drift the temperature was 120 degrees, and miners could work for only
forty minutes and then had to retire to the air-pipe to cool off. It was
while resting at the air-pipe that these men, James Sedgwick and John
Browning, talked.

They were stripped from the waist up; all their clothing consisted of
canvas pantaloons held up by a belt, and miners' shoes; they each had a
little band around the head in which was fastened a miner's candlestick.
Thus exposed, in the candlelight, they were handsome men. The excessive
perspiration caused by the heat of the mine made their faces as fair as
the faces of women, and as they lounged, half-naked, carelessly in the
drift, their muscles stood out in knots, and in the dim light of the
candles, as they rose to return to work, their movements were supple and
elastic as those of caged lions. The one who answered to the name of
Browning was shorter than the other by an inch, but deeper-chested; the
candlelight showed that his eyes were blue, and his mustache and short
curly hair were of chestnut color. The other was a little taller, but not
so compactly built, and in the uncertain light his eyes, hair and
mustache seemed to be black; but really his eyes were gray and his hair
brown. Both were young, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of
age, and both were perfect pictures of good health and good nature.

Their shift was from four in the afternoon to midnight; but when at
midnight they went back through the drift to the shaft to be hoisted to
the surface, the night foreman informed them that there was some trouble
with the cage; that while they could still hoist rock, it was not deemed
safe to trust men on the cage, and, accordingly, some blankets,
mattresses, and supper had been sent down, and they would have to spend
the night in a cross-cut running from the shaft.