THE DANGERS OF RESCUE
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 all bore 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, combined with 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 circle of 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 broken out 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 a
strike 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 roof and 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
debris 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 loaded with 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 Courrieres in 1906, the greatest mining
disaster on record, when 1100 miners were killed.
[Illustration: 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._]
[Illustration: U. S. BUREAU OF MINES RESCUE CAR.]
[Illustration: 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
cars rattled 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 debris 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]
[Footnote 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 a fool. 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 were
interstices 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.
[Illustration: WHERE THE TIMBER GOES.
Whole forests are cut down to hold up the mine galleries. On the
strength of this work the lives of the miners depend.
_Courtesy of the Wigham Coal Co._]
[Illustration: GEOPHONE EXPERT LISTENING FOR TAPPING OF SURVIVORS.
_Courtesy of U. S. Bureau of Mines._]
[Illustration: BUILDING THE WALL FOR THE "SAND-HOGS."
_Courtesy of U. S. Bureau of Mines._]
If, indeed, it were safe to blast, it might be possible to get rid of
the obstruction by the use of a heavy blast and then rush through and
grab the men. But this was impossible. The Burrell tester showed a
large proportion of methane gas or fire damp, and a blast of any size
might easily start an explosion which would not only wreck the mine,
but also kill every member of the rescue parties, while affording no
chance of getting the imprisoned men.
How could the wall be taken down, without allowing the gas to
percolate through?
"Stand back, men," said the official, "here come the 'sand hogs,'
now."
Amazed, the colliers retreated from the coal face to give place to a
very different group of men. Small and wiry folk, these, dressed in an
entirely different fashion from the miners. The respirators gave them
the same goggle-eyed goblin faces. Not one of them had ever been in a
coal mine before.
With a speed and dexterity that showed their knowledge of the work,
these men proceeded to build up, at the side of the gallery, close to
the point where the last obstruction still held, a solid face of
concrete, and rapidly cemented it to the somewhat elaborate
construction that had been in process of making all the preceding day,
and to which Otto had paid no heed.
It was not long before it became evident that a completely closed room
was being made. Other gangs came along, carrying strange screw-doors
of iron, and a multitude of devices new to the eyes of miners.
Everything had been measured and prepared above-ground. It remained
only to throw the material together, according to a prearranged plan.
By midnight, all was ready.
Three "sand hogs," with a gallant young doctor who had volunteered,
prepared to enter.
A steady throbbing sound told that machinery connected with an outlet
pipe--solidly embedded in the cement--had been set in motion. The
newly made walls threatened to bulge inwards, and the signal was given
to stop.
Then a rushing noise was heard in the inlet pipe, similarly embedded.
The outer of the double doors was opened and the four men stepped in,
entering a tiny ante-chamber. They closed the outer door, which was
absolutely air-tight, opened the inner one, and passed into the
chamber built against the coal face, made of solid cement except for a
circle of coal a yard in diameter.
A minute or two later, could be heard, faintly, the high screech of
some rapid-cutting machine.
When Otto came back on his next shift, at 2 o'clock on Friday morning,
the sand hogs were still working.
Curiosity overcame the old miner's desire not to seem ignorant.
"Just what is that, sir?" he asked the Bureau official, who was still
on watch.
"That you, Otto? So you want to know, now, do you? Well, that's a sort
of lightly made caisson, or air-tight chamber, with an air-lock or
double door. It's used a good deal for working under water, but for
the job we have here, it doesn't have to be very solidly built.
"It's simple enough, when you think it out. We just cemented it up,
put in an air-pump to take out the gassy air that was in it, and then
turned in compressed air, with a pressure of a little more than one
atmosphere, just enough to keep any of the gas from entering the hole
that is being dug through the coal pillar."
"Why can't gas get in? Gas'll go through coal."
"Because the pressure from inside is bigger than from outside. The
compressed air is leaking through the coal and driving any gas away."
"Why didn't you let us get in there to finish the job, if that's all
there is to it?" protested Otto, indignant that strangers should have
the glory of the final rescue, after the miners had done so much.
"Because you couldn't stand it. Those men are sand hogs. They're used
to working in compressed air. Just as soon as a man gets into a
pressure of two or three atmospheres, unless he's mighty careful he's
apt to get dangerously ill. His blood absorbs too much air. While he's
under compression, he doesn't feel it so much, but if he comes out of
the compression too quickly, the surplus air in his blood can't come
out as slowly as it ought, and little bubbles form in the blood
current. That's deadly. Sometimes these bubbles cause a terrible
caisson disease known as the 'bends,' when all the muscles and joints
are affected; or it may give a paralysis known as 'diver's palsy,'
because divers working in compressed atmospheres suffer the same way;
all too often, it causes sudden death. So you see, Otto, it's not a
chance a man ought to take who knows nothing about it."
"An' the sand hogs are diggin' in there?"
"No, they're not digging. We put in a tunnelling machine driven by
compressed air, which is sometimes used for making sewers and the
like. It will bore an even, round hole, just big enough for a man to
crawl through, comfortably.
"As soon as that hole is pierced through into the room where the
imprisoned men are, the doctor will go in, taking food, wine and
medical supplies, and three respirators as well. Then, when the
survivors are protected against the possible results of a sudden
inrush of gas, it'll be up to you men to get the rest of the wall down
as quick as you can."
"So that's how it is! We'll be ready, sir, as soon as you give the
word."
At 6 o'clock, on the Friday morning, the outer door of the caisson
clanged and the foreman of the sand hogs came out.
"We've pierced through," he said. "The doctor's in there. He says all
the men are alive, as yet, but he doesn't know if they'll recover.
There's not much time to lose, judging by what he says."
"At the wall, men!" came the order.
The miners cheered. They were to have the glory of getting their
comrades out, after all.
The picks hammered on the rock like hail. The cars roared through the
galleries once more. The cages shot upward with their loads.
At 8 o'clock, a miner's pick went through the wall into the space
leading to the room beyond, but there was still a lot of rock to move
before a clear passage could be made.
Otto remembered the warning of the Mine Bureau official, and realized
that, had he been left to himself, he would have killed his comrades
at the very moment of rescue.
At 9 o'clock, the hole was big enough for one of the rescuers to pass.
As before, a doctor was the first to scramble through the opening.
The excitement above ground was enormous. Each car might bring a
survivor!
Every time that the cage was a few seconds late, hope rose high.
"Keep silence, now," said the Mine Bureau's surgeon to the waiting
crowd. "No cheers or shouts remember! The nerves of the men are apt to
be at the breaking point."
The silence added to the tension. The atmosphere was electric with
anxiety.
What was happening?
The cage was rising slowly, slowly!
Surely the men were there!
It reached the surface.
A limp form was borne out and laid on a waiting stretcher.
It was Anton, his face pinched, his lips blue.
In the next cage, Jim Getwood was brought up. On seeing his condition,
the mine doctor shook his head dubiously. Artificial respiration was
begun, then and there.
The cage rose for the third time, bearing Clem Swinton, unconscious
like his comrades, but clearly in better case.
He stirred as he reached the open air, and his glance encountered that
of the mine owner.
"I said American mine pluck would get us," he gasped, "if we stuck out
long enough!"
And he relapsed into unconsciousness.