“Where does it go to?” asked Ralph.

“I don’t just know, but I think it must go somewhere into the workin’s from old No. 1 slope.  The boss, he was in this mornin’, and he said he thought we must be a-gettin’ perty close to them old chambers.”

“Does anybody work in there?”

“Oh, bless ye, no!  They robbed the pillars tin years ago an’ more; I doubt an ye could get through it at all now.  It’s one o’ the oldest places in the valley, I’m thinkin’.  D’ye mind the old openin’ ye can see in the side-hill when ye’re goin’ up by Tom Ballard’s to the Dunmore road?”

“Yes, that’s where Uncle Billy worked when he was a miner.”

“Did he, thin!  Well, that’s where they wint in.  It’s a long way from here though, I’m thinkin’.”

“Awful strong wind goin’ in there, ain’t they?”

“Yes, I must block it up again, or it’ll take all our air away.”

“What’ll your miner do to-morrow when he finds this place?”

“Oh, he’ll have to get another chamber, I guess.”

The man was fastening up the opening again with pieces of slate and coal, and plastering it over with loose wet dirt.

“Well,” said Ralph, “I’ll have to go now.  Jasper’s gettin’ in a hurry.  Don’t you hear ’im?”

Conway helped the boy to push the loaded car down the chamber and fasten it to his trip.

“I’ll not be here long,” said the man as he turned back into the air-way, “I’ll take this light in, an’ pick things up a bit, an’ quit.  Maybe I’ll catch ye before ye get to the plane.”

“All right!  I’ll go slow.  Hurry up; everybody else has gone out, you know.”

After a moment Ralph heard Conway pushing the empty car up the chamber, then he climbed up on his trip, took the reins, said, “giddep” to Jasper, and they started on the long journey out.  For some reason it seemed longer than usual this night.  But Ralph did not urge his beast.  He went slowly, hoping that Conway would overtake him before he reached the plane.

He looked back frequently, but Mike, as every one called him, was not yet in sight.

The last curve was reached, and, as the little trip rounded it, Ralph’s attention was attracted by a light which was being waved rapidly in the distance ahead of him.  Some one was shouting, too.  He stopped the mule, and held the cars back to listen, but the sound was so broken by intervening pillars and openings that all he could catch was:  “Hurry! hurry—­up!” He laid the whip on Jasper’s back energetically, and they went swiftly to the head of the plane.  There was no one there when he reached it, but half-way down the incline he saw the light again, and up the broad, straight gallery came the cry of danger distinctly to his ears.

“Hurry! hurry!  The breaker’s afire!  The shaft’s a-burnin’!—­run!”

Instinctively Ralph unhitched the mule, dropped the trace-chains, and ran down the long incline of the plane.  He reached the foot, rounded the curve, and came into sight of the bottom of the shaft.  A half-dozen or more of men and boys were there, crowding in toward the carriage-way, with fear stamped on their soiled faces, looking anxiously up for the descending carriage.