"Ain't it just what I expected? It's better that wye than to 'ave 'im snoopin' around. When I came up to the mine, 'e was right behind me. I knew it. And I 'd figured on it. So I just gave 'im something to get excited about. It was n't a minute after I 'd thrown a rock and my 'at in there and let out a yell that he came thumping in, looking around. I was 'iding back of the timbers there. Out 'e went, muttering to 'imself, and I—well, I went to Center City and read the papers."
They chuckled together then; it was something to know that they had not only forced Squint Rodaine to show his enmity openly, but it was something more to make him the instrument of helping them with their work. The pumps were going steadily now, and a dirty stream of water was flowing down the ditch that had been made at one side of the small tram track. Harry looked down the hole, stared intently at nothing, then turned to the rusty hoist.
"'Ere 's the thing we 've got to fix up now. This 'ere chiv wheel's all out of gear."
"What makes your face so red?" Fairchild asked the question as the be-mustached visage of Harry came nearer to the carbide. Harry looked up.
"Mother 'Oward almost slapped it off!" came his rueful answer. "For not telling 'er what I was going to do, and letting 'er think I got drownded. But 'ow was I to know?"
He went to tinkering with the big chiv wheel then, supported on its heavy timbers, and over which the cable must pass to allow the skip to travel on its rails down the shaft. Fairchild absently examined the engines and pumps, supplying water to the radiators and filling an oil cup or two. Then he turned swiftly, voicing that which was uppermost in his mind.
"When you were here before, Harry, did you know a Judge Richmond?"
"Yeh." Harry pawed his mustache and made a greasy, black mark on his face. "But I don't think I want to know 'im now."
"Why not?"
"'E's mixed up with the Rodaines."