ble longer to endure the pain, he roared aloud in agony, and tore
at the stone himself with his fingers, like an imprisoned beast in a
trap.

"Here, boys, quick!" cried Andrew, getting his long pinch in below the
stone, upon a fine leverage. "Put yir weight on this, Tam, an' Jock an'
Sanny'll try an' pull Jamie out. Hurry up, for she's working for anither
collapse. A'thegither!" and so they tugged and tore, and strained and
pulled, while the roars of the imprisoned man were deafening.

"A'thegither again, laddies!" encouraged Andrew. "This time!" and with a
tremendous effort the stone gave way, and Jamie was pulled clear, his
leg a crushed mass of pulpy blood and shattered bones. They dragged him
back clear of any further falls, and improvised a stretcher on which to
carry home his now unconscious body.

"That was a hell o' a narrow shave," quietly observed Tam Donaldson, as
they panted together, and tried to collect themselves. "His leg's
wasted, I doot, an' will need to come off." When they had their
stretcher ready, the wounded man was tenderly placed upon it, carefully
covered up with the jackets of the others; whilst half-a-dozen of them
carried him to the pit bottom, and finally bore him home, where the
doctor was ready waiting to attend to him.

Andrew and a few others worked away, and at last managed to get the
running sore in the roof choked up with long bars of timber, and even
though it continued to rumble away above them, the heavy blocks of wood
held, and so allowed them to work away in comparative safety.

Peter Pegg and Matthew Maitland returned at six o'clock next morning,
bringing with them another band of workers to relieve those who had
worked all night, but still Andrew Marshall would not leave the scene of
the disaster. He worked and rested by turns, advising and guiding the
younger men, who never spared themselves. They performed mighty epics of
work down there in the darkness amid the rumbling, falling roof. It was
a great task they were set, but they never shirked the consequences.
They never turned back. Risks were taken and accepted without a thought;
tasks were eagerly jumped to, and the whole job accepted as if it were
just what ordinarily they were asked to do.

Crash went the hammers; thump went the great blocks of material into the
tubs, and the men quietly got away the tubs as they were filled. Night
and day the great work went on, never ceasing, persistent, relentless.
If one man d