There was no answer. His shout echoed and re-echoed in the narrow space of the tunnel.
He shouted again and again, but the echoes were his only answers. Once he thought he heard a faint cry from beyond the wall, but he could not be sure. Communication had been cut off. He realized that his peril was doubled now. With the shaft blocked, with the passageway blocked, he was imprisoned underground in a small space, where the air would soon become foul and where suffocation would eventually end his life. He set his flashlight on the floor of the tunnel, seized the iron bar, and set to work to remove the blockade.
The task seemed hopeless. The rocks were piled up deeply and were so large and so tightly jammed together that it seemed impossible to remove them. Joe knew that if the roof of the tunnel had completely fallen in there would be little hope, as rock would continue to fall as fast as he removed the rock from underneath.
He pried away a huge boulder at the top of the heap and stood to one side as he exerted all the leverage of the iron bar. The great rock wavered, then rolled down the side of the heap into the open tunnel. Joe waited anxiously.
To his relief there was no crash of rock from the top of the tunnel. The removal of the boulder had left a small opening.
He shouted again:
"Frank! can you hear me?"
A surge of gladness passed over him when he heard his brother's voice in reply:
"I hear you. What's happened?"
"The shaft caved in."