A call for volunteers and the offer of a reward by Kenniston secured no companion to Larrabee in his venture when the workmen looked down into the dark shaft, with its crumbling sides, and sound of tumbling waters, and chill dank foul breath. They only manifested their good will in their alacrity in adjusting and adapting such appliances as they could to insure Larrabee's safety as far as possible. Kenniston doubted at the time whether he ought to permit the jeopardy; being assured, however, that the effort would be made at all events, but without the advantage of the heavy cables and pulleys which had been used in building the hotel, and which his compliance offered, he yielded. Afterward he was disposed to take great credit to himself for several devices which facilitated the enterprise, and from his knowledge of mechanical resources he doubtless insured its success; he bore the honors of the rescue,--which Larrabee at the peril of his life achieved,--with all the unblushing effrontery of an officer whose command has won a battle. He was in a glow of enthusiasm for the nonce, and he continued the rôle of benefactor with more genuine pleasure than had lately fallen to his jaded susceptibility. He placed eighty-seven silver dollars in a worn leather bag, a tobacco pouch of one of the workmen, to be given to old Haight when he should be sufficiently recovered, with the pious fiction that his own money had been found in the shaft. "This will keep the old mole from burrowing again," he said. His abounding good nature was very thorough when once aroused. His heart was touched by Espey's forlorn plight, as he lay panting on the grass, and the pallor of his young face marked by the dread of life that had just succeeded the dread of death. "Can't you make out to let up on Espey, somehow?" he said aside to Rodolphus Ross, whose clumsy pranks of delight at the successful outcome of this most exciting episode were like the extravagant joviality of a gamboling Newfoundland dog, and not unpleasing to his interlocutor from their common bond of sympathy. "Who? Espey?" He paused, turning his lighted dark eyes on Kenniston, his peaked hat shading his elevated eyebrows and surprised face. "I ain't hyar arter Espey no more. I'm arter the fire-bug, ye know. That thar man ez Espey shot in Tanglefoot Cove hev got well o' the pip, or the gapes, or whatever the weak-kneed chicken took from the bullet; an' this hyar warrant fur arrest hev been kerried round in my pocket till it's mighty nigh wore out." He took the ragged paper from his pocket and shook out its tatters, and laughed and grimaced in the very face of its august authority. "Go on, boy, go on! I wouldn't put the county ter charges ter board ye!" he said to Espey.