Satisfied of this, Joe sprang to his feet and on the instant the walls of the earth about him shook with a mighty commotion. Just behind him the tunnel shut with a sharp snap as of a monster’s jaws, and the expelled air swept by him like a hurricane, knocking him down, and he lay very still, with his face to the ground, expecting an inflow of gas or an explosion. He judged from the sound that the collapse had occurred some distance behind him, and as he lay coughing in the dust he heard the thunder and rumble of other convulsions of the earth at more remote points. The driving blast of air had extinguished his lamp but he thrust out his hands and found himself quite free. He had lost his sense of direction, but crawled along the tramway to the body of the dead miner and got his bearings and again started toward the shaft. He had gone about forty yards when he began stumbling upon débris; in ten yards more a wall of rock and slate rose before him. He missed, now, the current of sweet air that had seemed to continue after the first shock, and he suddenly felt the bite of the dread gas in his nostrils. He threw himself flat and waited, his face pressed against his coat-sleeve. Waves of the foul air poured in upon him from all sides of the black, narrow chamber that imprisoned him. He staggered to his feet and beat with his hands on the grim barricade. His ears rang with a horrible fierce clamour; before his eyes in the dense dark flashed lights in weird, fantastic and unimaginable colours. “They’re callin’ strikes on me,” he muttered, and blinded, choking and fighting for breath he began crawling back--back, as though from that smothering poison there could be any retreat. * * * * * Stories of the catastrophe met Wayne on his way up the valley, though it was said that no lives had been lost; but when he reached Denbeigh the officials had checked their pay-rolls and Joe and the Pole were the only miners not accounted for. No one doubted that both had perished. Repeated efforts had already been made to penetrate into the mine, and volunteers were not lacking. Joe had been popular with all classes and the fact that he had turned his back on safety to succour a fallen comrade added poignancy to the general sorrow. A huge crowd stood helplessly about the silent breaker, and when he had gathered the latest news Wayne sought Craig at the superintendent’s office, where the mine officials were conferring with the State inspectors, and made himself known. It was not a time for explanations; Wayne bent with them over the blue-prints of the workings. “We’ll try getting in through the upper slope as soon as it’s safe,” said the engineer. “It’s all to the bad down there--I’ve gone myself as far as possible, and some of my men were knocked out by the gas and had to be carried out.” “But the men may be alive--and one of them is my friend.”