"I don't see anything very alarming."
"You don't?"
"I do not."
Rush pointed to a seam in the rocks overhead. The seam extended along through some three feet of rock and ore. There was a narrow opening or crack there into which the lad jabbed his sharp-pointed candlestick.
"Now do you see what I am trying to show you?"
"Pshaw! That's nothing. We always get those cracks in back-stoping."
"We are not back-stoping now; we're drifting," protested Steve. "That drift is dangerous."
"No more so than any of them. This isn't a kid's job; it's a man's job down in these mines."
"I am simply pointing it out to you, sir. At the same time I want to ask your permission either to abandon the drift until it can be shored up, or to back-stope until we can get through to solid rock."
"Go on with your drifting. We can't stop for a little thing like that, I tell you," answered the mine captain, turning and starting away.