"Yes, on the sub-level above the seventeenth. Is that where you are going to work?"
"Yes, sir; for Mr. Spooner."
"Then I feel sorry for you."
"Why so, sir?"
"Because he is a slave driver. Every man in the mines knows him and none of them wants to work for him. I guess he hasn't a white man on the contract."
"I didn't know there were any colored men employed here."
"There are not. We call a white man one who is not a foreigner," laughed the miner.
"Oh!"
Now and then the car would halt with a jolt; two or three men would leap off and disappear in the darkness, after which the cage would drop down another level or so.
"Here is your level," announced the miner. "Jump off, or you will be carried by."