Omaha daily bee., 1885-09-17
CHATTER III.

Anton had ventured to approach tn,
VultuFe, and all the men to whom he sd
dressed himself, asking If he could ge
work there, thook their heads and ended
by telling him to wait for the su~perinteu
dent. They left him alone In the mids'
of the badly lit buildings, filled will
black holes confusing with the intrlcscy
of their rooms and floors. He had JUS
mounted a dark flight of steps, half de
cayed, when he found himself upon {
pwiuoing foot-brIdge, then having passed
t",aueh the screening shed, he plunged
lnto a darkness 30 profound hat he
walked with his hands before him, so al
not to hurt himself. Suddenly In front
of him, two enormous yellow eyes shown
out of the gloom. He was under the
tower, at the superintendent's office al
the mouth Of the shaft.
A miner, the elder Richmond, with q
large soldier like figure and gray mus
tache, was walking slowly, directing his
steps toward the supsrintendent's office.
$50 they need a workman here, nc
matter for what kind of work." again In.
| quired Anton.
Richmond started to say no., but he
/ CuBCh6u IluiSbll Hnu EbbpJllubu Ilh5 Ju6
Others, with a nod of the head:
"Wait for Mr.. DAneeart, the supsrln-
tendent."
-Four lanterns were set there, and the
| reflections which were all turned toward
the mouth of the shafts shone brightly
| upon the iron inclined plane, the hand
spikes and the plane upon which the two
cages were slid In. As for the rest the
large room, like the nave of a church, re-
NAMED In a strange light, filled with
great floating shadows. Only the oil
light famed out at the end of the place,
while In the superintendent's room n
small lamp cleaned like a dim star. The
hoisting had Just been resumed and upon
the iron lsgging there was a continual
din, the coal cars rolling by without
ceaatng, the running to aud fro of the
crushers, whose long, bent forms were
distlugutshable in the midst of tho con.
fusion of all these black and noiry things
which were in conAtsnt motion.
For an instant Anton remained mo-
tlonless, deafened, blinded. He was
chilled with the currents Of cir coming
In from outside. Then he stepped for
ward attracted by the engine, the shining
steel and copper of viii n he now saw.
1t was located seventy.five feet In front
of tho shaft, in a higher room, and set so
firmly upon Its brick foundation that 1t
ran st full steam, with all Its four hun
dred horse power, with no movement bat
that of the crank, which rose and fell
with a well-oiled smoothness, shaking
the floor. The engineer stood at
Tho k1~attla 1tatontnn f,r tho narrS &C
the signal, his eyes never leaving the in
dicstor; on which the shaft wss repre-
sented, with Its different galleries by a
vertical grove through which some plum
NETS ran suspended by cords and rsprs-
santing the cages. And at each depart
ure, when the engine was again started,
the drums. tyo great cylinders seventeen
feet In circumference, about the csnters
of which steel cables wind and unwind In
opposite directions, revolving with such
rapidity that they look like nothing more
than dust.
"Take carel" cried two miners who
were dragging a huge ladder.
Anton had just escaped injury, his
eyes becoming accustomed to the light,
he watched the cable moving In the air,
more than n hundred feet of steel rib
bon, which went up swiftly into the
tower whore they passed over the drums
and then descended perpendicularly into
the shaft to be connected to the hoist
ing cages. An lion framework himilar to
the high framework OF the tower sup
ported the drums, 1t was like the fight
of birds, without noise, without collision,
the movement swift, the continual com
ing and going of a cable of enormous
weight, which would lift as much as
twenty five hundred pounds at the rate
of thirty feet G second.
"Grsat heavens, look out!" again cried
the men who were dragging the ladder to
the other side to examine the drum on
the left.
Slowly Anton returned to the ~superin-
ten6ent'a Office. That gigantic flight
above his head astounded him. And,
shiveripg In the drafts of air, he watched
the working of the cages, his ears
cracked by the rolling of the cars.
Near the shaft the signal was
operated heavy hammer upon o lover
that a cord from below let drop upon a
block. One blow to stop, two to descend,
GnESo w Sonio up ~ wan ntLuOub Iuter-
mission, like the blows of a gavel con-
trolling a tuuult, accompanied by the
sound of q bell, while the crushers
directing the movement often Increased
the noise by shouting orders through q
speaking trumpet to the engineer. The |
In the middle Of the clear space ap.
pesred and sank down again, were
and re.flled without Anton
understanding anything of their compli,
Gated operations. He could only COM
prehend n thing: the shaft swallowed
up the men In groups of twenty and
and with a gulp 30 easy that he
not seem to notice them pass away.
The descent Of the workmen commences I'D
at four o'clock. They arrived at the shed
with bare feet, lamp in hand, waiting In
little groups to make up the required
number. Noisslessly, with the stealth
Of . night animal, the iron cage came up
out of the darkness and was secured by
bolts, with Its four compart-
menta containing each two cars
filled with coal. Crushers at
different landings, took out the cars
and replaced them with others emp y,
or filled In advance with cut timber. AID
It WA the empty cars that the workmen
filled, five by five, as many as forty at a
time. Whenever the compartments
full q voice cried through the
speaking trumpet meanwhile q cord was
pulled four times for a signal belov)
,houtlnz to lunch. for the nurnoae nj