"Hea-vens! he did strike a blind bargai
S-such a snag! The passage ends here A
drop! A--blank--fall of rock! Gee-ee!"

Dank--dank as cave-tears now was th
moisture upon Stud's forehead. For the
first time his teeth almost chattered. What
would he see when he held the lamp over
the edge of the Tinker's Pot into the
horror of that empty space beyond where
the passage broadened into blankness and
the rock shelved sharply down? A dead
boy? Or one so far gone from hanging
that he could not be rescued?

At the first sight of those wedged feet
he had felt inclined to laugh. Now he was
laughing at the wrong side of his mouth,
as he peeped over the brink.

"Oh-h! the rock isn't perpendicular;
it slants down, though, pretty sharply--down
into an inner cave--by graJous!
And Ruddy, the way he's hanging his
nose, is within an inch or two o' the floor
of that other cave! ... And, yet, he 's
helpless! Helpless as if he had a halter
[[152]]

p151 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p152w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p153

v?