AT THE GATES OF PARADISE
XIII. THE PURCHASE OF A LIE
XIV. THE ANGEL WITH THE SWORD
XV. AN EVENTFUL JOURNEY
XVI. A BLOCK IN THE WHEEL
XVII. GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY
XVIII. A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
XIX. BACK TO THE BREAKER
XX. THE FIRE IN THE SHAFT
XXI. A PERILOUS PASSAGE
XXII. IN THE POWER OF DARKNESS
XXIII. A STROKE OF LIGHTNING
XXIV. AT THE DAWN OF DAY
CHAPTER I.
A SURPRISE IN THE SCREEN-ROOM.
The city of Scranton lies in the centre of the Lackawanna coal-field,
in the State of Pennsylvania. Year by year the suburbs of the city
creep up the sides of the surrounding hills, like the waters of a
rising lake.
Standing at any point on this shore line of human habitations, you can
look out across the wide landscape and count a score of coal-breakers
within the limits of your first glance. These breakers are huge, dark
buildings that remind you of castles of the olden time. They are
many-winged and many-windowed, and their shaft-towers rise high up
toward the clouds and the stars. About the feet of those in the valley
the waves of the out-reaching city beat and break, and out on the
hill-sides they stand like mighty fortresses built to guard the lives
and fortunes of the multitudes who toil beneath them. But they are not
long-lived. Like human beings, they rise, they flourish, they die and
are forgotten. Not one in hundreds of the people who walk the streets
of Scranton to-day, or who dig the coal from its surrounding hills,
can tell you where Burnham Breaker stood a quarter of a century ago.
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