Flashing through this cloud leaped tongues of flame intermingled with rocks and splintered trees.

From the tunnel's mouth streamed a thin, steel-colored gas that licked its way along the upper edges of the opening and was lost in the underbrush fringing its upper lip.
"What's that ?" muttered the red-shirted foreman--"that ain't no blast--My God!--they're blowed up!" He sprang on a car and waved his arms with all his might: "Drop them shovels! Git to the tunnel, every man of ye: here,--this way!" and he plunged on, the men scrambling after him.
The Beast was a magnet now, drawing everything to its mouth.

Gangs of men swarmed up the side of the hill; stumbling, falling; picking themselves up only to stumble and fall again.

Down the railroad tracks swept a repair squad who had been straightening a switch, their foreman in the lead.

From out of the cabins bareheaded women and children ran screaming.
The end of the "fill" nearest the tunnel was now black with people; those nearest to the opening were shielding their faces from the deadly gas.