"I believe it's over," ventured Miss Emory, after a long time.

"I'm going to find out how bad it is," I asserted.

I moved forward cautiously, my arms extended before me, feeling my way
with my feet. Foot after foot I went, encountering nothing but the
props. Expecting as I did to meet an obstruction within a few paces at
most, I soon lost my sense of distance; after a few moments it seemed to
me that I must have gone much farther than the original length of the
tunnel. At last I stumbled over a fragment, and so found my fingers
against a rough mass of débris.

"Why, this is fine!" I cried to the others, "I don't believe more than a
span or so has gone!"

I struck one of my few remaining matches to make sure. While of course I
had no very accurate mental image of the original state of things, still
it seemed to me there was an awful lot of tunnel left. As the whole
significance of our situation came to me, I laughed aloud.

"Well," said I, cheerfully, "they couldn't have done us a better favour!
It's a half hour's job to dig us out, and in the meantime we are safe as
a covered bridge. We don't even have to keep watch."

"Provided Brower gets through," the girl reminded us.

"He'll get through," assented Tim, positively. "There's nothing on four
legs can catch that Morgan stallion."

I opened my watch crystal and felt of the hands. Half-past two.