Turning away from the station, he walked slowly back to the mouth of the slope, jumped into an empty car, and was lowered into the mine. Why did the place appear so strange to him? All the interest, of which it had seemed so full but the day before, was gone from it, and Derrick felt that he hated these underground delvings. A feeling of dread came over him as he started along one of the gangways in search of Tom Evert, to whom he had been ordered to report for duty. The air seemed close and suffocating, and the lamps to burn with a more sickly flame than usual. To the boy the faces of the miners looked haggard, and their voices sounded unnaturally harsh. He overheard one of them say, "Ay, she's working, there's no doubt o' that; but it's naught to worrit over; just a bit settlin' into place like." Derrick wondered, as he passed out of hearing, what the man meant; and as he wondered he was startled by a sharp report like the crack of a rifle, only much louder, and a horrible grinding, crushing sound that came from the rock wall of the gangway close beside him. The sound filled him with such terror that he fled from it, running at full speed through the black, dripping gallery. He ran until he came to a group of miners who were strengthening the roof with additional props and braces of new timber. He told them of his fright, and they laughed at him. "He's heerd t' mine a-talking, and got skeert at her voice," said one. "She's allus a-cracklin' an' a-sputterin' when she's uneasy and workin' hersel' comfortable like; don't ye know that, lad? It's only a 'squeeze.' Sich noises means naught but warnin's to put in a few new timbers here and there," explained another, more kindly. He was an old man, in that his cheeks were sunken and his hair was gray, though he had lived less than forty years. This is counted old among miners, for their terrible life and the constant inhaling of coal-dust ages them very rapidly. Seeing him thus aged, and feeling that he would be less likely to ridicule him than the others, Derrick ventured to ask him if there was really any danger of a general caving in of that part of the mine. "Hoot, lad! there's allus danger in t' mine," was the reply. "But if ye mean is there more now than ordinary, I'd answer ye 'No.' It's a common thing this squeezing and settling of a mine, and times there's men killed by it, but more often it's quieted without harm bein' done. No, no, lad; haud ye no fears! I'd bid ye gang oot an' I thocht ye war in danger."