The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1876-06-01

child uses to draw minnows from the
shadows by the wayside; as well anchor
the sterm-tossed ship with strand OF
the spiders spinning.
The bucket had gone crashing to the
be tom, and was shivered into thou
sand splinters. The rope had for mo-
ment coiled its great length about him,
like some huge serpent, and almost
dragged him down with it. The half
fainting girl was clinging, a dead weight
around his neck. They were suspended
as by a single hair, a score and half
feet above relentless doom.
It was as desperate situation as man
could be placed in, even if alone but
with far dearer life depending upon
him, it was more than terrible. Had
the check rope been any size, he might
have slid down but it was SO small that
it cut his hand-he could use but one,
for he dared not remove the other from
around the girl-and the blood began to
trickle down upon his face.
ssMiss Whiting -Blanche!" he whis-
pered in hoarse and strained voice
"can you sustain yourselfa If you can.
I think I can yet save you -
No answer came from the rigid lips
there was no intelligence in the staring
eyes; her head dropped heavily upon
his shoulder, and her form was limp and
nerveless.
ssMy God ~ he exclaimed, shaken to
the very centre of his being. ''My God !
she is already dead and-and IL
have killed her |"
A hundred times more quickly than
the telling all this had passed. The
slender cord was untwisting, and the
strands were parting. Bruce Malcolm
braced himself for the last desperate
effort With hands and feet he was de-
termined to strike the sides of the shaft,
and break the force of the fall as much
as possible. A swift prayer passed his
lips, then the frail rope snapped and
swifter than rockets flight he sped
down. There was no time to cry for
mercy-none, scarcely, for thought. He
| wound his arms still more closely around
his dear burden-raised her as high as
possible, SO as to receive the full force
of the blow himself He knew it was
like throwing himself under lightning
speeding train of cars for the sake of
| another-knew that he would be crush
ed into formless mass; but she would
| have chance to escape, and he shrunk
| not from it.
There was dull, heavy crash, and
then all was silence. Two human beings
"a strong man and delicate girl-had
fallen thirty feet upon rocks as hard as
iron, and lay there in the darkness, I'M
needing the anxious faces that had gath
| cred around them in the torches glare
-red-shirted, toll blackened men, with
| fearful eyes and convulsively-workin
| lips unheeding that they were tenderly
| carried to another shaft and transported
| to the surface of the earth-unheeding
the physician that was instantly sum-
| moned-the gentleness of woman's care,
| and even the savage howl of the insane
man who had been the cause of all, as
| he was secured, deprived of his fearful
| weapon, and taken back to the bed from
which he had escaped, never to leave
again, save for the coffin and the shroud.
But he had made desperate effort to
| take life Gf indeed he knew what he was
doing y and in one case, at least, was
nearly successful. By the sef-sacrifce
of Malcolm, the girl had escaped with
little injury. His strong arm had up
held her to the very last-had himself
received the full force of the terrible fall;
and even when he could sustain her no
longer his body had been her shield, and
the rough, but warm-hearted miners had
found her pilIowed upon his manly breast.
They had gathered to give her joyous
welcome, and proudly show the result Of
their labors and had found two almost
corpses.
| In short time Blanche Whiting had
recovered from the terrible fright and
save for her sympathy for, and gratitude
to, her preserver, was well again. She
sat daily and nightly by the bed where
he lay with broken leg and arm, and
badly bruised form, and when her father
talked of leaving would not listen to
him. The soul Of the woman had out
grown that of the girlish form-for from
gratitude to love, is but one short step.
She had proved the strength, the devo-
ton, the more than human self abnega-
ton of Bruce Malcolm and she chung
to him despite of all obstacles.
The current was drifting far too strong
for her father to have opposed it, had
he attempted SO to do, which he wisely
did not /; and few days later, Malcolm
and Blanche descended, and the miners
drank his health and that of the bonny
bride, telling, when they had departed,
to the new workmen, the fearful story
of the maniac miner.
THERE'S a certain curious member of
| the plant family very common in Jam