"

"Already."

Jessica needed no second bidding, but leaped lightly into the car and
Wolfgang followed her more cautiously. He knew that was a forbidden
delight to her, for Mrs. Trent was nervously timid concerning such
visits, but, like her, felt that the present circumstances justified
the proceeding. Was not one below in the darkness, nursing a broken
heart? And was not it the supreme business of each and all at Sobrante to
comfort the sorrowing? How else had he and his been there, so happy
and comfortable? So rich, also. Why, Elsa had----

"Lady Jess! Get Elsa to show you the buckskin bag! It has grown as fat
as herself since you last saw it. The child will own the mine some day,
believe me!"

Moved by the thought he swiftly lowered away, and as the car touched the
bottom, the girl sprang out and ran calling in the narrow tunnel:

"Ephraim! My Ephraim! Where are you? I've come for you, I, Jessica!
It's a dreadful mistake. My mother--ah! here you are! Why down in this
horrid hole, Ephraim Marsh? You're all shivering, it's so damp and
dismal. For shame! To run away from your best friends and never give
them a chance to tell you. Whoever wrote that note and sent you off from
your own home, it never was my mother. Never! She said so, and it's
almost broken her heart."

"It's quite broken mine," said the old frontiersman, sobbing in his
relief at having been thus promptly sought and found by his beloved
"lady." For he did not know it was quite by accident that she had
stumbled on this trace of him, nor did anybody enlighten him. Whether
she would have set him right or not she had no chance, for, at that
instant, they heard a hoarse cry at the mouth of the shaft and saw the
car, their only means of ascent, moving swiftly out of reach.

"Heart of grace! Why that? Hark the woman! 'Tis the child! It is the
little boy! Harm has befallen and I--the father--I below in the ground!"

In his alarm Wolfgang danced about the narrow space and wrung his hands,
gazing frantically up the shaft, catching hold of his companions and
conducting himself altogether like one bereft of common sense. Which
behavior was sufficient to restore Ephraim Marsh to his own self-command,
and none too soon; for the anxious father had already begun to try the
ascent by climbing up the timbered sides when, suddenly, as if propelled
by some extraordinary force the car shot downward again. Before it
really touched bottom the shrieks had become deafen