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"Oh, we never use that word out in this country it is considered far too coarse, my dear," and Farnham's thin lips curled sardonically. "We merely 'silence' our enemies in Colorado. It is an extremely simple matter; nothing at all disagreeable or boorish about it, I can assure you. A stick of dynamite dropped quietly down a shaft-hole, or pushed beneath a bunk house that's all.
Therefore they combined to swear what seemed a very likely thing, and might be true for all they knew, to wit, that Gwenny had come to seek for her father down the shaft-hole, and peering too eagerly into the dark, had toppled forward, and gone down, and lain at the bottom as dead as a stone.
He brought the huge ore-bucket to the surface, dumped its load of rock over the edge of the shaft-hole, and had permitted it to run down swiftly to the waiting Mike, when a slight noise behind sent the man whirling suddenly about, his hand instinctively reaching forth toward the discarded but ready rifle.
There was a deserted gallery opening from the shaft-hole some forty feet below the surface; he saw the glimmer of light reflected along its wall as they passed, but the cage dropped to a considerably lower level before it stopped, and the men stepped forth into the black entry.
Just beyond them yawned the black opening of their shaft-hole, the rude windlass outlined against the gray background of rock, while somewhat to the left, seemingly overhanging the edge of the cliff, perched a single-roomed cabin of logs representing home. This was the "Little Yankee" claim, owners William Hicks and "Stutter" Brown.
They had been laboriously deciphering a letter of considerable length and peculiar illegibility, and the slow but irascible Stutter had been swearing in disjointed syllables, his blue eyes glaring angrily across the gully, where numerous moving figures, conspicuous in blue and red shirts, were plainly visible about the shaft-hole of the "Independence," the next claim below them on the ledge.
The lower millstone paved the hearth, the upper, the diameter of its shaft-hole increased by chipping to the size of a musk-melon, had been set by some freak of the farmer-architect's heavy fancy as a coping on the top of the big stone shaft.
The next minute I was seated on the stone, with my feet resting on the side of the shaft-hole, and drawing up the raw-hide rope hand over hand. After pulling up some feet of it I came upon a knot which felt secure, and I then hauled again till I came upon another, also well made.
Therefore they combined to swear what seemed a very likely thing, and might be true for all they knew, to wit, that Gwenny had come to seek for her father down the shaft-hole, and peering too eagerly into the dark, had toppled forward, and gone down, and lain at the bottom as dead as a stone.
Brown roughly jerked his gun from out its holster, holding the shining weapon up into the starlight. "No, he didn't; not that one," he growled fiercely, his glance falling again upon the upturned features of the dead girl. "I saw him out thar runnin' toward our shaft-hole; h-he's up t-ter more d-deviltry. Y-you take k-keer o' her." His voice broke, then rang out strong.
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