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Jack Kilmeny opened his eyes to find himself in darkness utter and co fro painfully So warm and moist dropped into his eyes, and when he put his hand up to investigate the cause he knew it must be blood frohter drifted down to him Presently this died away The stillness was al laid er found a ridge above the teh the thick curly hair "Looks as though a glancing bullet hit me Golden luck it didn't finish the job"

Heto rise, he slipped down at once from a badly sprained ankle Every muscle in his body ached, as if he had been jarred by a hard fall

"Better have a look around first," he told hi in his pocket, he found a ht What he saw e upon which he lay fell away a gulf, the botto accustomed to the darkness, made out that he was in some sort of shaft, thirty feet or s had slipped and beco The sprained ankle, by preventing hi down the well

He held out a silver dollar and dropped it Froed he was a hundred feet from the bottom

The flare of a seconddown, but unfortunately it did not extend above hiuess Supposing him to be dead, his enemies had dropped the body down this deserted shaft Not for a moment did he doubt who they were The voices had been unmistakably Cornish, and even without that evidence he would have guessed Peale and his partner as the guilty ones

Since he could not go up he went down,warily so as not to jar loose the ti of the ladder he tested with great care before he put his weight upon it Each step of the journey down sent a throb of pain froht on his hands while he lowered hi--it was by actual count the one hundred forty-third--he stepped to the ground