"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.

"Hello!" he said, "where did this come from?"

The boy's heart began to throb, for once he had started to carry
that very lump to his grandfather, had changed his mind, and
thoughtlessly dropped it there. The geologist was looking at it
closely and then began to weigh it with his hand.

"This is pretty good-looking coal," he said, and he laughed. "I