"I never thought we'd see daylight again. The old sky looks pretty good, doesn't it?"
"Never looked so good to me before."
Joe put his foot on the first rung of the ladder. Although the mine had evidently been deserted many years before, the ladder leading down into the shaft still held firm. Slowly he began to ascend.
Frank came behind. Each was filled with relief that they had escaped imprisonment in the abandoned mine, imprisonment that might easily have meant a wretched death. The cold wind about their faces was like the breath of life to them.
Suddenly Joe stopped.
"Listen!" he whispered.
They remained still. Then, from above, at the top of the shaft, they could hear voices.
"That cave-in must have finished them," some one was saying. "The whole shaft is gone."
"They might have found their way out," replied another voice. "These two mines lead into each other."
"I didn't know that."