From "The Romance of Modern Mining," by A. Williams.
The young student miner was zealous in his efforts to promote modern ideas among his comrades, and knew that the old superstitions bred carelessness and a blind belief in Fate. Despite their differences in age and in points of view, he and Otto were warm friends, and he returned the old man's attack promptly.
"So far as Anton's father is concerned, Otto," he said, "it was Jim Rover's carelessness that killed him. He was caught by a falling roof just because he wouldn't take the trouble to make sure that the draw slate overhead was solid before setting to work to undercut the coal. I know that's so, because he told me, just before he died. I was the first one to reach him, after the fall, for I was working in the next room, just around the rib."
"An' who made the draw slate fall, just when Jim Rover was a-standin' right under it? Answer me that, Clem Swinton!"
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"Every man who's ever handled a coal pick knows that draw slate is apt to work loose. That's one of the dangers of the business. And the danger can be avoided, as you know perfectly well, Otto, if a chap will feel the roof for vibration, with one hand, while he uses the other to tap on the slate with the flat side of a pick. If he won't take the trouble—why, it's his own fault if he gets killed.
"Blaming the 'knockers,' Otto, doesn't hide the fact that nearly a thousand miners get killed in the United States every year, just through their own carelessness."
The old man shook a finger ominously.
"It isn't always the careless ones what get taken," he declared. "Look out for yourself, Clem Swinton; look out for yourself! It's you the knockers'll be after, next, an' much good all your readin'll do you, then! I warned Jim Rover less'n a week afore he got killed, an' I'm warnin' you now."
Anton looked up, fearfully, for old Otto had a reputation as a seer, in the mine, but Clem only laughed.