspicions were perfectly useless.  He must have absolute, convincing proof, and such proof could be obtained nowhere excepting at the bottom of the “Independence” shaft.

He talked over the situation frankly with the two partners in the little single-roomed cabin perched on the cliff edge, while the obedient though grumbling Mike, rifle in hand, sat solemnly on the dump pile without.  Little by little the three conspirators worked out a fairly feasible plan.  There were numerous chances for failure in it, yet the very recklessness of the conception was an advantage.  Winston, his face darkened as a slight disguise, and dressed in the rough garments of a typical miner, was to hide beside the footpath leading between the “Independence” bunk-house and the shaft.  Should one of the men chance to loiter behind the others when the working shift changed at midnight, Brown was to attend to him silently, relying entirely upon his giant strength to prevent alarm, while Winston was promptly to take the vacated place among the descending workmen.  By some grim fate this crudely devised scheme worked like a well-oiled piece of machinery.  A sleepy-headed lout, endeavoring to draw on his coat as he ran blindly after the others, stumbled in the rocky path and fell heavily.  Almost at the instant Stutter Brown had the fellow by the throat, dragging him back into the security of the cedars, and Winston, lamp and dinner-pail in hand, was edging his way into the crowded cage, his face turned to the black wall.

That was five hours before.  At the very edge of the black, concealing chaparral, within easy rifle range of the “Independence” shaft-house, Hicks and Brown lay flat on their faces, waiting and watching for some occasion to take a hand.  Back behind the little cabin old Mike sat calmly smoking his black dudheen, apparently utterly oblivious to all the world save the bound and cursing Swede he was vigilantly guarding, and whose spirits he occasionally refreshed with some choice bit of Hibernian philosophy.  Beneath the flaring gleam of numerous gasoline torches, half a dozen men constantly passed and repassed between shaft-house and dump heap, casting weird shadows along the rough planking, and occasionally calling to each other, their gruff voices clear in the still night.  Every now and then those two silent watchers could hear the dismal clank of the windlass chain, and a rattle of ore on the dump, when the huge buckets were