By accident Ruth Colter's back happened to be turned away from the scene at the mine, so that the first sound she remembered hearing was her husband's hoarse shout of horror and then as she turned the sight of his great form lying prostrate on the ground with Jack and Frank trying to drag him away from danger.
But when Ruth would have rushed toward him, Olive and Frieda held her fast, and the next instant a wave of weakness and darkness so overwhelmed her that she had no strength to move.
When she opened her eyes she could see Jean's face, white as a sheet, dancing before her and hear her saying:
"Jim isn't hurt, dear; only stunned by his fall. See, he is on his feet again giving orders. And Jack and Frank must be all right, they were not so near. But what could have happened, what caused the explosion? It's the men down inside the mine who must be horribly hurt. Ralph——"
But Jean shook with such nervous terror that Frieda's arm encircled her, and the next moment the four women moved nearer the place of the disaster.
They were just in time, for at the moment of their approach, although Jim Colter's face was so black that you could hardly distinguish him, with his forehead bleeding from an ugly wound and his clothes torn and burnt, he was giving orders like the general of an army and like trained soldiers the miners were obeying him.
"I'll take four of you men who will volunteer to go down inside the mine with me. I don't know what has happened, but we are pretty apt to find things serious. It sounded like a dynamite explosion and there may be another. Fortunately for us the elevator is above ground and we can lower it. Some of you see that stretchers are brought here. Jack, keep your head and get hold of a doctor at once. I hope we may need him," the man added grimly, as he swung his great length aboard the small car, his companions crowding close against him.
Unmindful of the awed silence that had followed the noise of the explosion, unmindful of the two score of rough strange men, Ruth breaking away from the girls now ran forward crying:
"Jim, you can't go down into the mine first. I can't let you. There is the baby and me, you must think of us and of the girls. You may be horribly hurt."
She was near enough now so that she could look straight into her husband's blue eyes and something in Jim's expression calmed her instantly. Then for the time he too seemed conscious of the presence of no one else.