ands by hurling the largest
overboard, and by dashing water with their hands and a small baling can
over the others. The heat was intense, and at times almost unbearable.
The smoke, too, was blinding and suffocating. This, added to the heat
and the roar of the fire, made their position a veritable inferno, from
which there seemed no way of escape. So far as they could tell the
country all around them was aflame.

Eben uttered no sound, but pulled strongly at the oars. Occasionally
he turned his head in an effort to see the mainland toward which he was
urging the boat. The fire was sweeping down along the shore, and he
could tell by the sound how far it had advanced. In a short time it
would be opposite them, and if thus caught between the flames on the
shore and those on the island their fate would be sealed.

Almost instinctively now Eben guided the boat, and in a few minutes
more it grated upon the beach and brought up with a jerk.

"Get out quick," the lad ordered, as he threw aside the oars and leaped
ashore.

Without a word the women immediately obeyed, and no sooner had their
feet touched the ground than their rescuer caught each by the arm with
a firm grip.

"Come," he gasped. "Guess we're in time."

They hurried up the bank, which here was quite steep, and in another
minute Eben halted, before an opening in the side of the hill.

"Gee! I struck it right," he panted. "It's the mine. Bend yer heads
an' come on. I'll show ye the way."

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN URGENT NEED

When Thomas Hampton laboured so hard in opening up his mine on the
shore of Island Lake, he little thought in what manner it would one day
be used. He had toiled through long weary months, working with pick
and shovel, until he had drifted one hundred feet into the side of the
hill. He had shored up the roof of the mine with poles he had cut and
dragged from the forest, until everything was secure to his entire
satisfaction. He had the coal unearthed and ready to be brought forth,
but little interest was taken in his efforts, and he had no money to
carry on the enterprise.

"We shall come into our own some day," he had told his wife not long
before his death. "The mine will be used, and success and fortune will
be ours."

Mrs. Hampton thought of these words as she and her companions sat
huddled there in the darkness at the farther end of the mine. It had
been hard groping their way thither, for the ground was rough