The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-07-26

"IHS IL MhtHDU 7tSf, 6dtG dOtdTCd06.
clay. A pick would not touch it. They
had to send for drills. Now quarter
Of the time was lost by the use of dyna.
mite. 1t was difficult to keep up the
ventilation.
sits an ill wind that brings no
luck, said Bill "We've something to
set the timbers on now.
"We never reckoned on rock work."
answered Kelley, land it soaks the
time and the dollars up"
There was quarter Of the tunnel at
the west end done before the concrete
came in sight. At the east end they
struck 1t at its highest, six feet above
the level, and there the work was SLOW
Now the brothers were somber. They
stood half the day at one end Of the
work or the other, but. though they
walked together, they rarely spoke.
1.-THE Mormon boys look glum," said
the foreman to himself. And he felt
1t too.
"If we come out as we went in,
we're lucky" said Kelley.
But Bill hoped yet.
"The timbering holds so fari" he
cried
Yet that night at O'Clock, when the
world was quiet save for the song Of
the mountain river. he left his tent
and his sleeping brother and went out
to the tunnel
Tomorrow we should see daylight
through it" he said.
The moon was full. At distance the
lower valley was haze. but in. the loft
Ter attitudes the peaks pierced the sky
with silver spears The heavens were
deep and splendid. Here and there a
brilliant star or softer planet showed
like the lighted summit of some more
tremendous mountain. The air was
calm. No wind moved In the forest.
The pulse of the river was the one
sound in sleeping world.
Fifty yards from the brothers tent
was the cut In the hill that led to the
mud tunnels black mouth. Every OBJ
stacle in the path, bar or pick or shovel
or overturned barrow, was as visible
as in daylight. But suddenly the south.
ern shoulder of the hill lifted itself
against the round moon and for min
ute Bill Hollredge walked blinded. He
went down a plank laid on the fine clay
that was now puddle and came to the
heavy timber of the tunnels entrance.
He walked in, and again night fell
upon him, thick night, Egyptian and
Cimmerian darkness. He turned round
and outside the air was like the thin
ghost of day. Sitting down upon bar.
row, he rested his head upon his hand.
And as he sat the hill talked to him in
faint whispers, at first hardly audible,
but presently he heard very plainly
and lifted his head to listen.
The hill spoke in language intelli-
gible to an engineer, who, standing
there, might have interpreted what it
said as the pathologist interprets OBJ
scure phenomena to the bedside physi-
clan.
"Have you cubed my contents3"
asked the hill "Have you weighed me
in your scales and balancesH For l am
not rock. but gravel. Listenl"
And the Atlantean timbers groaned
family till the young mans skin bris-
tied and his hair moved. This narrow
world seemed alive.
As he sat there with open ears, which
gradually grew acute in the stiffness of
midnight, he heard a thousand voices
inaudible in the busy day Every balk
laid fat for the great uprights had its
word. every upright whispered, the roof
timbers complained. there was sound
that was no sound or like no known
sound in the world. If it was like
aught, it resembled most breath Of
wind in tuft Of grass in a tree. 1t
was like the sound Of fine wheat grow.
ing in calm after rain. A mouse's cry
would have seemed shrek. As the
man who listened held his breath he
heard his heart beat like pulsometer
working. But he understood what the
minute chorus of the night meant. The
wood In the tunnel was beginning to
take the strain.
beginning" he said, "beginningr'
And when he slept again be dreamed
that he and his brother were back in
Utah without red cent. He spoke to
Kelley as they breakfasted, just when
the men were turning to.
(CoNTINU ED