Before the Ice Age by Alfred Fritchey Read online

  Amazing Stories, December, 1928

  Before the Ice Age

  by Alfred Fritchey

  . Amazing Stories

  2

  Foreword

  shift to set off all the explosions he had

  arranged, immediately after work. This left a In reading this most amazing, yet truthful period for the air to clear before another shift story, please remember that I am not a trained came on.

  writer. I am only a tunnel and mineworker,

  Of course it was necessary to keep an

  and I’ve written down the things as I’ve seen accurate count on the shots heard; otherwise them, therefore kindly excuse my English as

  the next shift going in was in danger of their well as grammar, as I am aware that neither is lives. That’s why the shooting was allotted to perfect.

  the shift bosses. Even with such precautions, it was not always possible to be certain of the I.

  tabulation; for in spite of efforts to prevent it, two shots sometimes came at the same time. A UP on a certain job they were putting a tunnel very loud blast was occasionally put down as through a granite mountain. It was a big job two shots; but this was mere guess work. And and they were working day and night. They

  when lives depended on it, it was the worst of had cut through a vein of water, a vein of onyx judgment to come to such a conclusion.

  and a vein of silver. The silver especially was There are persons of the opinion,

  particularly beautiful, being in the spreading however, that the explosion which wrecked

  out, branched form of an immense tree.

  tunnel No. 10 was not due to an unexploded

  However the lead was not followed:

  shot. How else then do they explain it? They for the tunnel was a power tunnel, designed to claim there was some kind of an explosive in hold water; and as time was a big factor, and the chamber which was revealed by the blast.

  the expense of the project was colossal, such However, let us observe the shift

  by-plays as silver mines were unimportant.

  working at the time of the explosion and see Besides, it was the expert opinion that the

  what we may see. This particular night, Dan

  silver tree in the tunnel was a mere pocket.

  Parker was the shift boss. Daley of the day

  But they did strike something in that

  gang had reported all O.K. So Parker and his mountain that was no by-play. It was neither crew rode into the tunnel with no

  gold nor diamonds: though in the opinion of a apprehension whatever.

  certain professor it was a more remarkable

  This fellow, Parker, was a red-faced

  find than either. And it halted the tunnel man, jovial, puffy and fat. He wheezed advance for three shifts, day and night. What continually, as if he had the asthma. Claimed then was the find: a find which made tunnel

  he got it from being gassed in the World War.

  No. 10 in Bald Mountain so celebrated!

  He was a good shift boss, tolerant, resourceful Let us review the affair. As I have

  and good-natured.

  remarked, they worked two shifts, a day and a This night there was a fellow, named

  night one. This left an interval between, as the Reno Bob, as one of the miners. They worked

  shifts were eight hours each. This interval was three miners with each shift, each miner

  split into two parts for a purpose, one part having a helper. Then too there was a crowd

  being allotted to each shift. Drilling as they of muckers; fellows who shoveled up the mud, did during the working hours, and putting in dirt and rock into the miniature train which the charges just before quitting time, it was hauled out the debris.

  customary for the shift boss of the retiring Reno was not a regular nightshift man;

  Before the Ice Age

  3

  he belonged to Daley’s gang. But a rock had

  whose long legs were nearly in his face as he fallen on one of the miners, and the drove the tiny electric locomotive which management wishing to lose no time, and pulled the train. This fellow’s name was Mat; expecting a new man every minute, had probably an abbreviation for Matthew; but he shifted Bob over to Parker’s crowd.

  is of no interest in the story. Anybody else This Reno Bob was built like Hercules.

  could have pulled the train. I know I could.

  He had a dark, saturnine face and coal black They came to the place which halted

  eyes; a very devil of a handsome fellow. He

  them; the place where the fallen wall surface was not especially pleased to hear he was put was piled up on the tracks. Of course the

  on the night shift, for he had been in the habit muckers all had high hip boots. So had the

  of taking Mrs. Parker, Dan’s wife, to the miners. They had to have. There was water in movies down at the pavilion in the evening,

  the tunnel. No river of water, but great drops and this change would cut him out of such

  which oozed languidly out. And the floor was diversion. However, this was not unknown to

  as slippery as the devil.

  Dan. Reno was a welcome visitor to the

  The night crew jumped from the

  Parker home, whether he worked days or cars—not carelessly but with one hand on the nights, being a great friend of the night shift side; otherwise he’s liable to be on his seat in boss.

  the mud, sprawled out and slightly damp to

  Mrs. Parker was a very pretty woman

  the skin. For the place was usually sopping

  with a flood of yellow hair, and fascinating wet. It was a humid, stifling place to work in, green eyes. No one would have ever thought

  in spite of a ventilating fan, which

  her likeness was behind that thin stone wall theoretically cleared away the foul air.

  which Parker and Reno Bob faced when they

  But the muckers began shoveling; not

  came on shift that fatal night. But so it was.

  briskly and as if their lives depended on it, but The story is almost unbelievable for

  with the measured ease of men accustomed to

  weirdness. Talk about King Tut and his tomb.

  the shovel, and also to mines; a stroke about His place wasn’t in it with what they found up half between that of a Harp (an Irishman) and on the Bald King Mountain. And so many

  a Mexican. Still they had Mexicans working

  things happened afterward that couldn’t be

  here too; but they were not like the ones I

  explained by any modern methods. But I refer to.

  anticipate my story.

  So the miners set their jackhammers

  You see, the watchman at the tunnel

  and began pounding into solid rock. Ever see a mouth always gave the new shift coming on

  jackhammer? Well, it’s like a long drill, much the result of the last boss’s tabulation. This larger of course, than what a dentist uses. It’s night he merely said: “Everything to the worked the same; both of them use electricity.

  good.” Now if Daley had missed a count, he

  But the jackhammer gets his from a longer

  should have said so. No one would have distance. Still I don’t know. Maybe the power blamed him for that. That’s merely human

  the dentist uses comes from the same

  nature; not always to be sure. Anyhow Daley

  mountain.

  had orders to report so, if he hadn’t caught a The muckers had cleared away most of

  full count. And he certainly failed to carry out the fallen matter. And the jack
hammers had

  orders.

  drilled one or two holes already. It seems Dan Parker had stopped by Reno to ask him about

  THE new shift rode to their working place in a the show down at the pavilion. He says so

  long string of dinkey cars, run by a fellow

  himself. And it’s reasonable. It isn’t Reno tells

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  it. Reno’s gone flooey.

  you know the kind! They call them carbide;

  Parker says he had just shouted in fill them with a white powder and run in Reno’s ear about the show; heard Reno reply

  water. Then they light a little hole where the something about Love’s Reward—that was gas comes through. They’re not bad lights.

  the show, you see—and had just turned away,

  When they got up to the wreckage,

  when the blast came. It must have been they found only debris and darkness. Flashing Reno’s jackhammer; for he’s the only one

  their torches toward the wall they were cutting went flooey. Besides any other man who had

  through, they saw a great jagged hole exposed drilled into dynamite would have known it.

  by the blast, going into a cavity. But, although Shocks like that ain’t forgotten. Well, the blast this surprised them, they were not there to

  caught them all. There was a mess, I tell you, explore cavities; they were there to save lives.

  in that tunnel. I wasn’t there myself but I

  And they got to work looking for the missing heard Jonny Tinker tell what he saw. Jonny

  men.

  said it was worse’n a plane bomb in the World One by one they pulled them out. Four

  War. Jonny was in that war, so he ought to

  of them were dead and one man was

  know.

  permanently locoed. That was Reno. I guess

  Well, there was that blast. The train

  anybody would have been locoed who ran into

  driver, Mat, you recall, who was just running a a similar bit of shaking up. I know I wouldn’t string of loaded cars out, caught the sound at want to. The rest of the night crew were O.K.

  the tunnel’s mouth and he had an inkling of

  They were unconscious for a time but they

  what it meant. He shifted his string; caught up came around nicely. Harry Getz says he

  a bunch of empties, took on the watchman and dreamed of chasing ostriches down in South

  raced into the tunnel.

  Africa. If he did, I’ll bet he never caught any But he had to stop before he came to

  of them, for Harry is too slow even to catch a the place. There was some kind of an odor

  cold.

  neither of them ever smelt before. This odor Well, they knocked off work for the

  made the air almost impossible to breathe.

  day; let the air in for the tunnel to ooze off its They had to come out again.

  poisonous fumes. Next night they went in

  By this time there was a crowd of men

  again. Not the regular crew remember. Men

  about the entrance. You see they never shot

  ain’t no fools. Most of the regular crew who their blasts off at night. It was always were capable of moving on their legs were morning, when the night crowd came off shift.

  down the hill by this time. You’d be surprised So anyone who heard the blast on that the way a few dead men will change the particular night knew something unusual had

  working crew of a mine. But it does.

  happened.

  Parker still was along however. When

  Seeing that Mat and the watchman a man’s married, he can’t just go and jump his were stopped by foul air, the emergency job because of some unexpected explosion.

  apparatus was brought out; and several of the The job of supporting a family is a more

  men being rigged up, Mat forever lost his

  serious affair often than even T.N.T. blasts.

  chance to see the result of the explosion; for And you know they’re some blasts.

  Charlie Bates took his place.

  Of course, the lights were put out of

  II.

  commission by this shock; weren’t usually

  though, which only goes to show it was no

  THEY came to the ragged hole. They poked in

  ordinary blast. So they had to take in torches; their torches. Finally Parker, who was a brave

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  5

  man, being as he was in the World War, went

  for stopping work till some of those university into the cavern and explored. He came back

  guys had a peep. Remember, this was in a

  and his face was white.

  solid mountain; and heaven knows how long it

  “For God’s sake!” said he to Dick might have been there.

  Combs. “Come in here and see if you see what Professor Eddy came down. He

  I see!”

  seemed like a very capable man to us people, In the cavern in which Parker and whose only glimpse of education is the Combs found themselves was a heap of Schoolmarm up at No. 2 and the Parson at No.

  skeletons, clustered near a peculiar, 7. He could talk about eocene and pleocene till wonderfully embossed, little bronze box, the he had us all woosy. I’ve studied a few of the lid of which had been broken open, probably

  ’cenes myself, being interested in geology; but by the explosion ; this lid had a tiny hole, the I never had any pleosaurus or broncosaurus

  mouth of an octopus head, with which it was

  eating out of my hand like that guy had. He

  adorned.

  knew everything that was to be known and

  The cavern curved away from the line

  some which wasn’t.

  toward which the tunnel was being driven; so Well, he went up to the hole in the

  that work was only temporarily halted because tunnel wall; gave a look at the snail lady and of the find. But at the other end, along a walk gasped. Even his expert knowledge of such

  of leopard spotted agate, was a figure in things failed to classify her. He was mosaic, which held them spellbound. It was of flabbergasted. He was nonplussed. He was

  heroic size; and seemed to represent a absolutely speechless, something queer in a woman’s head on an immense snail’s shell;

  professor.

  the woman’s eyes were large rubies and her

  He sent for a crony of his back at the

  headdress, somewhat like the Grecian statues big school where they both taught; and there of their goddesses, was a helmet, made up of never before was such English used as these

  innumerable flakes of moonstone. The two delvers-in-the-ground used when they woman’s face seemed remarkably lifelike; looked in the place exposed by Reno’s shell.

  colored as it was with some shining enamel,

  Professor Eddy explained the pile of

  which seemed to match the glow of health.

  skeletons in the old cavern in front of the snail Dick Combs said it was enough to

  lady, as persons sacrificed to her. Then

  startle one; the head standing out as it did Professor Monk took a peep at the little

  away from the wall and seeming so real. But

  bronze box, and allowed his colleague had a

  what was the explanation of the skeletons? No shot of dope. He said: “The box is in ancient one could guess. It seemed a mystery beyond

  Aramaic; and the inscription thereon says that the knowledge of simple miners and those

  it contains a volatile poison which shall guard who know even less than miners; the weak

  the inner chamber ever from profanation.”

  headed muckers.

  Professor Eddy says: “How does it

  Parker and Combs returned; and work

  come we are here?”

  was resumed. However, work was
/>
  This of course was a poser for the man

  immediately halted when Dan went to the

  who read Aramaic; but some of the boys came

  mouth of the tunnel and telephoned to the fellow’s assistance and told of the headquarters. That’s where they showed good

  terrible smell immediately after the explosion.

  sense. How’d they know but it might be

  “That explains it perfectly,” contended

  something of great importance. Old Monk. This was a protection against vandals Addington, the sup., certainly deserved credit only till an explosion occurred. It was a very

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  delicate apparatus; probably an invention catastrophe. It was, that is the mountain, of a which has never since appeared on the earth.

  much lower elevation—it may even have been

  And the blast broke the small quantity only a hill—but some incomprehensible liberation of the gases and made the poisonous power lifted it to its present eminence.”

  odor which was remarked just after the

  “What is your proof?” asked the other

  catastrophe.”

  doubtfully.

  I must say Monk reasoned much better

  “This!” And Professor Monk exhibited

  than his name sounded. Then the two savants

  a small whirled shell in the palm of his hand, went back and looked at the snail lady.

  which he called a whelk.

  “What do you make out of it ?” asked

  “Where’d you get this?” asked Doctor

  Eddy.

  Eddy. “And what does it signify?”

  “It represents Patience,” was the reply.

  “I got it on the mountainside, half a

  That fellow Monk was always good at

  mile down, dug it out of a lime bed. And it

  replies. He seemed to have accumulated a lot signifies that the place where it came from

  of sense with his years.

  was at one time under water.”