a
warning, if the miners turn back right then and there, nobody'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."

[Illustration: 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