Frank did not credit any assumption that Barney had fallen into the hands of the greasers.
He reckoned, correctly enough, that the Celt had been misled further away into other passages and was lost.
Indeed, the mine was a veritable labyrinth, akin to the fabled one of Crete.
Frank was not sure that he would ever find his way out of the place, and was oppressed with dismay.
On for some distance he went.
It was easy enough to follow the passage wall.
It seemed certain that it must sooner or later bring him into the one in which Barney had gone astray.
But the darkness was so very thick that any course was rendered deceptive.
It was almost impossible to tell, with any degree of certainty, just where any one would come up. For that matter, it would be easy to keep up a perpetual circuit until death from sheer exhaustion should come to end the struggle. It was a situation not without grim terrors.