Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/774

 540 buildings are constantly sinking. For this reason, scores of hydraulic jacks are placed under the columns, and now and then the building is jacked up to its original level. We have to run a wall all around our foundations to keep the quicksand out of our subcellar. But run along with Danny Roach. He ’ll explain the whole thing to you. He knows more about real caisson work than any other man alive.”

Danny Roach, a big, broad Irishman who looked in at the doorway just at that opportune moment, seemed only too glad to show us around. The caisson we entered was only five feet wide by twenty feet long. A group of sand-hogs were digging away the sand. It seemed peculiarly sticky material. Our feet sank into it as if it were soft mud, and yet, apparently, it was dry when we picked up a handful.

“Tricherous stuff thot,’ said Danny Roach; “if there wuz no pressure on it, it wad be the wurst koind of quicksand.”

There was a man in the chamber puttying leaks in the caisson, close to the deck, with clay and oakum. He carried what I thought was a torch, but it proved to be only a common wax candle. The rich oxygen in the caisson drew out the flame to a length of four or five inches. It was wonderful how things burned in that air.

“Hey! luk out there,” called out Danny Roach. “Kape that candle away from thim timbers, or yez ‘ll have thim afoire.”

“Could you really set that damp wood afire?” asked Will.

“Sure, if there was a laik, the outpourin’ air wad suck the flame through the hole, and we wad have the wurst koind of a foire. Luk out, ye fool of a man!” yelled Danny Roach. The man stumbled, clutched at something to save himself from falling, and, as luck would have it, tore down the electric-light wires, broke the circuit, and, instantly, we were in darkness. Even his candle was extinguished, for he fell upon it and snuffed out the blaze. The only light was a brilliantly glowing ember in Danny Roach’s pipe. Once, when I was a child, I had read of a young chap who crawled into a hollow log after a rabbit, and was trapped in there by the inwardly pointing splinters. I did n’t get over it for weeks, and now that same feeling of horror seized me. It was all I could do to keep from venting my panic in a yell. I don’t know about Will, but I venture he was thinking about the blessed sunshine just then. Presently some one scratched a match; it blazed up brilliantly. A candle was lighted, and the match was tossed carelessly aside. Almost immediately there was a flare of light like the flash of gunpowder.

“The o-akum!” cried Danny Roach.

There was a big pile of it in the center of the working chamber. It burned fiercely, and the heat was intense. We saw that the deck would be ablaze in another instant, if something were not done to quench the fire; and if the deck gave way, might not the mass of concrete above crush through and mash us as if we were so many flies? But the chances were we would be burned to death before that happened. All this went through my mind like a flash.

In the meantime, Danny Roach had taken in the situation. There was a bucket nearly filled with sand standing beside the burning oakum and almost enveloped in the flames. He reached for the signal rope, gave a signal, in response to which the bucket was lifted three feet off the ground, then, rushing through the flames, he kicked the trip of the bucket. A ton of sand poured out over the blazing oakum and smothered the fire. Danny Roach’s clothes were afire, and he rolled around on the ground, trying to quench the flames. It was with difficulty that we extinguished the blaze, and poor Danny was very painfully burned. He was placed as tenderly as possible in the sand bucket, and, with the gang boss attending him, was hauled up to the surface.

The rest of us climbed up the shaft, which was filled so full of smoke that we could scarcely breathe. We came so near smothering in the lock that we signaled to the lock-tender to let the air out as fast as he could. I tell you what! we were glad to get out of that stifling atmosphere.

Poor Danny Roach had done his duty so quickly, that we scarcely realized what a hero he was. The doctor was doing his best to relieve the man’s suffering until the ambulance arrived, but told us that the brave fellow would have to spend a week at least, in the hospital.