I
don't care for many more like that! Come on. Help me out. I want you
to take a look and see if my head is any whiter than it was at nine
o'clock this mornin' when we went into that other hole."

CHAPTER V

THE AGED ENGINEER

The sunlight was good to see again--good as only sunlight can be when
men have not expected ever again to be enlivened by its glory. They
were astonished at the shortness of the time of their imprisonment.
They had lived years in dread thought, and but a few hours in reality.
They had suffered for the spans of lives to find that the clock had
imperturbably registered brief intervals. They had played the gamut of
dread, terror, and anguish, to learn how trivial, after all, was the
completed score.

"I think that will do," said Dick, with a sigh of relief, as he
straightened up from bandaging Bill's leg. "The stitches probably hurt
some, but aside from a day's stiffness I don't think you will ever
know it happened."

"Won't eh?" rumbled the patient. "Sure, the leg's all right; but it
ain't bruised limbs a man remembers. They heal. You can see the scars
on a man's legs, but only the Lord Almighty can see those on his mind,
and they're the only ones that last. Dick, now that it's all over, I
ain't ashamed to tell you that there was quite a long spell down there
underground when I thought over a heap of things I might have done
different if I'd had a chance to do 'em over again. And, boy, I
thought quite a little bit about you! It didn't seem right that a
young fellow like you, with so much to live for, should be snuffed out
down there in that black place, where the whole mountain acted as if
it was chasin' us, step by step, to wipe us off the slate."

He stood on his feet and limped across the room to his coat in an
effort to recover himself, and Dick, more stirred than he cared to
admit by the affection in his voice, tramped out to the little porch
in front and pretended to whistle a tune, that proved tuneless. He
looked at the little valley around the shoulder of the mountain at the
head of the ravine, which they had so carelessly invaded that morning,
and shuddered. Inside he heard Bill moving around, and then after a
time his steps advancing stiffly, and turned to see him coming out.

"I think," he said smiling, "that we're entitled to a rest for to-day.
By to-morrow you'll be all right again, unless I'm mistaken. Let's
put in the day looking over these old records."

Bill grinn