“Tom! Tom! Tom, here I am.”
Before the echoes of his voice came back to him they were broken by the sound of running feet, and down the winding galleries came Tom, as fast as his lamp and his legs would take him, never stopping till he and Bennie were in one another’s arms.
“Bennie, it was my fault!” exclaimed Tom. “Patsy Donnelly told me you went out with Sandy McCulloch while I was up at the stables; an’ I went way home, an’ Mommie said you hadn’t been there, an’ I came back to find you, an’ I went up to your door an’ you wasn’t there, an’ I called an’ called, an’ couldn’t hear no answer; an’ then I thought maybe you’d tried to come out alone, an’ got off in the cross headin’ an’ got lost, an’”—
Tom stopped from sheer lack of breath, and Bennie sobbed out,—
“I did, I did get lost an’ scared, an’—an’—O Tom, it was awful!”
The thought of what he had experienced unnerved Bennie again, and, still holding Tom’s hand, he sat down on the floor of the mine and wept aloud.
“There, Bennie, don’t cry!” said Tom, soothingly; “don’t cry! You’re found now. Come, jump up an’ le’s go home; Mommie’ll be half-crazy.” It was touching to see the motherly way in which this boy of fourteen consoled and comforted his weaker brother, and helped him again to his feet. With his arm around the blind boy’s waist, Tom led him down, through the chambers, out into the south heading, and so to the foot of the slope.
It was not a great distance; Bennie’s progress had been so slow that, although he had, as he feared, wandered off by the cross heading into the southern part of the mine, he had not been able to get very far away.
At the foot of the slope they stopped to rest, and Bennie told about the strange man who had talked with him at the doorway. Tom could give no explanation of the matter, except that the man must have been one of the strikers. The meaning of his strange conduct he could no more understand than could Bennie.