e struggling along in a
hopeless way; and when Gwyn caught his arm to save him from falling, he
turned and smiled at him feebly.

"Legs won't go any longer," he said gently; and, sinking upon his knees,
he lay down on the bare rock, placed his hand under his face as he
uttered a low sigh, and Gwyn said quietly,--

"That's right; have a nap, and then we'll go on again."

There was no reply, and Gwyn bent over him and held the lanthorn to his
face.

"How soon anyone goes to sleep!" he said softly. "Seems to be all in a
moment."

The boy stood looking down at his companion for a few moments, and then
turned with the light to inspect their position.

They were in a curve of one of the galleries formed by the extraction of
the veins of tin ore, and there was little to see but the ruddy-tinted
walls, sparkling roof, and dusty floor. A faint dripping noise showed
him where water was falling from the roof, and in the rock a basin of
some inches in depth was worn, from which he refreshed himself, and then
felt better as he walked on for a hundred yards in a feeble, weary way,
to find that which gave him a little hope, for the gallery suddenly
began to run upward, and came to an end.

"But it may only be the end of this part," muttered Gwyn; "there are
others which go on I suppose, but one can't get any farther here, and
that's something."

He walked back to where Joe lay sleeping heavily, after convincing
himself of the reason why the turning had come to an end where it did,
for the vein had run upward, gradually growing thinner till, at some
thirty feet up, as far as he could make out by his dim light, the men
had ceased working, probably from the supply not being worth their
trouble.

Joe was muttering in his sleep when Gwyn reached his side, but for a
time his words were unintelligible. Then quite plainly he said,--

"Be good for you, father. The mine will give you something to do, and
then you won't have time to think so much of your old wounds."

"And if he has got out safely and they never find us, this will be like
a new wound for the poor old Major to think about," mused Gwyn. "How
dreadful it is, and how helpless we seem! It's always the same; gallery
after gallery, just alike, and that's why it's so puzzling. I wonder
whether any of the old miners were ever lost here and starved to death."

The thought was so horribly suggestive that the perspiration came out in
great drops on the boy's face, and