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Show 1 "Tommy Knockers" I self against the wall, and the rock came like an avalanche. Most of It he escaped, but heavy pieces struck his breast and shoulders, causing painful braises. But that wm not the worst. Soon the air was filled with hissing steam. The load of ore In its fall had broken a steam pipe above, and the inspector in-spector knew that in a few minutes more he would b smothered. The steam was bUndlng. It was hot and stifling In his nostrils and his lungs. But he had little time to think. Only one course waa open. He plunged Into the Icy water of the tunnel and swam out Into the darkness. Then the break In the steam pipe was discovered by those above. An engineer turned a valve and stopped the hot vapor's va-por's How. The Inspector, seeing that the cloud of steam bad diminished, swam back to the shaft and rang a signal bell. A car was lowered, and he rode to the surface, weak with his bruises. And now he does not doubt the voice that spoke to him over his shoulder and said: "Don't go down the shaft tonight!" Although fatalities In mines are so frequent, fre-quent, miners are peculiarly careless, it seems, about repairing the breaks In flooring floor-ing or timbers that cause death. Among miners themselves this is admitted, but they - do not explain the reason for It. Last winter I went through a large mine that Is acknowledged to be one of the most carefully and systematically operated oper-ated mining plants In the United States. Several of us were picking our way very carefully by the light of our candles through a sort of side tunnel which extended ex-tended over a deep crevice, from which large quantities of ore had been taken. We were walking on a flooring of plank and logs, when suddenly the superintendent superinten-dent of the mine, who waa ahead and was our guide, stopped. "Look out for this holer he said, pointing point-ing to a gap In the plank. Then, as we came up, he told us that a month before, a "shift boss' had been walking on these same planks, when one of them rm way and the man fell Into the open crevice beneath. He was found sxty feet below, desd, his neck broken. Yet the broken place had not been repaired, although a month had passed. Certain mines, like certain houses, are believed to be haunted. And theee mines, where the "tommy knockers" are, have usually been the scenes of violent death. The records of such mines are talked over by the miners aa they rather at lunch time, far under the ground to eat the contents con-tents of their dinner bucketa. or aa two or three of them assemble somewhere in the workings for a few minutes to loaf and amoke their pipes when the boss Is out of sight. Bu In spite of Its dangers, the Isolation which It often entails, the arduous labor which It necessitates, and the fatal ailments which It breds. no calling Is so fssclnatlng to Its followers ss fci mining. Men who have become cripoled and bent and old in their labor gladly take up their buckets, climb on to the cage and are dropped under ground; and there, like some burrowing animal, thev are at home and happy. The most superstitious of all are the Cornlshmen. Everywhere they are known among the miners as "Cousin Jacks. They are great smokers, and frequently they gather together In ltttl egroups under un-der ground to smoke and talk when the "shift boea" Is away. And when a "Cousin Jack" Invites a comrade to smoke he says. "Come, touch pipe a bit. old son." which is a very sociable greeting Indeed. "Tom-mv "Tom-mv knocker" Is a term originated by the Cornlshmen. and a superstition which they persist In Is that there must never be any whtatllng In a mine. It a bad luck. Anaconda Standard It Is during the "graveyard" shift In a mine that the superstitions of the miners develop; and It Is then tha the "tommy knockers" are heard, but not always. The "graveyard" shift la in the dead of night usuaUy between 11 o'clock p. m. and 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. Nearly all of the big mines of the West are in operation constantly constant-ly during the twenty-four hours of every day and the seven days of every week, Sunday and holidays having no consideration. A great mining plant does not shut down on the Fourth of July or even at Christmas, The men are driving drills, the "shots" are being be-ing fired, the broken ore shoveled into cars and carried out through shaft or tunnel, and the big mills are grinding, pounding and roaring for 365 days in the year. So the miner who works steadily has no variation : in his life. He is almost as much alone and away from the world as the sailor at sea, and the conditions are, it seems to me, far more propitious for the birth and growth of superstitions. The miner works always in total darkness. No matter whether ie be of the day shift or the night shift, it is always night in the mine. And much of the time the miner, he who drills in the breast of the tunnel or "drift," la entirely alone he and his flickering little lit-tle candle in the dark. Perhaps he is working in a wet mine. Then, to the tune of his hammer as he strikes the drill, he hears the accompaniment- of dripping water drip, drip, drip, lnces- santly. The miner stops to rest and mop his face and light his pipe. Then he sits for a few minutes puffing; he looks into the black tunnel back of him. The dripping never ceases; and the miner mi-ner begina unconsciously -to wonder and to dream. Surely this Is fertile soil for the imagination. Not long before, perhaps, a man was killed in this mine. He waa a driller and alone in the breast of the tunnel, when throughout the mine' an explosion explo-sion was heard. The driller waa found in darkness, for the explosion had blown out his candle. The air was thick with powder smoke and the dust of rock, and his body was torn' and bruised so that it no longer had human . form. It was as though an old suit of clothes had been filled with a mass of bloody flesh. "A missed hole." said the foreman. And so It undoubtedly was, for the "missed hole" has killed many drillers in mines. In working In a breast of rock, in driving a tunnel or "drift." the driller usually. If the rock is hard, puts in Ave or six holes, fills each with powder, pow-der, sets the fuses, touches a light to them, and then steps back Into the tunnel tun-nel a safe distance untlf the powder has exploded. ' . Sometimes one or more of the shots is not discharged; the fuse for some reason rea-son burns up close to the cap that is to explode the powder, and then goes out. That one of the Ave or six, shots In a breast of rock has not exploded may not be observed by those who are listening. lis-tening. The crew of men. the "shift." changes and another driller, unconscious of the presence of the "missed hole," goes to work in the tunnel. Perhaps, as he hammers merrily away, driving the hard steel into the rock, the end of his drill strikes the cap of the load that did not go off. Then there Is an explosion, explo-sion, a cloud of smoke and dust in the darkness, a poor, mutilated dead body. And another fatality from a "missed hole" is recorded. The miners, of course, all know of these things, and, likely as not. the solitary driller In the graveyard shift, sitting to rest a minute and smoking, turns over in his mind some of these fearful tragedies that add danger and mystery to mining. In the dead of night, with the knowledge that his turn may come next, such thoughts are not comforting or exhilarating to the solitary soli-tary man. Then, suddenly. In the never-ceasing drip, drip, drip of the water he hears some one drilling. He hears the regular ring of the hammer somewhere not far from him in the mine. He Is at first pussled and mystified, for be knows that he Is alone in that part of the mine. The graveyard shift contains usually the smallest number of men. Never doubting the accuracy of his understanding, un-derstanding, the miner takes his candle can-dle from the rock and tramps through the tunnel toward the sound of the drilling. He stops to listen. Nqw It seems above him. and he climbs up into in-to a "raise," where ore has been taken down from above the tunnel. He holds his candle over him and searches the darkness with straining eyes. There is no light of another driller, i but the sound of the hammer continues only it seems to be a little farther away. The miner descends from the "raise" and tramps again through the tunnel, his feet splashing through the mud and water. For some reason the mysterious sound deceives .and eludes him. The drilling ceases. The miner stops in surprise. He is alone. 500 feet below ground, except for this unknown companion. There is a moment of silence, si-lence, intensified, it seems, by the drip, drip, drip of the water and the utter darkness. ' Not far ahead the miner suddenly hears a new sound. Some one is walking walk-ing rapidly through the tunnel with a regular tread, splashing in the mud and water. The miner, his candle at his side, quickly follows. He almost runs in his baste to find his companion. But the tramp and splash of the unknown feet are always Just ahead of him. The miner stops and shouts: ' "Heyl Who are you. there V No answer comes, and he calls again and again. Still he hears in the dark ness the tread and splash of the phantom phan-tom feet All at once, although he Is a strong man, the miner is filled with fear. He begins to tremble and grow cold, and then in a panic of dread he turns and flies, stumbling and plunging through the tunnel to the shaft. Here is the empty cage for lifting ore. It is at the foot of a shaft which it fits exactly, and when the miner pulla the wire, which rings a signal bell at the top. and springs into the cage, be is raised in a few seconds through the darkness to the free air 500 feet above. The engineer at the hoisting machinery ma-chinery wonders what has happened. The miner tells him his experience, and both men sit silent In a vague fear. They realize then that the "tommy knocker.- the ghost of the mine, has been heard again. Miners don't laugh about the "tommy knockers." I have known men of Intelligence, In-telligence, who have long since ceased to work "underground." solemnly aver that the "tommy knockers" Invariably visit the mine where a man has been killed. The spirit comes back, it seems, to the old haunts of the body. Sometimes Some-times it drills, sometimes it runs a phantom car. sometimes It only wanders wan-ders aimlessly through the workings of the mine. But Invariably, according to the miner's belief, the ghost returns. Sometimes the ghost of the mine Is seen, but usually only heard. . . To the miner who works alone In the darkness there are many sounds that might be exaggerated by Imagination. Sometimes a timber that prevents the caving In of the aidea of a tunnel grows rotten and breaks, and the sound rings resonantly throughout the hollow underground under-ground passageways. In some mines there are curious echoes, caused by the formation of the rock, and some locoe earth In the wall of a "atope," an empty chamber where ore haa been taken out, falls with a clatter that Is heard far away. To the miner whose imagination haa been stimulated by his solitude and the darkness these noises may be full of suggestion, and In his mind be easily prolonged pro-longed and changed until they become to him the sound of a footfall or of a driller's drill-er's hammer. And the mine has mysterious voices, too. A mining friend of mine told me of a strange warning which came to him once, and a narrow escape from death. He was working In a mine In Montana, Into which the water flowed In such quantities that It was necessary to keep pumps constantly at work drawing It to the surface. My friend waa In charge of the pumps, and when each crew, or "shift." of men finished its work this man would regularly make an Inspection of all the five pumps which were In operation. oper-ation. The ore waa lifted from this mine on an Inclined ahaft. The cars, which run on wheels np such a shaft, are called "skips," and It was the breaking of a "skip" 'which came near being fatal that night. The pump Inspector had visited four of the pumps, and waa about to start down the shaft to the fifth, which waa on the level 500 feet below ground, when, aa he telle me, he felt a peculiar, feeling of fear, and a voice directly over his shoulder said to him: "Don't go down that shaft to-nlsrht!" to-nlsrht!" The miner stopped. He seemed almost to feel the breath of the voice agalnat hla cheek. He waa aware, he said, of a distinct dis-tinct prcsen'ce. Then he told himself that he waa foolish to heed any imaginings like this, and he went down to the pumpa. When he reached the 500-foot level he began be-gan at once hla inspection of the machinery. ma-chinery. Back in the tunnel, which extended ex-tended away in the darkness, the water stood, nearly filling the paasage, over a roan's head In depth. ... A hundred feet above, an ore car filled with tone of rock waa emptied Into a "skip," which was started up the Inclined In-clined shaft toward the aurface. A moment mo-ment later the man working at the pump heard a crashing, a. terrific, rattling rattling sound.. He realised at once that the "skip" had broken, and that the tons of rock were tumbling toward him down ; the shaft Instinctively ha flattened hlm- |