"Indeed! It must be a most interesting occupation, but I should think a very dangerous one. I have a son who visited one of these coal-mines at the time of a disaster that threatened a number of lives, and his accounts of what he saw and experienced at the time are very thrilling. It was, I believe, at a place called Raven Brook."
It was now Derrick's turn to be interested, and he said, "Why, that's where we have just come from! Raven Brook is the station at which we took the train."
"If I had known that we were to stop there," said the gentleman, "I believe my wife and I would have got off and waited over one train, for we have been very curious to see the place. We have been on a trip to the West," he added, by way of explanation, "and our son's accounts of his experience came to us by letter. Besides, we read much of that disaster in the papers."
"It was awful," said Derrick, simply.
"Then you were in the village at the time? Perhaps you know a brave young fellow named Derrick Sterling?"
A quick flush spread over the boy's face as he answered, "That is my name."
"What!" exclaimed the gentleman; "are you the young man who went back into the mine and risked his life to save a friend?"
"I expect I am," answered Derrick, with burning cheeks; "and this is the friend I went to find."
"Well, of all wonderful things!" cried the stranger. "To think that we should meet you of all persons. Wife, this is Derrick Sterling, the brave lad that Allan wrote to us about, and whose name has been so much in the papers lately."
"You don't mean to say," exclaimed Derrick, "that you are Allan McClain's father?"