"How little these Eastern folks do know!" remarked the Reverend Gabriel, in an audible aside to Louise.
"Perhaps we should all be better off, if we knew more about it," she replied, with a touch of coldness in her tone, as she turned her back upon the Reverend Gabriel, and took her place at her father's side, where she met the amused glance of Dr. Brownlee, who had overhead both remarks.
"They signal the cage, and run the car on it," answered Mr. Everett. "We don't let but one man ring for the engineer. He has to stay near one of the stations, where he can hear; and when the miners want him, they go to the station and pound their signal on one of the water-pipes, for him to repeat. We had a green hand, though, that tried to improve on our plan, a few years ago. He attempted to catch the cage on the fly, as it went up past him; and he actually aimed the car at it, and ran it down."
"Did he hit it?" asked Charlie.
"Hardly," returned Mr. Everett, laughing. "The cage was too quick for him, and went on up; and both the car and the man fell clear to the bottom of the shaft."
"Oh-h!" And Marjorie's eyes grew round with horror. "I should think 'twould have hurt him awfully."
"Well, yes, Marjorie; I should have thought it would," said Howard, mimicking her tone, while the others joined in the laugh at her expense.
Then they went on to the end of the cross-cut, and, turning at a sharp angle, they came into the drift, the long gallery running through the vein. For some distance, the drift, like the cross-cut, was lined with timbers, then the lining ceased, as they neared the end of the drift, where the miners were hard at work, drilling for fresh blasts, or tearing out the ore loosened by the last explosion, and loading it into the little car which stood ready to be run down the track to the station. Seven feet above, so that the roof of the lower level formed the flooring of the next, was another short gallery, where the men were busy stoping, digging out the ore from the upper tier. Dingy and grimy as they were, it was fascinating to watch them, burrowing, like so many moles, in the depths of the earth. The visitors lingered to look at them until they were frightened away by the preparations for a blast; then they slowly made their way back to the station, pausing a moment to watch a loaded car, as it rolled from the rails to the polished steel flooring, and swung around the corner into position, to wait for the cage. Mr. Everett looked at his watch.
"I'm sorry to hurry you," he said; "but I think we ought to be going; don't you, Somers? It's change day; and at three the cages will be full."
"Change day!" remarked Charlie to his cousin, in an undertone; "what's that?"