Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1903 — Old Blazer’s Hero [ARTICLE]

Old Blazer’s Hero

CHAPTER IV. The proprietory of the Old Blazer had too right to Call upon the services of Ned Blane; but in such a case no man who was competent to discharge the duties of superintending the work of rescue could hesitate to obey the summons. Blane was doubly competent. His business duties as mine surveyor had made him familiar with the workings, and in similar cases he had more thaa once given proof of courage and resource. He threw himself heart and soul into the work, and even forgot for an hour or two at a time that'his sweetheart had that day married his rival.and. that her marriage was likely to endanger her happiness. It was night time. x and tl>& roaring wind had fallen, to be followed by a thick drizzle. Great cages of fire burned here and there, and smeared the thick atmosphere with a murky light. The scattered crowd looked listless enough on the surface. The engine panted with a noise of fear and hurry, and echoes from the waste of darkness beyond the circle of the flaring cressets answered drearily. Faces shone like hot metal in the near light of the fires, or took a ghostly pallor as they stood against the borders of the darkness. Knots of shawled women waited motionless round the* hovels by the pit’s mouth; the rest of the lingerers moved purposelessly hither and thither, about the slippery and uneven ground. All was being done that could be done, and for the moment there was no more need of the man who felt most need of labor. He stood disconsolate near the mouth of the mine, with his hands folded behind him and his eyes upon the ground. The drizzle was growing thicker, and the crowd, knowing that there was no hope of rescue, ,or even of early tidings, had begun to frill away, when he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and, turning, found Hepzibah by hiS side. “I’ve brought you a change o’ clothes and some victuals, Mister Edward,” she said, as lie turned upon her. “You should ha’ sent a message to the missis. Dinner was kept waitin’ for a hour and more. We’ve only just found out, as you was -JtUWe, though anybody but a set of thick heads"migirfr- ka’ guessed it.” He took the thiiigs-fsfim her half me--chanically, and having bestowed them in one of the hovels, came back Into the rain and stood there looking gloomily about him. Hepzibah, who could guess something of her young master’s troubles, though she was scarcely competent to calculate their force, laid hands upon him and insisted on liis return to the hovel, where she opened her basket. Whilst. Blane forced himself to eat, Hepzibah kat and watched him in silence* but when he pushed the food away and arose from the stool on which he had been seated she broke into complaint and reproach. He paid no heed to her until she laid both hands upon his arm, and in her earnestness gave him just such an Imperative little shake of command as she had been wont to use for the emphasis of reproof* when life was a child.' He laughed rather forlornly at this, and turned’upon her: * “Well, Hepzibah, what is it?” “Why, it’s just this,” responded Hepzibah. “You’ve got your mother and the little uns to think of. There’s nobody else in the whole wide world for them to look to but you, and it’s no part of your business here to be doing anything rash and throwing your life away. Y'ou went down the Aid Tump when nobody else would go. And there wasn’t a creetur there as saw go as ever expected to sey you back again. Don’t you go playing any of them tricks here. And look here, Edwnrd, you take heart; pluck up a bit of a sperrit and bethink yourself. There's as good fish in the sea as ever come out of it. Now, don’t you go jumpin’ at me ag, if I’d stuck a pair of scissors into you. I shan't say no more; least said soonest mended; but a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse. now I'm going away, but not before I’ve got your promise to get into your dry clothes. If you say you’ll do it, I know you’ll do it; but I shnn’t go until you’ve promised.” He gave the promise and she went away, leaving him in the hovel alone. He opened the door, and, accosting one of the loungers, said: “If anybody asks for me you can sny I’m here. I’m going to get a chnnge.” The man nodded in response; and when Ned had exchanged his saturated garments for the dry ones Hepzibah had brought him he sat down and surrendered himself to his own comfortless reflections. After the space of some half hour or thereabouts a knock came to the door, and the man who had accosted him outside entered. „ “Here’s Mr. Ilackett asking for you, sir,” he said. “Mr. Haokett!” cried Blane, rising in surprise and fear. He could think of nothing but some sudden misfortune which could have brought his rivaT there at such h time, and he went out to meet him with the feelings u man may have who walks to the gallows. " ~ “Hillo, Ned!” cried Hackett’s voice ■■ Blane emerged from the hovel, and, turning round in (he direction of the voice, the surveyor saw his rivnl swnggerlng, with his feet planted wide apart and a bottle in his hand. ~ “They told n;e you were in charge here,” snid Will, “and I snatched 11 mito' ate or two to run up and sec how things were going on. I’ve brought a drop of comfort for the fellows who’re at work here. Pass it round, boys.” * ■ Hackett, glistening from heel to shoulder In a long India rubl»cr waterproof coat, and with a felt hat stuck rakishly at the back of his liead, had his face turned, away from the glare of the cresset. so thAt his old compsnion could but dimly discern his features. Blane’s unformed fears of half a minute earlier were gone, but a terror as great and more tangible waa in its stead. Ha advanced without It word, and aeis--V. T-

By DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY.

x * ing Hackett by the sleeve, turned him round gently but firmly and face into the light. He knew then what he had only guessed before. The bridegroom had been drinking. “You have no business here at such a time as this,” he Baid roughly. “Go home.” vs “No business here!” said Hackett. “Why have I got no business here?” ’“You know as well as I do,” Blane responded with a choking and rapid voice, “why you Lave no business here to-night. Come with me.” He had kept his hold upon Hackett’s arm during this brief exchange of words, and now, gripping him harder than he knew, he was leading him awuy. Hackett twisted his arm from the other’s hold and laughed. “Don’t you fret about me, Ned Blane,” ’he said, with a laugh. “I’m perfectly right where I am, and I know what I’m doing. Did yon ever read the life of that great and good man, Doctor Johnson?” “Never you mind that great and good man, Doctor Johnson, just at present,” said Blane, who by this time, between wrath and anguish, was as white as a sheet. “You go home.” “I’m taking a leaf out of his book, my boy,” said Hackett. “There’s nothing like having the reins in your own hands at starting.” Such a tempest of anger ragecTthrough Blane’s mind that it was a matter of wonder to him afterward that he did not then and there knock Will Hackett down. But he restrained himself, and, turning abruptly, walked back to the squalid shelter he had so recently quitted, and closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER V. Blane was alone wrestling with himself for a full hour, and at the end of that time he was called out to some small duty. He got through it doggedly, compelling himself to listen and understand with as strenuous an urgency and compulsion as would have been needed to hold a struggling man physically, and then betook himself to a waste field hard by, and there walked up and down in the darkness and the rain. He did not know how long he had been thus occupied when a voice hailed him excitedly, and he ran, shouting in answer, toward the engine house. The little remnant of the day’s crowd was gathered closely about it, and he had to push his. way through witli some force until lie was recognized aud room was niade for him to puss. Three or four of the more intelligent and instructed of-the workmen were gathered in the engine room, and with them was a mine surveyor—one Atkinson —who had a little while before nrrived on the scene prepared Jo tetider his servic.es in case of need. “Here’s a strange thing, Blane,” said the new arrival. “The water in the' shaft has gone down thirty feet within the last ten minutes. It can’t havbgone down in the shaft without having gone down in the workings, and a draught like that can’t mean nnything but this: the weight of water has broken into some lower workings that I don’t know of, and the Blazer is more than two-thirds drained already.” In the excitement of this news Blane forgot his personal griefs, and instantly beoannj! mastef of himself and the situation. He called sos the plan of the mine, studied, it for a moment and then turned quietly upon his fellow volunteer. “We can get at them now.” he said. “The fall In the water has left bare this old air-way, which is bricked up in the shaft. We must break through at once. Shadrach, rig tilings up in the downcast. Mcshach” —this was Shadrack’s brother—“|et lamps and picks. See that the lamp casings are watertight.” The two men were gone about their several affairs as briskly as the orders were conveyed. “.I’ll make one,” said the new volunteer. “But it’s likely to be a wet job, and I’ll borrow a suit of flannels from one of you chaps. Aud you’d better do the same, Blane. It’ll be well to have dry things to come up to.” The little crowd outside was excited, but Intensely quiet. The shawled women stood like grouped statues in the red glare of the cressets and the murk of the night. Preparations were made rapidly, without noise or bustle,, and In a few minutes the rescue party was ready to descend. It consisted of Blaue, his momentary colleague, Shadrach and two others—all tried and experienced men, who knew that they might bo venturing upon a desperate enterprise, but hail faced the like so often that scarcely a nerve fluttered among them. They entered the skip which hung over the black cavern of the pit’s month. The word was given, and they swung downward. In a minute the floor of the skip begnn to heard* beneath tlielr feet like the deck of a boat at sea—answering to the regulation of the engine on the bank —and a second or two later ->they came gently to n standstill. “Here,” said Blane, striking the bricked' wall resoundingly with the point of a pick. '\ Sliadrach lay on the floor of the skip at full length,-face downward. The two other miners stendied him as he hung client and shoulders over the black space. He worked the point of the pick into a crevice, of the wall, and after a tug or two out came a brick and fell with a splash into the water, which, from a couple of fathotns lower down, reflected the light of the safety lamps with n sulky and oily gleam, lie and his companions peering into the hole thus made saw nothing but what looked like a solid darkness. “Go on,*’ said Blane. “That’s the place. You'4l be through directly.” Shadrach worked industriously, and the bricks fell fast until there waa a hollow made big enough easily to admit of tha passage of a man. _ Shadrach bridged tha chasm between the skip and

the wall with his body, and wormed himself carefully through the orifice he had made; then turning, thrust out a hand for his lamp. ** “lb’s deadly ■wet,” said Sliadrach. “I’m np to mid-thigh in It” Nobody Bpoke in answer to this statement, but, man *by man, bridged the chasm and entered upon the air-way.' When all were landed they set out upon a difficult and broken road, which in places was so low that they were compelled to go snakewise, and even then came into occasional contact with the sharp ridges of the roof. By and by the road dipped suddenly. The passage was higher at this point than it had been hitherto, and the men could stand in a crouching posture whilst they paused to take breath. Blane went down upon his hands and knees, and thrusting his lamp beforsr'him surveyed the depression 1 in front. “Lads,” he said, turning and looking upward at his companions, “there’s water here. I fancy we shall have to dive for it.” “That’ll be queer work,” stfid his fellow surveyor gravely. “It’ll be a bad business for anybody who gets stuck down there. And who’s to know wheth-. er the road rises again and gets free of water? And if it does, who’s to say what the distance is?” “I’ll try it feet foremost,” said Ned Blane. “I shall come out of it easiest that way if I find the road too narrow or too long. If you get a tap from the other side you'll know it’s pretty easy to follow.” He blew out the light of the lamp, and encased the lamp itself in a waterproof tin box which was suspended about his 1 shoulder. Then kneeling down again, he slipped feet foremost into the black water, and slowly disappeared from! sight, his companions following every motion with eager glances until the water closed over his head, and a bubble' or two rose upon its inky surface. The little pool lapped its boundaries idly and noiselessly, and the watchers, crouching immobile and silent, kept their eyes upon it. Suddenly it ebbed by three or four inches, and a second or two later was heard a muffled and inward tap, tap, tap, 1 from beyond it. “Who goes next?” asked the volunteer. “Be careful about your lamps and matches, lads.” The Bard put out his lamp, encased it* as his predecessor had done, and slipped backward into the water. Then his companions followed. The volunteer, having put eut hla light, fumbled in the dark awhile to fix it in its case, and then wdnt after the others. When he had emerged upon the farther side, he found a lamp or two already relighted, and in a while the journey was begun again. The road stiH presented the same characteristics. At times they could walk ’ stooping, at times they could • make their way upon their hands and knees, and again at times they were compelled to crawl. On a sudden when they were in the straitest pass they had yet come to, the leader’s light went out. Thq lamp of the man behind him followed suit. “Get back, for your lives!” shouted Blane; “the choke-damp’s on us!” In a narrow way there was no rbom to turn, but they shuffled! backward with breathless haste, tearing their thick clothes against the jagged roof, and wounding hands and knees upon the broken way below. Another lamp went out, and then another. But by this time they had reached a less difficult portion of the air-way, and were making more rapid progress. “We shall be all right on the other side of the water*” said Blane. “The gas can’t get past that.” . They hurried on by the light of the foremost lamp, which by good hap was still burning, until they reached the water. And here, by some disaster, the lamp went out. One after the other they struggled through this gap of safety. The volunteer, having been the last to enter, was first to leave. Arriving on the safety side he took a match from its waterproof case and struck it. His comrades came np one by one, dripping and breathless; one —two—three. “All here?” asked Blane, as he emerged, shaking himself like a dog, and wringing the foul water from his hair and face. “No,” said one of the men. “Where’s Shad?” Shadrach was absent. They waited for a little time, and the volunteer surveyor ignited one match at another’While they watched and listened. “This is getting serious,” said Blane. “I must go back for him.” “It’s mere madness to go back,” answered the volunteer, gravely. (To be continued.)