“Bah! you know better,” Chet said sharply. “The pay-streak they followed first in this mine is only fifty feet down. It petered out before your father and mine bought into the Silent Sue—you know that, Dig.
“No chance! The two levels have never been connected, save by the shaft itself. Your father can’t dig any faster than these men are digging. If there were only a way—
“Say, Dig! there’s the Crayton Shaft. Don’t you remember it? Father told me the Number Two tunnel on the lower level was pretty close to the old Crayton diggings. He always said that if the Crayton people had kept on, they’d have struck pay-ore again. But they got cold feet and father bought a share in the claim cheap. Now there’s been a fellow around after it. I heard father talking about it.”
“What good will it do to go down the Crayton shaft?” demanded Dig hopelessly.
“I don’t know—I don’t know,” admitted Chet. “But I can’t stand here idle. I’ll go crazy—crazy! I must do something! Maybe the wall between the tunnel of the Crayton mine and our Number Two is not very thick. I’ve got a compass, and I know this hill like a book. So do you. Let’s take a pick and shovel and ride over there.”
“Oh, Chet! I’m afraid you’re stirring yourself all up over nothing,” returned his chum. “I’ll help you, of course; but I’m afraid it won’t help us any to go over there.”
“We’ll not know till we try.”
“Will you take some of the men to help us?”
“Two can do all that can be done,” answered Chet, rather shrinking from taking even Rafe Peters into his confidence. It seemed such a forlorn hope!
“If the blast went off at the end of the tunnel, it’ll be full of rubbish and take a lot of digging to get through it.”