* *

Now he knotted the rope about the stone and let the two lengths of it trail
down toward the ledge. He had kept his flashlight which he thrust into his
belt. One other thing, a little miner's cap and light, now came into use.
It was warm down there, and as soon as the cap with its lighted lamp was on
his head, sweat began to pour down his neck. Suddenly he remembered a scene
he had witnessed one morning in West Virginia--so long ago that it should
have been forgotten. His car had stalled in a tiny town one evening. He had
slept in the only hotel, but had got up before daybreak so he could start
an early search for a mechanic. Looking up toward the hills he had seen a
silent procession of lights going upward to some unknown mine. There was
something grotesque about those climbing lights; the identity of the men
was lost, and this was a crawling thing up there on the hillside. For a
moment he felt himself feeling infinite pity for all the men everywhere who
spent their days in the dark.

Then he laughed. Better feel a bit sorry for Jack Odin too. Getting ready
to lower himself over a precipice, and not having the slightest idea when
he would reach bottom. Or whether there was any bottom at all. The
blackness beat at the little light. A startled bat left its upside-down
perch and fluttered against his face, clicking its teeth in warning.

Well, one could stay here and think until doomsday. So, with a shrug of his
big shoulders, he got a firm grip on his doubled rope and slid over the
edge. He went down and down until his shoulders ached. Once he got his
feet down on an outcropping but dared not brace himself there for fear of
loosening his rope from its unsteady mooring above. Then, at last, he came
to the ledge with only a few feet of his doubled rope to spare.

After resting the little cap and lamp in a secure cranny he lay flat on his
stomach for a few minutes, gulping great draughts of air and trying to rub
some feeling back into his aching shoulders. Then he got up and started
looking about for some anchorage. Some twenty feet away, he found a little
spur of rock.

The second ledge was negotiated in the same fashion as the first. It
was scarcely four feet in width. Leaning over it, with his powerful
flashlight spraying a beam of light downward, he saw that there were
no more ledges between him and the floor of the crevice below. Not
even a single out-cropping. The wall was smooth and glassy as though