He felt now that he was really coming to something, that he was at the true beginning of his labors.

Before him the drift tunnel, damp and dripping and dark, awaited, seeming to throw back the flare of the carbides as though to shield the treasures which might lie beyond.

Harry started forward a step, then pausing, shifted his carbide and laid a hand on his companion's shoulder.
"Boy," he said slowly, "we 're starting at something now--and I don't know where it's going to lead us.

There's a cave-in up 'ere, and if we 're ever going to get anywhere in this mine, we 'll 'ave to go past it.
And I 'm afraid of what we 're going to find when we cut our wye through!" Clouds of the past seemed to rise and float past Fairchild.

Clouds which carried visions of a white, broken old man sitting by a window, waiting for death, visions of an old safe and a letter it contained.
For a long, long moment, there was silence.