e opened them, so he stopped trying
to talk.

"Get back, Mr. Throcker--let me get my hands down and help Mr.
Steering." It was the girl's voice, and the girl was beside Steering,
quiet and capable.

"Oh, you?" said Steering. He had known all these seconds that he was
doing this for her, but the strain that he was on had somehow pulled him
beyond the comprehension of her as actual; for the last ten seconds she
had been rather a big abstraction, a high principle of his soul, a good
desire in his heart. To see her there before him was to see abstraction,
principle, desire becoming adequately incarnate. "No, you mustn't try to
reach down here,--your arms aren't long enough,--the commotion on the
edge here is dangerous,--if you will just put something, your
handkerchief, under my face where the sharp little rocks are at it,--ah,
you should not have done _that_!"--she had slipped her hands beneath his
face, and the touch of her fingers was like velvet as she worked away
the sticking, stinging bits of ore and rock that worried him. He had not
known how chief a part in his sensation of discomfort those bits had
played until he could bury his face in the relief of her soft hands. As
a matter of fact, with those bits out of his cheeks,--and his face in
her hands,--he felt no great discomfort at all. If it had not been for
her shivering sigh of relief he would have been sorry when the miners
drew Madeira up. Madeira had not spoken, and he was purple as they
carried him to a place of safety some distance back on the ledge.

"He is just the sort of man physically who ought not to be subjected to
choking experiences," said Steering. One of the miners had brought
water, and Steering and Miss Madeira were reviving Madeira with it.
Madeira did not seem to be unconscious, but his senses were obtunded,
and it was some minutes before he could sit up.

"God bless my soul! God bless my soul!" he said, at last, and shivered.
Then he turned to Steering: "My boy, you know how to hold on. I believe
you've got as much stick-to-it-iveness as I have." It was his supremest
form of acknowledgment, and, in making it, he made, too, an impression
upon Steering that he resented the circumstances that compelled him to
make it.

They got back to the upper air presently, followed by a cheer from the
mine force below. The miners had watched Steering perform one of those
supernatural feats of strength and endurance that an onlooker can never
explain aft