t they had come from out of the pit
of death, and that men were fighting for their rescue. They asked
themselves no questions--why the "coyote" had not been fired? how those
outside knew they were in the cavern. And, as they listened, there came to
them a voice. It was faint, so faint that it seemed to whisper to them
through miles and miles of space--yet they knew that it was a voice!

"Some one is shouting," spoke Aldous tensely. "Joanne, my darling, stand
around the face of the wall so flying rock will not strike you and I will
answer with my pistol!"

When he had placed her in safety from split lead and rock chips, he drew
his automatic and fired it close up against the choked tunnel. He fired
five times, steadily, counting three between each shot, and then he placed
his ear to the mass of stone and earth and listened. Joanne slipped to him
like a shadow. Her hand sought his, and they held their breaths. They no
longer heard sounds--nothing but the crumbling and falling of dust and
pebbles where the bullets had struck, and their own heart-beats. The picks
and rock-hammers had ceased.

Tighter and tighter grew the clasp of Joanne's fingers, and a terrible
thought flashed into John's brain. Perhaps a, rock from the slide had cut a
wire, and they had found the wire--had repaired it! Was that thought in
Joanne's mind, too? Her finger-nails pricked his flesh. He looked at her.
Her eyes were closed, and her lips were tense and gray. And then her eyes
shot open--wide and staring. They heard, faintly though it came to
them--once, twice, three times, four, five--the firing of a gun!

John Aldous straightened, and a great breath fell from his lips.

"Five times!" he said. "It is an answer. There is no longer doubt."

He was holding out his arms to her, and she came into them with a choking
cry; and now she sobbed like a little child with her head against his
breast, and for many minutes he held her close, kissing her wet face, and
her damp hair, and her quivering lips, while the beat of the picks and the
crash of the rock-hammers came steadily nearer.

Where those picks and rock-hammers fell a score of men were working like
fiends: Blackton, his arms stripped to the shoulders; Gregg, sweating and
urging the men; and among them--lifting and tearing at the rock like a
madman--old Donald MacDonald, his shirt open, his great hands bleeding, his
hair and beard tossing about him in the wind. Behind them, her hands
clasped to