or and burst into loud
lamentations, while the fourth stood motionless and silent from fear. Of
them all, only Paul Evert, the crippled lad, retained his presence of
mind.

As upon all such occasions he who retains full command of his faculties
and remains calm at once assumes the position of a leader, so it was
now.

In a voice that sounded loud and stern as compared with his ordinary
gentle tone, Paul commanded the runaways to stop and return at once.
They hesitated a moment and then obeyed him. He ordered the boy who lay
upon the floor to cease his outcries and get up. Then the little fellow
approached as close to the air-shaft as he dared, and lying down, with
his head beyond its edge, he listened. In a moment he was rewarded for
his pains, for he heard a faint moan. There came another more
distinctly, and he knew that wherever Bill Tooley was he was still
alive, and might possibly be saved.

Taking the lamp from his cap, and the coil of line from about his neck,
where it seemed to have been placed for this very emergency, he tied the
one to an end of the other and gently lowered it into the shaft. Before
doing this he ordered two of the boys to hold him tightly by the legs,
and thus prevent him from slipping over the edge. Quieted, and with some
of their courage restored by his coolness, they did as he directed, and
held him with so firm a grip that for many days afterwards his legs bore
black and blue imprints of their fingers.

As the little lamp swung downward the draught of air caused it to flare
and flicker as though it were about to be extinguished, but it was
nearly full of oil, and the wick had just been pricked up, so it
continued to burn and throw an uncertain light upon the glistening
masses of coal that formed the sides of the shaft. It had not been
lowered more than ten feet when its feeble rays disclosed a dark object,
apparently suspended in mid-air, in the centre of the shaft. It was Bill
Tooley, and Paul saw that by some means his downward plunge had been
arrested, and that he was now clinging to an invisible support.

Hastily pulling up the lamp, Paul replaced it on his cap, and doubling
his line, made one end of it fast to an old timber prop or support of
the gangway roof that stood a short distance from the shaft. Knotting
the loose end about his body, and bidding the boys place one of the old
logs close to the edge of the shaft and hold it there to prevent the
rope from being chafed or cu