The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-07-23

CdlCH oH lll6 DuChel, olOpPSo W IllC
floor. We had to depend for light in
the mines then on candles and we
used them in connection with the
queer, sticky clay that is found in that
sort of a mine. We could take a
handful of the mass, slap it on the
wall or a girder and stick a candle
into it.
1--WE lit up and found Barney dead.
We started back to the lift, but found
that the engine would not carry more
than two men. l insisted that the
boss go up first, with the body and
send the cage down later for me. I
helped him into the cage with what
was left of the miner and helped to
close the trap. A minute later, at the
rope signal. the men at the top began
hosting the cage.
Except for the four candles we
had stuck on the walls n girders
immediately under the shaft there was
no light, and even those four lights
shone with the most ghostly glimmer
/ ever had seen. With Barney falling
into the pit. the extreme darkness and
all, it was no wonder I began to be
afraid, and as I could hear the bucket
scrape along the sides Of the shaft as
it assembled higher and higher my fear
did not abate.
Then, to make matters worse, one
of the candles fell from the wall with
A soft 'plop.' Then another, and soon
all four of them dropped into the
blackness. vas entirely alone.
without light and without a match or
means to make light. In addition, 1
did not dare to wander off from where
side working, for I was entirely un-
fa mill with tho croy1nd thara
about time for the cage to reach
the top 1 heard a shout, much muffled
by the distance. and I just got away
from below the mouth of the pit
when a heavy object dropped close to
me. I guessed the bottom of the
bucket had proved insecure, and 1
since learned l guessed right. and had
let one of the occupants drop.
Whether it was the dead man had
fallen or the superintendent 1 had no
means of learning. I was afraid to
go near the object to determine.
Fl waited and waited, with the fear
gradually taking frmer hold of me,
and the bucket did not come back.
The more I thought of the affair the
more frightened l became. l imag-
ined all sorts of things, thinking the
poems had overpowered the superin-
tendent, thrown him down the pit and
stuck the lift SO hat ] would die at
the bottom. I could see 10 lights
moving at the bottom. as there would
have been had the mouth Of the we'll
been pen for a huge lamp always
swung Immediately over the pit.
II pulled gu my watch, smashed
the crystal and felt for the time with
my fingers. This was ny only means
of telling the progress of time. The
fret ti,,oa 7 felt nf tha t;roov;o44 e.
was 9 o'clock. I had been there only
three hours, and yet 1t seemed an
eternity.
II could hear, or at least imagined
I could hear. strange sounds all
around me, and with that dead body
only a matter of inches from me it
was small wonder that 1 wandered in
my mind.
whether I went to sleep or was
in a deliriurn I do not know to this
day. but the next thing 1 remember
after feeling for the time at 9 o'clock
is awakening in the hospital tent of
I ever had. My hair, which had been
a deep brown, had turned almost
white.
THE superintendent was there and
he smiled much like a live person
when he saw my eyes open and he
told me of affairs following the drop
ping of the body for the second time
into the pit. Almost at the top the
bucket had caught and turned slightly
sideways, so that 1t would neither go
up nor down. In catching on the side
Of the shaft the lever controlling the
drop bottom had caught and released
the catches. The boss barely missed
going back into the pit. AS it vas
he held on there until the men at the
top learned his predicament and
pulled him out with a rope.
when they found they could not
get to me by going down Doyle's shaft
the superintendent went into my shaft
and. working in the direction he knew
Doyle had been coming, ne had little
difficulty in running into the shaft in
which 1 was a prisoner. He had to
work only eve feet to join the two
holes. and neither Doyle nor l knew
We were SO close together.
THE digging in my pit accounted
for the noises that had set me of my
head"