SECTION 17.
Towards dawn Hal fell asleep; he was awakened by Billy Keating, who sat
up yawning, at the same time grumbling and bewailing. Hal realised that
Billy also had discovered troubles during the night. Never in all his
career as a journalist had he had such a story; never had any man had
such a story--and it must be killed!
Cartwright had got the reporters together late the night before and told
them the news--that the company had at last succeeded in getting the
mine ready to be opened; also that young Mr. Harrigan was there in his
private train, prompted by his concern for the entombed miners. The
reporters would mention his coming, of course, but were requested not to
"play it up," nor to mention the names of Mr. Harrigan's guests.
Needless to say they were not told that the "buddy" who had been thrown
out of camp for insubordination had turned out to be the son of Edward
S. Warner, the "coal magnate."
A fine, cold rain was falling, and Hal borrowed an old coat of Jerry's
and slipped it on. Little Jerry clamoured to go with him, and after some
controversy Hal wrapped him in a shawl and slung him onto his shoulder.
It was barely daylight, but already the whole population of the village
was on hand at the pit-mouth. The helmet-men had gone down to make
tests, so the hour of final revelation was at hand. Women stood with wet
shawls about their hunched shoulders, their faces white and strained,
their suspense too great for any sort of utterance. A ghastly thought it
was, that while they were shuddering in the wet, their men below might
be expiring for lack of a few drops of water!
The helmet-men, coming up, reported that lights would burn at the bottom
of the shaft; so it was safe for men to go down without helmets, and the
volunteers of the first rescue party made ready. All night there had
been a clattering of hammers, where the carpenters were working on a new
cage. Now it was swung from the hoist, and the men took their places in
it. When at last the hoist began to move, and the group disappeared
below the surface of the ground, you could hear a sigh from a thousand
throats, like the moaning of wind in a pine-tree. They were leaving
women and children above, yet not one of these women would have asked
them to stay--such was the deep unconscious bond of solidarity which
made these toilers of twenty nations one!
It was a slow process, letting down the cage; on account of the danger
of gas, and the newness of the cage, it was necessary to proceed a few
feet at a time, waiting for a pull upon the signal-cord to tell that the
men were all right. After they had reached the bottom, there would be
more time, no one could say how long, before they came upon survivors
with signs of life in them. There were bodies near the foot of the
shaft, according to the reports of the helmet-men, but there was no use
delaying to bring these up, for they must have been dead for days. Hal
saw a crowd of women clamouring about the helmet-men, trying to find out
if these bodies had been recognised. Also he saw Jeff Cotton and Bud
Adams at their old duty of driving the women back.
The cage returned for a second load of men. There was less need of
caution now; the hoist worked quickly, and group after group of men with
silent, set faces, and pickaxes and crow-bars and shovels in their
hands, went down into the pit of terror. They would scatter through the
workings, testing everywhere ahead of them with safety-lamps, and
looking for barriers erected by the imprisoned men for defence against
the gases. As they hammered on these barriers, perhaps they would hear
the signals of living men on the other side; or they would break through
in silence, and find men too far gone to make a sound, yet possibly with
the spark of life still in them.
One by one, Hal's friends went down--"Big Jack" David, and Wresmak, the
Bohemian, Klowoski, the Pole, and finally Jerry Minetti. Little Jerry
waved his hand from his perch on Hal's shoulder; while Rosa, who had
come out and joined them, was clinging to Hal's arm, silent, as if her
soul were going down in the cage. There went blue-eyed Tim Rafferty to
look for his father, and black-eyed "Andy," the Greek boy, whose father
had perished in a similar disaster years ago; there went Rovetta, and
Carmino, the pit-boss, Jerry's cousin. One by one their names ran
through the crowd, as of heroes marching out to battle.
