The little light in his cap went out. Odin fell through darkness.
He fell into soft sand, doubling up as his feet touched it. Odin rolled
over and over, losing both flashlight and gun as he tumbled. Then he came
up against hard rock, with most of the wind knocked out of him, and lay
there gasping, feeling about him with frantic hands for the light and the
gun.

* * * * *

The old terror of the dark swept over him as he clutched this way and that
and found nothing. Then he got a grip on himself and laughed at his
fears--remembering that he had matches in his pockets.

The spurt of a match showed him his miner's cap not five feet away. He must
have missed it by inches as he was clutching about in the dark. He lit it
and soon found gun and flash.

Pointing his light upward, he could faintly see the knotted end of his rope
swinging back and forth up there against the precipice. It was his only
link with the outside world, and it was far out of reach. He shrugged and
played the light about the cavern into which he had ventured.

The walls of the crevice into which he had fallen were never over ten
feet apart and in spots were less than three. But the sandy bed sloped
noticeably downward, so downward he went. Only pausing occasionally to
take a mouthful of water from his canteen or eat a bite or two. His
watch had been broken in that last fall. He threw it away.

The air grew hotter. So hot at last that Odin had to pause more often
and rest upon the sand. But it too was hot, as though it had never known
anything but this one temperature.

Stumbling along, his nostrils and chest burning, and something thumping in
his ears, he finally fell to his knees. Jack Odin lay there for a long
time. But the floor of the cavern still led downward. So, with nothing else
left in his mind, he got to his knees and crawled on.

That last determination saved him. A cool breath of air struck him in the
face. He toiled downward and was soon in a wider cavern that was so cold
that he was shivering. He rested again and then went on. The cold grew
worse.

Odin came to a tunnel of ice. The faint smell of ammonia set him to
coughing. It was nearly as uncomfortable here as the heat had been a few
hours before. But he kept on. Finally, there was no ice left on the walls
about him. The air grew warmer.

Soon the walls opened out until he could scarcely see them with his
flashlight. Playing it upward he could only