“Nivir a farther,” said Pat. “We’ve got to the ind of our journey.”
“Come now,” said Bart. “See here, Pat. You spoke of a tunnel once. In fact we came down here with the pickaxe on purpose to make a tunnel to the money-hole. Well, we’re after something more precious than money—life itself. Can’t we tunnel up to life?”
“Tunnel, is it?” cried Pat, in great excitement. “Of coorse we can. Ye’ve jist hit it, so you have. It’s what we’ll do. We will thin.”
“The soil here seems like clay; and if we cut up behind this casing, it’ll be comparatively safe,” said Bart. “We need only cut up to the planks.”
“Sure an we’ll have to cut up to the top.”
“O, no! When we get to the planks, we can break through, and climb them like a ladder to the top. Once up to the planks, and we’re safe.”
“Break through the plankin is it? Sure enough; right are you; that’s what we’ll do, so it is.”
“And so that makes only thirty feet to cut away. It’ll be hard work cutting upwards; but you and I ought to manage it, Pat, when our lives are at stake.”
“Manage it? Of coorse; why not? Only we haven’t got that bit of a pick with us, so we haven’t, for we left it down below; an sorra one of me knows what’s become of it. It may be buried under the roons of the fallin logs.”
At this Bart looked at Pat with something like consternation.