New-York tribune., 1922-09-19

t9 fn2 supply T0pFis gave ine 0fEef tos
flashlighsa and extra batteries. a man
came ina with y telegram. II was fer
Violin. Men wanted 30 murder hit1.
Wolfiin made him wait and dictated
the bulletin,
Miners Wives Get News
A reporter rushed out OF the shanty,
1nadly waving the paper that contained
the news. Everybody ran after him
snd listened rs he read the message
The news was seicphoned 20 the Red
Cross station at tho Argonaut. Some
af the miners women were there when
fhe buiIetin WAS posted
The bulletin, even though negative,
had masie joyous fnadnaen of thous-
snda who had been on edge for hours,
waiting for the voice from the mine.
u was 1880 when the rescue appara-
tus mea went dswn the shaft. Lavish
preparations had been made for their
dtscent. The little yellow canaries
that keep man from Gas were brought
out in their cages.
Drums of telephone wire were
brought up and heavy patent teie-
phones in metal boxes. The first duty
Of the men from the Bureau of Mines
would be to lay telephone under.
ground that would communicate with
the foreman's Office near the mouth Of
the shaft.
Fathers and Mothers There
The platform is becoming crowded.
Officials OF the mine stand by and Red
Cross women and women in gay cloth
irg. Father Michael Kearaey stands
talking to Sheriff George Lucot. John
Ely, whose only son is in the Argo-
Daut, PAGES up and down, the broken
figure Of man.
The father and brother of Bert Sea-
mans sit together near the blacksmith
shop watching the shaft of the mine.
IN the shade are women, plainly
dressed, wrinkled, who have been there
since yesterday evening,
brown dog runs out OH the plat
form, licking the hands of the miners
The skip comes up with a rumble and
. bang. The noisy shuttle of the hoist
keeps on, a noise like the engines
around the shaft. A group of Saliva
tjon Army officers move with it out
of it's angle. A whistle blows sig
ual. From the first aid station comes
a squad of apparatus men marching
like soldiers. They are dressed in
Khaki and high boots or puttees,
miners caps on their heads. They
carry equipment in every pocket-tal~
low candles, searchlights, plyers,
screwdrivers, motley of tools. They
march on TO the platform.
Pickard, in charge of the rescue
work, hands out to each of them a strip
of gauze.
Fifteen other apparatus men arrive.
The platform is congested. The skip is
waiting. The young men run around
20 various places, putting fresh carbide
IN their lamps and putting water on
the carbide.
The cumbersome oxygen tanks are
strapped to their backs-~tanks with q
marking that resembles skull and
crossbones. Goggles, nose pieces,
mouth equipment, everything is tested.
The rescuers test their own lamps,
Gaping their hands over them to form
a sort of gas, then quickly sliding the
hands off the slides, setting in motion
Is steel wheel that touches flint and
sets off spark making little popping
noise.
1t is 10i by the thermometer outside
the foreman's shanty. The sun makes
the oxygen tanks almost unbearably
hot, 1t seems. Some of the men shift
them uneasily, sweat pours down their
faces.
Picturesque Group of twenty-five
A picturesque group these twenty
Two, suggestive of foreign soldiers
the oxygen tanks resembling KNAPP
sacks, the helmets resembling the caps
djers, going not to fight but to save
ct somehow not so picturesque as
the hard rock men and the muckers
With their bosoms barred, their danger.
ous and heavy shoes soaked with water
and staised with muck. Bill Sinclair
the Kennedy foreman who has been
working down in the hole all morning
pillar of man with a face hewr
out Of granite, is perhaps the most
picturesque of them all.
Dirty as he is" says girl on the
sidelines, "he is as handsome as n god
/ could kiss him, even with all that
muck on his face'
Bill waves hand A bell rings
The men file into the skip. Another
bell. The skip goes down, the cable
shaking and weaving as it drops. The
rescue has begun.
Plckard, Robert Duncan and Rodney
hecoX, of the Bureau of Mines, and Ben
SRnguinetti, underground foreman of
the Argonaut mine, are to 20 first into
the ArgonaIt's 4,2O0-foot drift. They
20 TO inspect. to see that the drife is
safe for the apparatus men TO go in.
iwelVe OF these young men, desig-
mated as groups A and B, are in the
@i9Qo,foot level until they shall be
called on and six men, known as grouu
q, wait on top for orders.
The sight denied to jackson for twen.
fT-two days has come at last The Ar.
the men? ''
II was thought yesterday that tho
men IN the $500 level would break into
the 4.200 drift of the Areonaut hy
nlghttall by o'clock, by midnight
out 1T was long after dawn that the
hole was drilled
1t took hours to enlarge the hole st
men could go through it, hours to TAX,
out the muck and the loose rocks and tt
timber the hole so it would be safe.
Heavy Draft of Air
Then 1t was necessary to take on
aii the rotten timbers in the 42O0 en-
rance. They were pulled into th,
ohoo 10y means Of rope, and all the Will
there was such a current of al
through the Kennedy into the Arponau
that the men mad almost been sucke,
through the hole several times had
not been for the four great doors the,
mad put indoors it takes two men t.
hiandle. And whenever one of thos
doors was opened to let mucker o.
through with his barrow men clunp /
Whatever was handiest to keep them
selves in the shaft. Coffee and sand
Nlches and fruit were sent to them a
intervals and gallons and gallons O
ce water, which they drank an,
splashed upon themselves. They worke,
m hour straight this morning, and too