"Whut you doin' up here?" he asked roughly, and the girl shrank, and her message stopped at her lips. "They're comin' up here," she faltered. The boy's eyes accused her mercilessly and he seemed not to hear her. "You've been spyin'!" The dignity of his manhood was outraged, and humbly and helplessly she nodded in utter abasement, faltering again: "They're comin' up here!" "Who's comin' up here?" "Them strangers an' grandpap an' Uncle Arch--an' another rock-pecker." "Did you tell'em?" The girl crossed her heart and body swiftly. "I hain't told a soul," she gasped". I come up to tell you." "When they comin'?" The sound of voices below answered for her. The boy wheeled, alert as a wild-cat, the girl slid noiselessly down the cliff and crept noiselessly after him down the bed of the creek, until they could both peer through the bushes down on the next bend of the stream below. There they were--all of them, and down there they had halted. "Ain't no use goin' up any furder," said the voice of Arch Hawn; "I've looked all up this crick an' thar ain't nary a blessed sign o' coal." "All right," said the colonel, who was puffing with the climb. "That suits me--I've had enough." At Jason's side, Mavis echoed his own swift breath of relief, but as the party turned, the rock-pecker stooped and rose with a black lump in his hand. "Hello!" he said, "where did this come from?" The boy's heart began to throb, for once he had started to carry that very lump to his grandfather, had changed his mind, and thoughtlessly dropped it there. The geologist was looking at it closely and then began to weigh it with his hand. "This is pretty good-looking coal," he said, and he laughed. "I guess we'd better go up a little farther--this didn't come out all by itself." The boy dug Mavis sharply in the shoulder. "Git back into the bushes--quick!" he whispered. The girl shrank away and the boy dropped down into the bed of the creek and slipped down to where the stream poured between two bowlders over which ascent was slippery and difficult. And when the party turned up the bend of the creek, Arch Hawn saw the boy, tense and erect, on the wet black summit of one bowlder, with his old rifle in the hollow of his arm. "Why, hello, Jason!" he cried, with a start of surprise; "found anything to shoot?" "Not yit!" said Jason shortly. The geologist stepped around Arch and started to climb toward the foot of the bowlder. "You stop thar!" The ring of the boy's fiery command stopped the man as though a rattlesnake had given the order at his very feet, and he looked up bewildered; but the boy had not moved. "Whut you mean, boy?" shouted Arch. "We're lookin' for a vein o' coal." "Well, you hain't a-goin' to find hit up this way." "Whut you want to keep us from goin' up here fer?" asked the uncle with sarcastic suspicion. "Got a still up here?" "That's my business," said little Jason.