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About Lincoln County leader. (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987 | View Entire Issue (June 3, 1897)
- i $ "Carson," I said, involuntarily, stoop ing to knock the ash from my cigar, "perhaps I ought not to ask, although I have known you for nearly three years, lint is it usual for a w ife to wear two wedding rings?" Dead silence. He had Just lowered his violin, after a very soft solo for it was considerable past midnight when I ventured that curious uestion. There had been an evening party, and, as I was to stay at the house till morning, Carson's wife had said "Good night," and left us to finish our inevita ble smoke and talk. His mouth twitch ed a little, hut it was some time before ho retorted in a low tone: "Is is usual for a man well under 40 to have hair as white as mine?" "Well, perhaps not but I thought you attributed that to some shock or other. What has that to do with with the-two rings?" "Everything." He listened at the door for a moment, turned down the lights, and then came and sat down, spreading his hands over the tire. "Two rings? Exactly, one is the ring I put on her linger when I married her; the second was put there by another man and will slay there as long aa the ilrst." ".Never mind now," I said. His voice had trailed off huskily. "I had no idea there was any tragic element behind tho fact." "Tragic? Heavens! It was more than that, Arthur," he whispered, turn ing up a drawn face. "I never meant to touch upon It, but when you spoke it came back with a rush as vivid as If I bad been standing at the mouth of the old north shaft again. And that was six years ago. "You've heard me speak, at least, of the mine Itself the I.angley mine, in Derbyshire. I had only been assistant surveyor at the pits there for about nine months when it happened. "At 0 o'clock that morning. Arthur, three of us stepped Into the cage oM Jim Halllday. the foreman, bis son Jim, and myself; the men had gone dowu nn hour before. "I shall never forget that young Jim's sweetheart had walked over to the pit with him, as she occasionally did. "They were to be married In n week or two, and she and site had on her linger the ring he had bought In Derby the day before-Just for safety'!! sake, or perhaps out of womanly pride. "I recollect that Just as the chain clanked and the winter sunshine was disappearing overhead, he shouted out a third 'Good-by!' to hcr-lfttle dream lug that It was to be good-by. I,ttle enough old Halllday and I thought that days would elapse before we emerged into God's sunlight again! "A new vein had been bored the year lxi'oro, and then abandoned because It ran in the direction of th, river. We three had had Instructions to widen it for a space of :iiM) yards a piece of work that had occupied us nearly a month. "Did Jim picked and young ,11m wheeled the coal away to the nearest gallery, from when It was carried over mils to the lMittotn of the main shaft. "Well, by 4 o'clock that afternoon we c-nlculatcd roughly that we had reach ed the limit laid down. " 'I think It's as near as possible. Mr. Carson,' old Halllday said. Mini, give another count, we don't want the water coining In.' "Jim went back. We could hear him nlnglng out the pact's In ills light-hearted fashion as he returned, his voice echoing through the long galleries. Two-slxty-nlne pooh! you're miles off It, dad!" He was only a score of years iff, though. 'Two-slxty-nlne two-sev-enty-four. It'll allow a full twenty yet, I reckon.' "He had Just tlulshed his count when hut there, no mau could properly de. w-rihe it. It was something one had to realize for himself before he could un derstand a bare halt of the suddeu terror tlint whlteued our lips and seem ed to bring our hearts to n standstill. "There was a rumbling In one of the distant galleries, and a sickening trem Me of the ground underneath us; then then the most paralyzing sound. I do believe, that U to be heard In this world. "How or why it happened Is some thing to be placed among the host of unsolved mysteries; but there was one grinding, splintering roar, as though the earth had split lu two pieces. "Before we could stir hand or foot to wave ourselves, before we could even tai-n In that an explosion had occurred while we were guarding against an other sort of danger, down thundered a mass of coal, tons upon tons of It. that blocked up the ouly passage leading to the shaft. "It Just reached young Jim; standing where he did, he was struck down ire hes.0 his screech stilled beneath RINGS.-a the debris. For about five more sec onds the earth seemed to be heaving and threatening universal chaos; then all became still as a tomb. "A tomb! We had our lamps, old Jim and I looked, and saw that we were cut off from the rest of the world. "What happened next, I hardly know; I was stupefied with the shock, sick with u mortal fear of death. He and I stood staring mutely at each other. The one tiling I recollect is that his face was gray as marble, and that a fine of troth stood on his lips. "He was the first to come back to sense. He gave one choking cry of Mini!' and staggered back to that black pile. The hoy's hand was sticking out from the bottom of it. clutching con vulsively at nothing. I sat down and watched, in a sort of dreary fascina tion, as old Jim, uttering strange cries. j tore at the mass in a mad frenzy. God netp linn : .inn was the only thing he bad In the world to love. In less than live minutes he had dragged liiin out, ami sat down to hug him in his arms. "Dead? No; he could Just open his poor dust filled eyes in answer to his father's whispers: but we knew at once that he would never again make the galleries echo his piercing whistle. "I''or whole hours. I suppose, neither of us attempted to realize our situation. We sat on in the dead silence, waiting for something to happen. "(dice or twice we saw young Jim's blackened lips move feebly, and each time his father would mutter brokenly, 'Ay, my precious boy, we'll look after her!' "Once the old man broke out. qulver Ingly, Into the hymn. 'Abide with Me!' but he got no further than the third line. That, perhaps, was about 8 o'clock, but we could keep no count of the time, as my watch had stopped. "Hour after hour must have gone by, nud still old Jim sat, with rigid face and staring eyes, clasping his burden. In all probability It was morning above ground before at last -he spoke. " ilow long can we hold out. Mr. Car son? I'm feared to go. I've been a godless man all my time.' "That aroused me. I examined our position carefully. The passage was about eight yards wide at this point, and measured about twenty paces from the end to where that solid wall of coal blocked our path to the outer world. As the bore ran level Willi the foot of the north shaft, we were about forty feet below the clear surface. We had no food, and our lamps would burn, say, another five or six hours; while the breathing air, hot and gaseous al ready, would probably become unen durable before the evening came. That was our situation, and let any man con ceive a worse, If he can. One slender chance of escape at the best left; per haps the entire passage was not block ed, and we might force our way to the main gallery. I was not afraid of death lu the way that It comes to most people, but I was afraid to meet nud struggle with it there. We sprang to the task, wild at the thought that those few hours of stupor might have made all the difference. "You can guess what happened, and why, after a long spell of lighting to break through that horrible wall, old Jim threw himself down with a groan and refused to go on. "As fast as we loosened one mass. another crashed down in Its place: at the end of our desperate attempt we were half choked and blinded with dust, our hands were raw and we had made scarce any headway. "Handy, too, had we given up the work as hopeless when my lamp flick ered out; half an hour later old Jim's followed suit. "Total oblivion! As I sat and con templated our fate, a falntuess of niln gled hunger and despair crept over me. Young Jim, quite still, was propped up against the wall close by. "Within a few feet of nip sat his father; at times he would start up and shriek out In nameless terror at others he would catch up his pick and hack at the walls with the fury of a maniac. And worse was to come. "l think I must have fainted. I do not seem to recollect any more until the moment when I became conscious of my mate's hard breathing over me. and of the fact that his hand was feeling or, so it seeuieu tor my throat. I dashed away, panting uuder the shock of this new horror. "'Jim,' 1 gasped, 'for heaven's sake, keep sane! If we're to go, let us die like men! "No answer; I heard him crawling away, and that was all. The dead silence was ouly broken by a faint trickling sound. Trickling! "Yes; 1 put my hand to the level, and found half an inch of water and hot ter and more stifling grew the atmos phere. Fraying hard to myself, I re- Uied now that, should no help come, only a few hours could live betwixt us and the end. And then old Jim might go first, and I should be left. Nay, I was already practically alone; the fear that was slowly whitening my hair and turned old Jim's brain "He suddenly sent up a peal of de lirious laughter. 'Water! Who says water? Why, mates. I'm swimming in It! Here's a go!' "Presently he began creeping round j find me. I could hear him coming, by his labored respiration, and swish ing of the ooze as he moved. "Round and round the space we went stealthily, until at last he made a cun ning rush and caught me by the ankle. 'Got him!' He yelled it with a glee that was unmistakable. "Mere words could never convey the sensation of that moment. Half suf focated, past all ordinary fear, I closed with my poor old mate, and we went staggering to and fro across our prison, until at last I managed to throw him so that his head struck heavily against the wall. "After that he lay quite still. I be lieved at the time that I had killed him, but we knew afterward that It was that blow which preserved his reason. "The rest can be told in a few words. After that I lay there like one in a dream, while the pestilential air slowly did its work. "Sometimes I fancied I could feel cool breezes blowing down on me. ami at others heard some one telling me x) wake up, for t lie whistle had sounded at the pits. "How long I lay so. I can only con jecture. I really knew nothing more until I was roused by the sound of that coal barrier crashing down before the Iilcks and spnries of a dozen rescuers, and the hubbub from a dozen throats as they broke Into our tomb. "Only Just time. Old Jim's face was only Just out of the water, and they said that no human being could have lived in that atmosphere for another two hours. And young Jim? well, there was Just enough life left in him to last three days. "Till the end of that third day, I kept to my bed: and then they sent to say that he was going, but that he wished to see me Ilrst. I reached the house In time to catch his last whis per. "You you'll take her, mate! Marry her no one else! Only only, you'll let uiy ring stay there. Promise me that." "What could I do but promise? I had no thought then of marrying his sweetheart but It was his dying wish, and for years Jim nud I had been like brothers. "Just a year later I asked her If there was any room In her heart for me, and and well, that's enough. Now you know why my wife wears two wedding rings. 'Saturday Evening Post. When Grant Visited Japan. "There was no pageant in General Grant's Journey round the world more Imposing than the reception given by the .Mikado at Japuu's capital, Writon WHICH John Rus'ell Young lu the Ladies' Home Journal. "The United States steamer 'Hlcumond,' bearing General Grant and his party, steamed Into Yo kohama, the harbor of Tokyo, escorted by the 'Ashuelot' and a Japanese man-of-war, on July 3, 187!). There was as sembled a fleet of war ships of other powers. At noon the Admiral's barge, flying General Grant's flag as ex-Pres-Ident, and conveying the General and his wife. Prince Dati. Minister Bing ham mid Minister Y'oshldu. slowly pushed for the shore, nud ou the instant every naval vessel manned yards and tired the American national salute. The day was as beautiful as days of which we dream a blue, cloudless sky, n soothing, lapping sea. The sudden transformation from this sleepy, lazy, silent summer day. Into the turbulence and danger of wur; the roar of cannon, the music every band playing nu American air the manned yards, the officers on deck lu full dress and Bnlut- Ing the barge as it passed, the cheers or the multitude thronging the shore, the fantastic day lire-works, the can non smoke banking Into clouds, the Iwrge moving with slow, steady stroke, all formed a brilliant and extraordinary scene. As the Admiralty steps were approached there In waiting stood the Imperial Princes, the Ministers and the high officials of the realm. In the splendor of their rnuk and station. As the Getieral stepped on shore the Jap anese guns thundered their greeting, the bands played 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' and Mr. Iwakurn. the vener able Prime Minister, advanced, aud, tnklug the General's hand, In the name of the Emperor welcomed him to Jap an. Reaching Tokyo after an hour In the train, the city authorities met us with an address, and the Mikado's stntf carriage, through a continuous, double Hue of Infantry standing at 'present,' conveyed the General to the Imperial i muce or r.unoKwan, Japan's Navy Japan is going to spend $40,000 in puttlug twelve young Japanese stu dents through a three years' course of study of naval architecture and ma rine engineering In England. They will work as gentlemen apprentices with the great shipbuilding Anns, As you grow older, strawberries taste mors watery. JOHN W. KEELEY. Man Who Invented a Motor that Didn't Mote. John AV". Keeley has dug up his mo tor njiain, and PlUladelpliians smile when they are told that soon the ele vated trains in New York will lie ope rated altogether by iower furnished by the Inventor's wonderful mechan ism. W. J. Fransiioli, the general man ager of the ManJuit.tan Koad, has seen Mr. Keeley's motor turn n big engine at very high speed, and is quite sure his cars can be operated by it. This is probably the fifth or sixth time that Mr. Keeley litis convinced capitalists that he has discovered a wonderful se cret. He liegau years go In his labor atory In Philadelphia to find some way of applying his "vibration" to machin ery, and every now and then a grand announcement Is made that the motor JOHN W. KF.F.I.EV. Is certain to mote, but thus far these announcements have never been real ized. Mr. Keeley is now growing old. He Is past tit), and his motor has been before the public since 1872. At least It was In that year that he announced his discovery of a new force, and the motor Itself was put ou public exhibi tion In 1874. Capitalists who saw it were so Impressed with It that If 100,000 was raised to enable him to proceed. Since then nearly $500.(1(10 has been ex pended in exierinieuts, but without tangible results, lu 18N8 Mr. Keeley was confined in Jail for contempt of court for refusing to tell the secret process by which he produced ninny most remarkable results lu the pres ence of experts, but up to the present time tliat secret is known to no one but himself. The motor which he exhibited i to the New York men is no larger than a man's tovepJie hat. ALBERT G. PORTER. Distinguished Hooaier Who Recently hied ut Indianapolin. Hon. Albert G. Porter, one of Indi ana's distinguished sons, who had served his country faithfully In high places, passed away ut Indianapolis recently. I Born at Iawivnceburg, Ind., In 1824, ! he graduated from Asbury University a n1 luu.utim l.i..-.-,. t,. t...ll.. II.. i "-"" ill imilUUHJlUllH I M-,i.,.i r ... iii ii. ii.iiiu ii iew years lie was a leader In Republican politics and held various municipal positions. Next lie became Supreme Court reiiorter and lu 18.1S was sent to Congress, holding his seat two terms. Then he returned to Indiana and became eminent as n law yer. After the war Gen. Reujninia Harrison was his partner for ninny years. In 1878 he was appointed comp troller of the treasury by President Hayes and lu 1SX0 was elected Gov ernor of Indiana by 7.0U0 plurality, al though Indiana was ordinarily account ed Democratic by 14.000. He tilled the office with distinction. It was Gov. Porter who nominated Gen. Harrison for President In the Chi cago convention of 188H and one of Albert o. porter. President Harrison's first acts was to appoint his learned friend minister to Italy. Since his return in 1803 he had lived in retirement. A Relio of Captain Kldd. An ancient quadrant tieartng the name of Robert Kldd, the celebrated pirate. Is in possession of a family at Rockland, Me. It Is more tluui 200 years old and It mounted with ivory which has now turned dark-brown with age. Fiction 1'npopnlar in Japan. The Japanese do not take to fiction Of 27,000 books published In the MU kado's empire last year, only 402 be longed to that class. Works on phil osophy, the arts and science, and r Uglon stood the highest Id the list. Graham and rye bread and 'j fruit in plenty, particularly oranges, fore breakfast, are of great benefit t persons of constipated habits. The most painful corn Is amenable to a wash of salicylic acid, tlnetuwof Indian hemp and flexible collod' , ap. plied for three nights with a lesior cork. ." Never continue keeping the bark n posed to the heat after it lias become comfortably warm, it is debilitation to do otherwise than merely warm lie luck by the fire. Jinny children, even to seven year, of age, have a habit of grinding their teeth in their sleep. A teaspoonful 0 rhubarb and soda given 'night and morning will alleviate this tendency. When the btindi have become Mi and hard from housework, a wash wit! turpentine, followed by a rubbing with colJ cream and a night's sleep lit glovw, will do much to restore them to their natural condition. Very often the hair conies out rapidly after continued malarial and otliet fevers. In such .cases the following mixture will check the tendency: Fluid extract of Jaliorandi, two ounces; tinc ture of caiithnrides, three drams; sul phate of quinine, one dram; West In dia bay rum up to one pint. If a child is afflicted with loud wheezing from the chest, indicative of bronchitis and asthma, great relief may be otalned by taking four times dally i teaspoonful of a mixture composed of one und one half grains of codeine and three ounces of compound syrup of hypophosphites. A great many people are alarmed it occasional sticking pains under tie heart, or a pain under the left shoulder blade, running dowu to the hand. The same will usually yield to the follow ing remedy, a teaspoonful as a dose: Iodide of potash, three drams; fluid ex tract of stillingia, sixteen drams; wine of colchlcuiu seed, eight drams; com pound fluid extract of sarsaparilla up to four ounces. CONSUL AT BORDEAUX. Albion W. Tnnrgee, the Man WhoRw Keen Apnolnted to Thnt Position, Albion W. Tourgee, the new consul general at Bordeaux, France, is one of the foremost literary men in Amer lea. T!te titles of many of his booto are as household words. He Is a law- ALBION W. TOUR OKR. yer, too, and has written much on po litical mutters. But his chief claim to fame Is that of the novelist. Mr. Tout gee's most widely read aud widely com mented UM)U books are "A Fool's Er rand," "Figs and Thistles," "Ilrk Without Straw" and "Hot No shares." His career has been that of a very versatile man. A brave soldlf who fought for the Union, he was ? verely wounded at Bull Run. He w a member of the constitutional conven tion of North Carolina in 1807 ui again In 1875. He has been a Superior Court Judge, aud has practiced law & a successful way. In 1889 he beef professor In the Buffalo law school, s"1 since that time, wlille filling his fiutf tiou as a teacher of law, he has use! his ien with good effect. His Uu books have been for the student of law and the Jurbtt. Since his reraoTtl from the South he linn lived In Ne York, near Chautauqua. Mr. Tourg is uu years OKI. Bones in a Silver Vein. If the find of a Colorado silver mi er, made lialf a dozen years ago, 1 taken Into account, there la but Ut doilht MlHt tha Imniiin .... AVt.1 A "-i.iiill.l iikd cjiKnv tills continent as long ago as the th ueu me silver veins were In procw of formation. In the Rocky Po"1 mine, at Gilman. 400 foot below IK surface, a number of lutvi.nn bone were found Imbedded In the nllW bearing ores. When taken out oW S10O wnrt-.h nf rvr-., aolt .,1...... n tlx , - uic r. . i viiutft i' bones. An arrowhead made of te perea copper and four Inches long, f also found with the remains. A Prize in Either Can; ( "I'm sure," said the girl l gaged, "that Herbert Is a prU" "You " rartlliwf 1 1 n . . iiKni B . --1 . tuog VUdlUC, a case of this kind It's so dlfflcuM teu whether you've won a first prist booby orisa," 7