foot level, where he stepped off in a narrow cavern
dimly lighted and stretching away into the distant darkness. Oh, how
hot it was! The brawny, white-chested miners had thrown off all
clothing but their trousers, and were dividing their time between
mighty blows on the great solid rocks, and the air-shaft and tub of
water, where every few minutes they had to go and bathe lungs and
face. The sound of the picks, the rattle of the ore cars bringing the
stuff to be hauled up the shaft, the steady thump, thump, of the pumps
removing the water from the lower levels, the intermittent drop and
rise of the cage, filled the weird place with strange sounds.

Job had delivered his message to the "boss" of the tunnel and was
hurrying back to the cage, when a half-naked miner, all stained with
the ever-dripping ooze from above, stopped him and said:

"Be ye the faither that prayed Yankee Sam t'rough?"

"Why--yes, and no," answered Job. "I was with Yankee Sam when he died,
but I'm no priest or parson."

"Aye, I said to Pat it was ye as ye went down, priest or not. I've
heard of ye, and the mon that could shrive Yankee Sam is a good enough
priest for any mon. Now, me boy Tim is dying, the only son of his
mother, and she in her grave. And Tim and me, we live alone in the hut
back of Finnigan's saloon. Tim's a frail lad. He would work in the
mines, and the hot air in this place and the cold air whin he wint up
gave him the lung faver, and the doctor says he's got to go. The next
shift I'm going up to him. Meet me at the pump-house. Don't tell him
yez is not a priest; it's all the same to him, and he'll die aisier if
he thinks the faither's come. Poor Tim, me only boy!"

What could Job do but consent? What could he do late that afternoon
but meet the broken-hearted Irish father at the pump-house and climb
the steep street to Finnigan's, and go in back to the poor hut that
the miner called home?

On a low, matted bed of straw and a torn blanket or two, in a corner
of the dismal shanty, through which the cold winds swept, lay Tim,
dying. The hectic flush was on his thin cheek, the glaze of death
seemed in his eye. He reached his wan hand to Job. A lad of sixteen he
was, but no more years of life were there for him.

"Tim, the faither's come. Tim, me boy, confess now and get ready for
hiven."

The boy glanced up. Perhaps Job did look like a priest, with his
smooth face and manly countenance. He hardly knew what to say or do
except