On a spike in the timbering hung an alarm clock ... and a gun belt, weighted with revolver and ammunition. At regular, frequent intervals, the blows of his jack were checked and he sat crouched there, head forward and a trifle to one side, as though he were listening. When no sound save the singing of his candle wick reached his ears, he went on, regularly, evenly, purposeful. Possibly the tension that showed about his mouth became more noticeable after each of these brief periods when he strained to catch sounds. With a final blow Benny left off the rhythmic swing, wiped his forehead with a wrist, poured water from a small tin bucket into the hole on which he was at work and picked up his jack to resume the swinging. He glanced at the clock. "It's time," he said aloud, his voice reverberating hollowly in the place. He put down his hammer quickly and rose from his squatting position as though he had neglected to perform some important duty. He took down the gun belt, slung it about his waist, and, making a reflector of his hollowed hand for the candle, started out along the tunnel, walking swiftly, intent on a definite end. When he reached the point where the darkness of the drift was dissipated by the white sunlight, he extinguished his feeble torch, jabbed the candlestick into the hanging-wall and reached for a pair of binoculars that, in their worn and battered case, hung from the timbering. "This is 'n elegant day," he said aloud, as he walked out on to the dump, manipulating the focusing screw of the glass and looking cautiously around at the pine clad mountains which stretched away to right, left and behind him. Evidently his mind was not on his words or on the idea; he was merely keeping up his game of pretense, while beneath the surface he was alert, expectant. Near the foot of the pile of waste rock was the log cabin with its red, iron roof and protruding stove pipe. Far below him and running outward like a great tinted carpet spread Manzanita Valley. Close in to the base of the hills on which he stood a range of bald, flat-topped, miniature buttes made, from his eminence, a low welt in its contour, but beyond that and except for an occasional island of knee-high oak brush it seemed to be without mar or blemish. Here and there patches of deeper color showed and the experienced eye knew that there the country swelled or was cut by washes, but, otherwise, it all seemed to be flat, unbroken. On this immense stretch of country Benny trained the glass. His manner was intent, resolute. Each hour during daylight he had been making that observation for a fortnight; every time he had anticipated reward, action. Aided by the lenses he picked out the low buttes, saw a spot that he knew was a grazing horse, a distant shimmering blotch of mellow white canopied by a golden aura that meant sheep, turned his body from left to right in swift, sweeping inspection.