They started forward then, making their way through the slime and silt of the drift flooring, slippery and wet from years of flooding.

From above them the water dripped from the seep-soaked hanging-wall, which showed rough and splotchy in the gleam of the carbides and seemed to absorb the light until they could see only a few feet before them as they clambered over water-soaked timbers, disjointed rails of the little tram track which once had existed there, and floundered in and out of the greasy pockets of mud which the floating ties of the track had left behind.

On--on--they stopped.
Progress had become impossible.

Before them, twisted and torn and piled about in muddy confusion, the timbers of the mine suddenly showed in a perfect barricade, supplanted from behind by piles of muck and rocky refuse which left no opening to the chamber of the stope beyond.
Harry's carbide went high in the air, and he slid forward, to stand a moment in thought before the obstacle.

At place after place he surveyed it, finally to turn with a shrug of his shoulders.
"It's going to mean more 'n a month of the 'ardest kind of work, Boy," came his final announcement.