The men were all ahead. Ora dimly could see them running like rabbits up the fault drift. Then she became conscious of the stifling sickening smell of powder and a bursting sensation in her head. No one paused for a second, nor drew breath until all had turned the corner and were in the main level. For a space nothing was heard but the hoarse effort to refill tormented lungs. The men leaned against the walls of the tunnel. Ora leaned against Gregory. All sense of fear had departed out of her. She had had her baptism of fire and doubted if she ever should be capable of the sensation of fear again.
The silence lasted but a moment. Out of the intense darkness flew oaths like red-hot rocks from boiling craters.
“Shut up!” said Gregory sharply. “There’s a lady here. And light up if you have any extra candles. I’ve dropped mine. We must find out if anybody is missing.”
“I held on to mine,” said Ora proudly. Gregory lit it, and the shift boss counted his men. “All here, sir; but by jink, it was a narrow squeak. The—the—the——”
“Never mind—who’s this?” A man was running toward them from the direction of the shaft.
“It’s me, sir.” Gregory recognised Mann’s voice. “I’ve just got on to what they were up to. There wasn’t a blamed thing the matter with the compressor. They just meant to catch us off guard—anybody hurt?”
“All right. How did you find out?”
“I suspicioned something crooked, so I got one of those damned bohunks drunk and bribed him. They’d put in the sticks before they quit, pretending the compressor had gone wrong and they couldn’t finish drilling. I suppose they sneaked back while I was getting the story, and lit the fuses.”
“You’ll let us get back at ’em, boss?” demanded the men.
“Oh, yes,” said Gregory, in a voice of deadly irony. “We’ll get back at them.”