their speech. All of the men who had welcomed the appearance of
the women on their arrival with such obvious delight and with so
much embarrassment seemed now as oblivious of their presence as
Clay himself.

Miss Langham pushed her horse up into the group beside Hope, who
had kept her pony close at Clay's side from the beginning; but
she could not make out what it was they were saying, and no one
seemed to think it necessary to explain. She caught Clay's eye
at last and smiled brightly at him; but, after staring at her for
fully a minute, until Kirkland had finished speaking, she heard
him say, ``Yes, that's it exactly; in open-face workings there is
no other way,'' and so showed her that he had not been even
conscious of her presence. But a few minutes later she saw him
look up at Hope, folding his arms across his chest tightly and
shaking his head. ``You see it was the only thing to do,'' she
heard him say, as though he were defending some course of
action, and as though Hope were one of those who must be
convinced. ``If we had cut the opening on the first level, there
was the danger of the whole thing sinking in, so we had to begin
to clear away at the top and work down. That's why I ordered the
bucket-trolley. As it turned out, we saved money by it.''

Hope nodded her head slightly. ``That's what I told father when
Ted wrote us about it,'' she said; ``but you haven't done it at
Mount Washington.''

``Oh, but it's like this, Miss--'' Kirkland replied, eagerly.
``It's because Washington is a solider foundation. We can cut
openings all over it and they won't cave, but this hill is most