Cyclopean - An Excess of Radium, Part 2

Part 2 of the Cyclopean story sample titled An Excess of Radium:

We set out at dawn on the next, fortuitously cooler, day.  Prior to our introduction, Pardee had already rented a mule at Faulkner’s and secured our equipment:  rope, lamps, provisions for a week, and light climbing and digging gear.  The kit looked fine to me.  I was more skeptical about finding the hole than exploring it.  I hadn’t ever heard of a working mine around Dunwich, and the only news I’d ever had about the Rusty Wheel was from my new boss.

Pardee unfurled a hand drawn map assembled, he explained, from several other maps and surveys, and a few written accounts.  He had marked his masterpiece with what he deduced to be the exact location of the site, as well as the winding route between us and it.  It wasn’t far as the crow flies, but we would have to navigate the labyrinthine tangle of the ravines.  A single stream which, according to the map, watered the mine was to be our guide almost the entire way.