The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1908-05-29


amined it all round with his light
''I'lI have to use bit of the top
mandril," he decided.
He let go the bar and took up
neat two-pointed pick and began chip
ping away the top part of the coal
which was clinging to the clod. This
was always an absorbing occupation.
Outside others were equally hard at
work picking up the men and boys
who wanted to go to sleep in the pleas
ant arms of the carbon monoxide. The
rescuers were exploring every part of
the pit they could reach to save lives
at the risk Of losing their own. The
golfers and their youngsters who took
wrong turnings when the gas fred had
slipped down in the dust because the
chemicals in the air made them
sleepy. The explorers were waking
them up and carrying them out to the
fresh"
Two officers and plenty of assist
ants were climbing falls and trying
every way to trick the black death in
the air in order to get at the score
or so of GOLFERS in Mogg's district. It
was far in, and as yet not single
man or boy had come out.
They are overpowered by the af-
ter-damp," said the officers.
All the lights moved one behind the
other. In pit roads you can only go
Indian file fashion. Official knowledge
Is very valuable when it is combined
with stupendous courage. The CON,
bination helped the rescue party to
avoid death themselves and bring life
to others.
In spite of fire and poison and
wholesale wreckage of horses, trans,
doors, timber and roof, they found,
first, a dozen men and boys in
peaceful group, lying in the dust gent
ly sleeping, and their lamps burning
most brightly among them. All the
sleepers were taken home.
Then they found five or six more.
They came across two brothers locked
in each others arms on the ground. as
If they preferred to die that way. They
did not die. A small boy was found
in another road entirely alone, and
his face and hands were astonishingly
clean. 1t was his first day in the pit,
and the youngster had lost his way.
His drinking tin was in his hands. He
seemed to have used what was in it
to battle his burning cheeks. He was
carried out to sunshine and life.
The explorers found everybody but
Mogg in that district, and they were
puzzled.
Is he buried under this fall?' they
asked, and all the lights flashed ON the
heap of stones and broken timber
which a few hours ago Mogg himself
had so leisurely inspected Just before
they had looked through doorway.
The road behind was full of fire, and
they hoped he was not down there.
The important point was that all the
other people working in that district,
by running out, had plunged straight
into the gas, and their salvation was
purely a miracle. But at last all
We're accounted for-except Mogg.
What has happened to him? Where
is he?" they asked.
They tried to wriggle through the
broken timber so as to get right down
in Mogg's working place They were
haf1ed in that. but they climbed up
over the stones and into the black
hole above to get through.
AS soon as the first man got to the
top he saw down the long road a tran
gull light hanging at a post They all
ran down to it. They saw Mogg calm
ly putting the finishing touches to the
tram he was filing. The face-siip
that had kept him so busy was out on
the bottom coal in broken tumble.
He looked up at all the lights as if
he were not expecting visitors that
day.
What are you thinking about?"
they gasped. Didn't you hear the
explosion?"
Mogg did not answer, because he
did not know they had spoken. Then
they remembered that poor old Mogg
was stone deaf.
To his amazement they hauled him
out without giving him time to finish
his dram" or even put on his shirt.
1T was just as well" they said af-
terward. If he had heard the 9TH
ers shouting to him he would have
run into the gas with them and by
stopping there in the fresh he's only
without a scratch on him. London
Daily Mail.