Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns | Page 4

Sandy, drawing on his shoes and walking softly across the bare floor in the direction of the shaft.
The boys passed out of the sleeping chamber into a passage which led directly to the shaft of the mine. This shaft was perhaps twenty feet in width. It included the air shaft, the division where the pumps were operated, and two divisions for the cages which lifted the coal from the bottom of the mine. The pumps were not working, of course, and no air was being forced down.
One of the cages lay at the top so the other must have been at the bottom of the shaft. As the boys looked down into the shaft, Tommy seized his chum by the arm and whispered:
"Did you see that light down there?"
"Light nothing!" declared Sandy.
"But I did see a light!" insisted the other.
"Perhaps you did," replied Sandy, "but if there's any light there it's merely a reflection from our electrics. There may be a metallic surface down there which throws back the light rays."
"Have it your own way!" grunted Tommy. "You know yourself that the caretaker said there were lights in the mine which no one could account for and he especially mentioned the light in Tunnel Six.
"All right!" Sandy grinned. "We'll sneak down so quietly that any person who happens to be at the bottom of the shaft with the light will never suspect that we are within a hundred miles of the place. We may be able to geezle the fellow that's making the ghost walk around here nights."
The boys took to the ladders and moved down as silently as possible. Now and then a rung creaked softly under their feet, but they got to the bottom without any special mishap.
Tommy drew a long breath when at last they landed at the bottom of the shaft. He threw his light upward, then, and declared that in his opinion they were at least ten thousand feet nearer the center of the earth than they were when they started down.
"I remember now," Sandy said with a grin, "that the Labyrinth mine is only about five hundred feet deep. If I remember correctly, there are three levels; one at three hundred feet; one at four, and one at five."
"And which level is this?" asked Tommy. "Why, we're on the bottom, ain't we?"
"Of course," laughed Tommy. "I ought to have known that!"
"Well come along if you want to see the mine!" urged Sandy. "All we have to do is to push our searchlights ahead and walk down the gangway. We'll come to something worth seeing after a while."
As the boys advanced they found the gangway considerably cluttered with "gob," or refuse, and the air was none of the best.
"I wish we could set the air shaft working," suggested Sandy.
"Well, we can't!" Tommy answered with a scornful shrug of his shoulders. "We can't set the whole works going in order to give us a midnight view of the Labyrinth mine. What gets me is how are we going to find our way back? There seem to be a good many passages here."
"I've got that fixed all right!" Sandy exclaimed.
As the lad spoke he took a ball of strong string from his pocket and tied one end to the cage which lay at the bottom of the shaft.
"Now we can go anywhere we please," he chuckled, "and when we want to return, all we've got to do is to follow the string."
"Quite an idea!" laughed Tommy.
The boys proceeded along the gangway, walking between the rails of the tramway by means of which the coal was delivered at the bottom of the shaft. The experience was a novel one to them. The dark walls of the passage, the echoes which came from the counter gangways, the monotonous dripping of water, as it seeped through seams and crevices in the rock, all gave a weird and uncanny expression to the place.
After walking for some distance the boys came to a level which showed several inches of water.
"We can't wade through that!" Tommy declared.
"Well," Sandy suggested, "if we go back a little ways, we can follow a cross heading and get into the mine by another way."
The boys followed this plan, and, after winding about several half-loaded cars which had been left on the tramway, found themselves in a large chamber from which numerous benches were cut.
"Where does all this gas come from?" asked Tommy stopping short and putting a hand to his nose.
"There must be a blower somewhere," Sandy explained.
"What's a blower?" demanded Tommy. "What does it look like, and does it always smell like this?"
"It doesn't look like anything!" replied Sandy. "It's composed of natural gas, and they call it a blower because it blows up out of crevices in the coal and in the rocks."
"If I should