In the morning Westbrook left the house before breakfast and boarded the eight o’clock train for Skinner Valley.
XVI
Westbrook had gone back to Skinner Valley for a talk with Pedler Joe, having it in his mind to tell the little hunchback his life story as that of a friend of his and so get the benefit of sound advice without quite betraying his secret. But the door opened suddenly and Bill Somers burst into the store.
“There’s another blow-up at the mine!” he gasped thickly. “An’ the old man’s daughter—she——”
“What old man’s daughter?” demanded Westbrook, his lips white.
“She—Barrington’s girl—is down there in that hell! She went in with her friends at two o’clock. They——”
“Which entrance?” thundered Westbrook, with his hand on the door.
“Beachmont! They——”
Westbrook dashed down the steps and across the sidewalk, whipped out his knife and cut loose a horse from the shafts of a wagon in front of the store. The next moment he had mounted the animal and was urging it into a mad run toward the Beachmont entrance of the Candria mine.
Again did he face a crowd of weeping women and children crazed with terror; but this time there stood among them the bowed form of the great mine-king himself. John Barrington’s lips were stern and set, and only his eyes spoke as he grasped Westbrook’s hand.