Their peril did not end here, however, for the force he had exerted landed the engineer on top of the artist, and in their nervous excitement the pair clutched each other and rolled over towards the precipice. The rocks sloped sharply down to the edge, and for the second time within the space of a few seconds they were in actual danger of their lives, for the impetus their bodies had acquired carried them down until their heads were actually hanging over the chasm. "There was no earthly reason why we should stop there," says Mr. Sandham, "save that Providence so ordered it." But stop they did, and in a few minutes they were able to crawl back exhausted to a place of safety, where they lay unable to move, speak, or even think for some considerable time. At length the miner sat up and said in a dazed, monotonous voice, "The boss is gone dead, drowned like a rat in a hole. Poor beggar, he was to have gone East to-morrow--he had made his pile. He was going back to his wife and kids. And I should have died with him if you had not caught hold of me." Then his mind seemed to clear and he exclaimed, "Say, stranger, what particular kind of fool are you, anyway? Because, if I had missed my clutch on the flume side when I got my grip on your arm, we would both be down there, ground up into tailings. Shake, stranger." He held out a huge, hairy hand, and Mr. Sandham realized that he had received a Western miner's heartfelt thanks for the saving of his life. The water had now been turned off at the reservoir and, the furious torrent being thus reduced to a mere trickle, all further danger to those in the mine was over. The miner's convulsive grip and the terrific strain of the current left Mr. Sandham with a crushed hand and badly-wrenched shoulder, the effects of which he felt for many months. Looking back to-day on his adventure Mr. Sandham says that the point most vividly impressed on his memory is the fact that if he had not waited for his friend he would have been caught with the others in the flooding of the mine. Naturally, as the guest of the manager, who had gone on ahead of the party, he would have been close to him at the time of the disaster and would undoubtedly have shared his terrible fate. The rest of the party, being near a manhole, luckily made their escape--all except the foreman, who had pluckily allowed his men to go first. His chivalry nearly cost him his life, for he was too late to save himself and was caught in the flood. It was he whom Mr. Sandham so pluckily rescued. * * * * * Among the artists who have contributed to +The Wide World+, one of the most familiar names is undoubtedly that of Mr. Alfred Pearse, whose well-known signature, "A. P.," appeared in the very first number of the magazine.