When it came to a resumption of the mining operations, Philip found that they had acquired much more than a mere day-laborer in the experienced mining man. Quite apart from his great strength and apparently unlimited capacity for hard work, Garth’s practical knowledge of development processes proved invaluable, and it was at his suggestion that the tunnel was straightened and enlarged, its future drainage and ventilation provided for, and a rough-and-ready process of hand-picked ore-sorting made a part of each day’s task. “You got to look ahead a mile ’r so in this here minin’ game,” was the experienced one’s business-like argument. “You let on like you boys ain’t got the spondulix to buy a stamp-mill and tote it in over the mount’ins, so you either got to make a stock comp’ny o’ this bonanza o’ yourn ’r else lease it. Either way the cat jumps, it’s a-goin’ to pay big if yuh’ve got a sure-enough mine, with rich ore on the dump, to show up next spring.” For two tenderfoots to whom, as yet, all things mining-wise were unknown quantities, this practical advice was as water to the thirsty, so the development work was planned accordingly. By the time Bromley’s wound had healed and he was able to take his shift as third man in the heading, the work of drilling and blasting had been expertly systematized, and the stock of selected ore was growing day by day. Speculations as to what had become of the would-be jumpers died out after the first heavy snowfall, which blocked, not only the mountain passes, but the high-lying valley as well. Garth had argued from the first that, with at least one wounded man in the party, Neighbors would not try to hold his footing in the snowbound western wilderness through the winter. “Now that he knows whereabouts them high-grade assays o’ yourn come from, he’ll know how to beat the rush that’s shore goin’ to come chargin’ in here the minute the passes are open in the spring,” was Garth’s answer to the speculations; and since the snow blockade, daily added to, shut all intrusion out, no less effectually than it shut the occupants of the lonely log cabin in, the stirring incidents of the night of battle became only a memory, and the day’s work filled the cup of the days to overflowing for the three who had elected to brave the winter in the solitudes.