CHAPTER IV
EIGHT DAYS OF DARK
The three comrades were saved, indeed, but it was none too soon. Eightdays below ground without food or light and without any sure hope ofrescue, had brought them to a low ebb.
Clem, owing to his longer experience in the mine and his more prudentconserving of the scanty supply of food that fell to his share, hadwithstood the strain better than the two other survivors. He was badlyshaken, however, and his nerves were on the edge of collapse. Hisefforts to help his companions had held him tense during thoseunending hours of darkness and famine, and his optimism had kept himfrom the ravages of despair.
Anton had received a terrible shock, both to body and mind. His handsand feet had become deadened, as though frozen, and the most vigoroustreatment failed to restore the circulation. From time to time he wasseized by convulsive fits; resembling those of epilepsy, andcharacteristic of white damp poisoning. His speech remained thick andmumbling, and he repeated the same word over and over, a score oftimes, without being conscious that he had spoken it.
Jim Getwood, the prospector, was in the weakest condition of thethree. He lacked the degree of immunity that Clem possessed throughhis half-dozen years below ground, and that Anton possessed, in aminor degree, through heredity. His former life of adventure in theopen air made him all the more susceptible to the poison gases.Violent headaches brought him to the verge of madness, and alternatedwith periods of delirium. He could retain little or no food, and,several times, the doctor despaired of saving his life.
Yet, in the history of coal-mining, there are several cases on recordin which men have been even a longer time below ground and recovered.In a French colliery, two out of thirty men who were buried forfourteen days, recovered; in a Welsh colliery, one man survived out ofseventy who had been entombed for seventeen days.
A still more astonishing case occurred in a Scotch coal-mine. A bigroof-fall in a pit in Ayrshire had blocked off all the outlets to theshaft, save one, by which all the miners were able to escape. One man,however, finding that the way to the shaft was clear, returned to theface of the coal where he had been working, in order to get his coat.
On his way back to the shaft, a second fall occurred, blocking him in.This happened in 1835, when rescue work was still done in a primitivefashion. It was not until the twenty-third day that the miner wasreached. He was alive, but in a dying state, his body being coveredwith a species of fungus that grows upon decaying mine timbers. Helived three days after being brought to the surface.
The longest record of endurance under such conditions occurred inFrance, some years later. A well-digger, near Lyons, was buried alivewith a comrade, the sides of a deep well caving in after such a mannerthat an air-space of 37 feet was left above the entombed men.
It was impossible to try to remove the obstruction, for any effort todo so would only cause the earth and stones to fall on them and crushthe men. In order to attempt rescue, it was necessary to sink a wellas deep as the first, and, when the full depth was reached, to drivean underground gallery from one to the other.
Up to the very last day, the rescuers were able to hear tappings, suresign that at least one of the men was alive. On the thirtieth day therescue was effected. The oldest of the two well-diggers was foundalive, but he was in a terrible condition because of the infectioncaused by the corpse of his comrade, who had died two weeks before.He, also, lived three days after his rescue, but the doctors wereunable to save his life.
None of these men, however, had to withstand the effects of white dampin the air; on the other hand, none of them had any supply of food,however small, to begin with.
Clem's account of the experiences of the three men in the mine wasawaited with a great deal of interest. Reporters from variousnewspapers hung around the mine for several days, waiting for a chanceto get his story. The mine doctor refused permission, however, untilhe was assured that the young miner was well on his way to health,fearing that a reawakening of the memories of that terrible week mightbring about a relapse. Finally he admitted the reporters to thehospital ward where the three survivors lay, though forbidding Antonand Jim to speak.
Clem was willing enough to tell his tale.
He began with the incident in the cage, on the morning of theaccident, when he had joked with Otto, to the old miner's manifestobjection. He told of Otto's refusal to work that day, according tothe account given him by Jim. He described, also, how Anton hadgallantly abandoned his own chance of safety to come and warn him, andexplained how they had vainly searched an outlet in the direction ofthe North Gallery.
"Right after we met Jim," he went on, "we ran as fast as we couldtowards the old workings, to see if we could get out there. I didn'tthink there was much chance, because, so far as I could make out, thefall had happened between where we were working and the shafts. But itwas worth trying, anyway. When we found the wall down, in thatsection, and the rock piled up clear to the roof, I knew we weretrapped, sure.
"Thanks to what I had learned in the night-school classes, I had apretty good idea of the general lay-out of the mine. I knew how thefaults lay, and miners, who'd been in this mine a long time, had toldme how gassy the old workings were.
"In a lesson I'd had on mine ventilation, we'd been told that theventilating plant, here, had been enlarged twice over to try to keepthe mine clear of gas. It wasn't hard to figure out that, with theventilation stopped, gas would soon begin to collect, and that wouldbe the end of us.
"There was a big-enough cap on our safety lamps, as it was, and itseemed to me that the blue cone grew longer as I looked. I told Jimthat it wasn't safe for us to hang around those old workings, we'd getpoisoned before we knew it and lose any chance we had of rescue.
"Jim didn't see it my way, at first.
"'Might as well die here as anywhere!' he said.
"I didn't like that spirit. I'd read in a book, somewhere, that if achap gives up hope, he dies a whole lot quicker than if he keeps uphis spirits. It was about Anton that I was worrying most. I was benton trying to get the youngster cheerful if I could, because he wasmoping over Otto's prophecy that there was going to be an accident.You've heard about that, I suppose?"
The reporters nodded, and Owens, who was listening, added:
"We've heard a lot about it. The old man called the turn, all right.But maybe you don't know that he told me, too, that you'd be rescuedand that you'd come out of it, alive?"
"Did he?" queried Clem, in amazement.
"Point-blank. It's a good thing for you he did, too, for a whole lotof first-class men volunteered for the rescue work who couldn't havebeen persuaded to enter the mine again, otherwise. The old man stuckto his belief, even after most of us thought you would be dead. Thegeophone expert backed him up, by saying he heard tapping, but it wasOtto's persistence that did the most."
"It's a queer thing he should guess so closely," commented Clemthoughtfully.
But a reporter from a Pittsburgh evening paper, who was anxious to getthe survivor's story on the telegraph wires, broke in impatiently:
"What was the first thing you did, after you'd found you weretrapped?"
"We got busy and made a barricade," Clem answered. "I showed Jim andAnton that, in the old workings where we were, there was a lot of gas.Our lamps showed it up, good and strong. Now, back in the rooms whereJim and I had been hewing, there wasn't any gas to speak of. We couldgo back there, of course, and that was what Jim wanted to do.
"But I figured out that, since the ventilation was shut off from ourrooms, the gas which had accumulated in the old workings and which wassteadily seeping through the coal in that section would graduallycreep along the galleries our way. If that happened, we'd be down andout, before the rescuers had a chance to cut their way through. Wecould put up a barricade, though, and cut off the gassy part of themine.
"Jim didn't want to work, at first. If he was going to die, he said,he might as well die of gas as of hunger. He talked a lot of rot aboutits being the easiest death. I was th
at sore, I could have kicked him.
"Anton was willing enough to work, though, and when Jim saw the two ofus actually at work, he got over his grouch, went and got his pick andshovel and slaved as hard as any of us. We piled up the coal and rock,good and thick, and then scraped up all the fine dust we could findand made a thick blanket of that to keep the gas from coming through,as best we could.
"Putting up that barricade made us mighty hungry. We were working fastbecause the gas there was bad, and we knew the quicker we got awayfrom it, the better for us. Being hungry didn't do us much good.There wasn't much grub.
"We had only two pails of dinner, Jim's and mine. Anton's dinner pailwas out by the entry where he took the loaded cars. So we pooled thefood, and divided it into three exactly equal parts, each one of us tohide his share, and to eat it as quickly or as slowly as he pleased.
"Jim ate his at once, said he'd rather have one good meal than a lotof little bites which didn't mean anything. Anton made his lastlonger, he still had some food left when the lamps burned out. I onlytook a bite or two of mine, at that time, and managed to make eightmeals of it, though, of course, I couldn't tell how many hours or daysapart those meals were."
"How long did the safety-lamps burn?" asked the reporter.
"Eight hours after we were caught. They all went out within a fewminutes of each other--and we had them pretty well turned down, too. Ilooked at my watch, just as the last one flickered out. It wasn'tquite a quarter past eight."
"You had no matches?" the reporter asked.
"Matches? What a fool idea!" exclaimed Clem, amazed at the reporter'signorance. "I should say not! Even the lamps are locked. We couldhave had light three times as long, if it wasn't for that, burningfirst one and then the other, but there's no way to light a lamp belowground.
"Before the lamps went out, each of us had scraped up a pile of coaldust to sleep on. It was plenty warm down there, and getting warmerall the time. The lack of air made us all heavy and drowsy. We wereall asleep pretty soon after the lamps went out.
"We woke up in the dark. It was black as pitch, a blackness whichweighed on you. It hurt. One's eyes wanted to fight against it.
"How long had we been asleep? An hour, ten hours, or the wholetwenty-four? Not one of us could tell.
"But the sleep had done one good thing. It had helped Jim a lot. Hewas full of pep, again. The old prospecting optimism had come back. Hewas dead sure that he could find a way out. All it needed was lookingfor, he thought.
"Anton wasn't awake yet, and I didn't want to wake him up. The longerhe slept, the better. I tried to reason with Jim that we'd alreadygone to all the openings there could be, but he wouldn't listen toreason. He wouldn't stay with us. He was restless. He just had to beup and wandering.
"'How are you going to find your way back?' I asked him. 'It's easy toget lost in the dark, and you don't know much about the mine.'
"'I'll be back with a full dinner-pail while you're sitting theredoing nothing!' he boasted, and off he started. I'd have gone withhim, quick enough, but I didn't want Anton to wake and find himselfalone.
"After a while Anton woke up. I heard him munching, so I knew he wasat his grub. I warned him not to finish it all at once, but he was sohungry he couldn't stop. I couldn't blame him much, at that. I was soravenous that my stomach seemed to be tying itself up in knots, andthe flesh inside seemed to crawl.
"I had to tell him that Jim had gone off by himself. Anton didn't saymuch to that. In fact, he didn't want to talk at all. He was broodingall the time. Twice I overheard him muttering to himself, and bothtimes he was talking about Otto and his warning.
"I could see he was blaming me, but I'll say this for the boy--henever once said that he regretted having come back to warn me."
"That," interrupted the superintendent emphatically, "shows the boy isgood stuff. It takes a good deal of moral courage to keep from blamingsome one else, when you're in a pinch. I remember, once, in WestAustralia--" He checked himself. "Go ahead with your story, lad."
Clem resumed.
"Some time after--it seemed about an hour, though it may have been agood deal less or a good deal more--we heard shouting.
"'Jim's found the way out!' cried Anton, and scrambled to his feet.
"I grabbed him as he rose.
"'Don't run off in that fool fashion,' I said to him. 'Make sure wherethe shouts are coming from, first. You've been down in a mine longenough to know that the echoes are apt to make a noise sound as if itcomes in a directly opposite direction from the right one.'
"'I'm going to find Jim!' he insisted.
"'If you must run chances, why, I suppose you must,' said I. 'But I'mgoing to stay here, where the air's good. Try to get back here. Keepin touch. You take ten paces forward, then stop and shout. I'llanswer. If you don't hear me, come back.'
"He promised and started off. For the first fifty yards orso--supposing that he shouted at every ten paces--I heard him clearenough.
"Then--not another sound! What had happened to him?
"I shouted again and again.
"No reply!
"What was I going to do? Both Jim and Anton were wandering aroundloose in the mine galleries, and they might stray until they dropped,without ever finding the way back. I yelled till I was hoarse.
"Then I got another idea. I took my pick, and kept on hitting the roofin three regular strokes: 'Tap! Tap! Tap!' and then a pause--just likethat." He illustrated on the head-rail of his hospital bed. "I knewthat the vibration would carry along the rock, farther than thevoice."
"That's what the geophone man heard," Owens commented to the reporter."Go on, lad!"
"I kept that up," Clem went on, "until my arms ached. I was so tiredin my back and so weak with hunger that bright violet spots keptdancing before my eyes. But I kept on, just the same.
"Then I heard a shout, and, presently, Anton came staggering along,dead beat. He'd been guided back by the sound of the tapping.
"'No sign of Jim?' I asked
"'Nothing!'
"He lay down on the coal dust, and, pretty soon, I heard him breathinghard. He'd gone right off to sleep, exhausted, poor kid!"
"How long do you suppose he'd been wandering?" queried the reporter.
"No way of knowing. But I'm pretty husky, and I can stand an eighthours' shift of coal hewing without getting too tired. And, I tellyou, I was about done out, just from reaching up and tapping that roofwith a pick. Of course, I was weak. But I reckon it must have beeneight hours, good, that the youngster was straying in those minegalleries, in the dark, alone. Maybe it was more.
"I must have gone to sleep, too, but it didn't seem for long.Half-asleep, I heard Anton say,
"'There's a rat gnawing at my stomach!'
"I woke up right quick, at that, for though mine rats are uglycustomers, I thought if we could catch a rat or two, that might giveus food. But what the boy meant was that he was so hungry that it feltas if a rat were there.
"I wasn't exactly hungry, leastways, not all the time. The pain camein cramps, that were bad enough while they lasted, but I didn't feelanything much between. My tongue was getting swollen, though. I knewwhat that meant. Drink of some sort we must have.
"'Look here, Anton,' I said, 'you tap on the rock, in threes, the sameas I did, and I'll go try to find water. I know the lay-out of thismine better than you do, and there used to be a sump (hole) near thegoaf (waste rock taken from the main gallery roofs). Maybe there'll bewater there.'
"I started off, cheerfully enough. I reckoned I knew the mine. So Ido, with a lamp, but I didn't have any idea what it meant to wander inthe pitch-dark. The galleries were low there, too, not more than fourfeet high. I had to keep one hand stretched out in front of me to keepfrom going headlong into the wall, and the dinner pail that I wascarrying in that hand struck the side more times than I could count; Ikept the other hand above my head, to keep me from cracking my skullagainst the cross-timbers holding up the low roof.
"Before I'd gone a hundred y
ards, I was so mixed up that I didn't knowwhich way I was going or where I'd come from. It's a horrible feeling.The dark is like a trap that you can't feel and you can't see, but youknow it's there. It's being blind with your eyes open.
"Then it was so ghastly silent, too. A blind man can always hearsomething. There's life around him. Down there, not a sound! I'd lostall hearing of the 'Tap! Tap! Tap!' I'd told Anton to make.
"All sorts of nasty things came into my head. I might step into a holeand get crippled. I might walk straight into a pocket of gas, and,without any safety lamp to tell me of the danger, be poisoned then andthere. The roof might be bulging down, right over my head, ready tofall and I'd have no warning.
"I tried to reason it out that all these ideas were just imagination.Reasoning didn't do much good. Fright got a grip of me. I was in acold sweat all over. My heart thumped so that it hurt. I was justhorribly scared, right through, and I had to bite my lips till theywere raw to keep from screaming.
"I'd have gone under, sure, if I'd been alone, but I had the kid tothink of, and every time the tin dinner pail banged against the wall,it reminded me of what I'd come to look for. Anton would die of thirstin a few hours, if I didn't find water. As for Jim, I reckoned he wasprobably done for, anyway.
"I think--I'm not sure but I think so--I had a spell of runningcrazily round and round in a circle, trying to get away fromsomething--I don't know what. It was then I gave my head a bang," hepointed to the bandage still on his head, "and while that stunned me abit, it steadied me, too.
"By that time, I was lost for fair. I couldn't hear Anton's tapping. Icouldn't hear anything. I tried to turn back and got all mixed up inthe run of the galleries. I wandered this way and that, as blindly asif I'd never been in the mine before.
"And then I heard a sound like the ticking of a big clock.
"That scared me more than anything.
"I remembered all Otto's' stories about the 'knockers,' and, though Ididn't believe them, I couldn't get them out of my head. Somebody,something, was knocking softly underground!
"It wasn't human, that was sure!
"It couldn't be Anton, because he'd been told to tap in threes. Itcouldn't be Jim, for the ticks were too close together to be thestrokes of a pick; besides, I knew that Jim had left his tools behind.It couldn't be rescuers, because the sound was near me. Near me? Itwas almost at my ear.
"Sometimes breaking timber cracks. It might be a prop gradually givingway, I thought, just ready to let down a new fall of rock on my head.But a creaking timber is sometimes loud, sometimes soft, and thisticking, as I said, was regular, like a big clock.
"Then I guessed!
"It was drops of water falling!
"I could have shouted with relief, but down there, in the dark and thestillness, the silence was so heavy that I was afraid to shout.
"I felt my way forward, one step and then a second, and the tickingstopped.
"I took a third step and it began again. I stepped backward, and alittle to one side, and the drop fell on my bare shoulder.
"I took my dinner-pail, moved it forward, backward, this way and that,until at last I heard the drops falling in the tin.
"I was too thirsty to wait long. As soon as there was a teaspoonful ofwater in the pail, I moistened my tongue with it. That was a relief! Iwas able to hold out the tin pail, the next time, until there was areasonable drink.
"Ugh, it was bitter! It tasted coppery and twisted up my mouth, but itwas liquid, at least. After I had a drink or two, I felt better. Myscare passed away.
"Then I began to think a bit. If water was dropping as quickly asthat, it must be running somewhere. But where? I got down on my handsand knees and began to feel along the floor. Here it was damp; there,dry. I crawled along for a few minutes, following the line of the dampfloor, and, sure enough, came to a hollow where a good-sized puddlehad collected. There I was able to half-fill the pail.
"So far, I was all right. I'd found the water. But how was I to getback to Anton? And where was Jim, if he were still alive? I hadn't anyidea, any more, of which way to turn.
"Then I got a scheme. Suppose I just walked straight ahead, keeping myright hand against the wall, and turning to the right at every openingI came to? I knew that we were hemmed in at every point. Therefore, Ifigured, we must be inside some kind of an irregular circle. The placewhere we had made our beds was in the room where I had been working,which was in the end gallery, and, at that rate, somewhere on thecircumference of that circle. If I kept on going, long enough, I'd bebound to strike the place.
"Off I started with the pail half-full of water. I walked, in and out,up one gallery and down another, coming back to the rock falls whichhad blocked the way, and on again. I tried to count my paces, and,though I forgot sometimes, I figured that I'd done about seventhousand paces when I heard, faintly:
"'Tap! Tap! Tap!'
"It seemed to come from behind me.
"I wasn't to be fooled by the echoes, though, and so I kept on as Ihad been going. Just a little further and I turned a corner and cameto the place where we had made our beds.
"Anton was down.
"He hadn't been able to keep on tapping on the roof, as I had told himto. He hadn't the strength. But the kid's pluck was holding, thoughhis vitality wasn't. He'd taken his maul (a large hammer used fordriving wedges in the coal) and was lifting this from the ground andthen dropping it, three strokes at a time, like I'd told him to do.
"When I spoke to him he couldn't answer. His tongue was so swollenthat it just about filled up his whole mouth.
"I gave him some water, a sip or two at a time, and then, when Ithought he could stand it, a real drink. Even then, I had to go slow,for my dinner pail was only half-full.
"I still had a few bites of food left, but I wasn't hungry, I'd gonetoo far for that. My mouth was sore, too. The copperas water screwedup my palate and my tongue like eating unripe bananas does, only a lotworse. It worked the same way on Anton."
"It was that water that helped you, though," put in the mine doctor."The sulphate of iron in it lowered the activity of the body, dryingit up, so that you could go on with less loss of tissue."
"It tasted nasty enough to have anything in it! Just the same, it waswater. When I woke up from a nap, I found the pail empty. Theyoungster had finished it, but when I rowed him for doing it, hecouldn't remember having drunk it at all. He was only half-conscious,any way.
"My tongue was beginning to swell again. I saw we'd have to shift ourheadquarters so as to be near that water, or the time would come whenwe'd be too weak to go hunting it. So, following the same scheme ofmaking a whole circle of the part of the mine where we were trapped, Iwent back the way I'd come, making sure that Anton was following rightbehind me.
"It seemed a whole lot farther off than I'd thought, I suppose becauseI was afraid of passing the place. After a couple of hours, though, Iheard the sound of the dropping water. It was great to hear it again!We took some long drinks there, I can tell you. Then we scooped upwith our hands some coal dust to lie on, and slumped down again. I wasbeginning to feel pretty weak."
"About what day do you suppose that was?" the reporter asked.
"I haven't any idea. Sometimes I thought we'd only been down there afew hours, sometimes it seemed like weeks. I suppose, really, it wasabout the third or the fourth day.
"I woke up suddenly.
"Somebody was laughing!
"It was a queer high-pitched laugh, and half-choked, something likethe neighing of a horse.
"Anton heard it, too.
"'The knockers are coming for us!' he said to me, hoarsely. 'It's justlike Father said. They're laughing at us!'
"Well, I don't mind telling you my blood ran a bit cold. I'm notsuperstitious, but, for the second time in that mine, I was scaredenough to run. But where to?
"Anton was gasping horribly; it made me worse to hear him. I put myhand on his shoulder to quiet him. He was trembling and shaking, likeas he had a chill.
"The la
ughing came nearer, and louder.
"The louder it got, the less I was scared. After the first few secondsof fright, I got all right again, and started to think quietly. Thenthe real reason came to me.
"It must be Jim!
"I let out a loud shout.
"The laughing stopped dead.
"Then I knew it was Jim; things that weren't human wouldn't care if Ishouted or not.
"'Keep quiet!' I said to Anton. 'It's Jim, and he's coming this way.'
"Presently the laughter began again, a sort of half choked scream,like I said, but it was laughing just the same. It made my flesh creepto hear it. Somehow it wasn't quite human, more like an animal tryingto laugh like a man.
"It was quite close to us, now. I got up, for I could hear stepsshuffling along the gallery.
"Suddenly, something bumped into me, though I thought the steps wereseveral yards away.
"It was Jim, sure enough.
"He gave a sort of screech and both his hands went up to my throat, ina strangling grip.
"I'm a good deal bigger than Jim, but I was like a baby in his hands.He had me like in a vise.
"'Help! Help! Anton!' I called. 'He's throttling me! It's Jim!'
"At that, the kid got up, tottering. He was weak enough, but, as youknow, he's really got muscles of iron. In spite of his scare--for hewas dead sure that it was something supernatural--he came to my help.
"The minute he got his hands on Jim and found that it was really fleshand blood that he was tackling, and not any sort of goblin, he gotfurious. He wrenched at his opponent savagely, and the more furious hegot, the more his strength came back. I could hear his sinewscracking.
"But Jim's grip was that of a madman.
"It was a good thing for me that Anton was the son of the championwrestler of the mine. Despite his powerful muscles, he could donothing, absolutely nothing against the madman. I felt him let go, andthought that was the end. My head was bursting, my heart fluttering.
"Then, with a swift change of hold, the youngster took Jim in awrestler's grip, one he had learned from his father. It's a deathhold, unless the other weakens. I heard Jim gasp. The clutch loosened.At last I could breathe and I shook myself free.
"But the madman was not tamed. His fists shot out like flails. Oneblow took Anton full in the chest. I heard his body crash against thewall. I could do little to help him, that choking grip had taken awayevery ounce of force I had.
"There wasn't any need for my help. That blow had roused Anton to arage but little less than that of his mad foe. He knew nothing ofboxing, but he could wrestle. It was a grim fight, down there in thedark!
"Despite the madman's blows, Anton ran in, clutched him in some kindof a wrestler's grip, lifted him clear off his feet and threw him overhis shoulder.
"The madman fell heavily on the rock floor and lay like a log.
"For a minute or two we panted, saying nothing. Then,
"'Have you killed him, Anton?' I asked.
"'I don't know. I hope so,' he answered savagely.
"I felt pretty much that way, myself, at first, for my throat felt asif it were twisted clear out of shape. But, as I began to feel a bitbetter, I thought of Jim lying there.
"After all, he hadn't had any water! Small wonder he'd gone mad.
"Staggering--for that grip had nearly done for me--I got over besidehim and knelt down. His heart was still beating, pretty rapidly, atthat. But his jaws were almost locked upwards, forced apart by histhickened and swollen tongue.
"I got some water into his mouth, but with difficulty. I couldn't pryhis tongue down far enough to get more than a drop or two in. But Ikept at it--hours, I reckon--and kept on giving him sips of wateruntil he began to breathe a bit more naturally.
"Then I reckon I fainted, for, when I came to, I was lying rightacross Jim. He was still unconscious, but the tongue was a whole lotbetter and he was nearly able to close his mouth. I poured a lot morewater into him. Then I tried to give him a bite from the bread I hadleft, but he couldn't swallow. So I gave it to Anton, who was moaninga good bit.
"Me, I was getting less and less hungry. The gnawing pain that I'dfelt at the beginning, especially that first time that I was huntingwater, only came back at longer and longer intervals. In between, Ifelt quite all right, rather jolly, in fact. I caught myself laughing,once, the way I'd heard Jim, and I had hard work to stop it.Hysterical, I reckon.
"I must have slept a lot, or fainted, I don't know which. I rememberhaving dreamed that I was rescued, oh, a score of times! Always, whenI was asleep, there seemed plenty of light, generally a bright violet.It was only when I woke up that it was dark. The blackness was like arock lying on my chest. The air I breathed seemed to taste black.
"Jim got violent, more than once. To end up, I had to tie his feetwith my belt, so he couldn't get up on his feet. I wasn't going torisk any more fights like we'd had with him at the start.
"When he wasn't struggling, he was talking. He talked nearly all thetime, and mostly about some gold mine that he'd found, that he knewwould make him a millionaire and that he wanted to go back to. Hedescribed the place, over and over again. I believe I could go rightthere, just from hearing him. The only thing that quieted him was whenI answered. Then he'd shut right up, only to begin again, after awhile.
"What worried me the most about Jim was that he couldn't keep thebitter water on his stomach. He'd vomit it up, almost as soon as I'dget it down. I kept pouring it into him, just the same.
"When I put the last bite of grub into Anton--he was deadunconscious--it seemed like the end of everything. I lost all track oftime. I don't know what happened, after that. I got quitelight-headed, I think.
"Half the while, I didn't know whether the time I was dreaming wasreal, or the time I was awake. I knew somehow that the air was gettingbad, and I remember thinking that this might be because a rescue partywas trying to get down the wall.
"But there was always plenty of light when I was asleep, and I likedthat, so, every time I was awake, I tried to go back to sleep."
"Didn't you hear any sounds of the rescue party coming nearer?" Owensasked.
"I heard them all the time, even when they weren't there," Clemanswered. "How was I to tell what was real and what was dream?
"On one side was Jim telling about his gold mine, on the other wasAnton, crying out from time to time that the knockers had him. Poorkid, he seemed to be in a nightmare all the while."
"But when the rescuers first spoke to you," the owner of the minesuggested, "you answered naturally enough."
"Perhaps I did, but I don't remember hearing them, at all, and I don'tremember answering, at least, not more than I had a dozen timesbefore. I'm not sure that I remember when the doctor came in and put agas mask on me. It's all sort of vague.
"The first thing I do remember was coming up to the top and seeing agreen tree. The trees weren't green when I went down a week ago, and Ihadn't dreamed about trees, at all.
"Right now, it's hard to realize that I was buried down there for aweek. If I wasn't so feeble, I'd think it was only a nightmare."
"And about this gold mine of Jim's," queried the reporter, scentinganother phase of the story. "What was that?"
Jim, in a neighboring bed, half-raised himself in anxiety, but hiscomrade threw him a reassuring look.
"You'll have to ask Jim that, when he gets better," Clem answered. "Ican't give away his secret. It might be true!"
Boy With the U.S. Miners Page 5
