have narrow escapes
sometimes.--Look here, doctor, did you ever see a rock like that?"

Captain Dan pointed to a place in the side of the rocky wall which was
grooved and cut as if with a huge gouge or chisel, and highly polished.
"It was never cut by man in that fashion; we found it as you see it, and
there's many of 'em in the mine. We call 'em slinking slides."

"The marks must have been caused when the rocks were in a state of
partial fusion," observed Oliver, examining the place with much
curiosity.

"I don't know as to that, sir," said the captain, moving on, "but there
they are, and some of 'em polished to that extent you could almost see
your face in 'em."

On turning the corner of a jutting rock a light suddenly appeared,
revealing a pair of large eyes and a double row of teeth, as it were
gleaming out of the darkness. On drawing nearer, this was discovered to
be a miner, whose candle was at some little distance, and only shone on
him partially.

"Well, Jack, what's doing?" asked the captain.

The man cast a disconsolate look on a large mass of rock which lay in
the middle of the path at his feet. He had been only too successful in
his last blasting, and had detached a mass so large that he could not
move it.

"It's too hard for to break, Captain Dan."

"Better get it into the truck," said the captain.

"Can't lift it, sur," said the man, who grudged to go through the
tedious process of boring it for a second blast.

"You must get it out o' that, Jack, at all events. It won't do to let
it lie there," said the captain, passing on, and leaving the miner to
get out of his difficulty as best he might.

A few minutes more and they came on a "pare" of men (in other words, a
band of two or more men working together) who were "stopeing-in the back
of the level," as they termed the process of cutting upwards into the
roof.

"There's a fellow in a curious place!" said Oliver, peering up through
an irregular hole, in which a man was seen at work standing on a plank
supported by a ladder. He was chiselling with great vigour at the rock
over his head, and immediately beyond him another man stood on a plank
supported by a beam of timber, and busily engaged in a similar
occupation. Both men were stripped to the waist, and panted at their
toil. The little chamber or cavern in which they worked was brilliantly
illuminated by their two candles, and their athletic figures stood out,
dark and picturesque, ag