At any rate, if the gas had mingled at all with the surrounding air, it could only be in a very small stream.

There was no danger of an explosion, and they might without fear open the safety lamp to try the experiment, just as the old miner had done before.
What troubled James Starr was, not lest too much gas mingled with the air, but lest there should be little or none.
"Could they have been mistaken ?" he murmured.

"No: these men know what they are about.

And yet--" He waited, not without some anxiety, until Simon Ford's phenomenon should have taken place.

But just then it seemed that Harry, like himself, had remarked the absence of the characteristic odor of fire-damp; for he exclaimed in an altered voice, "Father, I should say the gas was no longer escaping through the cracks!" "No longer!" cried the old miner--and, pressing his lips tight together, he snuffed the air several times.
Then, all at once, with a sudden movement, "Hand me your lamp, Harry," he said.
Ford took the lamp with a trembling hand.