Then a huge wooden drum wrapped with wire
was left overnight outside his lips and unrolled the next morning,
every yard of it being stretched so far down his throat that he
lost all track of it.
On the following morning work of every kind ceased; not a man with
a lamp anywhere--and these The Beast hated most; that is, none
that he could see or feel. After an hour or more the head man
arrived and with two others went inside. The head man was tall and
fair, had gray side whiskers and wore a slouch hat; the second man
was straight and well built, with a boyish face tanned by the
weather. The third man was short and fat: this one carried a plan.
Behind the three walked five other men.
All were talking.
"The dip is to the eastward," the head man said. "The uplift ought
to clear things so we won't have to handle the stuff twice. Hard
to rig derricks on that slope. Let's have powder enough, anyhow,
Bolton."
The fat man nodded and consulted his plan with the help of his
eye-glasses. Then the three men and the five men passed in out of
hearing.
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