The daily Alaskan., 1912-08-06
TIE BLACK SQUAD
Grimy vuIcans That Feed 2 the
 Fires on Ocean Liners.
HEROES OF THE sToKEHoCD.
These Models Of Human Grit Prse- tiealy Brave Death Every Tirs They Faea the 6Iistsrins searins Blasts Of Heat Fron, the Glowing Furnaces.

Faeb the Blistsrina Soaring Blasts of Heat From the Glowing Furnaces.
 An Inferno, all smoke and heat and i fire aud nakedness. is the stokehold of an ocoan liner As you enter It. pick. ing your way over the burning ashes the het blast from the furnace mouths smites you In the face; 1t scorches your eyes and sears your lungs with every gasping breath you draw Your i'm pulse Is to turn and dy Life seems 1 impossible in such au atmosphere. And yet th,. inferno huns with life ! ,nd strenuous. almost savage, industry
 Opposite tl,e huge boilers quivering with ,upprIS ed power. Ike s0 many chained glare. are the Egnres uf men as if carved in ebony. sli;teniug with the sweat that streams froai every pore. They are working furiously. with muscles swelling and kuotting as if they would burst through their sheath of skin-h humans In quick sut ceedins poses uf fierce labor which would delight the eye of the sculptor and baItfie his skill
 Gathering up a shovelfuI of coals. each man propels them with a quick forward thrust of the boly into the white hot heart of the furnace and with n dextrous turn of the wrist spreads them evenly over the fire. Then. quick as the eye can follow. an- other sboyelful succeeds and another, as if life itself hung on the breathless swiftncSs of tue sequence.
 Such Is the stokehold in which the vulcans of our mammoth liners and battleships feed the greedy furnaces. which keep the propellers revolving to the tuIle of twenty knots and more an hour-;he men of the ''black gang" who. clad In trousers almost as black as theil' grimy bodies. and with filthy sweat rag" loosely knotted round their necks. toll thus for four hours at stretch. until the last "ounce" ls taken out of them. and they crawl back to their quarters for well earn cd eight hours of rest
 If a fireman faiuts. overcome by the heat and cxhaustion. he Is quickly laid aside In some corner. with a little tepid water dashed on his face. and there he Is left until he ''comes round" while bis fellows ply shovel and slice"
 the latter to clear the fire periodically from refuSe) with fiercer energy than before, adding the fallen mans labor to their own. The moment he re- covers consciousness he struggles to his feet, seizes the shovel and Is at 1t again. "Go of watchT Not he! He's as good man as any, and the fireman never knows when he's beaten
 To cal such men heroes Is no abuse of an often misunderstood word. They are not only the last word in human grit and pluck-for your fireman will die ratlIer than give ln-they are he roes wllo face death every time they enter tile stokehold, as lightheartediy as other men would sit down to their dinners At any moment fusible plug may iy. boiler tube collapse, a gauge glass may splinter, and the cap tain may have occasion 10 regret" that some good man or other has fall en a victim to his duty.
 His ship may be sinking, the thrush ing water swirllng knee deep over the plates ola which he is standing, but no thought of the boats and an escape to life Is for him He must stick to his post until the last fire ia drawn and If De has time to race up the escape lad de. to the boat deck we'll and good If not--the odds are all against him--he goes down, mute, inglorious" hero, to his death. It is all part of the days work fot which he draws his meager pay, with a cheerful acceptance of the fact that his life will be short and cer- tainly not merry, for you find few stokers who have passed their forty. fifth birthday
 It is not only that the fireman's mus cles and stamina must bear this inhu man strain. He must watch the gauge glasses with the keen eyes of lynx to see that the line of bubbling beads never rises above or falls btlow the level thi,t denotes safety. H= must know his boilers as jockey knows his mount; which of them requires coaxing and which requires forcing to stimu- late it's lsluggishness. for boilers. 1t Is said, have as many whims and caprices as woman.
 On the whole. the stoker Is no m: amiable man. He may growl at bis food, though he often fares like fighting cock" aboard; he may have q vocabulary which would make the av- craze bargee green with envy, but he win laugh you to scorn if you suggest that his work Is too hard and that he Is