The tunnel was clear of debris and the first hundred yards were fairly easy. Marquez led the way, followed by Pat and Ambrose, with Pitt bringing up the rear. There was enough walking room between the ore car tracks and the tunnel wall, making it unnecessary to step and stumble over the rail ties. They passed one shaft, then two, that were empty and lacking any means of climbing to the next level. They came to a small open gallery with three tunnels leading off into the darkness.
"If I remember the mine's layout correctly," said Marquez, "we take the tunnel that angles to the left."
Pitt consulted his trusty computer. "Right on the money."
Another fifty yards and they came to a rockfall. The amount of loose rock was not massive, and the men set to work digging a crawl space. An hour of effort and a quart of sweat later, they had gouged an opening big enough for all to snake through. The tunnel led to another chamber, this one with a shaft leading to an old hoist that was still in place. Pitt shined his light into the vertical passage. It was like looking into a bottomless pit upside down. The top lay far out of the range of the beam. But this shaft looked promising. A maintenance ladder was gripping one wall, and the cables that once lowered and raised the lift cages were still hanging in place.
"This is as good as it gets," said Pitt.
"I hope the ladder is sound," said Ambrose, grabbing the vertical sides and giving it a shake. It trembled like a bow from the base up until it vanished in the darkness. "My days of climbing hand over hand up old slimy cables are long gone."
"I'll go first," Pitt said, sliding a thong on the dive light's handle around his wrist.
"Mind the first step," Pat said, with a faint smile.
Pitt looked into her eyes and saw genuine concern. "The last step is the one that worries me most."
He gripped the ladder, climbed several rungs, and hesitated, not happy about the wobble. He pressed on, keeping an eye on the hoist cables hanging only an arm's length away. If the ladder gave way, he could at least reach out and stop his fall with one of the cables. He ascended slowly, one rung at a time, testing each one before giving it his full weight. He could have moved much faster, but he had to be sure the others could safely follow him.
Fifty feet above the people watching him in rapt suspense, he stopped and beamed his light up the shaft. The ladder abruptly ended only six feet ahead of him, but twelve feet below the floor of the tunnel above. Climbing two more rungs, Pitt extended an arm and grasped one of the cables. The woven strands were five-eighths of an inch thick, ideal for a good grip. He released his hold on the ladder and hauled himself hand over hand up the cable until he was four feet above the level of the tunnel floor. Then he swayed back and forth in an arc, gaining a couple of feet with each sweep before finally jumping onto solid rock.
"How is it?" shouted Marquez.
"The ladder is broken off just below the tunnel, but I can pull you the rest of the way. Send up Dr.
O'Connell."
As Pat climbed toward Pitt's light, propped with its beam pointing down the shaft, she could hear him pounding something with a rock. By the time she reached the last rung, he had chiseled a pair of handgrips into some old timber and lowered it over the edge.
"Grab hold of the center board with both hands and hold on."
She did as she was ordered without protest and was quickly dragged onto firm ground. Minutes later, Marquez and Ambrose were standing in the tunnel beside her. Pitt aimed his light up the tunnel as far as the beam could penetrate and saw that it was clear of rockfalls. Then he switched it off to conserve the batteries.
"After you, Marquez."
"I probed this tunnel three years ago. If I remember correctly, it leads straight to the Paradise entrance shaft."
"Can't get out that way because of the avalanche," said Ambrose.
"We can bypass it," Pitt said, studying the monitor of the computer. "If we take the next crosscut and go a hundred and fifty yards, it meets a tunnel from a mine called the North Star."
"What exactly is a crosscut?" asked Pat.
"Access through perpendicular veins driven at right angles to a working tunnel. They're used for ventilation and communication between digging operations," answered Marquez. He looked at Pitt
doubtfully. "I've never seen such a passage, which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it's probably filled in."
"Then keep a sharp eye along the tunnel wall on your left," advised Pitt.
Marquez nodded silently and set off into the darkness, his miner's lamp lighting the way. The tunnel stretched on and seemed endless. At one point, Marquez stopped and asked Pitt to shine his stronger beam at a rock fill between the timbers.
"This looks like what we're looking for," he said, pointing to a hard granite arch above the loose rock.
The men immediately went to work clearing the debris. After several minutes, they had dug through.
Pitt leaned in and aimed his beam into a passage barely large enough to walk through. Then he checked his compass. "It heads in the right direction. Let's clear a crawl space and keep going."
This tunnel was narrower than the others, and they were forced to step over the ties supporting the ore cart tracks, making the going slow and torturous. An hour of endless walking over the tracks in the gloom, with only the miner's lamp for illumination, sapped what little stamina they had left. Everyone caught their feet on the uneven ties and stumbled one step for every five that were unimpeded.