nity to secure his lunch-pail and water-can,
which he slung by their chains over his shoulder. When the ladies had
prepared themselves for their mine expedition, he was amused to see that
Miss Nellie was similarly equipped, she having found and appropriated
those belonging to her uncle. Both the ladies wore old dresses, and
India-rubber boots, which they had brought with them for this very
purpose, and both were provided with waterproof cloaks.

At the mouth of the slope Derrick said something through a speaking-tube
that reached down into the mine. Directly the clang of a gong was heard
in the breaker above them, and the great wire cable, extending its vast
length between the rails of the tracks, began to move. Two minutes later
a new coal-car, one of a lot that had been delivered in the mine the day
before, and had not yet been used, was drawn up out of the blackness to
the mouth of the slope, and stopped in front of them. Some hay had been
thrown into the bottom, and as the ladies were helped in, Miss Nellie
exclaimed that it looked as though they were going on a straw-ride.

Handing each of them a lighted lantern to carry, and lighting the lamp
on his cap, Derrick tugged at the wire leading to the distant
engine-room, and gave the signal to lower. The car at once began to
move, and as they felt themselves going almost straight down into the
blackness between the wet, glistening walls of the slope, and were
chilled by the cold breath of the mine, the mother and daughter clung to
each other apprehensively.

At first they looked back and watched the little patch of daylight at
the mouth of the slope grow rapidly smaller and more indistinct, until
it looked almost like a star. Then Derrick warned them that there was
danger of hitting their heads against the low roof, and said they must
hold them below the sides of the car. When next they lifted them they
were amid the wonders of the underground world, in the great chamber at
the foot of the slope. They were surrounded by a darkness that was only
made the more intense at a short distance from them by the glimmering
lights of a group of miners who had gathered to watch their arrival.
Here Derrick left them while he ran to the stable to get his mule.

The ladies did not get out of the car, but stood in it after the cable
had been cast off, and watched the loaded coal-wagons as, one at a time,
they were pushed to the foot of the slope, and quickly drawn up out of
sight.