Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 106: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

REWARD FOR VALOUR hind, the photographer and old Sam were running as best they could; the one handi- capped by equipment, the other by age. MacNab didn’t seem to know his age. He was drawing further ahead of us— running lithe and straight as a lad. “What about the ex- plosive?”’ the reporter gasped as we ran up the rocky slope toward the mine entrance. “I condemned it,” I gasped back between breaths. “‘Damned owners—must have tried—to use it up—all at once—before I could turn—in my report.” We were close enough now to hear the faint, hopeless screams of men down in the darkness of the mine. Mac- Nab, running strong, shot into the black entrance before the reporter and I had even reached the level at its mouth. There was another roar of explosives letting go. We faltered. I remembered MacNab was in the mine. The rest of the miners might be unreal figures, statistics to be read about in the newspapers, but MacNab was something else again—a human being. One of the few I’d ever met. “Come on,’ I shouted to the reporter, who was hanging back. I rushed into the entrance of the shaft and heard him coming behind me. It was as if I rushed into a crashing, roaring blackness. I knew nothing more. There is an unreality about partial unconsciousness. One hears sounds, and dimly sees hazy sights, but they have no connection with one another and fit into no pattern, until later, when one reasons them out. Seconds stretch into eter- nity, and eternity collapses into seconds. I was dimly conscious of rushing feet. I remembered seeing MacNab pass by me, again and again—going to- ward the light with a man across his shoulder, going back into the blackness for another, gasping and sobbing for breath—but going. I remembered lying there, unable to move, to pull myself together, mentally cursing myself for not helping, 105 conmicloooks.com