ght 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
passage 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 f