Tighter and tighter grew the clasp of Joanne's fingers, and a terrible thought flashed into John's brain. Perhaps a, rock from the slide had cut a wire, and they had found the wire—had repaired it! Was that thought in Joanne's mind, too? Her finger-nails pricked his flesh. He looked at her. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were tense and gray. And then her eyes shot open—wide and staring. They heard, faintly though it came to them—once, twice, three times, four, five—the firing of a gun!
John Aldous straightened, and a great breath fell from his lips.
"Five times!" he said. "It is an answer. There is no longer doubt."
He was holding out his arms to her, and she came into them with a choking cry; and now she sobbed like a little child with her head against his breast, and for many minutes he held her close, kissing her wet face, and her damp hair, and her quivering lips, while the beat of the picks and the crash of the rock-hammers came steadily nearer.
Where those picks and rock-hammers fell a score of men were working like fiends: Blackton, his arms stripped to the shoulders; Gregg, sweating and urging the men; and among them—lifting and tearing at the rock like a madman—old Donald MacDonald, his shirt open, his great hands bleeding, his hair and beard tossing about him in the wind. Behind them, her hands clasped to her breast—crying out to them to hurry, hurry—stood Peggy Blackton. The strength of five men was in every pair of arms. Huge boulders were rolled back. Men pawed earth and shale with their naked hands. Rock-hammers fell with blows that would have cracked the heart of a granite obelisk. Half an hour—three quarters—and Blackton came back to where Peggy was standing, his face black and grimed, his arms red-seared where the edges of the rocks had caught them, his eyes shining.
"We're almost there, Peggy," he panted. "Another five minutes and——"
A shout interrupted him. A cloud of dust rolled out of the mouth of the tunnel, and into that dust rushed half a dozen men led by old Donald. Before the dust had settled they began to reappear, and with a shrill scream Peggy Blackton darted forward and flung her arms about the gold-shrouded figure of Joanne, swaying and laughing and sobbing in the sunshine. And old Donald, clasping his great arms about Aldous, cried brokenly:
"Oh, Johnny, Johnny—something told me to foller ye—an' I was just in time—just in time to see you go into the coyote!"
"God bless you, Mac!" said Aldous, and then Paul Blackton was wringing his hands; and one after another the others shook his hand, but Peggy Blackton was crying like a baby as she hugged Joanne in her arms.
"MacDonald came just in time," explained Blackton a moment later; and he tried to speak steadily, and tried to smile. "Ten minutes more, and——"