"Well, if they ain't here, mebbe th' chest is," he said, but they saw no sign of it, although they explored the chamber thoroughly. "They could 'a' reached here with it easy enough," he went on. "Th' road's jest down there, an' th' station ain't over half a mile away. Nobody thought o' their gittin' out so clost to th' station. That's th' reason I didn't find their tracks. They drove th' wagon on nearly six mile afore they turned it loose. Steady, steady," he added, suddenly, and stopped. At his feet yawned a pit of unknown depth. He swung his lantern over it and peered down, trying to see the bottom. Then he stood upright with a sharp exclamation. "It's down there," he said. "What is?" "The chest. Look over. Don't you see it?" "I kin see something," answered Jack, "but it might be a lump o' coal, or any old thing. What makes you think it's th' chest?" "I _know_ it is," Jed asserted. "You wait here till I git th' ropes," and he hurried away toward the mouth of the tunnel. Jack, holding the lantern at arm's length and shading his eyes with his other hand, leaned over the pit and stared down long and earnestly. But strain his eyes as he might, he could discern no details of the oblong mass below. That it should be the chest seemed too great a miracle. But Jed was back in a moment, a coil of rope in his hand. "Now I'll show you," he said, and laying down the rope, took from his pocket another of the oil-saturated balls, lighted it and dropped it into the pit. It struck the bottom and sputtered for a moment, then burned clear and bright. And the two men gazed fascinated at what it revealed to them. The chest was there, as Jed had said; and beneath it, crushed against the rock, lay a man. CHAPTER XXVIII JED STARTS FOR HOME Only for an instant did Jed Hopkins and Jack Welsh stand motionless there on the edge of the pit, staring down at the gruesome sight the burning cotton disclosed to them. Then Jed sprang erect, his lips compressed, caught up the rope, and rapidly made a noose in one end of it. "I'll go down," he said. "I'm th' lightest, an' I guess you kin handle me all right. Stand well back from th' edge an' git a good hold. Let it play over th' rock here where it's smooth. Ready?" "All right," Jack answered, taking a turn of the rope around his arm and bracing himself for the weight. Jed sat down at the edge of the pit, placed one foot in the noose he had made, tested it, and then swung himself off. Jack paid out the line slowly and carefully, so that it might not get beyond his control. At the end of a moment, the line slackened, and Jack, looking down into the pit, saw his companion bending over the ghastly figure crushed against the floor. "He's dead," Jed announced, after a short examination. "He's mashed right in. That box must o' caught him square on th' breast. He never knowed what hit him."