As a matter of fact, Marvin was beginning to see light. At noon the tally-man hurried away, after sulkily asking Steve to watch the tally-board. First, however, the man made a memorandum of the tally, so that Steve could not change it without Marvin's being aware of the fact. The lad pretended not to have observed this, but a quiet smile hovered about the corners of his mouth as he laid out his lunch on a clean, white napkin on the bench beside him. Instead of going up in the cage, Marvin hastily climbed a ladder to the sub-level, where he waited for Spooner to come out. "Well, what is it?" demanded the contractor in a surly tone. "I've got wise to something. Where can we talk?" "Come over in the drift here. There's no one near by." The men slipped into a dead drift, extinguished their candles and engaged in earnest conversation. Bob Jarvis' shrewd eyes had observed the actions of the men. He was sitting in the Spooner contract eating his lunch, but they had not noticed him. "I wish I could find out what they are talking about," he muttered. "But I am not a spy. I don't know that I care particularly. I'll tell Steve, for I have an idea there is mischief in the air. There they go down the level." The two men climbed down the ladder to the main level. A few minutes later Steve saw Spooner alone, sauntering along the tracks. When the contractor reached the chute he halted, peering over at the lad as if he had just discovered him. "Hello, Rush," he greeted, turning and coming over to where Steve was sitting. "Good afternoon." Spooner sat down on the bench, and, for a moment or two, nothing was said, Steve continuing with his lunch as indifferently as if the contractor had not been there. "So you're the sneak who gave me away, are you?" demanded Spooner, turning upon the lad savagely. Steve eyed the contractor calmly. "Am I?" "You are!" "I may be the man, and in fact I will admit that I was instrumental in exposing your crookedness, but I am not a sneak. It strikes me that you have laid yourself open to being called one." The man's face turned white with anger. He opened and closed his fingers, with difficulty restraining himself from fastening them upon the calm-faced boy beside him. Steve munched his food steadily, but he was watching the man narrowly. "I--I'll be even with you for that, you sneaking cur!" shouted Spooner. "Yes, I'll be even with you!" "I wouldn't threaten, were I in your place. If anything should happen to me you might be accused, you know," answered Rush in a tantalizing tone. "What do you propose to do to me?" Spooner leaped up and shook his fist under the Iron Boy's nose. The latter did not flinch.