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“I read in the papers that the mine was completely flooded How deep is the water?”

“Depth isn’t the issue The Little Angel Mine isn’t a vertical shaft dug straight down but rather a gently sloping tunnel drilled into the side of the mountain that’s shaped like a flattened V The very deepest part of the mine is only about thirty feet lower than the adit”

“Adit?”

“Sorry I’ve spent too much time around my brother The adit is the mine’s entrance After the deepest point, the floor of the , with a dozen or so s quartz veins”

“I see Can the mine simply be pumped dry?”

“It’s possible, but even noater under pressure is still running out of the entrance at a depth of at least a foot My brother and hispeople tellinto the mine It can’t be drained until the flow stops That could be weeks or months, but there’s another probleel that are getting inundated with the outflow and they’re de reed yet, but he will eventually”

Bell pictured the scene in his el perched halfway up a hillside with a slow river of water pouring froh soine that if Bloeser’s brother didn’t seal the tunnel, the other miners would mete out some frontier justice and do it themselves, consequences be damned

“As with all investigations,” Bell told the banker, “time is always of the essence I want to see where each of the men lived before they went into that houses Once news of their deaths reached the lodge owners, it isn’t s were sorted through for valuables and the rest discarded”

Bloeser nodded at this grim but practical assessment

Bell continued “There is onethe mine itself”

“But I just explained that it’s flooded”

“I understand, but what if I told you that I can breathe underwater?”

“I’d say you’d had one whiskey too many”

Bell smiled at that “Possibly, but that isn’t the source of my boast Have you ever heard of the Severn Tunnel?”

“In England Right?”