Well, he had probably been frightened off with Al Freeman's story and had proceeded to rake in as much loot as possible before the crash came. All the better for Bill, if he could pick up the vein again, or locate further deposits. It would be slow, with only two pairs of hands for the work. Bill could not even keep the compressor going, so that they could use the air drills. "It's the hand-drilling for us, Tommy," he decided, one night while they planned. "I can't afford to run that machinery--that's flat. I'm broke, so far as working men and machinery are concerned. I want you to know it before I start in. I've got less than a thousand dollars in the bank. I could borrow--I've a friend in California that would come in here and open things wide up, and like the fun of it. He doesn't know how rich he is; doesn't care. Never saw the bottom of his dollar pile, anyway. "But the truth of the matter is, I want to do this alone. If it takes the rest of my life, I mean to stick here and find that ore. I mean to bring Parowan to the front again. That's why I bought everything up and spent practically my last dollar to do it. But you don't have to stick. It isn't _your_ pride that was ground under their heels. If I hadn't been able--well, that doesn't matter, now. But thank the Lord my money held out! They can call me crazy, but they can't say I'm a quitter." "They can not. An' Tommy'll be right here when the boom comes back--make no mistake, Bill. The furrst place of business will be Tommy's Place--an' I'm keepin' it swep' out an' the glasses wiped, agin that day when we strike ore. I am, that." Bill did not answer. He was thinking of one other place that was swept and dusted regularly every Sunday. Not because he had any hope that Doris would live in it, nor because of any desire, even. It troubled him now and then to think how his heart was hardening toward Doris. Perhaps he did it for baby Mary; because he had built her a home. She wouldn't remember--but some day, when she was a woman, she could come back and see her little crib, up in the corner bedroom. A scuffed pair of shoes left in a drawer. A broken, rubber doll with the whistle torn out. And she would know that she had crept over these floors, had slept under this roof; that this had been her home. Never once did it occur to Bill that he could sell the furnishings of the house for enough money to hire miners, run his machinery, expedite his work in a dozen different ways. He would have fought the man who suggested such a thing.