Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... THE TRAGEDY OF THE MINE IT was about half an hour later when I reached my room, for I had stopped on the way to chat with the gate-man. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, loosening the heel of one of my rubber boots with the toe of the other, when suddenly, through the stillness of the sleeping town, from the power-house half a mile away came a low and rising note, the great siren whistle in the power-house. Almost fascinated, I listened as the great note rose higher and more shrill and died away again. One blast meant a fire in the town; two blasts, fire in the buildings at the mine; and three blasts, the most terrible of all, a disaster or trouble in the mine. Once more, after an interminable pause, the sound came again; and once more rose and died away. I did, not move, but there was a sudden coldness that came over me as once more, for the third time, the deep note broke out on the quiet air. Almost instantaneously the loud jingle of my telephone brought me to my feet. I took down the receiver: "The mine's blown up," said a woman's voice. It was half a mile between my room and the gate to the mine-yards, and as my feet beat noisily on the long, straight road, doors opened, yellow against the blackness of the night, and voices called out--women's voices mostly. The gate-man knew little. "She's let go," was all that he could say. There were two men at the fan-house, the fan-engineer and his assistant, and in a second I learned from them that there had come a sudden puff up the air-shaft that had'spun the fan backward a dozen revolutions on the belt before it picked up again. The explosion doors, built for such an emergency on the new dome above the air-shaft, had banged open noisily and shut again of their own weight. That was all....