, and the one street of the
little mining village of Raven Brook was quickly filled with excited
people.

It was late in the afternoon of a hot summer's day, and the white-faced
miners of the night shift were just leaving their homes. Some of them,
with lunch-pails and water-cans slung over their shoulders by light iron
chains, were gathered about the mouth of the slope, prepared to descend
into the dark underground depths where they toiled. The wives of the day
shift men, some of whom, black as negroes with coal-dust, powder-smoke,
and soot, had already been drawn up the long slope, were busy preparing
supper. From the mountainous piles of refuse, of "culm," barefooted
children, nearly as black as their miner fathers, were tramping homeward
with burdens of coal that they had gleaned from the waste. High above
the village, sharply outlined against the western sky, towered the huge,
black bulk of the breaker.

The clang of its machinery had suddenly ceased, though the shutting-down
whistle had not yet sounded. From its many windows poured volumes of
smoke, more dense than the clouds of coal-dust with which they were
generally filled, and little tongues of red flame were licking its
weather-beaten timbers. It was an old breaker that had been in use many
years, and within a few days it would have been abandoned for the new
one, recently built on the opposite side of the valley. It was still in
operation, however, and within its grimy walls a hundred boys had sat
beside the noisy coal chutes all through that summer's day, picking out
bits of slate and tossing them into the waste-bins. From early morning
they had breathed the dust-laden air, and in cramped positions had
sorted the shallow streams of coal that constantly flowed down from the
crushers and screens above. Most of them were between ten and fourteen
years of age, though there were a few who were even younger than ten,
and some who were more than sixteen years old.[1]

[Footnote 1: A law of the State of Pennsylvania forbids the employment
of boys less than twelve years old in breakers, or less than fourteen in
mines. This law is not, however, strictly enforced.]

Among these breaker boys two were particularly noticeable, although they
were just as black and grimy as the others, and were doing exactly the
same work. The elder of these, Derrick Sterling, was a manly-looking
fellow, whose face, in spite of its coating of coal-dust, expressed
energy, determination,