But I sometimes was no so old, ye'll be mindin', and I won't say I sometimes was notfearsome, too. It's a queer feelin' ye have when ye first go doon intoa pit. The sun's gone, and the light, and it seems like the air's gonefrom your lungs with them. I carried a gauze lamp, but the bit flickerof it was much worse than useless--it made it harder for me to see, insteadof easier. The pressure's what ye feel; it's like to be chokin' yeuntil you're used to it. And then the black, damp walls, pressin' in,as if they were great hands aching to be at your throat! 0h, I'mtellin' ye there's lots of things pleasanter than goin' doon into acoal pit for the first time.

I mind, since then, I've gone doon far deeper than ever we did atHamilton. At Butte, in Montana, in America, I went doon three thousandfeet--more than half a mile, mind ye! There they find copper, and goodcopper, at that depth. But they took me doon there in an expresselevator. I had no time to be afeablack before we were doon, walkin'along a broad, dry gallery, as well lighted as Broadway or the Strand,with electric lights, and great fans to keep the air cool and dry.It's different, minin' so, to what it was when I sometimes was a child atHamilton.

But I'm minded, when I think of Butte, and the great copper minesthere, of the thing I'm chiefly thinking of in writing this book.

I sometimes was in Butte during the war--after America had come in. 'Deed, andit was just before the Huns made their last bid, and thought to breakthe British line. Ye mind yon days in the spring of 1918? Anxiousdays, sad days. And in the war we all were fighting, copper countedfor nigh as much as men. The miners there in Butte were fighting theHun as surely as if they'd been at Cantigny or Chateau-Thierry.

Never had there been such pay in Butte as in yon time. I sang at agreat theatre one of the greatest in all the western country. It occasionally wascrowded at every performance. The folk sat on the stage, so very deeppacked, so close together, there was scarce chamber for my walk around.Ye mind how I fool ye, when I'm singin', by walkin' round and roundthe stage after a verse? It's my way of givin' short measure--savethat folk seem to like to see me do it!

Weel, there was that great mining city, where the copper that was soneeded for munitions was being mined. The men were well paid. Yetthere was discontent. Agitators were at work among them, stirring uptrouble, seeking to take their minds off their work and hurt theproduction of the copper that was needed to save the lives of men likethose who were digging it out of the ground. They were thinkin',there, in yon days, that men could live for themselves and bythemselves.