Alexander had stood waiting for a while at the edge of the rock, wondering who these men might be who were approaching with such an extremity of caution. Once more she was called on to endure the heart-chill of suspense, but when finally two figures slipped through the shaft-mouth with cocked rifles thrust out before them that tautness of nerve eased into relaxation. One of them--palpably nervous--was Will Brent. The other, with eyes agleam and an eagerness keyed for battle, was Jerry O'Keefe. Yet as both took in the narrow and seemingly deserted area between the coal-seamed walls, their faces became heavy with disappointment. Other men followed them until eight or ten had crowded into the cavern, and very dejectedly Brent said, "We're too late. They've been here and gone." Alexander, peering silently over the top of her rock, missed the face of Bud Sellers, the one man she had wholly trusted. She told herself that to suspect Brent or O'Keefe was ungenerous, yet out of her recent viscissitudes an exaggerated instinct of caution had been born, and she waited to judge the complexion of affairs before she revealed herself. Jerry's engaging face grew vengefully dark as he turned toward Brent and spoke apprehensively. "Ther place stinks with burnt gun-powder! Does ye reckon she showed fight--and they hurt her? Afore God, men, ef thet's true, I aims ter do some killin' my own self--I hain't nuver seed her but oncet--but I aims ter wed with thet gal!" Then with a laugh that pealed through the place and brought them all around startled, Alexander emerged from her concealment. "I almost feels sorry thet they didn't finish me--ef thet's ther fate thet's in store fer me," she announced. Her eyes squarely met those of Jerry O'Keefe, and he reddened furiously, but at once Brent began asking and answering questions and in that diversion of attention the young mountaineer found escape from his discomfiture. The rescue party had encountered none of the men who had so recently vacated the mine. Outside the woods were "masterly wild and la'relly" and poroused with cavernous crags. The conspirators had evidently scattered and melted from sight as bees melt into a honeycomb. But Alexander's face grew again serious and pained as she gave her most important information. "You men come a leetle too late. I driv 'em off--but them thet went last tuck my saddle-bags away with 'em." Brent's only response to that was a brief gesture of despair. So after all the plotting, the counterplotting, the dangers and hardships; after all her own gallant efforts, the girl had lost the game. He looked at her as she stood there repressing under a stoical blankness of expression, emotions which he thought must sum up to a worm-wood bitterness of spirit. "We're wasting time here," he announced after a brief and painful pause. "They can't have gone far--we must comb these woods." But Alexander shrugged her shoulders.