ying for food, and his father was trying to comfort him, by
giving him his shoe leather to chew. Others rolled and moaned in their
sleep, and the talk grew unstable and flighty.

Some one said, "Hear that?" and there was silence, and no one heard
anything. Again the talk began and droned unevenly along.

"Say, listen," some one else called beside the first man who had heard
the sound.

Again they listened, and because they were nervous perhaps two or three
men fancied they heard something. But one said it was the roar of the
fire, another said it was the sound of some one calling, and the third
said it was the crash of a rock in some distant passageway. The talk did
not rise again for a time, but finally it rose wearily, punctuated with
sighs. Then two men cried:

"Hear it! There it is again!"

And breathless they all sat, for a second. Then they heard a voice
calling, "Hello--hello?" And they tried to cheer.

But the voice did not sound again, and a long time passed. Grant tried
to count the minutes as they ticked off in his watch, but his mind would
not remain fixed upon the ticking, so he lost track of the time after
three minutes had passed. And still the time dragged, the watch kept
ticking.

Then they heard the sound again, clearer; and again it called. Then Dick
Bowman took up a pick, called:

"Watch out, away from the wall, I'm going to make a hole."

He struck the wall and struck it again and again, until he made a hole
and they cried through it:

"Hello--hello--We're here." And they all tried to get to the hole and
jabber through it. Then they could hear hurrying feet and voices
calling, and confusion. The men called, and cried and sobbed and cheered
through the hole, and then they saw the gleam of a lantern. Then the
wall crumbled and they climbed into the passage. But they knew, who had
heard the falling timbers and the crashing rocks, for days, that they
were not free.

The rescuers led the imprisoned miners down the dark passage; Grant
Adams was the last man to leave the prison. As he turned an angle of the
passage, a great rock fell crashing before him, and a head of dirt
caught him and dragged him under. His legs and body were pinioned.
Dennis Hogan in front heard the crash, saw Grant fall, and stood back
for a moment, as another huge rock slid slowly down and came to rest
above the prostrate man. For a second no one moved. Then one man--Ira
Dooley--slowly crept toward Grant and began diggi