ews' face, then
on Brydges'.

"You'll climb easier if you pull off y'r overalls and fasten y'r
lantern in y'r hat, Wayland," he said in the same cutting voice he used
in the hurry and rush of the composing room.

If Mr. Bat Brydges had been after a feature story, he had it then and
there; the tenebrous thick coal darkness; the drip-drip-drip of the
water-soak through the rock walls; Matthews' eyes blazing like coals of
fire in the dark, his lantern shining full on Brydges; the news editor
hatchet-faced, white of skin, with pistol point eyes, his lantern full
on Brydges; the downy-lipped youth white, terrified, chattering of
jaws, unable to speak a word, clutching to the edge of the bucket to
hide his trembling, his hat had fallen off, his lantern had fallen out
of his hand, and a great blob of black coal drip trickled from his
yellow hair down his cheek in front of his ear; and the handy man still
standing in the barrel, his face chalky and soggy like dough, with a
show of bluff, but unable to look a man in the face, gazing at his feet
in the bottom of the barrel:

"Gawd, Wayland! Don't risk it! Don't climb! Wait a little! They'll
wind her up and drop another rope down to us and--"

The Ranger had begun climbing. They could see the shine of the lantern
in his hat against the black moist rock wall; up and up, slow, sure and
light of foot, swinging from side to side for hand grip; hands first
finding foot hold; then a leg up; and another foot hold.

"Look out fellows," he warned once. "I might knock some of these small
rocks loose!"

Then, the light of the lantern disappeared at a bend in the shaft.

"It's a darned dangerous thing to do," pronounced the handy man thickly.

Not one of the men answered a word, and the silence grew impressive by
what it didn't say.

Once Wayland had turned the bend of the shaft, the rest of the way up
was easy. Daylight was above, and the climb was a gradual slant over
uneven ridged rock; and with the grip of the pegs in his mountaineering
boots, he ascended almost at a run on all fours.

"Hullo up-there," he called, "what's wrong?"

There was no answer. He ascended the rest of the way winged and came
out hoisting himself from his elbows to his knees with a deep breath of
pure air above the surface. At first, daylight blinded him. He threw
the lantern from his hat and blinked the darkness out of his eyes.

"It's all right fellows," he roared down the shaft, funnel