A rough track led to it, winding some twenty feet above the stream, and up this track Fletcher Hill drove the two visitors on the evening of the day succeeding their arrival at Trelevan.
There was a deadness of atmosphere between those rocky walls that struck chill even to Adela's inconsequent soul. "What a ghastly place!" she commented. "I should think Ezekiel's valley of dry bones must have been something like this."
Harley met them at the door of his office with a smile in his crafty eyes. "Warden is waiting for you in the mine," he said to Fletcher. "His lambs have been a bit restless this afternoon. He has set his heart on a full-dress parade, but I don't know if it will come off."
Fletcher's black brows drew together. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded.
Harley shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. "You wait and see!"
The entrance to the mine yawned like an immense cavern in the rock. The roaring screech of the machines issuing from it made an inferno of sound from which, involuntarily, Dot shrank.
She looked at Hill appealingly as they drew near. He turned instantly to Harley.
"Go ahead, will you, and tell them to stop work? We can't hear ourselves speak in this."
"I'll come with you, Mr. Harley," said Adela, promptly. "I want to see the machines going."
Harley paused for a moment. "You know your way, Mr. Hill?" he said.