Up to within a few days this compressed air had been used in the tunnel, but when the reporters started through the tunnel was near enough completion to render it unnecessary. The heavy cast iron lining was all in place, except where the brick wall was, and it only remained to cut through the masonry, establish communication from one end to the other, fit a few pieces of cast iron into place, and the tunnel would be established. The cutting through of the wall was the event of great importance, and really marked the completion of the first stage of the work. Hence every reporter felt the need of getting a good story about it. “We’ll try to beat ’em,” whispered Mr. Newton to Larry as the party started forward. The tunnel was cut in a slanting or downward direction at first. It began several hundred feet back from the edge of the river and, when it was actually below the bed of the stream it was level. It was quite dark in the big tube, save here and there where electric lights gleamed. Most of the party walked, but there were small cars, hauled by a cable, for the use of the directors and officials of the construction company. Through the tube they went. In spite of the heavy lining, sustaining thousands of pounds of pressure, some water leaked in. It splashed down in big drops, and felt like rain. Once a drop fell on Larry’s lips, and it tasted salty, just as the lower Hudson River does. Then he began to realize that he was in a queer place, under the bed of one of the largest rivers in the United States. It hardly seemed possible that he was walking under the historic stream that Henry Hudson, in the _Half Moon_, discovered so many years ago. As the party progressed, the president explained the workings of the machinery, and stated that when the concrete lining had been placed over the iron, there would be no leakage. “Where are we now?” asked one of the reporters. “Right under the middle of the river,” was the president’s reply. “Above us are the big ferryboats. The ocean steamers are sailing, and the tug boats are darting to and fro.” “What if the tunnel should break?” asked the same newspaper man. “None of us would be left to tell what happened,” was the reply. “The water would rush in and--that would be the end of us.” Larry shivered, though it was hot in the tube. “But we didn’t build this tunnel to break,” the president went on. “You are as safe as if you were in your offices.” “I wish I could believe that,” a young reporter remarked, with something like a shiver. Here and there the gloom was lighted by an incandescent lamp. The cable, pulling small cars, in which the officers and directors of the company rode, while the rest walked, slid along on the grooved wheels. The way was obstructed by huge pieces of iron, being some extra ones of those that formed the inner lining of the tunnel.