The Up Grade. Wilder Goodwin

roared McKay. The rocks had hardly fallen, before he, followed by a dozen others, was rushing through the smoke to what he knew must be beyond. The grade was blocked with great masses of rock, and by the time they had climbed over these barriers, the smoke had cleared.

      They found Loring lying on his face, his right hand still grasping the bridle of the dead horse. The girl was kneeling beside him. As McKay reached her side, he recognized the daughter of the manager of the mine. He raised her to her feet, while as if dazed by the miracle he repeated: “You ain’t hurt, Miss Cameron? You ain’t hurt?” She shook herself free from him, then knelt again by Stephen, trying to stanch with her handkerchief the blood that was flowing from a great cut in his temple. She looked up at McKay with an anxious appeal in her eyes. “Is he dead?” she asked.