"And how long could a fellow stand that much of the gas?"

"About ten minutes, without being really put to the bad, though twenty minutes of it would make him mighty sick. You see, that gives a party six minutes clear before any harm's done. Any time a canary gives a warning, if the miners turn back right then and there, n.o.body'd be hurt.

Isn't that a great little alarm, though?"

"It is that," Eric agreed. "But what happens to the canary?"

"Oh, he comes around again in about five minutes. If a bird gets too much 'white damp,' though, he loses some of his value, because he gets immune and can stand almost ten minutes. So you see, Eric, the 'yellow machine with feathers' can be a real help sometimes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BEACON MASKED IN ICE.

Racine Reef Light, in the Great Lakes, where navigation has perils unknown to the open sea.

Courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses.]

"Great!" said Eric, "I'll always look at a canary with respect after this. But I've been taking you away from the yarn, Ed, with all my questions. You were telling about the drill."

"So I was. Well, as soon as all the men are fitted up and the teams are ready, a signal is given. All the men are examined for their general health, their heart, pulse, breathing and all that sort of thing, and then they are made to get into the special helmet and sent into a smoke-house filled with the worst kind of fumes. They have to be there ten minutes. When they come out, the doctor examines them again. If any man shows poor condition, his team is penalized.

"Then all the lights are fixed up and examined, and there's a sure enough penalty if any one slips up on the lamp test. After that, a team is sent on the run to fetch a miner who is supposed to be lying unconscious in a working. No one knows where he is. The team to find him quickest and bring him back counts one point. Then the unconscious man is supposed to be revived. The team that does that best gets another point and so on."

"Real first-aid stuff," said Eric.

"You bet. We question the miners swiftly on accidents and they have to know bandaging and everything else. Running stretchers in a working that's only three feet or three feet six high isn't any joke."

"Are the galleries as small as that?" said Eric in surprise. "How can you stand up?"

"You can't. In lots of mines the men work all day long and never get a chance to straighten their backs. Then, in a really big drill, a miner is supposed to be imprisoned by a fall of roof. The team has to find him, to inspect the roof, to show how it should be timbered, and to put out a supposed fire in one of the workings. I tell you, a man who has a certificate from the Bureau of Mines as a trained mine-rescue man is trained all right. It was in one of those drills that I got hurt."

"Oh," cried Eric, disappointed, "I thought it was a real accident!"

"It was," his friend answered. "I said it was during a drill, not at one. It was in Central Pennsylvania. The contest was going ahead in good shape, when a chap came tearing down the road in a wagon, his horses on the gallop.

"'Explosion in the Eglinton, Shaft Three!' he called as soon as he got within hearing. 'There's hundreds of men caught!'

"Everybody looked at me. I wasn't a government man, and I was only there because I had trained most of the teams. I'm willing enough to be the whole thing, but after all I've got some gumption, and I wasn't going to take hold of something that needed an experienced man's handling. There was one old operator there, on one of the judging committees. He'd been watching me closely. 'Mr. Barnett,' I said hurriedly, 'will you take charge?'

"I tell you, Eric, you should have seen his face change! He jumped forward with a cheer. With a word here, an order there, in two minutes'

time he had that wagon off again with two rescue teams fully equipped, himself leading, and I was heading all the rest of the men on a steady dog-trot to the place. Old man Barnett was a leader, all right!

"When we got to the mine shaft, it was surrounded by women, some crying, but most of them silent. The two rescue crews had been working like fiends, and work was needed, too.

"I didn't see how I could be much use, anyway. The miners were 'way ahead of me. I haven't had enough experience underground. Just the same, as soon as Barnett saw me, he shouted,

"'Down with you, boy!' and down I had to go.

"As I pa.s.sed him, I said,

"'Mr. Barnett, I don't know much about the practical end of this!'

"'I know ye don't,' he answered grimly, 'ye don't have to. But men always need a leader. Get on down!'

"As soon as the bucket rattled me to the bottom of the shaft, I fixed on my apparatus, ready to start with the rest of my team. I'd been through that mine once and the comment I'd heard at the pit mouth had told me where the trouble was, so we started off boldly.

"We went 'way in and met one of the parties coming out with a stretcher.

We were near enough to make signs to them, just visible in the dull gloom of dimly burning safety lamps when, woof! down came a ma.s.s of roof. I saw it coming and dodged back, but not quite in time, for a chunk of coal caught my shoulder. It twisted me round so that I fell with my left arm stretched out, and then a big chunk rolled full on me, just above the wrist."

"Broke it?"

"Yes, quite a nasty smash,--a comminuted fracture, the doctor called it.

My boys snaked that coal off and got me up in a hurry, but the party with the stretcher was cut off. That fall of the roof had choked up the pa.s.sage solid. The men were already at work at it, using their pickaxes like demons. Seeing I couldn't do any good with a broken arm, I ran back for reenforcements."

"Didn't your arm hurt like blazes?"

"I suppose it did, but I don't remember noticing it much at the time. I got back to the mine entrance and steered another gang to where the cave-in had occurred. But what do you suppose I found when we got there?"

"What?" called Eric, excitedly.

"My men were poisoned!"

"How?"

"White damp."

"You mean they were dead?" exclaimed the boy, horror-stricken.

"No, they were all at work," said the other, "but they were pickaxing the rock in a listless sort of way that I recognized at once. You see, I'd done quite a bit of reading along those lines--Dad was so keen on it--so I could tell at once that they'd had a dose of carbon monoxide, and a bad dose at that.

"'Come back, boys!' I cried. 'Come back! The place is full of 'white damp'!

"But they were a plucky lot of fellows. Their comrades were entombed on the other side of the cave-in and they wouldn't quit. And all the while they were breathing in the fumes."

"So were you!" exclaimed Eric.

"Yes, but I wasn't working. I couldn't do much, with my arm all smashed up, and so I wasn't breathing in as deeply and taking in as much of that stuff as they were. I urged them to come back, but they were Americans, and wouldn't give in as long as there was any hope of rescue.

"Then I ordered them back. I think they thought I was crazy. I picked up a shovel and threatened to smash it across the face of the first man who didn't follow orders. They grumbled, but, after all, they'd been well trained and they knew that they had to do what the leader ordered. The second gang that had come up had its own leader, you see, and he told them to go on. That made my men all the harder to handle, but I brought them back.

"Just as we got near the mine entrance, one of the men collapsed. That gave me an awful scare. I sent one of the men up to tell Barnett, while I ran back into the workings."

"What for?"

"To try to get that second gang back, anyway."

"But wasn't it an awful chance to take, to go back into that stuff?"

"Who bothers about chances?" exclaimed the other. "But I took the canary!"