Most of the other men were chewing tobacco, their jaws working convulsively in unison with their arms. They had long since ceased to be human beings—they had become machines. Their movements were precise, automatic, regular. Their faces grew gradually black and blacker in the perpetual dust which arose from the coal; their eyes became rimmed with black, and bloodshot under the constant irritation of the dust. They breathed it in, swallowed it, absorbed it. Their sense of smell and taste gradually left them—or, at least, they could smell and taste only one thing, coal-dust. They ceased to resemble men; one coming upon them unawares would have taken them for some horrible group from Dante’s inferno, doing terrible penance through eternity. They looked neither to the right nor left; their eyes were always on the coal—on this shifting black monster with which they were doing battle. Their hands seemed welded to the shovels, which rose and fell, rose and fell. The cold rain beat in sheets around them, soaking their clothes, and yet they scarcely felt this added discomfort, so intent were they upon the task before them. Most of them had thrown off their coats at the beginning of the struggle, and now their wet shirts stuck tightly to their skins, showing every muscle. Gradually, by almost imperceptible degrees, the pile of coal on the banks of the cut grew higher; gradually the pile on the track grew less, but so slowly that it was agonizing. Above them on the bank, the great locomotive, hurled there and turned completely around by the force of the collision, stood a grim sentinel. It was the one piece of luck, the officers told themselves, in connection with this wreck, that the engine had been tossed there out of the way. To have raised it from the track and placed it there would have taken hours, and every minute was so precious! It would take hours to get it down again, but that need not be done until the track was clear. Toward the middle of the morning, three fresh gangs of men came from the east and fell to work beside the others. But the others did not think of stopping. Instead, with staring eyes and tight-set teeth, they worked a little harder, to keep pace with the freshness and vigour of the newcomers. Ninety shovels were hurling the coal aside, digging into it, eating it away. Here, there, and everywhere the officials went, seeing that every stroke told, that not an ounce of energy was wasted, taking a hand themselves, driving themselves as hard as any of the men. Soon the coal was heaped so high along the sides of the cut that a force was put to work throwing it farther back. Almost all of it had to be handled twice!