It was an endless journey. In places where the dirt closed in he would be a full minute progressing a foot, and a minute of such mortal terror as seldom falls to the lot of man of peace or soldier.
Suddenly the boy’s outstretched hand encountered only emptiness below. That frame had held. He dove into the space head first, and landed on something soft and warm—the body of his pardner.
He had found him. In a paroxysm of joy, he flung himself upon the motionless figure and cried his heart out. This, too, he soon conquered. Jim had just so much show—any delay might wipe it out. He searched the man’s pockets until he found a match. By its light he saw the candle stuck into the post, and lit it. Then he knelt beside his pardner again.
It was a curious picture within that gloomy chamber underground. The miner lying stark, stretched to his full great length, appearing enormous in the flickering candle-light, and the child, white-faced, big-eyed, but steady as a veteran, wiping the blood from the ragged cut in the man’s head.
Ches realized what had happened the instant before the calamity. Jim, startled by the noise of the yielding timbers, had made a rush, only to be struck down by the rock, that now lay within an inch of him; yet struck into safety for all that. Had he gone a yard farther, the life would have been smashed out of him instantly.
But now, what? The flowing blood sent a sickening chill through the boy. Had he done this much only to be able to see his pardner die? He drove his teeth into his hand again at the thought. What was that? Was it a trick of the tunnel, his heart sounding in his own ears, or a rhythmic beat from outside? Hollow and dull fell that “clatter-clum-clatter-clum.”
“Bud!” screamed Ches, “T’ank God, dat’s Bud!”