Steve lay limp and pallid, his face almost as white as the sheets of the cot on which he had been placed, and there was a troubled look in the eyes of the big-hearted superintendent as he left the company's hospital and hurried to the shaft.
"Let me off at the seventeenth level," he directed, taking his place in the cage. A few minutes later found him at the chutes where the accident had occurred. Bob, pale-faced and anxious, had been placed at the tally-board and the work of the mine was going on much as usual.
"Please, Mr. Penton, is Steve badly hurt?" demanded the lad, running over to the superintendent the instant he saw him approaching.
"I fear he is, my boy. How did the accident occur?"
"We hear he was carried up on the skip and dropped on the trestle."
"I mean what happened here?"
"The boy fell through the old trap there," explained the mine captain, approaching at that moment.
"Fell through the trap?" demanded Mr. Penton in surprise.
"Yes, the old trap that was closed several years ago. The men are fixing it so a similar accident won't occur again."
"Tell me exactly what happened."