“Yes, he’s down in the fifth. I’ll take you down there if you like. I’m going back in a minute.”
“What do you think, Joe?” I asked.
“Yes, let’s go,” my companion replied. “I’ve never been inside a mine, and I should like to see one.”
“All right,” said the miner. “Come over here to the dressing-room and I’ll give you a lamp and a couple of slickers. It’s a bit wet down there.”
Joe and I were soon provided with water-proof coats, and in company with our new friend we stepped into the cage, when the miner, shutting the door behind us, called out to the engineer, “Fifth level, McPherson,” and instantly the floor of the cage seemed to drop from under us. After a fall of several miles, as it appeared to us, the cage stopped, when, peering through the wire lattice-work, we saw before us a dark passage, upon one side of which hung a white board with a big “5” painted upon it.
“Here you are,” said the miner, stepping out of the cage and handing us a lighted lamp. “Just walk straight along this drift about three hundred feet—it’s all plain sailing—and you’ll find Tom Connor at work there. I’m going on down to the seventh myself.”
With that he stepped back into the cage, rang the bell, and vanished, leaving us standing there eyeing each other a little dubiously at finding ourselves left to our own guidance, four hundred feet below the surface of the earth.
“I hadn’t reckoned on that,” said I. “I thought he was coming with us.”
“So did I,” replied Joe. “But it doesn’t really matter. All we have to do is to walk along this passage; so let’s go ahead.”
That our obliging friend had been right when he stated that it was “a bit wet” down here was evident, for the drops of water from the roof of the drift kept pattering upon our slickers, and presently, when we had advanced something over half the distance, one of them fell plump upon the flame of our lamp and put it out!