-radiantly.

"I'll be lookin' fer ye," she said simply.




VI


The old man went with him up the creek and, passing the milk
house, turned up a brush-bordered little branch in which the
engineer saw signs of coal. Up the creek the mountaineer led him
some thirty yards above the water level and stopped. An entry had
been driven through the rich earth and ten feet within was a
shining bed of coal. There was no parting except two inches of
mother-of-coal--midway, which would make it but easier to mine.
Who had taught that old man to open coal in such a way--to make
such a facing? It looked as though the old fellow were in some
scheme with another to get him interested. As he drew closer, he
saw radiations of some twelve inches, all over the face of the
coal, star-shaped, and he almost gasped. It was not only cannel
coal--it was "bird's-eye" cannel. Heavens, what a find! Instantly
he was the cautious man of business, alert, cold, uncommunicative.

"That looks like a pretty good--" he drawled the last two words--
"vein of coal. I'd like to take a sample over to the Gap and
analyze it." His hammer, which he always carried--was in his
saddle pockets, but he did not have to go down to his horse. There
were pieces on the ground that would suit his purpose, left there,