THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 197 
accept assistance, and trudged off to his work 
alone. The circumstance being common enough, 
he was speedily forgotten by his brother miners; 
and it was not until several hours after, when 
they had left off their toil for the more agreea- 
ble duty of eating their dinner, that his absence 
was remarked, and his heroical resolution to 
make his way alone to the Salts Room remem- 
bered. As it was apparent, from the time he 
had been gone, that some accident must have 
happened to him, half a dozen men, most of 
them negroes, stripped half naked, their usual 
working costume, were sent to hunt him up; a 
task supposed to be of no great difficulty, unless 
he had fallen into a pit. In the mean while the 
poor miner, it seems, had succeeded in reaching 
the Salts Room, filling his sack, and retracing 
his steps half way back to the Grand Gallery ; 
when, finding the distance greater than he 
thought it ought to be, the conceit entered his 
unlucky brain that he might, perhaps, be going 
wrong. No sooner had the suspicion struck 
him than he fell into a violent terror, dropped 
his sack, ran backward, then returned, then ran 
back again,—each time more frightened and be- 
wildered than before; until, at last, he ended his 
adventure by tumbling over a stone and extin- 
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