Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-10-30
AT the
I unr,el's End
BY Ray st.nnard Baker
Copyright BY S. S. Mcclure Co.

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T< HERE was a curious diversity
of opinion about tunnel No. 3.
ESs.S1 Barclay. the contractor, who
SGs4SW) had little shanty of an Of
flee at the top Of the shaft, with blue
print plans on the walls and stove
pipe crooking out of one corner OF the
roof said it was beautiful tunnel.
He said it with cheerful confidence to
the committee Of five who had come to
investigate. The five had just dined
expansively with Barclay, and 1t was
with good humored bravado that they
now trusted themselves to the dfnky
elevator and descended the shaft. Six
ty feet below daylight they stepped out
on Shiny platform, and Gregson. the
underground boss, showed them a
moist red tube reaching outward under
the river A row of misty incandes,
cent lights ribbed the tunnel at regular
intervals with circlets Of brightness,
and at the far end they could see q
black wall with q closed steel door.
For the benefit Of the chairman Of the
five, who thought that this wall was
the end of the tunnel, Gregson explain
ed that the steel door led into the air
lock and that fol. GOO feet beyond
stretched the pressure workings. Greg
son confined himself strictly to infor-
nation; he ventured no opinion at all,
as became q wise boss in the presence
of the contractor. The five walked
down the plank roadway on the floor OF
the red tube, their heads almost touch
ing the roof, the water dripping on
their oil coats, their ears filled with
the strange echoes Of this underground
place.
"You are now under the river" Bar
clay said; .'the water is not twenty-five
feet over your heads"
The five looked at one another.
us there any danger?" asked the
chairman.
"Not the slightest answered Bar
clay.
A small, cold rivulet dripped down
inside the chairman's collar.
let us go up" he, said.
Having now nearly reached the steel
door of the air lock, Barclay invited
them to enter the pressure workings,
where twenty men and mule were
toiling, but the chairman remembered
suddenly that be had a weak heart and
couldn't take mir pressure, and the 9TH
ers were certain that, having just
dined heartily, it would be very dan
gerous for them to venture. Barclay
looked relieved at this decision; Greg
sons face was grim, and he said moth
ing.
So the five went up with the hazy
impression that tunnels were generally
moist and uncomfortable, IL not dan
gerous, and that Mr.. Barclay was re-
markably efficient contractor and an
accomplished engineer, to say nothing
of being genial good fellow. They re-
ported that the tunnel was good and
perfect tunnel and referred in complf-
mentary terms to the contractor. there
by relieving the fears Of a solicitous
public.
1t is curious fact that the deeper
into a tunnel one penetrates the poorer
its reputation. The five had not been
permitted to catch so much as q
glimpse OF Jernigan, the sub-boss, lord
of the pressure workings. If Jernigan's
opinion Of the tunnel had been asked,
he would have answered frankly, being
an outspOken man:
"She's laundering geeser."
In the cold ooze at the end Of the
tunnel, where the truth was, gaunt.
half clad men, with picks and clay
plugging balls, said things about the
tunnel that would not look well In
print, and, being men Of experience IN
these things, they spoke with authority.
So bad was the reputation of the tun-
mel among those who knew that no
boss but Jernigan could have kept q
crew at work where every pick thrust
was a special invitation to death by
drowning.
When tunnel No. 3 began to grumble
It was beautiful to see Jernigan hold
his men in hand. At the first sound OF
danger there were those who would
have gone rushing for the air lock and
safety, but Jernigan, standing there
behind them in the roadway, was more
terrible than the danger in front. OF
all the sounds known to these under
ground places there is none quite like
the grumbling at a tunnels end.
And yet, sudden and startling as
these sounds at a tunnels end may be,
they are nothing of themselves. Their
terror lies in their significance. They
are the outcries Of danger. The tunnel
grumbles when it reaches q spot where
the earth between it and the water OF
the river bottom is thin, where there
are pockets of quicksand or deeps OF
thick mud. It's excuse for grumbling
is the best. The heavily compressed air
within the tunnel, thus compressed for
the main purpose of keeping out water
and mud from the tunnels end, breaks
out through the thin earth where the
men are working with a ripping wall
and goes boiling upward to the surface
Of the river. And when it escapes the
water and thin mud bursts in, and IL
enough air goes out and enough water
comes in, it is ninety-nine chances to
one that the workers, racing for the
air lock, will be overtaken and drown
ed with their noses to the roof of the
tunnel like rats in rain barrel.
For 500 feet from the air lock in Jer-
nigan's working there never was bet