Come, forward!"
But just as the two were about to leave the platform, a voice,
as yet far distant, was heard in the depths of the shaft.
It came up like a sonorous billow, swelling as it advanced,
and becoming more and more distinct.
"Halloo! who comes here?" asked the engineer, stopping Harry.
"I cannot say," answered the young miner.
"Is it not your father?"
"My father, Mr. Starr? no."
"Some neighbor, then?"
"We have no neighbors in the bottom of the pit,"
replied Harry. "We are alone, quite alone."
"Well, we must let this intruder pass," said James Starr. "Those who
are descending must yield the path to those who are ascending."
They waited. The voice broke out again with a magnificent burst,
as if it had been carried through a vast speaking trumpet;
and soon a few words of a Scotch song came clearly to the ears
of the young miner.
"The Hundred Pipers!" cried Harry. "Well, I shall be much surprised
if that comes from the lungs of any man but Jack Ryan."
"And who is this Jack Ryan?" asked James Starr.
"An old mining comrade," replied Harry. Then leaning from
the platform, "Halloo! Jack!" he shouted.
"Is that you, Harry?" was the reply. "Wait a bit, I'm coming."
And the song broke forth again.
In a few minutes, a tall fellow of five and twenty, with a
merry face, smiling eyes, a laughing mouth, and sandy hair,
appeared at the bottom of the luminous cone which was thrown from
his lantern, and set foot on the landing of the fifteenth ladder.
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