CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Wade had shouted his fruitless commands, in the ascending cage, all the way to the surface, raging at Richards and his management, and unconvinced, in spite of a united and profane assurance, of his inability to stop the cage and go back; furious at him for having installed such a defective system, and threatening him with dismissal at the earliest possible moment.

His nephew and his nephew’s friend left to danger, while these brutes were being brought to the surface! He had never suffered such helpless frenzy in all his neatly adjusted life.

At the surface the cage cleared with magical suddenness. Mr. Wade, breathless with rage, was fairly dragged out by Richards, and in so short a time as a signal may be given and obeyed, the cage had again started downward.

Mr. Wade leaned back against the timbers of the shaft house, with the exhaustion of relief.

But it was a relief that Richards did not share. This particular kind of disaster was so frequently recurrent that he knew its possibilities all too well. And he raged that it should have come just now. It was such a routine danger that he had not thought of it as a special menace in taking them down. Casualty, with Mr. Wade involved or witnessing, had been furthest from his thoughts or desires.

“How long before they will be up?”’ Mr. Wade asked, faintly.

Richards, tensely alert, made no answer. The cage had reached the bottom of the shaft now. He waited a minute--two--three. There was no sign from below. He himself gave the signal to hoist.

“Are they coming?” demanded Mr. Wade.

Richards shook his head. “I can’t say, sir,” he said, “but they’ve had plenty of time. Either they got in the cage and forgot to give the signal”--and with Trevanion below this was an unlikely contingency--“or----” he hesitated.

“Or?” said Mr. Wade, sharply.

“Or the water has cut them off,” Richards finished.

“Then----” said Mr. Wade, faintly.

“Reach ’em from the level above,” Richards answered. But he thought of certain contingencies--thought of a good many important things.

There was a crowd of miners now, watching for the cage to appear. The jargon of Finnish comment sounded to Mr. Wade like the buzzing of bees. Then the cage came in sight. Empty and dripping wet.

The next second everything was action, and Richards its mainspring. His orders pelted down like hailstones. Men, tools, paraphernalia, filled the cage. Other men went racing off on surface errands.

Mr. Wade, paralyzed by his complete ignorance of conditions or remedies, seemed crushed under the consciousness of casualty. Richards caught him by the arm and shook him into attention.

“We’ll bring them up, if they are alive,” he shouted to him, as though he were deaf.

Then he stepped into the cage, and down it went again. Mr. Wade leaned back against the wall, motionless, his eyes fixed on the hole where it had disappeared.

But over all the little town the news was spreading like wildfire.

* * * * *

John Carrington had spent a horrible morning. When the trap came back, and the stable boy Ike, who was driving, announced that Mr. Ned had sent him home, John Carrington promptly demanded why.

“I dunno,” said the boy. “He said, ‘That’s all,’ so I come.”

It couldn’t be possible that Ned had gone down the Tray-Spot! Ned, who had never shown the slightest eagerness to go down the Star. But what---- And why----

John Carrington fumed, fretted and finally telephoned--to find to his consternation that Ned was underground. What under heavens had Trevanion been thinking of, to let him go? John Carrington raged at him. And what was Ned thinking of? He knew absolutely nothing of underground conditions. Had Richards decoyed him into it for some reason? Any reason of Richards was not a good one.

John Carrington hobbled along on his crutch from the divan on the veranda to the couch in his bedroom, and back again, in a nervous unrest which made all places equally distasteful to him.

He raged at his own stupidity in letting Ned drive Trevanion over. He raged at this miserable leg of his that had held him prisoner so long. He raged at the strength which came back so slowly.

He sent Mrs. Kipley, who came up to remonstrate with him on this exhausting promenade, back to her kitchen in short order.

“He’s fairly beside himself, worrying over Mr. Ned, who ought to have had more sense than to do such a thing, anyway,” she scolded to Hemmy, feeling that she must vent her own nervousness in wrath upon some one. “Now what’s the matter with you?” she demanded, exasperatedly, for Hemmy’s face was assuming a chalk color.

“To think that _he_ may be in danger!” said Hemmy, with a gulp.

“The only danger you need to worry about is spoiling those doughnuts,” said Mrs. Kipley, severely.

And Hemmy, condemned for the next half hour to drop little doughy circles in boiling lard, wondered, as she choked back a sob, why even the luxury of grief was denied her.

Carrington found solitude fast becoming unbearable.

He sent for Mrs. Kipley. He ordered her to tell Kipley to have the trap over at the Tray-Spot, and when Ned came up at the noon hour, to tell him he was needed at home at once.

Kipley had no sooner started than Carrington thought of the lad’s dignity. He would not make a baby of him. He dispatched Ike on Ned’s saddle horse, to tell Kipley to place himself at Mr. Wade’s disposal, to tell Ned to bring Hastings and Mr. Wade back to luncheon, if he chose; but to telephone him at once from the mine in any case.

He hobbled out on the veranda to wait for noon. He told himself that he was getting to be an old woman; that Ned was young and strong, and able to take care of himself anywhere; that Trevanion would keep his eyes open for any deviltry on Richards’ part; that Richards would look after any party which contained Mr. Wade and Hastings.

Then the sound of galloping hoofs came ominously. Ike, fairly hanging on the Colonel’s neck, came flying homeward.

Disaster was stamped on his terrorized face.

Carrington swung up on his crutch as the boy ran stumblingly up the walk.

The clatter brought Mrs. Kipley and Hemmy to the door.

“What is it?” Carrington called, sharply.

“Water!” the boy choked. “The Tray-Spot is flooded, and they’re down there.”

“Who’s down there?” Carrington’s words cut.

“The young fellow--Trevanion--and Mr. Ned,” Ike sobbed.

Carrington’s ashy face worked curiously.

“And Richards?” he demanded.

“Come up and left ’em,” moaned the boy.

John Carrington wheeled, strode limpingly, and for the first time without a crutch, into the house, snatched something that glistened from the drawer of his desk, and came running rapidly in that uneven, limping way toward the saddled horse.

“For pity’s sake, what are you going to do?” Mrs. Kipley called out, as he managed, by the aid of the horse block, to get into the saddle.

The face that turned toward her was distorted with fury, but the twisting lips spoke only two words in a hoarsely guttural cry: “My boy!” But in them was anguish and revenge.

The Colonel shot forward like a shell from a gun.

* * * * *

Kipley, mingling with the crowd around the shaft house, picking up every shred of information heavy-heartedly, saw with consternation the bulky figure pounding toward them on the Colonel. He was beside the horse’s head when John Carrington drew rein.

“They’ve gone down for ’em,” he said, swiftly, and his voice was weighted with pity: “They’re going to get ’em on the level above.”

John Carrington gave no sign of hearing him. He was trying to dismount.

“Give me your shoulder,” he said, sharply. “This cursed leg----” He groaned as he came awkwardly and heavily to the ground. Then, steadying himself by Kipley’s shoulder, he hurried in that lunging, uneven way to the shaft.

He had flung the bridle automatically over the Colonel’s head, and that sagacious animal, well trained as a cavalry horse, stood motionless, waiting.

Kipley told all he had learned of the story, tersely, as he steadied him along.

Mr. Wade, waiting numbly by the shaft, found himself confronted by two men.

“You,” said a deep voice, strangling with rage, “came up and left my son.”

Mr. Wade raised his tired eyes to meet John Carrington’s bloodshot ones.

“They,” said Mr. Wade, mechanically, “came up and left my nephew.”

Then the consciousness of who this man was, and what Hastings had done, awoke in him a sense of pride of blood which restored him in voice and bearing to some semblance of himself.

“My nephew,” he repeated, with a touch of arrogance, “who refused to save himself and leave your son and your workman.” He straightened himself up with a dignity whose assumed calm hardly covered its pathos.

“As he would, naturally,” he finished.

John Carrington’s eyes softened.

“I thought he was that kind,” he said. “I like him.”

Mr. Wade’s heart warmed to a man who appreciated his nephew.

“Then my son would have done the same thing for him, in his place,” John Carrington added, proudly.

Young Carrington was a splendid young fellow, Mr. Wade thought. His sympathy swept out to his father.

“I’m sure of it,” he said. And the two men’s hands met.

When Mr. Wade spoke again, it was with a feeling of placing reliance in John Carrington.

“Are they doing all they can?” he said, simply. “You ought to know.”

Carrington’s mind swept like a microscope over the details of the rescuers’ plans, as Kipley had given them to him. “Tell me your side of it,” he said.

Mr. Wade told him mechanically.

Carrington pondered it.

“I’m inclined to think they are,” he said, at last.

For the conviction forced itself upon him that Richards would do his best to rescue Hastings. And if there was safety underground, Trevanion would find it. Time was the uncertain factor. If there was time!

Kipley brought a rough bench, and the two men sat down.

If there was silence between them, there was also the bond of a common anxiety.

* * * * *

From the moment Richards had seen the three men left on the seventh level he had seen several other things clearly.

One was that it would be no longer possible to parry the question of pumping apparatus with Mr. Wade.

Another was that the only thing which could make the possibility of his continuing as manager of the Tray-Spot worth a straw was the quick, well-planned rescue of the three men. In the reaction of relief from casualty, resourcefulness now might plead for him.

And the last was that if Trevanion did not have time to get them up the first raise, they were caught in some one of those other raises, from which he had had the ladders removed only the week before.

Everything depended on the progress the three had been able to make, and the rapidity with which the water was coming.

When the cage dropped to the sixth level, Richards knew from its solitude that they had not been able to make the first raise, and Richards’ men understood that they were to do their best.

They ran to the second, calling down as they uncovered it: no answer. And the third: to hear only the hollow reverberation of their own voices; to see by the light of a falling candle the glint of water in the bottom. And the fourth: Richards himself, hurrying along in advance of his men toward the final raise to the south, acknowledged that this was a last and very slender hope.

As he hallooed down the raise the answering cry came back as swiftly to his ears as the sight of the three twinkling lights to his eyes. If the candle in his cap was a star of safety to them, those three lights were relief to him.

With swift brevity he ordered the ladders, then called down: “We’ll have you up, all right.”

And up the blackness came Hastings’ voice: “Hurry, for God’s sake; it’s ankle deep!”

The first ladder dropped swiftly to the position, to be nailed in place by the fastest man the Tray-Spot had. Three minutes. The second one sped down after it. Men stood by with ropes, if ladders should prove too slow.

Seven minutes, and the third ladder started down. This was rapid work, but the ropes slid down, as well. The fourth ladder touched the bottom of the hole.

The water was at their knees when they saw it come. Trevanion had begun to knot a rope around young Carrington’s waist. He flung it off now, to swing the slight young figure to his shoulders, to set the stiff feet firmly on the ladder. “I maun take him! ’E can’t do it alone!” he said to Hastings, as he swung himself up after the lad, supporting him.

And it was, in truth, fidelity to young Carrington, not hurry to save himself before Hastings. Nor did Hastings misunderstand. He would have gone last, anyway.

But it seemed a long way to the top. He was terribly stiff and wet and chilled, grateful to the strong hands that lifted him out at last.

He saw Trevanion ahead, half carrying Ned, refusing to let anyone else touch the lad.

It seemed to him that he followed more because he was led along than because of any will of his own. They were in the cage now, going up, and the cheers of the miners with them rose before them.

It would mean but one thing to those on the surface; a thing that made two haggard-faced, gray-headed men stand shaken with emotion as the cage came in sight.

To Mr. Wade the other faces were but a blur around Hastings; to Carrington nothing was clear but his son’s face, chilled blue-white, as the lad leaned in utter weariness against Trevanion.

Neither man saw Richards, nor heard his bluff “All safe!” But the waiting crowd, heedless of old animosities for the moment, took up the cheer. It served as chorus when John Carrington, catching Ned’s icy hands in his, said, hoarsely: “Thank God!”--when the lad, striving to smile his wonted brave smile, answered: “I do, dad;” when Trevanion, crying: “’E must keep movin’!” swept young Carrington along to where the Colonel stood patiently waiting, and, lifting him into the saddle, held him with one hand as he ran alongside, urging the animal into a gentle trot; when John Carrington, impatient to follow, and turning for Kipley’s shoulder to steady him, saw Mr. Wade, his face pinched with suspense and fatigue, resting rather heavily on Hastings’ arm, saw Hastings, gray-drab with fag, looking about for a vehicle of some sort.

If John Carrington’s heartstrings pulled tenaciously toward home, it was not visible in the cordial insistence with which he drove Hastings and Mr. Wade to their car.

“I count on you both for lunch tomorrow,” he called, as he left them at that haven of refuge.

Then he gripped Kipley’s arm.

“Drive like the devil!” he whispered, hoarsely.

* * * * *

The ride had shaken the chill from young Carrington’s blood, but Trevanion refused to leave him until he saw him safely in the house.

At the door young Carrington turned and laid his hand lightly and firmly on Trevanion’s arm.

“You’re splendid, Trevanion,” he said, gently; “I shan’t forget.”

And Trevanion, turning away, would have given his heart’s blood for just that.

Mrs. Kipley bore down upon them, bustlingly energetic, a glass of whisky in one hand and a telegram in the other. Hemmy, red-eyed, lingered in the offing.

Young Carrington tossed off the whisky, tore open the envelope, and, calling to Trevanion, who was halfway down the steps, sped to him and spoke low and rapidly.

Trevanion nodded. Young Carrington, coming back, was smiling rather tremulously.

“Not a thing, thanks,” he said, to Mrs. Kipley’s offer of assistance. “All I need is a bath and a rest. In the morning I shall be quite--myself.”

He laughed an odd, gay little laugh.

“You don’t feel any bone ache?” said Mrs. Kipley, anxiously, as he went up the stairs.

Young Carrington looked down gleefully.

“I feel--relieved,” he said.

“I don’t wonder,” said Mrs. Kipley, to Hemmy, who was altering a determination to enter a convent into a desire to be a trained nurse.

But Mrs. Kipley and young Carrington were not thinking of the same predicament.

For the telegram read:

Shall arrive Yellow Dog nine to-night; your trunk with me.

E. CARRINGTON.

John Carrington, his abused leg stretched out on a chair in front of him, was smoking a final cigar for the night, in the big downstairs bedroom.

He was resting one elbow on his desk; and the head that leaned upon his hand was full of plans for his son’s future. He was safe upstairs, thank God! He was snug in bed and sleeping when his father got home. And he left him to sleep off his fatigue, though he was impatient to talk with him.

The clock over the fireplace chimed the half hour after nine. There was the sound of quick steps on the veranda, then in the hall. A murmur of voices. One was Trevanion’s. “The room at the head of the hall,” he heard his undertone. Some one ran up the stairs, and some one closed the hall door gently and went down the steps.

John Carrington was out in the hall the next instant. He heard the door of Ned’s room open. He stumped up the stairs.

Light came through a half-opened door. A murmur of voices and laughing greeting came to him.

Ned, fully dressed, as though he were the newcomer, had his arms around some one who was sitting up in bed.

“Dear old girl! What a brick you are!” Carrington heard Ned say. “Trevanion told me.”

“Ned!” he cried, uncomprehendingly.

The boy swung round joyously.

“Dad!” he shouted, and there was glad greeting in his tone. “You bully old dad!”

He caught his father by the hand and shoulder with both his hands, but John Carrington held him off mechanically.

For the figure sitting up in bed, flushed, mischievous and laughing at his bewilderment, was Ned!

The hands that grasped John Carrington’s arm and shoulder gripped him, shook him slightly.

“She’s been ripping, perfectly ripping, dad, and I’m four months late, but be a little glad to see me,” this Ned’s laughing voice went on.

“She----” John Carrington stammered.

Ned waved a genial hand toward the figure in the bed.

“Miss Elenore Carrington, the most successful self-made man in history!” he announced, with a flourish.