BURNHAM BREAKER BY HOMER GREENE AUTHOR OF "THE BLIND BROTHER" TO MY FATHER, WHOSE GRAY HAIRS I HONOR, AND WHOSE PERFECT MANHOOD I REVERE, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. HONESDALE, PENN., SEPT. 29, 1887. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. A SURPRISE IN THE SCREEN-ROOM II. A STRANGE VISITOR III. A BRILLIANT SCHEME IV. A SET OF RESOLUTIONS V. IN SEARCH OF A MOTHER VI. BREAKING THE NEWS VII. RHYMING JOE VIII. A FRIEND IN NEED IX. A FRIEND INDEED X. AT THE BAR OF THE COURT XI. THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE XII. 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. Yet there are men still living, and boys who have grown to manhood, scores of them, who toiled for years in the black dust breathed out from its throats of iron, and listened to the thunder of its grinding jaws from dawn to dark of many and many a day.