Then, they went within and to the shaft, the light shining downward upon the oily, black water below.

Two objects floated there, a broken piece of timber, torn from the side of the shaft, where some one evidently had grasped hastily at it in an effort to stop a fall, and a new, four-dented hat, gradually becoming water-soaked and sinking slowly beneath the surface.

And then, for the first time, fear clutched at Fairchild's heart,--fear which hope could not ignore.
"There 's his hat." It was a miner staring downward.
Fairchild had seen it, but he strove to put aside the thought.
"True," he answered, "but any one could lose a hat, simply by looking over the edge of the shaft." Then, as if in proof of the forlorn hope which he himself did not believe; "Harry 's a strong man.

Certainly he would know how to swim.

And in any event he should have been able to have kept afloat for at least a few minutes.