"'Guess the kid's right,' the foreman of the gang said. 'Go back, boys.'
"They raised a howl with him the same way that my own men did with me. But he was an old-timer, and without wasting any words, he smashed the foremost of the workers across the jaw. Under a torrent of abuse, the men fell back. I was half-way to the entrance when everything turned black before me. Next thing I knew, I was in the Mine Superintendent's house with a trained nurse."
"White damp?" queried Eric.
"That's what the doctor said."
"What happened to the imprisoned bunch?"
"Old Man Barnett had just reached the entrance to the working with a large rescue party all equipped with breathing apparatus, when I collapsed. He got the trapped men out."
"I should think they'd have been poisoned for fair," said Eric.
"Not a bit of it," his friend replied. "The leak of white damp had all come on the outside of the roof-fall, and there was hardly any of it on the other side. Some of the men were pretty weak from lack of air and that sort of thing, but not seriously hurt. It was the rescuers who suffered."
"How was that, Ed?"
"Three of the five men who were in my gang died," said the other mournfully.