This went to his heart. He would have given his black-thorn shillalah from Dublin to have been looked upon as a full-fledged miner. He used to put on all the airs of one in Sweetwater when he went down there once a week, swaggering about in copper-riveted jeans, with his hat on one side, conversing learnedly though vaguely on “blow-outs,” “horses,” “foot-walls,” and other technicalities, hauling out of his pockets yellow-flecked bits of quartz--in short, “putting on dog” to an amazing extent. But as he turned past the stamp-mill of the Great Snake and began to scale the heart-breaking trail that led to the top of the ridge, his crest began to fall. As he followed the narrow, level summit for the three miles of its length, standing as it were in the very blueness of the air, his spirits began to evaporate. When he took the shorter and gentler descent to the camp, the old conviction had returned with sickening force. He was not a miner. He had never “shot.” He used all his persuasive powers in vain. For one thing, the men were afraid to disobey King. For another, they liked Pat, and, having a firm faith in his “hoodoo,” were convinced that his “shooting” and sudden death would be synonymous terms. So Pat abandoned persuasion and tried craft. The old shaft on which he and Bob had first begun work had been carried down fifty feet. Appropriate cross-cuts and drifts had been made to exploit the lead. It was now abandoned. Bob and Pat were put to work at another spot in the same lead a little farther along the ridge. The place marked out for the first blast was between two huge bowlders, or rather between the two rounded cheeks of one bowlder. The passage between them was perhaps five or six feet wide. One end led out in a gradual descent to the broad, open park of the ridge top, the other dropped off abruptly three or four feet to another level place. Around the corner of the first the miners kept their tools and forge; down the second they planned to drop when the blast was fired; and there they had built a little fire, it being, on that particular day, in the lee of the rock. The hole had been all drilled before Bob discovered that he had forgotten to bring any powder; so, cursing, he started down the passage to get some from the sheet-iron powder-house in the draw. Hardly was he out of sight before McCann, chuckling softly to himself, pulled from under a shelving bit of rock the missing powder. With this he loaded the hole; he arranged the fuse, and then dropped down the ledge to get a brand from the fire. It was nearly out, so it took a few moments to start a torch. However, he was in no hurry, as it was some little distance to the powder-house, and Bob could not possibly return inside of half an hour. At last he coaxed a bit of pine into a glow, and turned to climb back. A startling sight met his eyes.