t into the chamber."

"Who could have done it?"

"Perhaps Billings' gang worked a spell after the order to quit was
given?"

"What could they have gained by reaching Joe again?"

"Taken him through the old drift to the shaft. But let's work our way
over this pile, an' then start back before our oil gives out."

Ten minutes of sharp labor and the boys were in the chamber where Brace
had been left to die, Sam throwing himself on the hard floor, as he
said:

"We'll take a breathin' spell before leaving. You see now there was no
use in comin'."

"So it seems; but I couldn't help thinking some of that crowd which
passed the slope knew how to get here."

"It ain't possible--Hark! What was that?"

A low hum as of conversation could be heard from the other side of the
wall, and Sam sprang to the aperture made by Fred and Joe Brace.

"I'll never yip again about you're being scared," he whispered after one
glance. "Here come the whole crowd, an' we're in a fix."

"They won't dare to crawl through, if we threaten to shoot."

"Let's first find out exactly what they are here for. It may be they are
only looking for Joe."

Standing either side the aperture the boys watched the approach of the
men whose movements were revealed by the miner's lamp each carried.

It was impossible to distinguish the conversation until the party was
very near the break in the wall, and then one shouted:

"Hello Joe! How are you?"

"We've come to pull you out of this scrape," another said, after waiting
a few seconds for a reply.

Then a lamp was pushed through, Fred and Sam crouching close against the
wall to avoid observation, and its owner cried in a tone of
astonishment:

"He isn't here! The place is empty!"

A deep silence reigned for a moment, and then some one said in an angry
tone.

"It ain't hard to understand the whole thing now. He slipped the ropes,
an' come out this way. Wright has heard the story, an' that's why the
works were shut down so suddenly."

"But what's become of him? He ain't in the town."

"Of course he is, an' hidin' somewhere. Jim, you run back an' tell
Billings so's he can hunt the sneak out."

"Are you goin' on alone?"

"Why not? Them fools are guardin' the slope, an' we can flood the place
before they so much as think any one has got in behind them. Tell the
boys we'll be back by sunset."

Sam touched Fred, to warn him that the time for action had arrived, and,
slight as was the movement, it