Miners Descending a Shaft.
Miners Descending a Shaft.From an Old Print.
Miners Descending a Shaft.
From an Old Print.
Falling-in of a Mine.
Falling-in of a Mine.
Falling-in of a Mine.
Explosion of "Fire-Damp."
Explosion of "Fire-Damp."
Explosion of "Fire-Damp."
"With only one shaft, you can see what a mess that made! Before any digging could be done, the lining of the shaft had to be repaired, because dirt and rocks were falling into the shaft all the time. Miners—hundreds of them—were brought from neighboring mines, and they worked night and day on two-hour shifts, clinging to the sides of the shaft as thick as bees in a hive. Others, risking their lives with every stroke of the pick, dug away at the earth and rock that had fallen on the big chunk of machinery. With all the speed that human effort could compass, it was six days and nights before a hole had been made through the obstruction big enough for a man to pass. And, when the first rescuer reached the workings below, the 200 men were dead. Not a single one survived. The miners had been entombed alive without any air passage and could do nothing, absolutely nothing, to help themselves out of their living grave.
"Ever since then, every colliery in Europe and the United States is required to have two shafts, and the law demands that these shall be no less than fifteen yards apart and connected by a wide passage. Not only that, but each shaft must have a complete outfit of winding machinery coupled to separate engines, so that, in the event of an accident happening to one shaft, the men below ground can be rescued up the other."
"That sounds all right," said Anton, rather gloomily, "but suppose the way to both shafts is blocked?"
"Not likely," Clem responded cheerfully, "if a mine has been properly laid out. Take this one, there are half a dozen ways to get from the face to the shaft."
"But Otto said—"
The other turned upon him sharply.
"I've had about enough of that Otto business! If you can't keep from thinking about it, keep from talking about it, anyhow!"
To this rebuke Anton maintained a stubborn silence, and, without another word said, the twowalked on until they reached their respective places of work.
In the gloomy world of below ground, where the dusty wall of sooty black is the only landscape to be seen, one day is very much like another. Reaching his room, Clem stood his tools in order along the rib, hung his safety lamp on a nail which he drove into a prop supporting the roof, and, reaching up so as to put one hand on the roof, tapped it with the flat side of his pick to make sure that there was no loose slate overhead. He then examined the coal face, as it had been left by the hewer who had been working on the night shift, to make sure that it had been properly spragged or timbered.
This done, Clem stripped naked to the waist, for it was hot in that hole far below ground. Then, lying down flat on his side, his bare shoulder resting on the gritty ground, he started to pick away the coal at the level of the floor and just above it, making a wedge-shaped hole extending under the seam for a distance in of three feet.
Many mines, especially in America, use mechanical coal-cutters for this back-breaking labor. These machines are especially useful in mineswhere the coal-seams are less than 3-1/2 feet thick, and they are well adapted to "long-wall" workings where the whole face of the coal is removed in a single operation. Some are mounted with a toothed bar which moves in and out, chipping the coal; other types are like circular saws; several forms have the same action as a miner's pick, the percussions being at the speed of two hundred strokes a minute, the motive-power being compressed air.
In pillar-and-room workings, such as this Ohio mine, chain heading machines were used. This American invention consists of a bed-plate which rests on the floor and is secured in position by screw-jacks braced against the roof and against the rib. On this bed-plate rests a sliding frame which carries a revolving chain on which cutting tools are fixed. The machine carries its own motor, which not only drives the chain, but also slides forward the frame into the cut. When the cut is made to the full depth of the machine, it is withdrawn, and the machine moved over its own width and another cut commenced. Several of these machines were at work in the mine, but chiefly in that part of it where the pillars were being cut away, and where speed in removingthe coal was a prime necessity. In the more distant rooms, hand labor was used.
All these machines work on exactly the same principle as that of the miner, lying on his back or on his side, and digging at the coal with his pick. The coal must be undercut as far in as a pick or a mechanical coal-cutter will reach, for the entire width of the face. Every few feet, short props or sprags are put in from the edge of the undermined portion to the floor, to prevent a premature fall, which might bury the miner.
When the whole face is undercut and spragged, the shot-firer is summoned. One or more holes, three feet deep, are bored in the coal, close to the roof, these holes are filled with explosive and tamped shut with moist clay, and the charges are fired. This blasting brings down the coal off the face, clear from the rock roof to the undermined portion, for such a distance as it has been undercut.
The miner then shovels away the coal far enough to allow him to lie down again and continue his terribly laborious task, while the loader comes and shovels the blasted coal into cars or into endless-chain conveyors, according to the arrangement of the mine.
Day in, day out, this hewing continues. While the miner is at work, he is always in a cramped position, his body twisted, his muscles at a strain, performing his toilsome labor in the half-dark, in the heat, in poor air, choked with coal-dust constantly and menaced by death every moment. He is well paid, but most fully does he earn every cent he gets.
The morning had almost passed, and Anton was near the entry, where he heard, in the distance, a dull rumble like thunder, followed by a queer cracking sound which seemed to travel along the rock overhead.
The boy halted involuntarily in his task of pushing an empty car back to a room for loading. Little as he knew of the noises below ground, he sensed something strange. The deep silence of a coal mine is generally broken only by the sharp report of a blast or the rattle of cars, and this rumble did not resemble either sound.
A second or two later, a miner dashed past him, without his tools, his safety-lamp swinging as he ran.
"The bank is coming down!" he yelled, and disappeared down the gallery.
Almost at the same moment, another man cameout of the entry, his naked back gleaming as he passed under the electric light hanging at the opening of the entry.
"Make for the shaft, kid!" he shouted, when he saw the shine of Anton's lamp.
A sudden babble of excited cries, borne on the strong current of the ventilating air, reached the boy's ears.
It was the doom of Otto's warning!
Shoving a lump of coal under the car-wheel, Anton whirled on his heel to follow the escaping miners, when, like a blow, came the stunning thought:
"Clem!"
He hesitated an instant, and, while he halted, a second and a louder crash told him that the fall of rock—wherever it might be happening—was not over. Every fraction of a second that he delayed might ruin his chances of escape.
But Anton was of sturdy miner stock, and, in addition, was thoroughly fatalistic. That very feature of his character which his older comrade had blamed so often, now was to show its good side. If he were going to be caught by the fall, there was no use in his trying to prevent it, he thought.
In any case, no matter what might come, though the roof cracked above him and the coal-ribs crushed beside him, he must warn his friend.
Turning his back to the way of hope, he tore at his utmost speed towards the room where Clem was working, taking some small comfort, as he ran, that the rumbling sounded farther and farther away.
"Clem!" he cried, panting, as he turned into the room where his friend was digging coal, "run for your life!"
By the terror in Anton's voice, the young fellow realized the peril. In his isolated room, he had not heard a sound.
Leaping to his feet and grabbing his safety-lamp from the prop, he ran after Anton, who had started back on the road leading to the shaft. Fleeter of foot than the boy, he caught up with him in a few yards.
"What is it?" he queried.
"The bank's down!"
"Where?"
"I don't know. Everywhere. The whole mine's smashing! Every one else has got out long ago!"
An ominous creaking sounded over their heads.
Clem caught his comrade by the arm and pulled him into a narrow entry near by.
"Go slow! We don't want to get smashed!"
He held up his safety-lamp.
"Look at that prop!"
The heavy timber was bending like a twig.
"Get on quick!" cried Anton, struggling against the grasp, but the young fellow held him fast.
"Don't lose your head!" he warned. "The current of air has stopped, sure sign that the way to the shafts is blocked. The nearer we get to the goaf (waste ground), the more likely we are to get crushed. Listen!"
The creaking grew louder, and then, suddenly, with a rush of sound, the gallery in front of them, into which Anton had been about to plunge, sagged. The bending prop went into splinters, and, with a roar, the whole roof fell, the broken rock coming to within a few yards of where they were standing.
"Close shave, that!" remarked Clem coolly.
Anton made no answer, but shivered as he looked. He realized that his comrade's warning had saved his life.
The trembling and the creaking recommenced,but farther away; then, with a gigantic noise of tearing, there came a rending crash, followed by utter silence.
"Now!"
He let go the boy's arm and turned sharp off to the right.
"That's not the way to the shaft," protested Anton.
"We'll try the North Gallery," answered Clem. "Likely enough the fall has followed the line of the fault."
A sharp run of a hundred yards brought them to a pile of rock blocking up the passage. Clem licked his hand to make it moist, and then slowly passed it across the entire face of the obstruction.
"No!" he said. "There's not a breath of air coming through. That way's blocked."
He turned in another direction. With all the ventilation stopped, the air was growing heavy. Fifty yards' run, and then—
Blocked again!
This time Clem made no comment. He turned back to try the farther side of the mine. As they wheeled round a corner, and saw a gleam of light he cried, with a note of relief:
"There they are! I knew they'd send in a rescue party, right away!"
Then his voice dropped.
"No," he added, "there's only one lamp."
A single miner came running towards them.
"The North Gallery?" he queried.
"No good, Jim," Clem answered, who recognized him as a new-comer in the mine. "Blocked solid!"
"So's the entries to the goaf! I've been there! How about the old workings I've heard the boys talk of?"
The student miner shook his head.
"Not much chance that way, I'm afraid. They'll be full of gas, sure. The ventilation has been cut out of there for months. But we can try it, anyway."
"I'd ought to ha' known better'n to work this shift," declared Jim, as they ran. "You mind when you talked to Otto in the cage, comin' down?"
"Yes."
"Well, Otto wouldn't go to work, nohow. Said the knockers had been riled an' he wouldn't take the risk o' goin' agin 'em. The boss sworeat him some, but that didn' faze Otto. He went to the top, just the same. He had the right hunch. Wish I'd followed him!"
They ran on, and Jim broke out again:
"I'd no business to come coal minin', anyway. I'm a prospector, by rights. Gold's my end, not coal. You're s'posed to know this game. What chance ha' we got?"
Clem made no answer in words. He held up his safety-lamp, already showing a marked blue cap of gas over the flame.
"I'd seen it a'ready! That means gas, don't it?"
"We may get through it," said Clem, but his tone was not hopeful.
They turned into a long gallery leading to the old workings, and, as they sped along, the cones of gas on the safety lamps grew longer and longer.
Presently lumps of slate and rock on the floor heralded the end.
Quite suddenly, the gleam of the lamps shone on a wall before them. The roof had fallen in.
"That's the last chance?" queried Anton, gloomily.
"The very last," said Clem, "we're buried."
The midday whistle of the mine had just begun, when a violent blast of air roared up the intake shaft, followed by a portentous—
Cra-a-ack!
A terrific crash rose from the bowels of the earth.
The growling rumble of the underground disaster came rolling upward in throbbing volumes of sound.
The ground trembled, the buildings shook, the lofty skeleton of the pit-head gear wavered as though about to let fall the huge revolving wheels overhead.
From the engine-house, from the pumping-room, from the ventilation building, from the screeners and washers, from the picking-belts, from the loading-yards, from the coking-ovens, from every corner of the vast above-ground works of a modern colliery, the men came running.
Some were white of face, some sooty, but allbore an expression of the most extreme anxiety.
The mine superintendent, who was also the owner, the mine boss, and the mining engineer were among the first at the shaft. The doctor and hospital attendant—whom the law requires to be maintained at all mines employing more than a hundred men—arrived but a few seconds later.
The superintendent, a vigorous Australian, who had taken part in many a sensational mining rush in his youth, and who had inherited the ownership of this coal mine from a distant relative but a few years before, leaped into action. Orders came rattling like hail.
All haulage of coal from below was stopped. The engine on the second shaft was thrown into gear, and the cages in both shafts were sent down to bring up the men.
Would there be any to bring?
What did the crash denote? A mere fall of roof, which might cause the loss of a few lives, or a vast explosion which would sweep every man below ground to death in a few seconds?
The cages had hardly reached the bottom when there came the second crash.
The crowd around the shaft was thickening.The doors of the hundreds of cottages clustered in rows about the colliery had been thrown open; from every direction the women came running, their shawls streaming behind them. Many of them had already lost fathers or husbands or sons below ground; all knew the awful menace of that sickening rumble.
With all the speed that the winding-engines could be made to give, the cages were hauled up. They had not yet reached the top when a sudden cry of horror arose. Otto, who had not gone home, despite his abandonment of the day's work, but who had hung around the pit-head all day, pointed with his finger to the steep hillside that rose abruptly above the mine.
The hill itself was falling!
The pine forest swayed, as though the huge trees were but blades of grass, seemed to move downward a few yards, sending up a cloud of dust, and then fairly plunged down the slope in an avalanche of rocks, trees and earth mixed with tremendous bowlders. With a roar like the fall of a near-by thunderbolt, the landslide ripped away the side of the hill, the ground settling with a shiver like that of an earthquake, and sagging perceptibly.
"Sound the emergency whistle!" came the command.
A minute or two later, a series of shrill screeches gave the signal for summoning the rescue corps. Nearly all American mines, following the requirements and suggestions of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, maintain elaborately equipped rescue stations, manned by picked miners who are regularly drilled in the use of the apparatus.
Before the emergency signal had finished sounding the second time, both the rescue team and the first-aid team were at their places. Simultaneously, the cages containing the first load of miners came to the top.
A great sigh of relief went up.
"Well?" queried the superintendent to one of the mine foremen, who was in the first cage.
"A big roof-fall, sir," was the reply. "It was still fallin' when I came up. I left Lloyd to handle the men at the bottom while I came up to report."
"Gas?"
"None showin' as yet, sir. But I came right away. It might gather a bit later."
"How many missing?"
"Can't tell, sir. Most o' the men seemed to be gettin' clear."
"Ready to go down again?"
"Sure!"
"All right, get in the cage, then."
The assistant superintendent, the mining engineer, the safety inspector, and the fire boss were already in. The foreman jumped in beside them, and the cage rattled down to the bottom.
Already the word had spread to the gathering crowd that the accident was but a roof-fall, not an explosion, that two cages full of miners had come and that there was a likelihood that most of the men were safe.
Volunteers clustered around the mine-owner, clamoring to be allowed to go down.
"We'll dig 'em out, sir!" they cried cheerily.
"Keep back, men!" was the answer. "Wait till we know just what has to be done. Maybe every one below ground will have a chance to get out."
There was need for caution. While mine disasters are numerous—over two thousand men being killed every year in United States collieries alone—such an accident as this one had rarely happened before. The landslide above, combinedwith the sinking of the strata below, produced a condition which might be of the extremest danger.
The foreman of the pumping plant was the first to find evidence of this trouble. He hurried forward, consternation on his face.
"Mr Owens, the pumps have quit working!"
"What's wrong?"
"Pipes busted, sir, probably. The turbine's goin' all right, but she's suckin' air."
"How much water were you throwing this morning?"
"Over three thousand gallons an hour, sir."
"H'm, it won't take long to drown the mine at that rate. And if there are any poor fellows cut off—"
He turned to the store-house keeper.
"Got plenty of spare pipe?"
"Lots of it, sir."
"Get it out!"
Then, to the mine boss:
"Murchison, get a new pipe down the uptake shaft as quick as you know how! Double pay for every man working on the job! Put them on the jump!"
As fast as his eye could travel round the circleof eager men, the boss picked his workers, miners of tried worth.
Almost as though by magic a line was formed from the storehouse to the shaft. Mechanics, with their tools ready, were on the ladders by the time the first joint of pipe reached the shaft, and the first nine-foot length was flanged on in less than five minutes after the giving of the order. So fast were the joints thimbled and braced against the side of the shaft that the long pipe seemed to grow like a living thing. In an hour's time, the pumps were going again.
Meanwhile, the time clerk, not needing to wait for his orders, had checked the names of all the men who had come up the shaft, until the cage came up empty save for the foreman.
"That's the last," he said.
The time clerk closed his book and nodded, then went to the superintendent.
"Eight missing, sir."
"That's bad enough, though it might have been a good deal worse. Make out a detailed list and bring it here."
Truly it was bad enough. The fire boss and safety engineer had reported that fire had brokenout in some part of the mine, probably, for white damp was leaking through. The report of the mining engineer was graver still. The first subsidence of the mine had caused the landslide, and the shock of the landslide had crushed all the galleries leading from the shafts.
"You mean that all the workings are smashed in?"
"I wouldn't say that. They can't be, the way the workings are laid out. But there's more rock to be cleared away than I like to think about. How many men are caught?"
"Eight."
"Do you know whereabouts, Mr Owens?"
"I'll tell you in a minute. Here's the clerk now." He scanned the list. "Well, three of them were working in the end galleries."
"They might be safe," interjected the mining engineer. "That's under the hill."
"Two of them," the superintendent continued, "were working in the broken, out towards the old workings, and the other three were near the North Gallery."
"We might get at the last three, but, judging from the lie, the old workings section will be choked until Doomsday."
"You mean we can't try to get those two men out?"
The mining engineer looked his chief full in the face.
"No, you can't," he said bluntly. "There's a fair chance of rescue in the North Gallery section, and, as for the others, we might drive galleries through to the rooms under the hill—though it'll take some time. The two men in the old workings are gone. They're probably smashed under the fall, anyway."
"I'll get all those men out or break my neck trying!" burst out the owner of the mine.
"If you scatter your forces, you won't do anything," the mining engineer retorted. As an expert in his profession, he was prepared to back his own opinion against all the officials of the mine, from the owner down, the more so as he knew that his chief had not spent his life in coal mining.
Owens glared at him, but he knew that the engineer was right.
"Lay out the work, then, since you know so much! I'll have the gangs ready, by the time you are. You think the men in the end galleries can be got at?"
"I'm sure of it, if they hold out long enough,and if they're lucky enough to escape the damps. Our main trouble is going to be the timbering. Now, the farther in we go, the farther we get from the break. The roof will be solid back there, most likely. That's why I think a good chance of rescue lies that way."
"Get at that end first, then. Clem Swinton's in that group of men. I'd be sorry to lose him. He's the most promising young fellow in the mine."
The mining engineer nodded.
"I know him. He's been attending the night school. You're right. We can't afford to lose him. It's easy enough to find miners—especially foreigners—but a young American who wants to learn the colliery business thoroughly is rare. I've had my eye on him, too."
At this point, Otto, who had been edging near his superiors and who had overheard the conversation, broke in.
"You don't need to worry over Clem Swinton, Mr. Owens," he said. "Clem'll get a good scare out o' this, an' that's about all."
"How do you know, Otto?" The superintendent spoke good-humoredly, for he knew and liked the old man. On more than one occasion, when astrike was threatened Otto's good sense had held back his fellow-miners from violent measures, and his chiefs recognized both his popularity and his loyalty. "Did your friends the 'knockers' tell you so?"
"They did, Mr Owens," was the unperturbed answer. "You'll see if I ain't right!"
"I hope you are. I'll put you in charge of one of the gangs at that end, if you like."
"I was a-goin' to," responded Otto, who had never doubted that he would be chosen for the post.
By four o'clock in the afternoon, work had been thoroughly organized. The pumps had got control of the water, a temporary ventilating circuit had been established in an effort to keep the mine air pure—for the main system had been destroyed by the fall, and the mining gangs were at work, digging away the obstruction and loading with feverish haste.
This was a very different matter from hewing coal, which is always laid out in regular seams and naturally divided by splitting planes. The rock from the strata above had fallen into the galleries at all angles, and was mixed up with the crushed and partly splintered timbers of the roofand sides. Blasting had to be done on a small scale and with extreme caution, for there was fire damp in the mine, due to the lack of complete ventilation.
The road-bed and rails, on which the cars for the transporting of the débris must run, were flattened and twisted. It was necessary to lay down new rails, however shakily. Moreover, since all the coal conveyors and electric haulage systems were a tangle of wreckage, the loaded cars had to be pushed by hand all the way along the underground galleries, to the bottom of the shaft.
The timbering gangs had a desperate job to do, for there was no solid flat roof overhead under which props could be put, nor could enough time be given to build a stable timber roof. Yet, upon the ability of the timber boss hung the lives of all the rescuers.
Night came, but without any slacking of the work. The electrical engineer and his staff strung temporary wires, and, both below ground and above ground, the colliery workings were as bright as day.
The scene was one of furious rush. Neighboring mines sent gangs to help. Cars loadedwith mine timbers came from all the near-by collieries. The news of the accident, published in the local evening papers, had brought offers of help from every quarter. Before midnight, officials from the Bureau of Mines were on the scene.
At 3 o'clock in the morning, one of the great Rescue Cars maintained by the Bureau rolled into the railroad yards of the colliery. In this car were experts whose principal work was the direction of rescue operations in mining disasters, and the car contained a complete equipment of all the most modern scientific appliances.
The first rays of Saturday's dawn showed the crowd still gathered around the shaft. Owens, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep and from watching, was still directing the operations, but with the advice and assistance of government officials.
The work was proceeding apace. The miners' picks rang incessantly, without a second's pause, each man streaming with perspiration as he toiled. Rails were put down as fast as the obstruction was dug away. The timber gangs strove like madmen. Each shift was for two hours only, with no pause between, for there were men and to spare.
So the day and the night passed.
At ten o'clock on Sunday morning, there came a cry—
"She's fallin' again!"
A tremor ran through the mine.
Another shifting of the strata imperilled all the excavation that had been done.
A few minutes' hesitation might have been fatal, but the timber gangs rushed forward, though the props were bending on every side of them and threatened, from second to second, to engulf them in falling rock. In a haste that approached to panic, timbers were thrust up and braced, so that but a small section of the roof fell.
Some of the miners quit, the more readily as a couple of them were badly hurt in the little fall, but for every man who showed the white feather, there were a score to volunteer. They were led by Owens himself, who was at the bottom of the shaft when the fall came. With all the fire of his adventurous youth, he seized a pick and ran forward to the most dangerous place, crying:
"Those men are to be got out, or I'll die down here with them! Who follows?"
There was no farther talk of quitting.
On Monday there arrived from Washington a Bureau of Mines expert, with a new listening-device, known as a geophone. This is an instrument worked on the microphone plan, so sensitive that it responds to the slightest vibration, even through dense rock-strata, hundreds of feet thick.
"Stop work, all!" came the order. "Not a word, not a whisper! Keep your feet and hands as still as if you were frozen!"
There was a tense five minutes as the geophone expert listened.
Presently he detached from his head the ear-clamps leading to the microphone receiver.
"The men are alive!" he declared. "I hear them knocking!"
"To work, men!" cried the boss, and the picks rang with redoubled zest.
It was Tuesday, shortly before dawn, when the rescuers pierced the first obstruction, only to find another and a worse break beyond.
A draft of air sucked through. Almost immediately the caps of the safety lamps showed blue. At the same time, the safety inspector called, "Back from the face, men! Back, all!"
He pointed to the little cage he had been holding.
The canaries had collapsed!
Carbon monoxide was pouring out, the deadly white damp, that kills as it strikes!
The hewers retreated, grumbling.
"We can stand it, with reliefs!" they declared.
But the Bureau man was adamant.
"Get back when you're told," he said shortly. "We'll get those men out all right. Bring the gas gang here!"
Then it was that the researches of the trained workers of the Bureau of Mines showed to their best advantage.
Along the gallery came a line of strange-eyed and humped figures, inhuman of appearance, wearing the newly devised respirators by which men can work in the most vitiated air without harm.
There are several types of these "gas masks," most of them based on the principle of carrying compressed oxygen for breathing, and bearing chambers containing chemicals which absorb the carbonic acid gas and moisture of the exhaled breath. These masks proved their utility at the great explosion at Courrières in 1906, the greatest mining disaster on record, when 1100 miners were killed.
Into the Poison-Filled Air!
Into the Poison-Filled Air!Rescue-Crew of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, equipped with oxygen-breathing apparatus, facing the deadly "damps."Courtesy of U. S. Bureau of Mines.
Into the Poison-Filled Air!
Rescue-Crew of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, equipped with oxygen-breathing apparatus, facing the deadly "damps."
Courtesy of U. S. Bureau of Mines.
U. S. Bureau of Mines Rescue Car.
U. S. Bureau of Mines Rescue Car.
U. S. Bureau of Mines Rescue Car.
Interior View, Showing Life-Saving Equipment.
Interior View, Showing Life-Saving Equipment.
Interior View, Showing Life-Saving Equipment.
It was not long, however, before it became evident that there was a limit to the usefulness of the respirators. Excellent as they were for exploring galleries filled with poisonous gas, it was difficult to do fast digging in them. The work slowed down.
"Look here, Mr. Owens," protested Otto, "if we don't go no faster'n we're goin' now, it'll be a month afore we get through. Let us go in! If the gas is bad, we'll take hour shifts, or half-hour shifts, or ten-minute shifts, if it comes to that! The men'll tough it out as long as they can!"
"What about it?" said the superintendent, to the Director of the Bureau of Mines car.
"If the men are willing to take the risk! But we can purify the air to some extent, anyway. I've a man down there with a Burrell gas detector, which is several hundred times more sensitive than any canary, so that we can keep a close watch on the air changes, and there are plenty of tanks of compressed oxygen to be got. I've some here in the car, and a telegram to Pittsburgh will bring us more in a few hours. We can put in another bellows, too.
"This miner's right enough, about the digging. Fast work can't be done in respirators. The men will have to use electric cap lamps, of course, but I've a big supply in the car."
Back into the poisoned air the miners went. That strain soon tested out the men, and, as the old miner had said to Clem, a week before, the young men and the single men were compelled to give up, first. Old Otto stood up to his work with the best of them, but forty minutes at a stretch was as long as any of the men could stand.
On Tuesday night, the rescuers working out from the up-take shaft broke through the obstruction into the North Gallery. The three men who had been imprisoned there were found asleep, close to the sleep that knows no waking, terribly poisoned by the lack of oxygen.
The mine doctor, who had been waiting at the face until the moment of breaking through, was the first through the hole. Rapidly he examined the unconscious men.
"One's nearly gone," he shouted back, "but I reckon we can save all three!"
A mighty cheer rolled through the galleries at the news that the North Gallery men were saved. It was echoed at the shaft and above ground.
Without loss of time, the men were brought to the open air and rushed to the mine hospital. Two hours passed before the first of them recovered consciousness.
The geophone expert was at his bedside, waiting impatiently.
"Have you been knocking any signals lately?" he asked, eagerly, as soon as the survivor was able to speak.
"No," the miner answered feebly, "we'd gave up. Thought it wasn't no use."
"I heard knocking again this morning," the expert announced. "The men at the far galleries must be alive still!"
Wednesday saw no diminution of the endeavor, but more than half the miners of the rescue crews were down and out, suffering to a greater or lesser degree from the terrible strain of the short shifts in the deadly mixture of fire damp and white damp. Yet volunteers were as plentiful as ever, for both the mine managers and the miners of neighboring collieries stood ready to help.
By Wednesday night came the cheering news that the roof overhead was more solid and that the rock fall had not broken in the floor. The carsrattled in and out, a car to each shaft in less than three minutes, loaded and pushed by willing hands. With the North Gallery men saved, both shafts had been set hauling the débris from the galleries leading to where Clem, Anton, and Jim were imprisoned.
At breakfast time, Thursday morning, just at the change of shift, the geophone expert reported voices.
The message was sped aloft:
"The men are still alive! We have heard them talking!"
The news seemed too good to be credited. Seven days the three men had been entombed, seven days without food, water or light, seven days in foul air, probably impregnated with noxious vapors.1
[1]A very similar accident, wherein a landslide accompanied the fall of the coal bank, occurred at Blue Rock, Ohio, in 1856. There, also, four entombed men were rescued after an imprisonment of eight days. (F. R-W)
[1]A very similar accident, wherein a landslide accompanied the fall of the coal bank, occurred at Blue Rock, Ohio, in 1856. There, also, four entombed men were rescued after an imprisonment of eight days. (F. R-W)
Suddenly, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the signal came from below to the pit-head to cease hauling.
What had happened?
There could be but one explanation. The cars must have stopped.
There had been another fall in the mine, blocking off the gallery.
The rescuers were caught!
Like wild-fire the news spread through the mining village.
Great and excited as had been the crowd before, it was ten times more excited now. Women, whose husbands were in the rescue gang, shook their fists at Owens, clamoring that he had sent fifty men to death in order to save three. The animosity spread to the miners who had lacked the nerve to volunteer, and all sorts of wild rumors passed among the crowd.
There might have been serious trouble, but the gates of the high fences around the pit-head enclosure had been closed, and the mine guards, armed with rifles, patrolled the place. Ever since the days of the "Molly Maguires,"—and many much more recent bloody outbreaks among coal miners—colliery owners have maintained armed guards.
Happily there was no actual trouble, though the crowd was getting ugly, for, a little more than two hours later, there came the cheering news that a supporting gang of rescue workers had driven a new gallery through one of the pillars of coal,and that union with the old line was effected.
Again a faint rumble!
Hopes dropped once more, but, after a brief inspection, the mining engineer reported that the fall had taken place in another part of the mine and that there was no immediate danger.
At 8 o'clock that evening, voices could be faintly heard. An hour later, using a megaphone, the rescuers made the survivors hear that help was near them.
"How many of you are there?"
Thinly, so thinly that the voice could scarcely be heard, came back the answer:
"Three."
"All alive and well?"
"We are all alive. Jim Getwood and Anton Rover are unconscious. This is Clem Swinton talking."
"How is the air?"
"Getting bad, now."
"Keep your courage up! We'll have you out soon!"
The hewers set to work in high spirits, hoping that every blow of the pick would drive through.
Then:
"Stop work, men!" said the Bureau chief suddenly.
The men stared at him, amazed at the order. All stopped, however, except old Otto, who continued to use his pick-axe steadily.
The official grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him round with none too gentle a hand.
"Stop, you thick-head, when you're told!"
"What for? We'll be through this wall in an hour!"
"You'll have a hole through it, maybe. But what good will that do?"
Otto stared at the official amazed, and the Bureau of Mines man went on:
"You've had to start working in a respirator, after all, haven't you? Why? Because of white damp! Haven't you got sense enough to see what would happen as soon as you drove a hole through big enough to let the white damp in and not big enough to get the men out? How long do you think they'd last in this air, in their weakened state?"
Otto looked at him a moment, and then nodded his head.
"You're right, boss," he admitted. "I'm afool. I'd never ha' thought o' that. But what are you goin' to do?"
"You don't seem to know enough to use your eyes," the official answered, shortly, "and they told me you were one of the best men in the mine! What do you suppose we've been doing all this cement construction along this gallery for the last couple of shifts?"
"I hadn't stopped to think," admitted Otto, taken aback.
"Well, you'll have a chance to do some thinking, now."
In effect, it was not surprising that Otto should not be able to see a way out of the difficulty, for the problem was a serious one.
The proportion of white damp, or carbon monoxide, in the air where the rescuers had now been compelled to work in respirators, was strong enough to kill a man in ten or fifteen minutes. In the undoubtedly weakened state of the three survivors, a lesser time than this would suffice to be fatal.
If, in the course of digging away the obstruction which remained between the rescuers and the entombed men, a small hole were made, or if the rocks should lie in such a manner that there wereinterstices between, Clem and his comrades would succumb before a sufficiently large breach could be made in the wall whereby they might be dragged through to liberty.