"Lord in Heaven!" exclaimed the awe-stricken Clay, as we reached the new thoroughfare. "Are we dreaming?—or am I simply crazy?"
"Guess we're both crazy!" I muttered. And then, shielding my eyes from the glare and nerving myself for a supreme effort, I said, "Come on; let's find out what's what!"
"Might as well die exploring!" he conceded grimly as we resumed our pilgrimage.
I now noticed for the first time that Clay was walking with a slight limp; I also noticed that his rude mining costume was not only soiled with great streaks and blotches of black, but was ripped and torn in a hundred places, exposing the bare skin every here and there, so that he looked a perfect ragamuffin. But my own clothes, I could see, were in an equally sorry condition.
As we slowly covered the hundred yards to the end of the second gallery, Clay's mind seemed to center on somber thoughts. I could see the bleak furrows on his long, lean, battered face; I could read his disconsolate expression as, with a great hairy hand, he thoughtfully stroked his dishevelled red locks. But I was little prepared for his next words.
"Say, Frank, if anything happens to me, see that my old mother back in Denver gets my watch as a remembrance. And tell her I was thinking of her at the last—"
"The devil I will! Tell her yourself! What's getting into you, Phil?" I interrupted, almost savagely. "Haven't you as good a chance as I of getting out of this infernal mess?"
"I suppose I have, at that!" he acknowledged, wryly. "Guess it's both of us, or neither!"
At this point our conversation was interrupted by our arrival at the end of the second gallery, where we were to make a discovery compared with which our previous surprises appeared insignificant.
I remember that it was Clay, who, preceding me by half a dozen feet, was the first to stop short and gasp out his astonishment.