Bob started on a run. Despite his pluck, Bob Jarvis was trembling from head to foot. "He's dead, he's dead! _They've_ done it. But how? No, it is impossible. They couldn't be to blame for that. It was an accident." Word came back that there was no one in the shaft. "Who opened the hole?" asked Bob. "It is an old trap that has been closed for years. It simply caved in, that's all. Order the timber-men to put in a new piece and some fresh supports. Telephone to the top and find out if they have heard anything there." No one seemed really to know what to do. All believed that Steve Rush had been dashed to death. "Did--did he fall on a skip?" asked Bob in a trembling voice. "I am afraid that is what has happened," replied the mine captain. "I am waiting to hear from the surface and if they have seen nothing of the body, we will examine the shaft all the way up." Bob groaned and, walking over, leaned heavily against the partition. Steve's fall had been so sudden that he had no time even to utter a cry. The blow that he had given the catch on the tram car had been too much for the sawed support under the old trap. The support had collapsed under his weight and Rush had dropped through the opening. He shot down feet first to the platform below, bounded off and dropped into the shaft itself. Something caught and lifted him through the air at a frightful rate of speed. Steve had been caught by the ore skip, and was being borne to the surface nearly two thousand feet above. The lad had by this time lost consciousness, for the shock when the skip caught him had been a heavy one. It seemed as if it must have broken every bone in his body. On roared the skip with its human burden. The car shot out into the daylight, then darted up the fifty-foot shaft that towered above the opening to the mine. Reaching the top, its burden of ore was dumped into a waiting tram car on the trestle, after which the skip dived down into the depths again. The dump-man on the trestle caught sight of something that was not ore falling into his car. Instead of starting the car along the trestle, he sprang up on the side board. "I wonder what that was? It looked like a human being!" he exclaimed. Then his eyes caught sight of a piece of clothing. The man tugged at the cloth, but it did not give way. "It's a man!" he shouted, clambering over on the car and beginning to dig frantically with his hands. "Stop the skips, _stop_ them quick!" But his warning came too late. A skip load of ore was dumped down on the loaded car, most of it sliding off to the ground fifty feet below. Enough remained, however, to bury the dump-man and the man he was trying to drag out. But the dump-man was full of grit. He fought desperately and in a moment succeeded in pushing off the ore that held the body down. He was now working with frantic haste to get the other man out, knowing full well that the unfortunate one would be suffocated if he already were not dead.