touch the top of the vein with the tips of his fingers.  No vein half that thick had the rock-pecker with all his searching found, and the lad gave a long, low whistle of happy amazement.  A moment later he dropped his pick, climbed over the pile of new dirt, emerged at the mouth of the passage, and sat down as if on guard in the grateful coolness of the little ravine.  Drawing one long breath, he looked proudly back once more and began shaking his head wisely.  They couldn’t fool him.  He knew what that mighty vein of coal was worth.  Other people—­fools—­ might sell their land for a dollar or two an acre, even old Jason, his grandfather, but not the Jason Hawn who had dug that black giant out of the side of the mountain.

“Go away, boy,” the rock-pecker had said, “Get an education.  Leave this farm alone—­it won’t run away.  By the time you are twenty-one, an acre of it will be worth as much as all of it is now.”

No, they couldn’t fool him.  He would keep his find a secret from every soul on earth—­even from his grandfather and Mavis, both of whom he had already been tempted to tell.  He rose to his feet with the resolution and crouched suddenly, listening hard.  Something was coming swiftly toward him through the undergrowth on the other side of the creek, and he reached stealthily for his rifle, sank behind the bowlder with his thumb on the hammer just as the bushes parted on the opposite cliff, and Mavis stood above him, peering for him and calling his name in an excited whisper.  He rose glowering and angry.

“Whut you doin’ up here?” he asked roughly, and the girl shrank, and her message stopped at her lips.

“They’re comin’ up here,” she faltered.

The boy’s eyes accused her mercilessly and he seemed not to hear her.

“You’ve been spyin’!”

The dignity of his manhood was outraged, and humbly and helplessly she nodded in utter abasement, faltering again: 

“They’re comin’ up here!”

“Who’s comin’ up here?”

“Them strangers an’ grandpap an’ Uncle Arch—­an’ another rock-pecker.”

“Did you tell’em?”

The girl crossed her heart and body swiftly.

“I hain’t told a soul,” she gasped”.  I come up to tell you.”

“When they comin’?”

The sound of voices below answered for her.

The boy wheeled, alert as a wild-cat, the girl slid noiselessly down the cliff and crept noiselessly after him down the bed of the creek, until they could both peer through the bushes down on the next bend of the stream below.  There they were—­all of them, and down there they had halted.

“Ain’t no use goin’ up any furder,” said the voice of Arch Hawn; “I’ve looked all up this crick an’ thar ain’t nary a blessed sign o’ coal.”

“All right,” said the colonel, who was puffing with the climb.  “That suits me—­I’ve had enough.”

At Jason’s side, Mavis echoed his own swift breath of relief, but as the party turned, the rock-pecker stooped and rose with a black lump in his hand.