"Well, it's there somewhere!" declared Will.
"I see it now!" cried George. "It's under water!"
"Under water?" repeated Will.
"Yes, under water!" answered George. "If we don't get out of this hole before the pumps get to working we'll have to swim!"
Will turned his searchlight on the dip and saw that it was now full clear to the down dropping roof.
"I guess we'll have to swim," he agreed.
"That black water doesn't look good to me," George exclaimed with a little shudder. "It seems to me that I can see snakes and alligators wiggling in it from here. Looks worse to me than the swamps of the Everglades! And there was a quart of snakes to every pint of water down there!"
"But we got to swim just the same!" urged Will. "In half an hour from now the air in this chamber will be unbreathable. There is no vent at all, now that the water fills the dip, and the coal gas is naturally seeping in all the time."
"That's all right, too!" admitted George. "But I'm not going to jump into that black water until I have to. If a rope or something should twine around my legs while I was in there, I'd drop dead with fright! Besides," he went on, "the chances are that Canfield will get the pumps going before long now."
The boys waited for a long half hour, during which time the water rose steadily. It seemed certain that the mine was about to be flooded throughout all the lower levels.