The abrupt crashing of a horse’s hoofs awoke the echoes and the world again. She was gone; and, for a full minute after the gray old rocks and the shadows had encompassed her, there stood in the purple twilight a man too overcome with happiness to move, to think, to comprehend, to breathe!
CHAPTER XV
“MR. SLOAN SPEAKS”
“Wow! Somethin’ seems to have kind of livened up the gloom of this dump, seems to me,” exclaimed Bill on the following morning, when returning from his regular trip underground, he stamped into the office, threw himself into a chair, and hauled off one of his rubber boots preparatory to donning those of leather.
Dick had been bent over the high desk, with plans unrolled before him, and a sheet of paper on which he made calculations, whistling as he did so.
“First time I’ve heard you whistle since we left the Cœur d’Alenes,” Bill went on, grinning slyly, as if secretly pleased. “What’re you up to?”
“Finding out if by sinking we couldn’t cut that green lead about two hundred feet farther down.”
“Bully boy! I’m with you!” encouraged the older miner, throwing the cumbersome boots into the corner, and coming over behind Dick, where 241 he could inspect the plans across the angle of the other’s broad shoulder. “How does she dope out?”