Perhaps some vague premonition, perhaps an intuition of subterranean proximity to an unsuspected wanderer in the Lost Time mine, perhaps only a morbid aversion to the whole project, induced by the lack of that conscience-fortifying force, dinner, actuated Copley, but for the third time he sought to disaffect Taft's mind toward it. "Mebbe somebody mought be passin' an' hear the 'splosion; moughtn't they low 'twar cur'us? What would they make of it?" Taft did not now pause in his work; he answered still bending down to the ground laying the train. "Yearthquake," he said composedly, "or else jes' some o' the rottin' timbers o' the mine settlin' an' givin' way. Besides," he added, straightening himself up, "nobody's passin' at this time o' night, nohow." "Night!" exclaimed Copley. "Is it night?" "Midnight," replied Taft laconically. He stood silent, thinking, a moment, and resting after the labor of cautiously adjusting the charges of powder; and then, so quiet it all was, not the stir of a breath, not the whisper of a word, not the silken rustle of a ribbon of flame in the demolished furnace, he heard, what he had never before heard so far as here in the still-room, the reiterated strokes of a pick echoing down the tunnel, and cleaving the ground with the regularity of a practiced workman. He said not a word to Copley; he walked along the tunnel toward the sound, a chill thrill stealing over him despite the fact that his temerity was a trifle more pronounced than usual because he was about to leave the place forever. The strokes continued, now growing louder, now more muffled, always accurately timed; and suddenly the faint clamors of that high, queer, false-ringing voice that seemed to seek out and shock every nerve within him. He recoiled with fright and an unreasoning anger. He turned himself about, and swiftly changed the position of a can filled with powder which was to aid in the demolition of the place, arranging it in a niche in the earth close to the wall whence the sound came. "I make ye my partin' compliments," he said, with a sarcastic smile and a mocking wave of the hand to the gruesome unknown. The next moment his expression changed to a frightened gravity, and he ran through the black tunnel as if he consciously had the devil at his heels, pausing not until he was safe in the cellar beneath the store.