The engineer looked at Craighill curiously. This was not the Wayne Craighill he remembered from his days at the “Tech,” and not the man he had heard of from time to time as dissolute and worthless. But Wayne had taken his own courses at the Institute, and on technical matters used the terminology of the mines; but the engineer shook his head at Wayne’s suggestions. They were interesting, but impracticable. The small loss of life was miraculous, considering the extent of the collapse; there was much cause for gratitude, and the engineer’s chief concern, it was clear, was to save the property of his employers. “There are two men down there; they may not be dead,” Wayne insisted. “If they weren’t crushed to death, they have been smothered by gas or maybe drowned,” declared the engineer. “Work only from the upper slope--turn every air fan you can get in there--every fan in the valley, if necessary, and you can do it. Those men must be about there,” and he indicated a point on the blue-print. “From the stories of the men who met Joe going toward the new gangway you can hit pretty close to the place where the fall stopped him.” “But it might be weeks.” “So it might. I will do it in less time if you will help me.” “But the cost of doing it your way----” “I will pay for it myself.” “My superiors----” “I will attend to them. I will pay the bills. Get every man you can use and every fan and pump in the district.” A big price to pay for the bodies of two dead men, they said in the valley when the work had been begun; and the miners who had seen the big teamster patiently going about his work a few days before did not understand at once how he had become a leading figure in the place--commanding, directing, himself labouring ceaselessly, to gain ingress to the huge, black, poisonous cavern. It was not until the fifth day that they broke into the barricade of the lower slope, whose walls still menaced, and where wholesome air could only be coaxed by prodigious effort; and Wayne was first of all into the tomb where Joe had died. He found him lying with one arm thrown across the body of the broken-backed Pole he had tried to save. It seemed that in the hour of his death he had thus sought companionship--Joe, who had loved light and life and the ways of cities and the haunts of men.