her to answer.

"The moss has broken in, an' twenty-three men are lost. Jamie an' Andra
are among them. They gaed oot themselves this morning, telling me they
could work fine, even though you werena there. Oh, Rob! What will I do!
Oh, dear! Oh, dear! My bonnie laddies!" and with a sob in her voice she
turned away, and Robert was again out of the house, and running through
the moor to the pit, as hard as desperation could drive him. His two
brothers were down there, and they must be got out. Even as he ran he
wondered what strange freak of fate it was, that had kept him out there
on the moor all night and so saved him from this terrible fate.

He could understand how his brothers would feel at the chance of working
one day by themselves. He had always been their guide and protector.
They had gone into the pit with him when they left school, and had just
continued working with him since, learning their trade from his greater
experience, and trusting always to his better judgment when there was
danger to avoid. They would go out that day with the intention of
working like slaves to produce an extra turn of coal. Even though it
were but one extra hutch, they would fill it, and slave all day with
never a rest, so that they could have the satisfaction of seeing
approval in his eyes, when they told him at night how many they had
turned out, and how well things had gone generally with them in his
absence.

He reached the pit, to find that the moss was already rising in the
shaft, and that there was no possibility of getting down to try and save
these twenty-three men and boys who were imprisoned in the darkness
beneath.

He came across Tam Donaldson, who was the last to get up.

"Tell me aboot it, Tam," he said. "Is there no chance of getting down?
Do you think any of them will be safe so far?" and a whole lot of other
anxious questions were rattled off, while Tam, dripping wet from having
to wade and fight the last fifty fathoms toward the pit bottom, through
the silent, sinister, creeping moss that filled the roadways and
tunnels, stood to give him an account of what had taken place.

"They were a' sitting at their piece, Rob--a' but James and Andra. They
were keen to get as muckle work done as possible, an' they had some coal
to get to fill oot a hutch, when a' at yince we heard Andra crying on us
to rin. Had they a' ran doon the brae we'd a' hae been safe, for we
could hae gotten to the bottom afore the moss; but som