"There are countless heroes who live and die

Of whom we have never heard;

For the great, big, brawling world goes by
With hardly a look or word;

And one of the bravest and best of all

Of whom the list can boast

Is the man who falls on duty's call,

The man who dies at his post."

-ANON.

A

X

THE COST OF MINING

N unusual bulletin, in large capitals, on the outside of the frame office of the Number Five Colliery,

WORK TO-MORROW

An unwonted stir among the men, both inside and outside the mine. New mine cars standing in order on the switches. New wire ropes on the slopes. Clean yellow sticks of timber here and there beside the grimy machinery and weather-boarding of the breaker. While other collieries had been working after the strike the Number Five mine had been idle. But now work was to be resumed. Three or four men seated in an office which was as beautifully furnished as any parlour, had decided that it was time to seek a dividend from this particular piece of property. Nearly a thousand men and boys would be affected by this decision. No wonder there was rejoicing.

A long, hilly road of black culm and cinder, with a dirty snow-bank on one side, chilling in the early mountain twilight. A rickety wagon, drawn by two

smoking horses, toiling up the hill. A forlorn huddle of furniture, shaking and sliding as the wagon creaked and the horses strained over the hummocks. A short, gaunt man walking ahead of the team, a boy and a girl running beside him, and a woman with a baby seated with the driver. The Hetheringtons were coming back to Coalton, in the hope of steady work and better times. The man's gait and appearance were those of an old man, although he was but little past thirty. There was a peculiarity in his walk which made him seem almost ape-like in his carriage. His head was bent, his shoulders drooped forward, his knees were crooked, while his hands hung so far to the front of his body that they almost touched his knee-caps. In appearance he resembled nothing so much as the man-ape of the tropical forest.

It is the stamp of the mines left on the body by years spent under ground in the narrow veins of coal. It often happens that a miner breaks down in health at forty, after thirty years in the mines. As soon as he begins to grow towards manhood, he must bow his shoulders and bend his back all day long. No wonder that character as well as figure suffers deterioration.

When the man came back to the wagon where his wife rode and lifted his head, his form lost its abject appearance. His face was kindly and noble.

"Here we are," he said.

"O, Jim! Is this the house? Isn't this where little Hungarian Katya lived when her man was burned to death?"

"This is the house."

"And isn't this where the Breece family lived when their boy was killed; didn't the McCartys have the fever here and wasn't there an Italian lived here who was arrested for murder?"

"Now don't be foolish, little girl: it's the best we can do."

"O, Jim, I wish you wouldn't go back into the mines again! Don't let's go into that house! I can't bear to have you put your life in danger for the sake of me and the children. What would we do if you were killed? Let's go down to the flats and work there. We can manage to live somehow, even if the wages are small."

"What makes you talk like this? You're a miner's daughter; you should have more pluck."

"I know I'm foolish, but you can't think how dreadful it is every time you hear wheels on the road to look out for the ambulance. Every time it has ever come our way I knew it was coming somehow, even if it was in the middle of the night. It's bad enough to pass the shed by the mines and see the great black doors in the back like a hearse staring at you as you pass. But oh, when it turns up the street towards the Patch every woman is like to faint she's that sick with fear until she knows the great, black thing is not to come to her with its load of sorrow. Why when that Hungarian was brought home in Reagan's Patch to the house next to us I just fell down with fright, I was that scared. I've always thought that was the reason why this baby was such a timid little thing. You can't help it, you just feel you must scream if the ugly thing

comes another step nearer to you. Now if I should see it coming up this long hill, I'd know it was for me, since there's no other house up here. Don't let's go into the house; let's go back!" and she began to sob at the prospect:

Her husband's rough hand lay a moment on her hair. "Come, little girl," he said, "you know we can't go back. I haven't the money to pay for taking the things back and there's nothing to do there which would keep you and the children from want. Besides the work on the flats kills me. I can't stand it like I can working in the cool of the mines."

"But Jim we've the twenty dollars you earned digging that well on the flats. We could live on that for a little while until-"

"I'm fair sorry, little girl, about it-I oughtn't to have done it at least not without telling you about it. -But the twenty dollars is gone

"I had to do it," he went on doggedly. Things about the mines don't go the way they used to in the old days when old Mr. Hardin managed the business himself. These big companies can't keep track of things the same way

"But Jim, our twenty dollars? What became of that? What has the Company to do with it? You didn't earn it from the Company?"

"It didn't go to the Company. It was Bruce Hardin. I'm ashamed to tell you. I had to pay twenty dollars to get a job of work. He wanted fifty. It's timber