will you get back?"

"There I am again," growled Josh in an ill-used tone. "I never thought
of that. I've got a good big head, but it never seems to hold enough to
make me think like other men."

"You could not climb up to the mouth, so how could you climb up again
here?"

Josh remained silent for a few minutes, and then he gave a stamp with
his foot.

"Why," he cried, "you're never so much more clever than me. Why didn't
you think o' this here?"

"What? What are you going to do, Josh?"

"Do, lad!" he cried, suiting the action to the word by running the rope
through his hands sailor-fashion till he got hold of the end; "why, I'm
going to make a knot every half fathom as nigh as I can guess it, and
then it'll be easy enough to climb up or down."

Will breathed more freely, and stood listening to his companion's work,
for it was a task for only one.

"There you are," cried Josh at the end of a few minutes' knotting.
"Now, then, who'll go down first--you or me?"

"I will," said Will. "I'm better now."

"Glad to hear it, lad; but you ain't going first into that gashly hole
while I'm here. Stand aside."

Catching hold of the rope again he gradually tightened it to feel
whether it was all right and had not left its place over the iron bar;
and then, swinging himself off, he descended quickly about fifty feet
till Will could hear his feet splash into the water, and then he
shouted:

"Hooray, lad!"

"Is there an adit, Josh?"

"Dunno yet, but there's a big stick o' wood floating here as someone's
pitched down, and our old rope's lying across it. I shall make it fast
to the end here before I go any farther."

A good deal of splashing ensued, and then as Will listened it seemed to
him that his companion must have lowered himself partly into the adit,
for the rope swung to and fro. Then his heart leaped, for Josh sang out
cheerily:

"All right, lad! here's the adit just at the bottom here, and the water
dribbling out over it, I think. Come on down."

"Come on down!" echoed Will.

"To be sure, lad. Here I'm in the hole all right. Lay hold o' the
rope. It's all slack now."

He set it swinging as he spoke, and at the end of a few moments Will
caught it, drew in a long breath, and let himself hang over the black
gulf, which seemed far less awful now that there was a friendly voice
below.

"Steady it is, lad, steady. There, they knots make her easy, don't
they?" Josh kept on saying as his youn