't see what good you can do."

Overjoyed to receive this permission, Paul hastily scrambled into the
car just as it began to move, and in a few minutes was landed with the
rest at the foot of the slope.

Some time before this Derrick had emerged from the old gangway, and
turned into the travelling-road, up which he was now laboriously making
his way.

There did not happen to be an overseer at the bottom of the slope just
then, and to the one or two men who observed them the presence of boys
in the mine at all hours of the day and night was too common to attract
comment; so the little party had no difficulty in entering the old
gangway without being noticed or questioned.

For some reason which he could not explain Paul had brought with him a
new clothes-line, which he now carried, coiled and hung about his neck.
Bill Tooley took the lead, and Paul, with the aid of his crutch, hobbled
along close after him, while the others walked fearfully in a bunch at
some little distance behind.

They had not gone far when Bill stopped and picked up a piece of cloth
from the ground.

"Here's what was over his eyes," he said, "an' as it's a bit furder dan
where we left 'im, it shows he's gone furder in."

The boys gazed at the cloth in awe-struck silence, as though it were
something to be dreaded; and, when Bill called out, "Come on, fellers,
yer won't never find nothing a-standin' dere like a lot o' balky mules,"
they followed him even more reluctantly than before.

Lighted by their lamps, they made far more rapid progress than poor
Derrick had in the darkness, and soon approached the place where he had
discovered the dim, reflected light above the mouth of the old
air-shaft. Just here the oil in their leader's lamp began to give out,
and its flame to burn with a waning and uncertain light.

All at once a strong draught of air extinguished it entirely. He took a
step forward in the darkness towards a log which he had barely seen, and
thought might be Derrick Sterling lying down. Then came a terrible cry,
and Paul's light showed nothing in front of him save the yawning mouth
of the shaft down which Bill Tooley had pitched headlong!

CHAPTER VII

A CRIPPLE'S BRAVE DEED

As Bill Tooley thus met the fate Derrick had so narrowly escaped, and
the Young Sleepers who followed him were left without a leader, they
were thrown into a sad state of confusion. Two of them started to run
back, another threw himself on the flo