attendant--whom the law requires to be maintained at all
mines employing more than a hundred men--arrived but a few seconds
later.

The superintendent, a vigorous Australian, who had taken part in many
a sensational mining rush in his youth, and who had inherited the
ownership of this coal mine from a distant relative but a few years
before, leaped into action. Orders came rattling like hail.

All haulage of coal from below was stopped. The engine on the second
shaft was thrown into gear, and the cages in both shafts were sent
down to bring up the men.

Would there be any to bring?

What did the crash denote? A mere fall of roof, which might cause the
loss of a few lives, or a vast explosion which would sweep every man
below ground to death in a few seconds?

The cages had hardly reached the bottom when there came the second
crash.

The crowd around the shaft was thickening. The doors of the hundreds
of cottages clustered in rows about the colliery had been thrown open;
from every direction the women came running, their shawls streaming
behind them. Many of them had already lost fathers or husbands or sons
below ground; all knew the awful menace of that sickening rumble.

With all the speed that the winding-engines could be made to give, the
cages were hauled up. They had not yet reached the top when a sudden
cry of horror arose. Otto, who had not gone home, despite his
abandonment of the day's work, but who had hung around the pit-head
all day, pointed with his finger to the steep hillside that rose
abruptly above the mine.

The hill itself was falling!

The pine forest swayed, as though the huge trees were but blades of
grass, seemed to move downward a few yards, sending up a cloud of
dust, and then fairly plunged down the slope in an avalanche of rocks,
trees and earth mixed with tremendous bowlders. With a roar like the
fall of a near-by thunderbolt, the landslide ripped away the side of
the hill, the ground settling with a shiver like that of an
earthquake, and sagging perceptibly.

"Sound the emergency whistle!" came the command.

A minute or two later, a series of shrill screeches gave the signal
for summoning the rescue corps. Nearly all American mines, following
the requirements and suggestions of the U. S. Bureau of Mines,
maintain elaborately equipped rescue stations, manned by picked miners
who are regularly drilled in the use of the apparatus.

Before the emergency signal had finished sound