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McGuire went up the stairs and into another hall; not so large, but, if possible, more dimly lighted than the one below. At the front room door he paused a moment to fit a key, then, entering, pushed the door behind him.

A jet with no more than a thread's thickness of blue flame burned over a flat-topped table. By rising on tiptoes he could reach the jet; when he turned this the flame came up with a flare, causing the shadows to vanish backwards, as if scattered by fright. They clustered in corners and against a far wall, for the room was very large.

There was a wide grate near the middle of the inner wall, where the miner had wanted a fireplace that would be suitable to the home of one who had slept by camp-fires on the mountain-side. Now the hearth was dirtied with partly-burned and charred papers—handbills, discarded letters, the litter of numberless transients that had come drifting in off the seas and departed, unquestioned.

McGuire bent down to the bottom drawer of the table. With a strong tugging pull he drew it half out. Something made a faint click and clink, like the sleepy rustling of timid things when disturbed in the dark; then the light struck shimmeringly down on a scattered heap of gold coins. He knelt, picking out a few of the smaller coins, which are the less conspicuous when being spent.