“That’s what I’m a-goin’ t’ find out,” said Jed, grimly. “It’s somewhere here in these hills, an’ I’m goin’ t’ find it if it takes ten years.”
And, indeed, after the first day’s search, it seemed to Jack that it might easily take much longer than that.
“There’s one thing they might ’a’ done with it,” Jed remarked, as they turned homeward in the twilight. “They might ’a’ shoved it up in some of th’ old workin’s around here. They’re full o’ fire-damp, o’ course, an’ no man could venture in them an’ live, so I don’t see jest how they’d work it. But to-morrer we’ll take a look at ’em.”
So the next morning they set out, carrying, instead of rifles, a collection of ropes, candles, and lanterns, which Jed had procured from the mine.
“I’ve got a plan of th’ old workin’s, too,” he said. "There’s some over on th’ other side of th’ hill which it ain’t any use wastin’ time on. Them fellers couldn’t ’a’ carried that chest over th’ ridge, if they’d tried a month. But there’s six or eight on this side. There’s th’ fust one, over yonder," and he pointed to a black hole in the hillside. “All of these old workin’s,” he went on, “are what they call drifts—that is, wherever they found th’ coal croppin’ out, they started in a tunnel, an’ kept on goin’ in till th’ vein pinched out. Then they stopped and started another tunnel on th’ next outcrop. They’re all driven in on an incline, so they’ll drain theirselves, an’ as soon as th’ company stopped pumpin’ air into them, they probably filled up with gas, so we’ve got t’ be mighty careful.”
He clambered up to the mouth of the tunnel and peered into it cautiously.
“Can’t see nothin’,” he said. “Let’s try fer gas.”
He took from his pocket a leather bag, from which he extracted a little ball of cotton saturated in oil.
“Stand aside,” he said, and himself stood at one side of the mouth of the tunnel. Then, grasping the ball by a piece of wire attached to it, he struck a match, touched it to the cotton, and then hurled the ball with all his force into the opening.
It seemed to Jack that there was a sort of quick throb in the air, a sheet of flame shot out of the tunnel mouth, and an instant later a dull rumbling came from within the hill.