Standing once more on the cross-head, Mr. Everett and Charlie could feel the man's excitement in the very motion of their tiny platform, as, obedient to the engine, it rose a little, then stopped, then rose again, as if feeling its way over an uncertain course. So they went on till the four-hundred level was below them; then the engine quickened its action. Little by little the tiny dot above them broadened, and turned to a wide disk of blue sky; and their lamps dwindled to a pale yellow before the clear light of day, as the cross-head, with its living freight, slowly came up into the bright air, amid the shouts of the men who stood waiting to receive it. "Father said Joe was badly rattled," Ned told Charlie, that night, on their way to a choir rehearsal. "He was sure 'twas all up with you, and came near losing his head, so he couldn't run the engine, or answer a signal." "I didn't suppose 'twas as bad as that," returned Charlie. "I didn't much like your father's having to walk round on that beam, or whatever you call it, but I thought the rest was good fun." "I told father that I didn't believe you knew enough to be scared," said Ned, with masculine frankness. "He was talking, all dinner-time, about the way you kept cool and didn't make a fuss. Father was frightened, himself; he's never been in such a fix before, with all he's had to do with mines, and he says he's going to hurry now, to get that cage put in before they get into any more scrapes. But I just wish I'd been down there with you," he added enviously. "It's ever so much more fun than 'tis to go straight down, without any hitches." "I'll wait till I've tried both, before I make up my mind," responded Charlie, as they reached the door of the chapel, and turned to wait for Howard and Grant to overtake them. CHAPTER V. THE MEETING IN THE WATERS. Three weeks had passed since Charlie's unsuccessful attempt to explore the inside of a mine, and now the last of March had come. Already the boy had begun to feel as much at home with his cousins and in the mining camp, as if he had always lived in Blue Creek. Had the change from his old surroundings been less abrupt and marked, he might have had occasional twinges of homesickness; but everything about him was so new and strange, and so full of interest, that it left him no opportunity to mourn for his former life, save when the memory of his mother and of his loss of her came fresh upon him, to bring him an hour of keen sorrow. And now, as the weeks went on, although he never forgot her, still he learned to turn to his aunt for a sympathy and guidance which in a measure replaced the love that his mother had lavished upon him; while, on her side, Mrs. Burnam soon came to look on him quite as her own boy, and daily rejoiced in the close intimacy which had sprung up between Charlie and his cousins.