At length there came a day when there was real trouble in the Club. The foreman of the mine in which Wright was at work ordered Wright and a fellow miner to go to the surface to assist in handling some machinery which was to be sent down into the mine.

The two men stepped upon the cage and three bells were sounded—the signal to the engineer at the surface that men were to be hoisted and all care used.

The cage started from the 2,400-foot level. Nothing unusual happened until, as they neared the surface, Wright said to his comrade: "By the way we are passing the levels, it seems to me they must be in a hurry on top."

The other miner answered: "I guess it is all right;" but hardly were the words spoken, when they shot up into the light; in an instant the cage went crashing into the sheaves and was crushed, the men being thrown violently out.

Wright's companion, as he fell, struck partly on the curbing of the shaft, rolled in and was of course dashed to pieces.

Wright was thrown outside the shaft, and though not killed outright, two or three ribs were broken, one lung was badly injured, besides he was otherwise terribly bruised.

People unfamiliar with mining may not understand the above. On the Comstock the hoisting engines are set from forty to eighty feet from the mouths of the shafts. Directly over the shafts are frames from thirty to fifty feet in height, on which pulleys (rimmed iron wheels) are fastened. The cages are lowered and raised by flat, plaited, steel wire cables, which are generally four or five inches wide and about three-eighths of an inch in thickness.

This cable is first coiled on the reel of the engine, then the loose end is drawn over the pulley, then down to the cage, to which it is made fast. The wheel of a pulley is called a sheave, and by habit it has grown to be a common expression to call the block and wheel in hoisting works "the sheaves." At intervals of one or two hundred feet on the cables they are wound with white cloth, as a guide to the engineer, as the cable is uncoiled in lowering or coiled in hoisting. Also, on the outer rim of the reel, is a dial with figures or marks at regular intervals, and a hand (like the hand of a clock) which perpetually indicates to the engineer about where the cage is in all stages of lowering or hoisting.

These engineers work eight hour shifts, and sometimes twelve. Of the nature of their work an idea can be formed by the statement that during the two or three years when the great Bonanza in the California and Con. Virginia mines was giving up its treasure, through two double-compartment shafts, all the work of those two mines was carried on. The main ore body was between the 1,300-foot and 1,700-foot levels. Every day from six hundred to eight hundred men were lowered into and hoisted out of the mine. One hundred thousand feet (square measure) of timbers were lowered daily (three million feet per month); nearly or quite one thousand tons of ore was hoisted daily; the picks, drills and gads were sent up to be sharpened and returned; the powder used and five tons of ice daily were lowered, and besides this work, there was machinery to lower and hoist; the waste rock to be handled and visitors and officers of the mine to be lowered and hoisted. The cages are about four feet six inches in length and three feet in width, and are simply iron frames with a wooden floor and iron bonnet over the top and made to exactly fit the size of the shaft. Three of these compartments had double cages—one above the other, and one had three cages. A three-decker carries three tons of ore or twenty-seven men at a time.

Of course when such work is being driven, the eyes of an engineer have to be every moment on their work. Men follow the occupation for months and years without an accident or mistake, but now and then, through the ceaseless strain, their nerves break down; something like an aberration of the mind comes over them and they watch, dazed like sleep-walkers, as the cage shoots out of the shaft and mounts up into the sheaves and cannot command themselves enough to move the lever of the engine which is in their hand.

Such an accident as this overtook Wright and his companion. Poor Wright was carried home by brother miners. The accident happened only about an hour before the time for changing shifts and hardly was Wright laid in his bed before the other members of the Club met at their home.

The best surgical talent of the city was called; the members of the Club took turns in watching; there was not a moment that one or the other was not bending over their friend.

At first, when he rallied from the shock of the injury, Wright told all about the accident. He further told his friends that he had no near relatives, instructed the Club, in the event of his death, to open his trunk, burn the papers and divide the little money there among themselves, designated little presents for each one and said: "Miller will be grieved if I die, and may think my heart was not altogether warm toward him, so give him my watch; it is the most valuable trinket that I have."

When the first reaction from the shock came, his friends were encouraged to believe he would recover; but it was a vain hope. He soon went into a half unconscious, half delirious state, from which it was hard to 'rouse him for even a few minutes at a time.

He lay that way for two days and nights and then died.

On the afternoon of the second day it was clear that he was almost gone—the spray began to splash upon his brow from the dark river—and all the Club grouped around him.

Out of the shadow of death his mind cleared for a moment. In almost his old natural tones, but weak, like the voices heard through a telephone, he said:

"I have seen another mirage, boys. It was the old home under the Osage shadows. It was all plain; the old house, the orchard, the maples were red in the autumn sun, and my mother, who died long ago, seemed to be there, smiling and holding out her arms to me.

"It was all real, but you don't know how tired I am. Carlin, old friend, turn me a little on my side and let me sleep."

Gently as mothers move their helpless babes, the strong miner turned his friend upon his pillows.

He breathed shorter and shorter for a few minutes, then one long sigh came from his mangled breast, and all was still.

There was perfect silence in the room for perhaps five minutes. Then Brewster, with a voice full of tears, said: "God grant that the mirage is now to him a delicious reality," and all the rest responded, "Amen."

The undertaker came, the body was dressed for the grave and placed in a casket, and the Club took up their watch around it.

Now and then a subdued word was spoken, but they were very few. The hearts of the watchers were all full, and conversation seemed out of place. Wright was one of the most manly of men, and the hearts of the friends were very sore. The evening wore on until ten o'clock came, when there fell a gentle knock on the outer door. The door was opened and by the moonlight four men could be seen outside. One of them spoke:

"We 'eard as 'ow Hadrian wur gone, and thot to sing a wee bit to he as 'ow the lad might be glad."

They were the famous quartette of Cornish miners and were at once invited in.

They filed softly into the room—the Club rising as they entered—and circled around the casket. After a long look upon the face of the sleeper they stood up and sang a Cornish lament. Their voices were simply glorious. The words, simple but most pathetic, were set to a plaintive air, the refrain of each stanza ending in some minor notes, which gave the impression that tears of pity, as they were falling, had been caught and converted into music.

The effect was profound. The stoicism of the

Club was completely broken down by it. When the lament ceased all were weeping, while warm-hearted and impetuous Corrigan was sobbing like a grieved child.

The quartette waited a moment and then sang a Cornish farewell, the music of which, though mostly very sad, had, here and there, a bar or two such as might be sung around the cradle of Hope, leaving a thought that there might be a victory even over death, and which made the hymn ring half like the Miserere and half like a benediction.

When this was finished and the quartette had waited a moment more, with their magnificent voices at full volume, they sang again—a requiem, which was almost a triumph song, beginning:

Then with a gentle "Good noight, lads," they were gone.

It was still in the room again until Corrigan said: "I hope Wright heard that singin'; the last song in particular."

"Who knows?" said Ashley. "It was all silence here; those men came and filled the place with music. Who knows that it will not, in swelling waves, roll on until it breaks upon the upper shore?"

"Who knows," said Harding, "that he did not hear it sung first and have it sent this way to comfort us? I thought of that when the music was around us, and I fancied that some of the tones were like those that fell from Wright's lips, when, in extenuation of Miller's fault, he was reminding us that it was the intent that measured the wrong, and that Miller never intended any wrong. Music is born above and comes down; its native place is not here."

"He does not care for music," said the Colonel. "See how softly he sleeps. All the weariness that so oppressed him has passed away. The hush of eternity is upon him, and after his hard life that is sweeter than all else could be."

"Oh, cease, Colonel," said Brewster. "Out of this darkened chamber how can we speak as by authority of what is beyond. As well might the mole in his hole attempt to tell of the eagle's flight.

"We only know that God rules. We watched while the great transition came to our friend. One moment in the old voice he was conversing with us; the next that voice was gone, but we do not believe that it is lost. As we were saying of the telephone, when we speak those only a few feet away hear nothing. The words die upon the air, and we explain to ourselves that they are no more. But thirty miles away, up on the side of the Sierras, an ear is listening, and every tone and syllable is distinct to that ear. Who knows what connections can be made with those other heights where Peace rules with Love?

"Our friend whose dust lies here was not called from nothing simply to buffet through some years of toil and then to return to nothing through the pitiless gates of Death. To believe such a thing would be to impeach the love, the mercy and the wisdom of God. Wright is safe somewhere and happier than he was with us. I should not wonder if Harding's theory were true, and that it was to comfort us that he impelled those singers to come here."

"Brewster," said Alex, "your balance is disturbed to-night. You say 'from out our darkened chamber we cannot see the light,' and then go on to assert that Wright is happier than when here. You do not know; you hope so, that is all. So do I, and by the calm that has pressed its signet on his lips, I am willing to believe that all that was of him is as much at rest as is his throbless heart, and that the mystery which so perplexes us—this something which one moment greets us with smiles and loving words, but which a moment later is frozen into everlasting silence—is all clear to him now. I hope so, else the worlds were made in vain, and the sun in heaven, and all the stars whose white fires fill the night, are worthy of as little reverence as a sage brush flame; and it was but a cruel plan which permitted men to have life, to kindle in their brains glorious longings and in their hearts to awaken affections more dear than life itself."

Then Harding, as if to himself repeated: "It matters not while Faith survives, and God still answers prayer."

Half an hour more passed, then the Colonel arose, looked long on the face in the casket and said:

"How peaceful is his sleep. The mystery of the unseen brings no look of surprise to his face. Around him is the calm of the dreamless bivouac: the brooding wings of eternal rest have spread their hush above him. To-morrow the merciful earth will open her robes of serge to receive him; in her ample bosom will fold his weary limbs, and while he sleeps will shade his eyes from the light. In a brief time, save to the few of us who love him, he will be forgotten among men. Days will dawn and set; the seasons will advance and recede; the years will ebb and flow; the tempest and the sunshine will alternately beat upon his lonely couch, until ere long it will be leveled with the surrounding earth; his body will dissolve into its original elements and it will be as though he had never lived. The great ocean of life will heave and swell, and there will be no one to remember this drop that fell upon the earth in spray and was lost.

"This is as it seems to us, straining our dull eyes out upon the profound beyond our petty horizon. But who knows? We can trace the thread of this life as it was until it passed beyond the range of our visions, but who of us knows whether it was all unwound or whether in the 'beyond' it became a golden chain so strong that even Death can not break it, and thrilled with harmonies which could never vibrate on this frail thread that broke to-day?"

Then the Colonel sat down and the Professor stood up, and with his left hand resting on the casket, said:

"Three days ago this piece of crumbling dust was a brave soldier of peace. I mean the words in their fullest sense. Just now our brothers in the East are fearful lest so much silver will be produced that it will become, because of its plentifulness, unfit to be a measure of values. They do not realize what it costs or they would change their minds. They do not know how the gnomes guard their treasures, or what defense Nature uprears around her jewels. They revile the stamp which the Government has placed upon the white dollar. Could they see deeper they would perceive other stamps still. There would be blood blotches and seams made by the trickling of the tears of widows and orphans, for before the dollar issues bright from the mint, it has to be sought for through perils which make unconscious heroes of those who prosecute the search. For nearly twenty years now, on this lode, tragedies like this have been going on. We hear it said: 'A man was killed to-day in the Ophir,' or 'a man was dashed to pieces last night in the Justice,' and we listen to it as merely the rehearsal of not unexpected news. Could a list of the men who have been killed in this lode be published, it would be an appalling showing. It would outnumber the slain of some great battle.

"Besides the deaths by violence, hundreds more, worn out by the heat and by the sudden changes of temperature between the deep mines and the outer air, have drooped and died.

"The effect is apparent upon our miners. Their bearing perplexes strangers who come here. They do not know that in the conquests of labor there are fields to be fought over which turn volunteers into veteran soldiers quite as rapidly as real battle fields. They know nothing about storming the depths; of breaking down the defences of the deep hills. They can not comprehend that the quiet men whom they meet here on the streets are in the habit of shaking hands with Death daily until they have learned to follow without emotion the path of duty, let it lead where it may, and to accept whatever may come as a matter of course.

"Such an one was this our friend, who fell at his post; fell in the strength of his manhood, and when his great heart was throbbing only in kindness to all the world.

"One moment he exulted in his splendid life, the next he was mangled and crushed beyond recovery.

"Still there was no repining, no spoken regrets. For years the possibility of such a fate as this had been before his eyes steadily; it brought much anguish to him, but no surprise.

"He had lived a blameless life. As it drew near its close the vision of his mother was mercifully sent to him, and so in his second birth the same arms received him that cradled him when before he was as helpless as he is now.

"By the peace that is upon him, I believe those arms are around his soul to-night; I believe he would not be back among us if he could.

"We have a right on our own account to grieve that he is gone, but not on his. He filled on earth the full measure of an honest, honorable, brave and true life. That record went before him to Summer Land. I believe it is enough and that he needs neither tears nor regrets."

The Professor sat down and Corrigan then arose and went and looked long and fondly upon the upturned face. At last in a low voice he said:

"Auld frind, if yees can, give me a sign some time that something was saved from this mighty wrick. I will listen for the call in the dape night. I will listen by the timbers in the dape drifts; come back if yees can and give us a hope that there will be hand clasps and wilcomes for us whin the last shift shall be worked out."

So one after the other talked until the night stole away before the smile of the dawn. Harding pulled aside the curtains, and at that moment the sun, panoplied in glory, shed rosy tints all over the desert to the eastward.

"See," said Harding. "It was on such a morning as this that on the desert was painted the mirage which troubled poor Wright so much, until the clearer light drove it away. Let us hope that there are no refractions of the rays to bring fear to him where he is."

There was the usual inquest, and on the second day after his death, Wright was buried. After the funeral his effects were looked over; the bills were paid, a simple stone was ordered to be placed over his grave, and his money, some few hundred dollars, was divided among the hospitals of the city.