iner shook his head.

"Not much chance that way, I'm afraid. They'll be full of gas, sure.
The ventilation has been cut out of there for months. But we can try
it, anyway."

"I'd ought to ha' known better'n to work this shift," declared Jim, as
they ran. "You mind when you talked to Otto in the cage, comin' down?"

"Yes."

"Well, Otto wouldn't go to work, nohow. Said the knockers had been
riled an' he wouldn't take the risk o' goin' agin 'em. The boss swore
at him some, but that didn' faze Otto. He went to the top, just the
same. He had the right hunch. Wish I'd followed him!"

They ran on, and Jim broke out again:

"I'd no business to come coal minin', anyway. I'm a prospector, by
rights. Gold's my end, not coal. You're s'posed to know this game.
What chance ha' we got?"

Clem made no answer in words. He held up his safety-lamp, already
showing a marked blue cap of gas over the flame.

"I'd seen it a'ready! That means gas, don't it?"

"We may get through it," said Clem, but his tone was not hopeful.

They turned into a long gallery leading to the old workings, and, as
they sped along, the cones of gas on the safety lamps grew longer and
longer.

Presently lumps of slate and rock on the floor heralded the end.

Quite suddenly, the gleam of the lamps shone on a wall before them.
The roof had fallen in.

"That's the last chance?" queried Anton, gloomily.

"The very last," said Clem, "we're buried."

CHAPTER III

THE DANGERS OF RESCUE

The midday whistle of the mine had just begun, when a violent blast of
air roared up the intake shaft, followed by a portentous--

Cra-a-ack!

A terrific crash rose from the bowels of the earth.

The growling rumble of the underground disaster came rolling upward in
throbbing volumes of sound.

The ground trembled, the buildings shook, the lofty skeleton of the
pit-head gear wavered as though about to let fall the huge revolving
wheels overhead.

From the engine-house, from the pumping-room, from the ventilation
building, from the screeners and washers, from the picking-belts, from
the loading-yards, from the coking-ovens, from every corner of the
vast above-ground works of a modern colliery, the men came running.

Some were white of face, some sooty, but all bore an expression of
the most extreme anxiety.

The mine superintendent, who was also the owner, the mine boss, and
the mining engineer were among the first at the shaft. The doctor and
hospital