hen I reached my grounds I went directly to the mouth
of the shaft. There was nobody there, for the crowd was collected into
a solid mass on the top of the bluff, listening to a lecture from Tom
Burton, who deemed it well to promote the growth of interest and healthy
opinion in regard to his wonderful discovery and my valuable possession.
I hurried down the shaft, and near the end of it, just before it joined
the ice tunnel, I beheld Agnes sitting upon the wooden track. She was
not unconscious, for as I approached she slightly turned her head. I
sprang toward her; I kneeled beside her; I took her in my arms. "Oh,
Agnes, dearest Agnes," I cried, "what is the matter? What has happened
to you? Has a piece of ice fallen upon you? Have you slipped and hurt
yourself?"

She turned her beautiful eyes up toward me and for a moment did not
speak. Then she said: "And they got you out? And you are in your right
mind?"

"Right mind!" I exclaimed. "I have never been out of my mind. What are
you thinking of?"

"Oh, you must have been," she said, "when you screamed at me in that
horrible way. I was so frightened that I fell back, and I must have
fainted."

Tremulous as I was with love and anxiety, I could not help laughing.
"Oh, my dear Agnes, I did not scream at you. That was a crazed Italian
who fell through the hole that they dug." Then I told her what had
happened.

She heaved a gentle sigh. "I am so glad to hear that," she said. "There
was one thing that I was thinking about just before you came and which
gave me a little bit of comfort; the words and yells I heard were
dreadfully oniony, and somehow or other I could not connect that sort of
thing with you."

It now struck me that during this conversation I had been holding
my dear girl in my arms, and she had not shown the slightest sign of
resistance or disapprobation. This made my heart beat high.

"Oh, Agnes," I said, "I truly believe you love me or you would not have
been here, you would not have done for me all that you did. Why did you
not answer me when I spoke to you through that wall of ice, through the
hole your dear love had made in it? Why, when I was in such a terrible
situation, not knowing whether I was to die or live, did you not comfort
my heart with one sweet word?"

"Oh, Walter," she answered, "it wasn't at all necessary for you to say
all that you did say, for I had suspected it before, and as soon as you
began to call me Agnes I knew, of course, ho