The day book. [volume], February 15, 1913, 2, Image 20

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
L mPWiPmHI
He forced his way through the
Screaming, frantic women, push
ing them back as gently as was
possible, and made his way
through the guards to the pit
head. The elevator was just
emerging out of the cavernous
gloom. Of the ten volunteers,
but seven had returned; they
brought five men with them five
living men. But there was no
Sturgis there.
His demands elicited no in
formation. Nobody had seen
Sturgis, though it was known
that he was in the mine. As a
matter of fact, he was in his new
est heading, farthest from the pit,
a new gallery that he was having
excavated in the heart of the coal
hill. The accident had accurred
half way between this and the
central gallery. No one could
have been expected to sacrifice
the lives of the unconscious men
to hunt for a man whose where
abouts none but the mine boss
and John Pascoe knew. But
there might be time. The deadly
fumes spread capriciously ; should
they enter Sturgis' gallery,
though, there would be little
chance of escape for him.
Four of the victims and three
of the volunteers still remained
below. In that gloomy, subter
ranean world, disorganized by the
fact that the explosion had oc
curred at closing time, when all
were making for the mouth of the
shaft, it was each for himself.
None knew where his comrade
lay. As the elevator waited at
the entrance Pascoe and half a
dozen more volunteers climbed
in. The button was pressed and
the cage shot toward the earth.
Daylight quivered over them and
faded into a single, enormous
star, far in the zenith. The wet
rock wall gleamed and glistened,
and the levator halted at the
foot. The men sprang out and 0
made for the little train of empty
cars, which, operated by gravity,
stood waiting for their load of
coal that had never arrived. A
moment later the train was roll
ing down the central gallery.
It halted where the slope
ceased, and the men disappeared
in the gloom, shouting to one an
other. Pascoe did not hear them.
They knew the scene of the ac
cident but he was bent upon a
single quest. He ran lightly over
the masses of fallen slate and
shale which choked the entrance
to Sturgis' new heading, and
then, crouching, made his way
cautiously under the overhang
ing, untimbered rocks. Far be
hind him tiny electric lights
twinkled, a cluster of fairy lamps,
but their light did not penetrate
into these subterranean recesses.
Sometimes Pascoe, advancing
now at a snail's pace, with arms
outstretched, collided with boul
ders, sharp of edge and jagged of
tooth, which bruised and cut him;
then again he was climbing upon
masses of disrupted cliff, blasted
by Sturgis and not yet removed
from the irregular gallery. Water
trickled from the roof and now
and again he splashed into a pool.
There was no light of any kind
in the new heading. How much
further it ran Pascoe could naJ