“Where are the rest of the boys?” Saunders asked one of them.
“Some of them are in the workings, some of them on the range, but I guess it was for Vancouver the Fraser crowd started out. Seemed to me they meant to get there before they stopped.”
Just then a shower of sparks fell about them and charred a hole or two in Devine’s clothes, while they had a momentary vision of the front of the conflagration. It was not a reassuring spectacle, for the rolling sea of fire flung itself aloft in glittering spray to the tops of the highest firs, and the valley rang with the roar it made.
“Well,” said Saunders, reflectively, “I don’t know that I blame the Fraser crowd, and one of the boys was telling me not long ago that the settlement he came from was burned out. A thing of that kind makes a man cautious. Anyway, it’s quite hot enough here, and we’ll hump this truck along to the adit.”
The others agreed that it would be advisable, but most of the things were heavy, and it was some little time later when Weston lighted a fish-oil lamp in the heading and held it up. The narrow tunnel seemed half-full of rolled-up blankets, flour-bags and slabs of pork, and a group of men, some of whose faces were blackened, sat among them.
“Our lot came in first. Have you got it all?” Weston asked.
They found the flour and pork, the tea and Saunders’ rifle, as well as a couple of hammers and several drills; but Weston did not seem satisfied.
“Where are my clothes?” he asked.
None of them seemed to know, though it became evident that his city garments were, at least, not in the adit.
“Guess they’ll be frizzled quite out of fashion if you left them in the shack,” said one of the men. “A miner has no use for getting himself up like a bank clerk anyway.”