“We canna tell; but mos’ like it’s i’ the Dryden Slope. They’re a-runnin’ that way.”
The widow shrank back into her house, and sank, weakly, into a chair. For the moment she was overcome; but only for the moment. Hope came to her rescue. There were a hundred chances to one that her boys were not in the mine, even if the fall had been there; indeed, it was already time for them to be at home.
She waited, for a few moments, in anxious indecision; then, throwing a shawl about her head and shoulders, she went out into the night.
She knew very well the route by which her boys came from their work, and she determined to go until she should meet them. There were many people hurrying toward the slope, but only one man coming from it, and he was running for a doctor, and had no time to talk.
Increasing anxiety hastened the widow’s steps. She could not go fast enough. Even as it was, people jostled by her in the darkness, and she ran to keep up with them.
At last, the mile that lay between her cottage and the mine was almost covered. Up on the hillside, at the mouth of the slope, she saw the twinkling and glancing of the lights of many lamps. The crowds had grown more dense. Other women were pushing past her, moaning and lamenting.
She climbed the hill, and through the throng, to where a heavy rope had been stretched about the mouth of the slope, as a barrier to hold back the pressing crowd; and clutching the rope with both hands, she stood there and waited and watched.
She was where she could see into the opening of the mine, and where she could see all who came out.
Some cars were lowered from the slope-house to the mouth, and a dozen men, with picks and crowbars, climbed into them and went speeding down into the blackness. It was another rescuing party.
Across the open space before her, the widow saw Sandy McCulloch coming, and cried out to him, “Sandy!”