Two weeks after the explosion Ethel, with a merry party of ladies and gentlemen led by Mark Hemenway, and duly chaperoned, started for the Beachmont entrance to the mine. The general superintendent was in his element. He explained and exhibited all through the outer buildings, and was about to take his charges into the mine itself when an unavoidable something intervened and claimed his immediate attention. It was with evident reluctance that he therefore handed his party over to Bill Somers, who, having proved himself careful and attentive, had often before been intrusted with the escort of sightseers over the mines.
To Ethel the change was a relief. A vague unrest had lately assailed her whenever in Hemenway’s presence and she had almost unconsciously begun to avoid him. Her old indifference to his existence had given way to a growing realization that there was such a being, and the realization was bringing with it an intangible something not quite pleasant.
The feminine portion of the party followed Bill Somers through the strange underground chambers with daintily lifted skirts and with many a shudder and half-smothered shriek. And though they laughed and chatted at times, they cast sidelong glances of mingled curiosity and aversion at the stalwart forms of the begrimed miners.
“Is—is this anywhere near the—accident?” asked Miss Barrington, looking behind her fearfully.
“No, ma’am—oh, no!” reassured Bill Somers quickly. “The Bonanza is a long ways off. We don’t go nowheres near there today, ma’am.”
“Oh, was there an accident?” chimed in a pretty girl with rose-pink cheeks.
“Sure; this was the mine, wasn’t it?” interposed a fussy little man with eyeglasses through which he was peering right and left with his small, near-sighted eyes.
“Tell us about it, please,” begged three or four voices at once; and Bill needed no second bidding.
When they passed Hustler Joe, Somers pointed him out, and as they walked on into the next gallery he told with unconscious power the story of the heroic rescue of the imprisoned men. The shifting shadows and twinkling lights made the telling more impressive, and the dusky forms flitting in and out of the mysterious openings on either side, added a realistic touch to the tale that sobered the gay crowd not a little. Their interest in the earth’s interior waned perceptibly.
“Are—are we on the way out, now?” asked the pretty girl, her cheeks showing white in the gloom.