“Jock! my little Jock!” cried Hildegarde, “are you there?”

A feeble sound, the very ghost of a tiny bark, answered her, and a faint scratching was heard.  In an instant all fear left Hilda, and she sprang forward, holding the lantern high above her head, and calling out words of encouragement and cheer.  “Courage, Jock!  Cheer up, little man!  Missis is here; Missis will save you!  Speak to him, Will! tell him you are here.”

“Wow!” said Will, manfully, scuttling about in the darkness.  “Wa-ow!” replied a pitiful squeak from the depths of the wheel-pit.  Hilda reached the edge of the pit and looked down.  In one corner was a little white bundle, which moved feebly, and wagged a piteous tail, and squeaked with faint rapture.  Evidently the little creature was exhausted, perhaps badly injured.  How should she reach him?  She threw the ray of light—­oh! how dim it was, and how heavy and close the darkness pressed!—­on the side of the pit, and saw that it was a rough and jagged wall, with stones projecting at intervals.  A moment’s survey satisfied her.  Setting the lantern carefully at a little distance, and bidding Will “charge” and be still, she began the descent, feeling the way carefully with her feet, and grasping the rough stones firmly with her hands.  Down! down! while the huge wheel towered over her, and grinned with all its rusty teeth to see so strange a sight.  At last her feet touched the soft earth; another instant, and she had Jock in her arms, and was fondling and caressing him, and saying all sorts of foolish things to him in her delight.  But a cry of pain from the poor puppy, even in the midst of his frantic though feeble demonstrations of joy, told her that all was not right; and she found that one little leg hung limp, and was evidently broken.  How should she ever get him up?  For a moment she stood bewildered; and then an idea came to her, which she has always maintained was the only really clever one she ever had.  In her pre-occupation of mind she had forgotten all day to take off the brown holland apron which she had worn at her work in the morning, and it was the touch of this apron which brought her inspiration.  Quick as a flash she had it off, and tied round her neck, pinned up at both ends to form a bag.  Then she stooped again to pick up Jock, whom she had laid carefully down while she arranged the apron.  As she did so, the feeble ray from the lantern fell on a space where the ground had been scratched up, evidently by the puppy’s paws; and in that space something shone with a dull glitter.  Hildegarde bent lower, and found what seemed to be a small brass handle, half covered with earth.  She dug the earth away with her hands, and pulled and tugged at the handle for some time without success; but at length the sullen soil yielded, and she staggered back against the wheel with a small metal box in her hands.  No time now to examine the prize, be it what it might.  Into the apron bag it went, and