barrier. They counted their steps as they went, to
themselves. They came to the twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second,
and were peering fixedly ahead. Together they stopped and turned
toward each other. Dimly in the faintly thrown light of the candle
beams, they could see it, the dusky gray mass where hope had pictured
a continuing blackness. The wall leered at them as they stood there
panting, despairing, desperate as trapped animals. Their imaginations
told them the end.

"Well, old man"--Bill's voice sounded with exceptional softness--"they
didn't extend this drift any farther. All we can do now is to go up
and sit down at the foot of it, and--wait!"

"But it won't take long, Bill," Dick replied. "The air, you know. It
can't last forever."

They trudged forward for the few remaining yards and then, abruptly,
the candle they were carrying gave a little flicker. This time they
stopped in their tracks and shouted. Bill suddenly loosened his hold
on the younger man's shoulder and began hopping forward, and the light
threw huge, grotesque, strangely moving shadows on the wall ahead of
them. Dick ran after him, crowding on his heels and shouting
meaningless hopes. Abruptly they came to a right-angle drift, and
then, but a few yards down it, they discovered an upraise, crude and
uncared-for, but climbing into the higher darkness, and down this
there streamed fresh air.

It was such a one as prospectors make, having here and there a pole
with cleats to serve as a ladder, then ascending at an incline which,
though difficult, was not impossible, and again reverting to rocky
footholds at the sides. Up this Dick boosted his partner, thrusting a
shoulder beneath his haunches and straining upward with the exultation
of reaction. They were saved! He knew it! The fresh air told that
story to their experienced nostrils. Up, up, up they clambered for a
long slanting distance and then fell out on the floor of another
drift, at whose end was a shadowy light. Again they hobbled down a
long length, ever approaching their goal. Bill stopped and leaned
against the side wall and voiced his exultation.

"I know where we are," he exclaimed. "This is the blacksmiths' tunnel.
They made that upraise following the ore, and that's why the mine was
opened for the second time here. They didn't complete the plans
because they knew the old work was useless. Dick, we've been through
some pretty hard times together and had some narrow shaves; but