Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1875-03-05
A Gennlne Hero.

The fire in the mine at Usage City, Kan,
broke out about midday, and, when first
discovered, the main SHAFT in the mine was
in blaze, with thirty.two men and boys
at work beyond and beneath the flames,
nearly forty feet below the level of the
earth. In a few minutes the whole popu-
lation of the place rushed to the scene, and
a thousand or more men, women and chill
dren-the relatives, friends and neighbors
of the entombed miners-were gathered at
the mouth of the burning shaft, stupefied
with fear and anguish. All the wells in
town had run nearly dry, weeks before,
and scarcely enough water could be secur-
ed to subdue the heat above ground, much
less to arrest the conflagraton inside the
mine. Thus matters stood for two awful
hours, when a railroad engine arrived with
a full tank, which was hurriedly emptied
into the shaft, and great shout of hope
went up from the people.
AT this juncture, man emerged, like a
spectre, from the blaze and smoke, and fell
in swoon at the very edge of the shaft.
An hour later, two more men cried up
through the flames for help, and ladder
was lowered to them, on which they made
their way to the top, and were dragged
forth alive, but burned and blackened be-
yond recognition. Three were now saved,
but twenty-nine others were still below,
and the fire was not yet under control. The
terrified crowd stood aghast, for few min
utes, and then, suddenly, panic of des-
pair seemed to seize them, the stined means
pf ihn and nhilIrap 1t -
afresh, and the men drawing back from
the mine with blanched and averted faces.
The supreme moment of the emergency
had come, and the one man to meet it was
there. His name was Williams Marks,
and he stepped to the front with the prompt
ness and the modesty of a true hero. EAST
en- rope around me, and let me down the
SHAFT he said. The proposition was ap-
palling, but down he went into the horri-
BILE cavern, without another word, and,
reaching the bottom, freed himself for his
SEARCH in the entries diverging from the
main shaft. AT almost the first step into
the sitting darkness, he stumbled upon
the inanimate form of one of the miners in
coal car, which he pushed to the entrance,
secured the rope around the body, called
to those above to hoist away, and in mo-
ment, the man was safe. Farther search
soon revealed the whereabouts of the re-
naming twenty-eight, and slowly, but
surely, Marks piloted them to the mouth
OF the mine and delivered them one by one
many inseusible, but all alive-out of the
jaws Of death into the hands of their wives
and children. Then, when the last one
had been rescued, he came himself to the
surface, scorched and blinded, and nearly
sufocated, and stood there silently among
the cheering towns people, the master of
the situation.
Thus the peril was surmountcd without
any sacrifice of life; but the herolsm was
there all the same. The rescue of the help
less miners, and the escape of the man who
gave death scorn to save them, spoiled the
perfection of a tragedy but the destruc-
ton of all concerned could not have added
to the radiance which belongs to the unset
fish bravery of William Marks. He was
common working man.-,S. Louis Globe.