"It bust through about thar." He pointed about in real or fancied recognition of the course of the flood. "But over yander--the whole thing hev fell down an' caved in sence then, mighty nigh--'twar higher 'n the level o' the overflow, an' I stayed down thar in the shaft dry ez a bone. I stayed two days along o' that dead man. I furgits his name," he broke off in peevish irritation. He sat down, readjusted his plaid shawl about his head, surmounted it again with his big broad hat, and recommenced:-- "Wall, they 'lowed at fust they'd work the mine agin,--didn't know what the damage war; an' ez they war pokin' 'bout, somebody 'membered me, an' when they fished me out'n the shaft I hed these hyar jiggets." He held up his shaking hands, and looked in exasperation from one to the other. "Some calls it the palsy, but the doctor, he 'lowed it kem from the narvous shock. An' the foreman, he hed done hed ter git drowned with my leetle bag o' money in his pocket." He rose to his feet, with a sudden steady blazing fire in his eyes. "But it's silver,--eighty--seben--dollars!" He pronounced the words as if they expressed the wealth of the Indies. "They air silver,--silver metal. Water can't hurt 'em, an' the leetle leather bag kep' 'em from scatterin'. The foreman's got 'em in his pocket. Mebbe he hain't got no pocket by this time, but he hain't got rid o' all his bones. The money'll be nigh his bones, an' I be goin' ter foller the wash o' that flood, afore the walls fell in on it, till I find 'em." There was something pathetic to Jasper Larrabee's sympathetic gaze in the record of the gradual failure of the old man's mental powers registered on the walls. He could easily distinguish, of course, the difference in the work wrought by numbers and with the expectation of valuable ore and this unique subterranean burrowing with only the object of old Haight's search in prospect. But at first accepted methods of mining had been held in regard with a due consideration of safety. The excavations had been carefully timbered, the débris of the ancient lumber serving for the purpose; the nature of the earth and rock all capably recognized either in the avoidance of obstacles or the seizure of advantage; the exact location of an old cross-cut definitely ascertained and intersected by the new tunnel, and utilized to further him on the way to some objective point, doubtless once definite in his mind, but now hazy and intermittent, or possibly lost altogether, for here and there, evidently at random, great vaults had been hollowed out and abandoned, and for a long time every precaution or thought of safety had been discarded. His plan and its feasibility were gone, and only his inadequate intention remained.