“Get to hell out of here! You’ve done enough harm for one night.” Hughson, with his white night-shirt half out of his trousers, his boots unlaced, and his eyes still heavy from sleep, shoved him aside and took hold of the lever. Slowly he lowered the “skip.” It seemed to Loring an hour before it reached the bottom. Then again on the pipe, for the bellrope was broken, was rapped the signal. “One—one—one——one.” In the night air the clank of the taps on the metal sounded ghostly. Slowly the bucket came to the surface. The two men who had descended were holding in it a swaying figure. Many hands lifted the figure gently to the ground. The doctor bent over it, then shook his head. “Nothing doing,” he said dryly, and they laid the body beside the other. A commanding voice echoed through the group. It was Mr. Cameron’s. “Where is Loring?” he asked decisively. Stephen, in the background, turned away, and, with a face like chalk etched with acid, stumbled down the hill. Complete agony possessed him. Hitherto, when he had failed, he had hurt himself alone. Now he was little better than a murderer. Drunk on duty, when men’s lives were dependent upon him! By some blind instinct he found his way to his tent, pulled back the flap, and entered. Lynn was snoring quietly in his corner. His boots lay on the floor, strange shapes in the dark. The alarm clock standing on the table close by his head ticked softly and monotonously. Loring gasped for breath, swayed, and fell unconscious upon his cot. The bodies of the two miners had been carried to the hospital, and with Hughson in charge of the hoist, the ore buckets were again coming up, when Mr. Cameron and McKay left the scene of the accident and through the darkness groped their way down the hill. “Some one told me that he’d seen Loring drinking this evening,” said McKay. “That explains all,” answered Mr. Cameron gruffly. “I should have known! I should have known! After the experience with men that I have had, to put a man like Loring in a position of responsibility! I am the one who is to blame for this. And yet he did seem to have pulled himself together. This will finish him, though. Mark me, McKay, before this he has been going to hell with the brakes on. Now he will run wild. Two men dead! That is a rather heavy reckoning for Mr. Stephen Loring to settle with himself. If I did not owe so much to him, I would have him in prison for to-night’s work.” McKay nodded solemnly. “I liked him a lot. I thought that he had different stuff in him. As you say, this will probably finish his chances; but it may,” he hesitated, “it may make a man out of him. If this don’t, God himself can’t help him.” “What were the names of the men?” asked Mr. Cameron. “Marques was one. He used to work for me. The other was a new man, Duran, or Doran, some one said was his name.” “Were they married?” queried Mr. Cameron. “No.” “That is a blessing. Well, good night, McKay. I shall see Loring in the morning.”