le distinguished from the rest of the rocky,
sparsely-treed mountain side, was gathered a group of perhaps fifty men,
some sitting on beams and rocks, others moving quietly about, all
smoking.

On their being discovered, however, there was a stir, and as Muskoka and
the boy dismounted at the foot of a rough path and ascended there was a
general movement of the miners and cowmen to meet them.

"I got him," Muskoka announced briefly to a grizzle-haired man who met
them at the top. "This is Bartlett, the mine boss," he said to Wilson by
way of introduction. The boss nodded.

"The tapping's going on yet, is it, Joe?"

"No. It's stopped, just like Hoover's did," was the gloomy response. "And
just when we were getting onto it ourselves."

The speaker held up a small board pencilled with figures and letters.
"Redding there hit on the idea that maybe Young was knocking out the
numbers of letters in the alphabet, and we made this table, and just
found out we had it right when the tapping stopped. That was twenty
minutes ago, and we haven't had another knock since."

"Let's see it. What did you get?"

"There--'20, 7, 5, 20, 21, 16'--'T G E T U P.' Something about 'can't get
up,' we figured it. But it's not enough to be of any use.

"And there's not another man here can wriggle in through the hole," went
on the boss, turning toward the great rock which sealed the mouth of the
mine. "A dozen of 'em tried it, and Redding got stuck so we had to get a
rope on him. Nearly pulled his legs off."

Wilson made his way forward and examined the strangely blocked entrance.
The small hole referred to was a triangular-shaped opening about a foot
in height and some sixteen inches in width, apparently just at the roof
of the gallery. Some minutes Wilson stood studying it, pondering. Finally
he turned about with an air of decision and returned to Muskoka and the
mine boss.

"I have a plan," he announced. "If you will go back to the station again,
Muskoke, I'll send for another operator, and go in the mine myself. Two
operators could talk backwards and forwards easily on the piping. And--"

"But whar's the other operator?" interrupted the cowboy.

"There is a freight due at the station in about twenty-five minutes. I
can give you a message to hand the engineer for the operator at Ledges,
the next station--a message asking the despatcher to send the Ledges
operator down on the Mail. Someone could wait for him, and if there is no
hitch