t, and then, as his master did not follow, he
whined, and made as if to leap out.

"Lie down, sir. Going down. Wait for us at the bottom."

The dog couched, and the engineer asked if he'd stay.

"Oh, yes, he'll stay," said Gwyn. Then, obeying a sudden impulse, he
took his basket, and placed it beside the dog at the bottom of the iron
skep. "Watch it, Grip!" he cried, and the dog growled. "He wouldn't
leave that."

"Till every morsel's devoured," said Joe. Then click went the break, a
bell rang, and the skep descended, while the little party stepped one by
one on to the man-engine, and began to descend by jumps and steps off,
lower and lower, till in due time the bottom was reached, where Grip sat
watching the basket just inside the great archway, the skep he had
descended in having been placed on wheels, and run off into the depths
of the mine, while a full one had taken its place and gone up.

Then the party started off with their candles and the big lamp, first
along by the tram line, after Sam Hardock had peered into a big, empty
sumph, and then on and on, past where many men were busy chipping,
hammering, and tamping the rock to force out masses of ore, while,
before they had gone half-a-mile, there was a tremendous volley of
echoes, which seemed as if they would never cease, and the party
received what almost seemed a blow, so heavy was the concussion.

But neither Gwyn nor Joe started, and the dog, who had gone ahead,
merely came trotting back to look at his master, and then bounded off
again into the darkness, as if certain that there was a cat somewhere
ahead which ought to be hunted out of the mine.

Familiarity had bred contempt; and fully aware that the noise was only
the firing of a shot to dislodge some of the ore for shovelling into the
iron skeps, they went on without a word.

They must have been a couple of miles from the shaft, every turn of the
way being marked with a whitewash arrow, when Hardock stopped to trim
his light, and his example was followed by his companions, the result of
their halting being that Grip came trotting back out of the darkness to
look up inquiringly, and then, satisfied with his examination, he
bounded off again to find that imaginary cat. He soon came rushing
back, though, on finding that he was not followed; for, after turning to
give his companions a meaning nod, Hardock suddenly turned down a narrow
opening which joined the gallery they were following at a s