93
XXI. A KNOTTY QUESTION, 201
XXII. THE SOLUTION, 209
XXIII. THE EXPLOSION AT THE VAUGHAN, 222
XXIV. IN DEADLY PERIL, 235
XXV. THE IMPRISONED MINERS, 239
XXVI. A CRITICAL MOMENT, 253
XXVII. RESCUED, 259
XXVIII. CHANGES, 274
XXIX. THE NEW MANAGER, 283
XXX. RISEN, 289
XXXI. CONCLUSION, 298

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
BULLDOG FINDS A FRIEND, _Frontispiece_.
IN THE OLD SHAFT--CAN HE BE SAVED? 58
NELLY'S FIRST LESSON, 70
A LIFE OR DEATH STRUGGLE, 113
JACK IS VICTORIOUS, 170
THE NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS, 217
AFTER THE FIRST EXPLOSION--THE SEARCH PARTY, 237
SAVED! 270

FACING DEATH:

OR, HOW STOKEBRIDGE WAS CIVILIZED.

CHAPTER I.

EVIL TIDINGS.

A row of brick-built houses with slate roofs, at the edge of a large
mining village in Staffordshire. The houses are dingy and colourless,
and without relief of any kind. So are those in the next row, so in the
street beyond, and throughout the whole village. There is a dreary
monotony about the place; and if some giant could come and pick up all
the rows of houses, and change their places one with another, it is a
question whether the men, now away at work, would notice any difference
whatever until they entered the houses standing in the place of those
which they had left in the morning. There is a church, and a vicarage
half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fashioned garden; there
are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels, and the doctor's
house, with a bright brass knocker and plate on the door. There are no
other buildings above the common average of mining villages; and it
needs not the high chimneys, and engine-houses with winding gear,
dotting the surrounding country, to notify the fact that Stokebridge is
a mining village.

It is a little past noon, and many of the women come to their doors and
look curiously after a miner, who, in his working clothes, and bla