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Updated: May 2, 2025
Keith staggered forward with Bluffy, at times holding himself up by the side-timbers. He was conscious of a light and of voices, but was too exhausted to know more. If he could only keep the man and the boy above water until assistance came! He summoned his last atom of strength. "Hold tight to the timbers, Hennson," he cried; "I am going." The rest was a confused dream.
One voice, however, was more imperative than the others; one figure pressed to the front that of the gayly dressed woman who had just been comforting and encouraging the weeping women about the mine entrance. "Where is Mr. Keith?" she demanded of man after man. The men explained. "He went on to try and find three more men who are down there Bluffy and Hennson and his boy." "Who went with him?"
"'Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven," Keith heard him say. "Hennson!" he cried again. From the darkness he heard a voice. "Who is that? Is that any one?" "It is I, Mr. Keith, Hennson. Come quick, all of you; you can get out. Cheer up." A cry of joy went up. "I can't leave my boy," called the man. "Bring him on your back," said Keith. "Come on, Bluffy." "I can't," said Bluffy.
Then he heard another voice urging him to go. "You can't do any good staying; try it." But Hennson was refusing. "Hold on. I won't leave you." "Hennson! Bluffy!" shouted Keith, or tried to shout, for his voice went nowhere; but his heart was bounding now, and he plunged on. Presently he was near enough to catch their words. The father was praying, and the boy was following him.
Bluffy was dead; but Hennson, the man whom Keith had rescued, had stated that they had cut through into a shaft when the water broke in on them, and an investigation having been begun, not only of this matter, but of the previous explosion in the Wickersham mine, Mr. Plume had sold out his paper hastily and shaken the dust of New Leeds from his feet.
Some of them were whimpering and some were praying fervently, whilst a few were silent, in a sort of dazed bewilderment. All who were working in that part of the mine were there, they said, except three men, Bill Bluffy and a man named Hennson and his boy, who had been cut off in the far end of the gallery and who must have been drowned immediately, they told Keith. "They may not be," said Keith.
"No," said Keith; "I will take you, too: Hennson can take the boy. Can you walk at all?" "I don't think so." Keith made Hennson take the boy and hold on to him on one side, and slipping his arm around the injured man, he lifted him and they started back. He had put new courage into them, and the force of the current was in their favor.
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