Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 1 — page 40: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

30 “Why won't it just get to be a big fire like this??? Anne objected. “‘ This is burn- ing underground—” -“ Tt won't.” “Why won't ite” “Well, it won't because, you see, Ame _ Timmy was thinking fast now— “Decause, don’t you see, a fire can’t burn without air. I won’t give it only just so much air. This one got started and ran away With itself before they could stop it. Mine will be ’way down very deep, where there ain’t any air, only just what I pump down to it. “Tf I give it lots of air, it will burn hard, and there’ll be lots of heat come up. Then if I don’t want so much heat, I-won’t give it so much air. And if I shut the air all off, it ‘ll go out altogether. Don’t you “Yes,” said Anne, convinced. “It’s wonderful, Jimmy.” She put her hand with a sudden timidity on his shoulder. ~“ You’re—you’re wonderful, too, Jimmy.” The boy kissed her abstractedly, his mind still busily groping with the flood of ideas that were surging into it. “I can control it easy, Anne, if I start it right, by the air I give it. Why, it’s just like when we have a fire here in the mime. You re- member the fire started m C tunnel last fall —your father was working there. He found it when it was only in that one room. Ali we did was wall wo that room from the main tunnel, and it went right out when it couldn’t get any air, didn’t it?” Anne nodded. ‘‘ Besides, over in Coatesville, didn’t a whole mine get away from them a few years ago?” Jimmy continued earnestly. “The fire got to the mine-bottom before they could shut it off, and the white-damp began exploding, so they had to get out of the whole mine. All they did then was seal up the shafts at the top to shut off all the air in the whole mine. The fire went out of itself when all the air was used up.” Again the girl modded; his arguments seemed sound and quite unanswerable. “ Well, that’s just the way I’m going to do it. It 1 work, Anne—I know it will,” said Jimmy. THE ARGOSY, “Yes,” said Anne. “So do I, Jimmy.” It .would work. The more Jimmy thought about it, the more sure he was that it would work. For a long time he sat silent, holding Anne’s hand tightly clasped in his, planning in his mind the things he was going to do. His ideas in ‘detail were vague, absurd almost, from a practical standpoint; but Jimmy did not realize that. They looked concise enough to him. | He would go to New York to live for a time while he was putting the idea over. All the big business men that he would have to see and convince were there. Jim- my had saved several hundred dollars from his earnings in the Fallon Brothers Mine during the last few years, so that lack of money fered no obstacle. Then, too, he realized with satisfaction, his mother and sister were not dependent on his wages. The large insurance that his father had scrupulously kept up, and the money that he had saved and carefully invested, had left Mrs. Rand, while not rich, at least comfortably independent. That made Jim- my think of his mother’s farm property; and the fact that it might be made to play a part in his big idea came to him at once. “Why, Anne,” he exclaimed suddenly, ‘it’s all as” clear as daylight té6 me now. You know mother’s old farm-land ever near Coatesville? That’s where I’m going to put the first. factory. There’s coal under it —don’t you remember they bored for it two or three years ago? Only it was so deep and the seam was so shallow nobody would work it.” This piece of land—seme two hundred acres—had been left Mrs. Rand by her fa- ther. It was poor farm-land, mostly sand, and of little value. Some three years be- fore, a company in search,of new coal measures around Coatesville had mace borings; but the seam they located was not considered profitable to work, and the project which for a time had promised to make thesRand family rich had been aban- doned. But now, with his new idea, this coal could be used. There was a railroad Spur very near the. property, Jimmy remem- COmiclboo SS C©