“Well, what can you expect?” chuckled the latter. “You know in their marriage ceremony the brave puts the bit of his pony in the mouth of his prospective bride. Sort of a symbol of equality and companionship between man and wife, I reckon.” As the twilight turned to dusk, the group gradually dissolved, till Loring alone was left on the steps. It was peaceful there, and as he drew on his old black pipe, a healthy feeling of contentment permeated him. He felt that he could do his new work well. His last lessons, he thought, had taught him concentration. He saw himself working up again to a position of power. For some reason that even to himself was only vaguely defined, he felt that now it was all infinitely worth while. As for drink, he merely thought of it as an episode of the past. Stephen’s worst fault lay in not grappling with his enemies until they had him by the throat. As he sat smoking and dreaming, he was aroused by a cheerful salutation. “Howdy, me bludder? Me bludder, he feel fine?” Stephen looked up to see Hop Wah standing in the road before him. With his derby hat, yellow face, coal black pig-tail, and with a five-cent cigar drooping from one corner of his mouth Wah was a strange combination of Occident and Orient. “Fine, thanks!” answered Loring, “but what are you doing up here in camp now, Wah?” Wah proudly puffed at his cigar, and blew a wreath of gray smoke from between his flat lips. “Me cook for the company here, now. Makee pie ebbrey day. Oh, lubbly, lubbly pie! Me bludder come to back door, and I give him some. Oh, lubbly, lubbly pie! Goodee bye. Goodee bye, me bludder!” Then Wah departed in the direction of the _tienda_, marching cheerfully along to his old refrain: “La, la, boom, boom; la, la, boom, boom.” “The crazy Chinaman!” laughed Stephen. “He certainly enjoys life, though.” Loring rose and knocked out the ashes of his pipe on the steps. Then he walked towards his tent. They were just dumping the slag from the smelter, and he watched the glowing slag pot shoot along the track in front of him. As if by magic it checked at the end of the heap, and poured its molten, flashing stream far over the embankment. The whole camp glowed with a clear, all-suffusing orange light. The outline of the surrounding mountains loomed out blue-black. The glow faded to dull red, then dwindled to a mere thread of light, then disappeared, and all was dark again. During the next two months, with a concentration of which he had never before thought himself capable, Stephen slaved at learning his task. To feel that in his hands lay the lives of the sixteen men of the shift gave him a sense of responsibility, which in all his former work had been completely lacking. He was so faithful in the performance of his duties that even the critical Mr. Cameron was secretly pleased, while Jean watched with growing interest her father’s experiment, and felt that at last Loring had ceased to drift.