easured step habitual to the
miner. They were all still in good condition.

James Starr examined, as well as the insufficient light would permit,
the sides of the dark shaft, which were covered by a partly rotten
lining of wood.

Arrived at the fifteenth landing, that is to say, half way down, they
halted for a few minutes.

"Decidedly, I have not your legs, my lad," said the engineer, panting.

"You are very stout, Mr. Starr," replied Harry, "and it's something too,
you see, to live all one's life in the mine."

"Right, Harry. Formerly, when I was twenty, I could have gone down all
at a breath. Come, forward!"

But just as the two were about to leave the platform, a voice, as yet
far distant, was heard in the depths of the shaft. It came up like a
sonorous billow, swelling as it advanced, and becoming more and more
distinct.

"Halloo! who comes here?" asked the engineer, stopping Harry.

"I cannot say," answered the young miner.

"Is it not your father?"

"My father, Mr. Starr? no."

"Some neighbor, then?"

"We have no neighbors in the bottom of the pit," replied Harry. "We are
alone, quite alone."

"Well, we must let this intruder pass," said James Starr. "Those who are
descending must yield the path to those who are ascending."

They waited. The voice broke out again with a magnificent burst, as
if it had been carried through a vast speaking trumpet; and soon a few
words of a Scotch song came clearly to the ears of the young miner.

"The Hundred Pipers!" cried Harry. "Well, I shall be much surprised if
that comes from the lungs of any man but Jack Ryan."

"And who is this Jack Ryan?" asked James Starr.

"An old mining comrade," replied Harry. Then leaning from the platform,
"Halloo! Jack!" he shouted.

"Is that you, Harry?" was the reply. "Wait a bit, I'm coming." And the
song broke forth again.

In a few minutes, a tall fellow of five and twenty, with a merry face,
smiling eyes, a laughing mouth, and sandy hair, appeared at the bottom
of the luminous cone which was thrown from his lantern, and set foot
on the landing of the fifteenth ladder. His first act was to vigorously
wring the hand which Harry extended to him.

"Delighted to meet you!" he exclaimed. "If I had only known you were to
be above ground to-day, I would have spared myself going down the Yarrow
shaft!"

"This is Mr. James Starr," said Harry, turning his lamp towards the
engineer, who was in the shadow.

"Mr. Starr!" cri