"
"Then we'll find 'im atween here an' there."
The two men had been moving slowly down the chamber. When they came to
the foot of it, they turned into the air-way, and from that they went
through the entrance into the heading. At this place the dirt on the
floor was soft and damp, and they saw in it the print of a boy's shoe.
"He's gone in," said Bachelor Billy, examining the foot-prints, "he's
gone in toward the face. I ken the place richt well, it's mony's the
time I ha' travelled it."
They hurried in along the heading, not stopping to look for other
tracks, but expecting to find the boy's body ahead of them at every
step they took.
When they reached the face, they turned and looked at each other in
surprise.
"He's no' here," said Billy.
"It's strange, too," replied Conway. "He couldn't 'a' got off o' the
headin'!"
He stooped and examined the floor of the passage carefully, holding
his lamp very low.
"Billy," he said, "I believe he's come in an' gone out again. Here's
tracks a-pointin' the other way."
"So he has, Mike, so he has; the puir lad!"
Bachelor Billy was thinking of the disappointment Ralph must have felt
when he saw the face of the heading before him, and knew that his
journey in had been in vain.
Already the two men had turned and were walking back.
At the point where they had entered the heading they found foot-prints
leading out toward the slope. They had not noticed them at first.
They followed them hastily, and came, as Ralph had come, to the fall.
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