ught out
insensible and taken to his home. But he had recovered, and was now
back again at the shaft. It seemed to him, he said, as though he was
compelled to return; as though there was something to be done here
that only he could do. He was sitting on the bench now with Bachelor
Billy, and they were discussing the lad's heroic sacrifice, and
wondering to what part of the mine he could have gone that the search
of half a day should fail to disclose his whereabouts.

A man who had just come out from the shaft, exhausted, was assisted up
the bank by two companions, and laid down on the grass near the bench,
in the moonlight, to breathe the fresh air that was stirring there.

After a little, he revived, and began to tell of the search.

"It's very strange," he said, "where the lad could have gone. We
thought to find him in the north tier, and we went up one chamber and
down the next, and looked into every entrance, but never a track of
him could we get."

He turned to Conway, who was standing by, and continued:--

"Up at the face o' your chamber we found a dead mule with his collar
on. The poor creature had gone there, no doubt, to find good air. He'd
climbed up on the very shelf o' coal at the breast to get the farthest
he could. Did ye ever hear the like?"

But Conway did not answer. A vague solution of the mystery of Ralph's
disappearance was dawning on him. He turned suddenly to the man, and
asked:--

"Did ye see the hole in the face when ye were there; a hole the size
o' your head walled up with stone-coal?"

"I took no note o' such a thing. What for had ye such a hole there,
an' where to?"

"Into the old mine," said Conway, earnestly, "into old No. 1. The boy
saw it yisterday. I told 'im where it wint. He's broke it in, and
crawled through, he has, I'll bet he has. Come on; we'll find 'im
yet!" and he started rapidly down the hill toward the mouth of the
shaft.

Bachelor Billy rose from the bench and stumbled slowly after him;
while the man who had told them about the mule lifted himself to his
elbows, and looked down on them in astonishment.

He could not quite understand what Conway meant.

The superintendent of the mine had gone. The foreman in charge of the
windlass and fan stood leaning against a post, with the light of a
torch flaring across his swarthy face.

"Let me down!" cried Conway, hastening to the opening. "I know where
the boy is; I can find 'im."

The man smiled. "It's against orde