Page:Dick Hamilton's Fortune.djvu/237

Rh it on the ground, the better to use his hands, Dick, looking over the edge of the iron receptacle, saw that the ugly miner was fifteen feet below them.

"Pull your head in!" advised Frank. "He might shoot!"

But Smith had no such intentions. Making a sort of megaphone of his hands, he shouted up the shaft:

"Nash! Nash! Stop the engine! Don't hoist the bucket! We're not in it!"

But the engineer at the mouth of the shaft never heard him. Higher and higher went the bucket, carrying the boys. They looked up the black opening and could see the moon shining overhead.

"Lucky escape!" murmured Dick. "I wonder how that bucket came to go up just when we needed it most?"

He learned a minute later. As the conveyor reached the surface and stopped, Dick and his friends stepped out. They saw that the fire under the boiler was burning brightly, and that a man, who had not been there when they arrived, was attending to the hoisting engine. As he caught sight of them he exclaimed:

"Who are you? Where's Smith?"

"Down there," replied Dick, not caring to go into details. "Come on, boys."

"But something's wrong," went on Nash, the engineer. "I was told to come here about one