"He is right!" said Walker excitedly. "It's a chance! I have heard of this road, now I think of it." He turned to Entwistle again. "How far out do you think it runs? Quick, man—tell us!"
For answer the veteran, much inflated, stumped off again in a northerly direction, with all the assurance of a water-diviner in full cry. After fifty yards or so he stopped.
"I should say it ended about here," he said. "You can trust the old man's memory. The youngsters——"
Another lengthy deliverance was plainly threatened, but this time our Nestor observed, not without justifiable chagrin, that the majority of his audience had disappeared. The symposium was suddenly reduced to himself and his daughter-in-law.
Testily curtailing his peroration, to the exclusion of severable valuable aphorisms upon the advantages of senile decay over youthful immaturity, the old gentleman resignedly took the arm of Mrs Amos, and permitted himself to be conducted back to his fireside.
But he had served his turn for all that.
The other three were hurrying back to Belton Pit talking eagerly, Juggernaut leading by half a pace.
"It's madness, of course," said Walker cheerfully. "This pit has been closed for forty years. The props will be down——"
"The air will be foul," said the Inspector thoughtfully.
"Or explosive," added Walker.