The Adair County news., 1922-01-24
'Hooray!" He Yelled. Charley Bull
erton's Dreened Your Mine for Vel"


'Hooray!" He Yelled. "charIey Bull
erton's Dreened Your Mine for Vel"
the mystery of the continuous grum-
bling roar which was still ascending
out of the wreck-cOvered mine shaft.
Beasley stayed with us, waiting, as
/ took it, to get his breakfast before
he ran me off to Jail, and the three of
us fell to work clearing away the
fallen timbers and roofing iron, Dad
dy Hiram leading the attack and be-
ing the first to stick his head through
what remained Of the tangle and hang
it over the edge of the shafts mouth.
"HOorayw he yelled, his voice
sounding as II it came from the inside
Of a barrel; and then again, "Hooray,
Stannie, son by the ghosts of old
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
Charley Bullerton's done gone and
done eggszac1y what he said he could
do-dreened your mine for ye! Climb
In here and take a look at her. She's
empry-empty as a gOur0-Duu, az
that, she amt goin' to be, very long"
A few more minutes Of the strenu-
Gus toll cleared the pit mouth so that
we could all see. The bomb which had
exploded in the shaft had wrought a
complete Transformation. The stand
ing flood, which all of our pumping
attacks had failed to lower by so
much as a fraction of an inch, was
gone, and with it had vanished the
two big centrifugals, the platform
upon which shey had stood, and their
pipe connections. Gone, likewise, was
the greater part of the heavy wooden
Shaft-lining. A little of this remained
in the upper part of the shaft, but
from point possibly twenty-five feet
down, there was nothing but the bare
rock sides Of the square pit swept by
the receding flood.
AS for the hollow roaring noise
which had followed the crash of the
explosion, and which still continued.
there was a good and sufficient reason
plainly visible from the pits mouth.
Some twenty feet down, and on the
eastern side of the shaft, a stream of
water big enough to run a goOd-sized
hydrO-electric plant was pouring into
the perpendicular cavern. and it was
its plunging descent into the bowels
of the earth which was making the
mimic thunder.
BeasIey was the first to find speech.
'Where the blaZes is all that water
comm frOm?" he exploded.
That's just what we're going to
find Quit" I barked. Can you and
Daddy handle my weight in a rope
sling?"
They both protested that they could
handle two of me if necessary, and Il
sling was quickly rugged and l was
| lowered into the pit. At the nearer
view thus obtained, some of the myS-
teries were instantly made clear. The
| reason why the wooden boxing disap.
peared below a certain point in the
shaft was that it had never extended
any farther down. 1t had been mere
| ly box with a bottom and all those
| pipe-dream impressions which had
tried to register themselves on the
day when 1 had my struggle with the
SuctiOn-pipe octopus were instantly
translated into facts. 1 could have
sworn, then, that there was a bottom
in the box, and there was a bottom
And that other impressiOn-that 1 haC
encountered an inrushing stream Of
ice-cold water in the chilling depths
here was the stream; foOt-thick
never-failing cataract, pouring il
through a perfectly good and substan
tial conduit of twelve-inch iron pipe
In a fash the whole criminal mys
terry involving the ostensibly flooded
mine was illuminated for me. "Hau
away!" l called to the two above
and when they had drawn me up Il
the pits mouth and 1 could get upoI
my feet, yipped at Daddy and thu
marshal to come on, and led them il
an outdoor race along the mine ledg'
to the eastward; a hundred-yard
dash which brought us to the bank
of the swift little mountain torrent il
the right-hand gulch.
A brief search revealed precisel,
what 1 was expecting to find; wha
anyone in possession of the facts pre-
cedent would have expected to find
In the middle of a small pool slightl
upstream from the path level-a pOck
eted bit of water neatly screened an
half hidden by growth of low
branching spruces-we saw cone
shaped whirlpool swirl into which
, good third of the stream flow wa
vanishing. Below this pool an appsr
emily accidental heaping of rock