“Redding! Whar’s Red?” shouted Muskoka as he folded the message.
“Here. What?”
“I’m going back to the station for another operator. I’m going to take your Johnny hoss. Mine’s blowed.”
“Sure yes,” agreed the owner, and with a “Good luck, kid,” Muskoka was clattering down the path.
“Now, Mr. Bartlett, will you please explain the plan of things inside; just how the tunnel runs?” requested Wilson.
“Have a seat and I’ll draw it,” said the boss, setting the example. He turned the board bearing the fragmentary message, and Wilson dropped down beside him.
“The main gallery, the old lead, runs straight in, at about this dip down,” he said, drawing as he spoke. “Runs back 550 feet, and ends. That was where the old lead petered out.
“Here, about 200 feet from the entrance, is a vertical shaft, 90 feet, that we put down to pick up the old Pine-Knot lead. It’s from the foot of that the new gallery, the lower level, starts. It slopes off just under the old lead—so—330 feet, there’s a fault, and it cants up 12 feet—so—then on down again at a bit sharper dip, nearly 600 feet; then another fault and a drop, and about 50 feet more.
“It’s down there at the end we think most of the men have been caught, but some may have been near the shaft. The pumping-pipe where Hoover and Young must have been tapping is here, half way between the first and second faults, where it comes down through a boring from the old gallery. It must have been at that point, because we had disconnected two leaking sections just below there only this morning.”