"Say, I was feelin' powerful mean. I'd just finished up a two weeks' drunk, an' you tink de booze wasn't workin' in me some. I was seein' all kinds of funny t'ings. Why, as I was a-turnin' away at dat ol' windlass dere was red spiders crawlin' up me legs. But I was wise. I wouldn't look at dem, give dem de go-by. Den a yeller rat got gay wid me an' did some stunts on me windlass. But still I wouldn't let on. Den dere was some green snakes dat wriggled over de platform like shiny streaks on de water. Sure, I didn't like dat one bit, but I says, 'Dere ain't no snakes in de darned country, Pat, and you knows it. It's just a touch of de horrors, dat's all. Just pass 'em up, boy; don't take no notice of dem.'
"Well, dis went on till I begins to get all shaky an' jumpy, an' I was mighty glad when de time came to quit, an' de boys down below gives me de holler to pull dem up.
"So I started hoistin' wid dose snakes an' spiders an' rats jus' cavortin' round me like mad, when all to once who should I hoist outa de bowels of de earth but de very devil himself.
"His face was black. I could see de whites of his eyes, an' he had a big dirty towel tied round his head. Well, say, it was de limit. At de sight of dat ferocious monster comin' after old Pat I gives one yell, drops de crank-handle of de windlass, an' makes a flyin' leap down de dump. I hears an awful shriek, an' de bucket an' de devil goes down smash to de bottom of de shaft, t'irty-five feet. But I kep' on runnin'. I was so scared.
"Well, how was I to know dey had a Blackmoor down dere? He was a stiff when dey got him up, but how was I to know? So I lost me job."
On another occasion he told me:
"Say, kid, youse didn't know as I was liable to fits, did youse? Dat's so; eppylepsy de doctor tells me. Dat's what I am scared of. You see, it's like dis: if one of dem fits should hit me when I'm hoistin' de boys outer de shaft, den it would be a pity. I would sure lose me job like de oder time."
He was the most degraded type of man I had yet met on my travels, a typical degenerate, dirty, drunken, diseased. He had three suits of underclothing, which he never washed. He would wear through all three in succession, and when the last got too dirty for words he would throw it under his trunk and sorrowfully go back to the first, keeping up this rotation, till all were worn out.
One day Hoofman told me he wanted me to go down the shaft and work in the drift. Accordingly, next morning I and a huge Slav, by name Dooley Rileyvich, were lowered down into the darkness.
The Slav initiated me. Every foot of dirt had to be thawed out by means of wood fires. We built a fire at the far end of the drift every night, covering the face we were working. First we would lay kindling, then dry spruce lying lengthways, then a bank of green wood standing on end to keep in the heat and shed the dirt that sloughed down from the roof. In the morning our fire would be burned out, and enough pay-dirt thawed to keep us picking all day.