“Reckon we are,” said the captain. “Now what’s up?”
“Is the boy hurt? Good God! He ain’t hurt himself, has he?”
“Naw; pore little cuss is used up, that’s all. He’ll be around all right in a minute. Now tell me, what’s loose.”
Bud answered briefly, but completely.
“Pete and Billy, get to cutting wood—the rest of you come here,” commanded the captain.
“You ain’t going to stop to timber, are you?” asked Bud in an agony of haste.
“I sure am,” replied the captain. “All this trouble’s come of carelessness. Now you just keep your clothes on, and let me run this thing.
“We’ll have your friend out in no time, and there won’t be no more men stuck in there with a hill a-top of ’em in the doing of it. What you’ve done there is a help all right, but it might easy have meant that we’d had two men instead of one to hunt for.”
“You’re dead right,” said Bud. “Tell me what I’m to do.”
The captain took hold as only a man can who has the genius for it. He knew by long practice what size of a relief tunnel meant real speed of progress—the least dirt to be removed to make it possible that men could work to advantage. And his tunnel, safely rough-ceiled, went in at the rate of a foot a minute.