United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Then I meant to collect all their powder, harmlessly explode it beneath the empty building, and thus leave them without means for prosecuting the fight. This plan miscarried through a cave-in of the roof, which showed them the true location of the mine's end and gave them a chance to set fire to the building nearest the blockhouse, which they hoped thus to destroy.

A sidewalk sinking in mire; a long line of one-story wooden shanties, ready to cave-in with decay; dismal looking groceries, in which the god, gin, is sending his victims by hundreds to the greedy grave-yard; suspicious looking dens with dingy fronts, open doors, and windows stuffed with filthy rags-in which crimes are nightly perpetrated, and where broken-hearted victims of seduction and neglect, seeking here a last refuge, are held in a slavery delicacy forbids our describing; dens where negro dancers nightly revel, and make the very air re-echo their profaning voices; filthy lanes leading to haunts up alleys and in narrow passages, where thieves and burglars hide their vicious heads; mysterious looking steps leading to cavern-like cellars, where swarm and lay prostrate wretched beings made drunk by the "devil's elixir" all these beset the East side of Orange street.

Down here they could forget Squint Rodaine and his chalky-faced son; down here they could feel that they were working toward a goal and lay aside the handicap which humans might put in their path. Day after day of labor and the indentation upon the cave-in grew from a matter of feet to one of yards. A week. Two. Then, as Harry swung his pick, he lurched forward and went to his knees.

Whether they had been crushed or not was hard to tell. The stranger had not been in the tunnel at the time of the accident, but had gone to the stream for water. Upon returning, he discovered the cave-in. He had come at once for help, realizing that a single man would be useless at the mine. In a short time the three had the old horse packed and were on the trail.

A sidewalk sinking in mire; a long line of one-story wooden shanties, ready to cave-in with decay; dismal looking groceries, in which the god, gin, is sending his victims by hundreds to the greedy graveyard; suspicious looking dens with dingy fronts, open doors, and windows stuffed with filthy rags in which crimes are nightly perpetrated, and where broken-hearted victims of seduction and neglect, seeking here a last refuge, are held in a slavery delicacy forbids our describing; dens where negro dancers nightly revel, and make the very air re-echo their profaning voices; filthy lanes leading to haunts up alleys and in narrow passages, where thieves and burglars hide their vicious heads; mysterious looking steps leading to cavern-like cellars, where swarm and lay prostrate wretched beings made drunk by the "devil's elixir" all these beset the East side of Orange street.

Rusty led the way back again to the garden, to the cave-in. "Elaine!" gasped Aunt Tabby. By this time Joshua was digging furiously. Rusty, too, seemed to understand. He threw back the earth with his paws, helping with every ounce of strength in his little body. At last the spade turned up a bit of cloth. "Elaine!" Aunt Tabby cried out again.

She was brushing cobwebs from her dress. "To a cave near the old church," she replied, triumphantly. "Blissful ignorance!" he laughed. "It doesn't lead anywhere as it now exists. You see, there was a cave-in a few decades ago " "Is that the one that caved in?" she cried, in dismay. "So Saxondale tells me."

The first workers on the street that morning found Fairchild offering them six dollars a day. And by eight o'clock, ten of them were at work in the drift of the Blue Poppy mine, working against time that they might repair the damage which had been caused by the cave-in. It was not an easy task. That day and the next and the next after that, they labored.

We mined too far beneath the cliff, thus causing a cave-in. "A few minutes more and I would also have shared poor Langley's fate; but a strange destiny it is that protects me from death a strange one indeed! He is gone, and I alone am now the Hermit of the Grand Cañon, a Croesus in wealth of gold, yet a fugitive from my fellow men. What a fate is mine, and how will it all end, I wonder?"

"Some of the broken boards that held up the tunnel," was the answer, and Joe pointed to pieces of timber that had been splintered and shattered by the cave-in. "Yes, it's the only way out," agreed Blake, who, now that his cut had been bound up with bandages from the first-aid kits the boys carried, felt better. "We'll have to dig out." And after a short rest they began this work.