"Perhaps he's trying to make up for what Bill won't earn now," suggested Paul, quietly. "That's so," said Derrick. "I never thought of that, Polly; and I haven't thanked you yet for going down into the mine to look for me last night, or told you what a splendid fellow I think you are." "Please don't, Derrick," interrupted Paul, with a troubled expression; "you mustn't thank me for anything I tried to do for you. Don't I owe you more than anything I can ever do will pay for? Didn't you bring me out of the burning breaker? and don't I love you more than most anybody on earth?" "Well, you're a plucky fellow anyway," said Derrick, "and I'd rather have you down in the mine if there was any trouble than half of the men who are there. Let's stop and see how Bill Tooley's getting along on our way home." "All right," assented Paul; "only if his mother's there I shall be almost afraid to go in." As the boys walked away from the vicinity of the check-board, a man who had come up the slope but a few minutes before, and had been watching them unobserved, stepped up to it. He was Job Taskar the blacksmith, known to the men who met in the chamber at the bottom of the air-shaft, in the old workings, as Body-master of Raven Brook. The check boss had asked him to stop there a minute, and look out for any cars that might come up, while he stepped inside the breaker. Casting a hurried glance around to see that no one was looking, Job Taskar slipped three of Monk Tooley's checks from their peg, thrust them into his pocket, altered the chalked figure above the peg, and resumed his place. When Derrick and Paul reached the Tooleys' house it seemed to them even more noisy than usual. Several women sat gossiping with Mrs. Tooley in the door-way, while a dozen children and several dogs ran screaming or barking and quarrelling in and out of the room where the sick boy lay. They asked his mother how he was, and what the doctor had said of his condition. "Ye can go in and see for yourselves how he is," was the reply, "there's naught to hinder. Doctor said he was to be kept perfectly quiet and have nussin', but how he's going to get either with them brats rampaging and howling, and me the only one to look after them, is more than I know." Accepting this invitation, the boys stepped inside, and picking their way among the children and dogs to the untidy bed on which Bill lay, spoke to him and asked him if there was anything they could do for him. He was conscious, though very weak and in great pain, and on opening his eyes he whispered, "Water." For more than an hour he had longed for it, until his parched tongue was ready to cleave to the roof of his mouth, but nobody had come near him, and he could not make himself heard above the noise of the children. Taking the tin dipper that lay on a chair beside the bed Derrick went out to the hydrant to fill it with the cool mountain water that flowed there.