Looking back they saw that the candle had fallen against the timber, which was dry as tinder.
It had caught on fire and the flame had already run up and was in the logging.
They rushed back, and though not seriously injured, were pretty badly scorched. All the miners in the mine were called to that point, and the work of putting out the fire, or of keeping it from connecting with the main drift, was begun. The superintendent was at the time on the twenty-four hundred-foot level. He had hastened to the spot at the first alarm. A donkey pump was at the twenty-one hundred-foot station, with plenty of hose. This was running within fifteen minutes. The fire, after burning a little way in each direction along the lateral drift, exhausting the oxygen in the air, ceased to flame and just burrowed its way through the timbers. This produced a dense and sifting smoke.
A heavy stream of water was turned into this drift, the superintendent directing the work until, under the heat and smoke, he had fainted and been brought to the surface.
Holding up the note which had come up on the cage, he said the man Brewster who was holding the nozzle of the hose had gone too far into the drift, under where the logging had burned away and had been caught in a cave, but the rest were working to release him.
The bell sounded again and in three minutes the cage shot out of the shaft. The paper which it brought had only these few words: "If you can send two (2) first-class miners, all right, but not more. Any others would only be in the way. It is a very dangerous place, don't send any but thorough men." This was signed by the foreman.
When the superintendent read the note the four men rushed forward, and for a moment their clamors were indescribable.
"It is my place to go," said Ashley. "I have as little to live for as any of you. Do not hold me back."
"Stand back," said Harding. "I would rather never go home than not to go with Brewster."
Seizing Harding by the arm, Carlin hurled him back, exclaiming: "Art crazy, boy? Your bark is but just launched; this is work for old hulks that are used to rocks and storms."