“Young Rovetta just told me. He was there, and heard it with his own ears.” He was staring at her. “Let’s go and make sure,” he said, and they started up the main street of the village. On the way they were joined by others--for already the news of this fresh trouble had begun to spread. Jeff Cotton went past them in an automobile, and Mary exclaimed, “I told ye so! When ye see him goin’, ye know there’s dirty work to be done!” They came to the shaft-house of Number Two, and found a swarm of people, almost a riot. Women and children were shrieking and gesticulating, threatening to break into the office and use the mine-telephone to warn the men themselves. And here was the camp-marshal driving them back. Hal and Mary arrived in time to see Mrs. David, whose husband was at work in Number Two, shaking her fist in the marshal’s face and screaming at him like a wild-cat. He drew his revolver upon her; and at this Hal started forward. A blind fury seized him--he would have thrown himself upon the marshal. But Mary Burke stopped him, flinging her arms about him, and pinning him by main force. “No, no!” she cried. “Stay back, man! D’ye want to get killed?” He was amazed at her strength. He was amazed also at the vehemence of her emotion. She was calling him a crazy fool, and names even more harsh. “Have ye no more sense than a woman? Running into the mouth of a revolver like that!” The crisis passed in a moment, for Mrs. David fell back, and then the marshal put up his weapon. But Mary continued scolding Hal, trying to drag him away. “Come on now! Come out of here!” “But, Mary! We must do something!” “Ye can do nothin’, I tell ye! Ye’d ought to have sense enough to know it. I’ll not let ye get yeself murdered! Come away now!” And half by force and half by cajoling, she got him farther down the street. He was trying to think out the situation. Were the men in Number Two really in danger? Could it be possible that the bosses would take such a chance in cold blood? And right at this moment, with the disaster in the other mine before their eyes! He could not believe it; and meantime Mary, at his side, was declaring that the men were in no real danger--it was only Alec Stone’s brutal words that had set her crazy. “Don’t ye remember the time when the air-course was blocked before, and ye helped to get up the mules yeself? Ye thought nothin’ of it then, and ’tis the same now. They’ll get everybody out in time!”