kicked him so cruelly that he
thought they were about to kill him.

He tried to scream for help, but could not utter a sound, and the miners
who passed on their way to the slope thought the fracas was only a
quarrel among some of the boys and paid no attention to it.

At length Bill Tooley ordered the boys to cease from pummelling their
victim, and stooping over him, tied a dirty cloth over his eyes; then he
gave a whispered order, and several of the boys, lifting the helpless
lad by his head and feet, bore him away.

After carrying him what seemed to Derrick an interminable distance, and
passing through a number of doors, as he could tell by hearing them
loudly opened and closed, his bearers suddenly dropped him on the hard
ground. Then Bill Tooley's voice said,

"Yer'll lie dere now till yer make up yer mind ter jine de Young
Sleepers. Den yer can come an' let me know, an' I'll attend ter yer
initeration. Till then yer'll stay where yer are, if it's a thousand
years; fer no one'll come a-nigh yer an' yer can't find de way out."

While Bill was thus talking the other boys quietly slipped away. As he
finished he also moved off, so softly that Derrick did not hear the
sound of his retreating footsteps. It was not until some minutes had
passed that he realized that he had been left, and was alone.

Meantime those who had thus abandoned their victim to the horrors of
black solitude, in what to him was an unknown part of the mine, were
gathered together at no great distance from him. There they waited to
gloat over the cries that they hoped he would utter as soon as he
realized that he was abandoned. In this they were disappointed, for
though they lingered half an hour not a sound did they hear; then two of
the boldest among them decided to take a look at their prisoner.
Shielding the single lamp that lighted their steps so that its rays
should not be seen at any great distance, they crept cautiously to where
they had left him.

He was gone!

This had not been expected, and with an ill-defined feeling of dread
they hurried back to the others and made their report.

"Oh, well, let him go!" exclaimed Bill Tooley, brutally. "'Twon't hurt
him to spend a while in de gangway. Let's go up to supper, and
afterwards come down an' hunt him."

As none of them dared to object to any proposal made by the bully, the
whole gang of begrimed and evil-minded young savages hurried to the foot
of the slope. Here they tumbled into