d dwell upon the dread possibility. Slowly, barely advancing an inch
at a time, I began the venture, my hands blindly groping for the passage,
the cold perspiration bathing my body. The farther I penetrated amid the
_debris_, the greater became the terror dominating me, yet to draw back
was next to impossible. The opening grew more contracted; I could
scarcely force myself forward, digging fingers and toes into the hard
earth floor, the obstructing timber scraping my body. It was an awful,
heartrending struggle, stretched out flat like a snake in the darkness,
the loose earth showering me with each movement. There was more than one
support down; I had to double about to find opening; again and again I
seemed to be against an unsurpassable barrier; twice I dug through a mass
of fallen dirt, once for three solid feet, throwing the loosened earth
either side of me, and pushing it back with my feet, thus utterly
blocking all chance of retreat. Scarcely was this accomplished when
another fall from above came, half burying head and shoulders, and
compelling me to do the work over. The air grew foul and sluggish, but I
was toiling for life, and dug at the _debris_ madly, reckless of what
might fall from above. Better to be crushed, than to die of suffocation,
and the very desperation with which I strove proved my salvation. For
what remained of the roof held, and I struggled through into the firmer
gallery beyond, faint from exhaustion, yet as quickly reviving in the
fresher air. I had reached the end of the passage before I comprehended
the truth. It opened in the side of a gulley, coming out between the
roots of a great tree, and could only have been discovered through
sheerest accident. Years of exposure had plastered the small opening with
clay, and I was compelled to break this away before I could creep through
out into the open air.

I was a wreck in body and mind, my face streaked with earth, my hair
filled with dirt, my clothing torn and disreputable. Laboring for breath,
my fingers raw and bleeding, I lay there, with scarcely enough strength
remaining to keep from rolling to the bottom of the ravine. For some
moments I was incapable of either thought or action, every ounce of
energy having been expended in that last desperate struggle. I lay
panting, with eyes closed, hardly realizing that I was indeed alive.
Slowly, throb by throb, my heart came back into regularity of beat, and
my brain into command. My eyes opened,