The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-01-02

iNGToN.
sucker for paying her that four bits
sut she certainly struck it right
| He tried to Burrow Out
| Don't think liked the situation: that
was going to stand for that fortune
| teiler's prophecy. My first instinct was
30 burrow out of there. l lit a match
and looked around. There was a big
boulder right over my head and a lot
of timbers. There was another boulder
right under my shoulder. l tried to
stick one of my feet up, but it was in
such close quarters that | couldn't
| move it more than three or four inches
Then l raised one of my knees and it
came against something so hard that
| knew it was a piece of rock.
The match went out and 1 felt
around with my hand a little. l got
my-claws over to my left into some
thing that seemed pretty soft. and l
dug away for quite awhile. l could
| tell by the feel of it that it was de-
composed granite. and / made right
smart Roadway for sometime. Then
| my finger nails broke against boul-
i der. There was nothing doing in that
direction.
! Under the small of my back there
seemed to be a soft place, and l went
after that with my right hand. 1t was
not long before l found another bout
Ger there. l was surely up against it
then. | could not turn over to ex-
| piore on my right side and 1 said.
| Hicks, you've got a coffin that's
! bounded on the south, north, east and
west by granite boulders. You're ly-
ing on granite that may go clean
through to China, and you can reach
UP and feel granite that is so thick
| that it might as well reach up mill
! lion miles"
In Coffin of Granite.
NV coffin had been made for me and
| was in it, l had the experience of
| having nv measure taken before | was
dead. The doctor has told me not to
dwell too mucn ON those first three
| DAYS. and not to talk about it very
Imuch, or l could tell you a story. Have
YOU ever had a nightmare and thought
you were buried alive? That's nothing
compared to actually being buried
alive. Any man with nerve, | think, is
willing to face death at certain time
and under certain circumstances, but l
would like to see the man who would
take such a situation as mine calmly.
/ didn't lose hope altogether. After
that dust had cleared away and | had
decided that one form of DEATH that IS,
by strangulatiOn, had passed by, L
heard sounds coming down the iron
rail and thought the men above were
signalling. | did not know how deep L
was under ground, but l reckoned L
was about 10 or 20 feet | thought at
first that the whole mountain was on
top of me. but when l heard those
sounds, l thought they were signals,
and l thought there wasn't very much
ground above me.
Those sounds, like tapping on the
rail. kept up for several hours. tell
YOU. they were the sweetest music L
ever heard. because | thought that they
supposed that there might be man or
i two in that cave-in who was not dead.
| I signalled back | licked on the rail
with the heel of my right shoe ana
| tried to answer the signals which they
sent down. A good long while passed
fbn
pipe stopped. Another good long while
passed. l thought that they had
new clew, that they had found some
new way to reach me. l did not signal
them for this reason.
SiqnalIed for Three Days.
| kept quiet, with my hands tolded
across my body. and waited there in
| a thought of luxury. / was sure that
nv rescue was near and | was just
! soaking in the sensation of being
taken out of that place, after hearing
| two men strangling to death and after
feeling pretty sure that the rest OF the
gang in the shaft had been crushed py
| the falling rocks. But | waited TOO
long. / don't know how many hours
passed, and then it was sort OF tlcked
| into me that they thought up above
| that l was dead. l kicked on the rail-.
| I got stOne-it took me about TWO
hours to get that little piece of granite
! from under my body-and l gave the
miners danger signal until could not
hold the rock in my hand. but there
were no noises coming down from
above. l kept on signalling ABOUT
every Is minutes for three days.
During that time l think l must nave
experienced all the emotions tnat
man don't. like to feel-thOse that we
shy away from and shudder at. My
principal desire was for water. There
was not a drop of moisture to be got
i'm the sand and rocks that held me in.
f.io a big dug