ob said he knew
both the way and the peril it meant, and he would make the attempt.

Not even to them did he tell the route he would take and the dangers
he knew he must face. He had a plan, and if it succeeded there was
hope; if it failed, there was no getting back. One silent prayer in
the corner, and he crept softly and hastily through the half-open
door, as the sentinel went down towards the other end of his beat.

There Job lay flat on the ground and waited to see who it was. In the
dim twilight he descried, as the sentinel turned, no other than Tim's
father. Job stole up to him, caught him before he cried "Halt!" and
said:

"For Tim's sake, Mr. Rooney, let me through the lines. We will starve
in there!"

"Job, me boy, is that ye!" whispered the guard. "Hiven bless ye! I
wish I could let yez t'rough, but by the saints I can't! I've sworn
that I wouldn't let a soul pass, and they said if a mon wint t'rough
the line and me here, they'd finish me!"

Job pleaded, and the tears streamed from Pat Rooney's eyes, but he was
firm; he had given his word, and he could not break it. But after what
seemed to Job a long time, Pat said:

"Job, if ye'll promise me no mon but the one ye go to see shall see
yez, and that ye'll come back to-morrow night and be here if the
soldier boys come, so no one will know I let yez t'rough, I'll let yez
go; and Job, I'll be at the ind of Sullivan's alley and pass yez; and
then the next shift I'll be here, and ye'll get in safe."

Job promised. Many times afterward he wished he had not; but he made
up his mind, as he slunk through, with Pat's "Hiven bliss ye!"
following him, that only death should prevent him from keeping his
word.

Just back of the office was the abandoned shaft where he had gone
often to pray. Once he had sounded its sides, and suspected that it
opened into the first level. If this was the case, and he could get
into that, and from that into the next lower level, Job knew that the
end of that one went clear through to the old half-finished
drainage-tunnel which ran in from the canyon back of the quartz mill.
Once in the tunnel he knew that he could reach the canyon, then get
outside the lines and away.

It took but a moment to drop down the old shaft, which ran down but a
few hundred feet on a steep slant. Then rapping softly on the wall, he
thought he heard a hollow sound. There were voices above him. He kept
still and lay down close against the side till they pass