He crouched upon one knee, peering cautiously around the edge in an effort to discover what was taking place in front.  The scattered lights on the hats of the miners rendered the whole weird scene fairly visible.  There were two narrow entries branching off from the main gallery not more than thirty feet from where he lay.  One ran, as nearly as he could judge, considerably to the east of south, but the second had its trend directly to the eastward.  Along the first of these tunnels there was no attempt at concealment, a revealing twinkle of light showing where numerous miners were already at work.  But the second was dark, and would have remained unnoticed entirely had not several men been grouped before the entrance, their flaring lamps reflected over the rock wall.  Winston’s eyes sparkled, his pulse leaped, as he marked the nature of their task—­they were laboriously removing a heavy mask, built of wood and canvas, which had been snugly fitted over the hole, making it resemble a portion of the solid rock wall.

There were four workmen employed at this task, while the foreman, a broad-jawed, profane-spoken Irishman, his moustache a bristling red stubble, stood a little back, noisily directing operations, the yellow light flickering over him.  The remainder of the fellows composing the party had largely disappeared farther down, although the sound of their busy picks was clearly audible.

“Where the hell is Swanson?” blurted out the foreman suddenly.  “He belongs in this gang.  Here you, Ole, what ‘s become o’ Nelse Swanson?”

The fellow thus directly addressed drew his hand across his mouth, straightening up slightly to answer.

“Eet iss not sumtings dot I know, Meester Burke.  He seems not here.”

“Not here; no, I should say not, ye cross-oied Swade.  But Oi ’m dommed if he did n’t come down in the cage wid’ us, for Oi counted the lot o’ yez.  Don’t any o’ you lads know whut ‘s become o’ the drunken lout?”

There was a universal shaking of heads, causing the lights to dance dizzily, forming weird shadows in the gloom, and the irritated foreman swore aloud, his eyes wandering back down the tunnel.

“No doubt he’s dhrunk yet, an’ laid down to slape back beyant in the passage,” he growled savagely.  “Be all the powers, but Oi ’ll tache that humpin’ fool a lesson this day he ’ll not be apt to fergit fer a while.  I will that, or me name ’s not Jack Burke.  Here you, Peterson, hand me over that pick-helve.”  He struck the tough hickory handle sharply against the wall to test its strength, his ugly red moustache bristling.  “Lave the falsework sthandin’ where it is till I git back,” he ordered, with an authoritative wave of the hand; “an’ you fellers go in beyant, an’ help out on Number Wan till Oi call ye.  Dom me sowl, but Oi’ll make that Swanson think the whole dom mounting has slid down on top o’ him—­the lazy, dhrunken Swade.”

The heavy pick-handle swinging in his hand his grim, red face glowing angrily beneath the sputtering flame of the lamp stuck in his hat, the irate Burke strode swiftly back into the gloomy passage, muttering gruffly.