A TERRIBLE ADVENTURE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 184, 6 October 1876, Page 13

A TERRIBLE ADVENTURE.

*-¥ On Friday night, June 19, at a dance at Brunsen's Eanch, Green Springs, in the lower part of California, and, after the dancing had got well under way, two young men, named Tom Adams and Joe Russian, stepped out, intending to visit a neighboring house for the purpose of procuring cigars for a social smoke together. The night was unusually dark — nothing being discernible a foot distant. Consequently the two men proceeded slowly, trusting to their knowledge of the locality to carry them in the direction they wished to take. Suddenly, and without the least warning whatever, their feet slipped from under them, and the next instant they felt themselves plunged downwards neck deep in slum and water. They had fallen into an old shaft, dropping R.t least forty feet from the edge. Fortunately, both landed on their feet, and the mud at the bottom prevented them from being bruised in the fall. A new danger, however, immediately presented itself, namely, in the quicksand. Both made desperate efforts to keep their heads above the water, but in doing so nearly suffocated from immersion. Adams at last caught hold of a projection on the side of the shaft, and, although possessing but one arm, succeeded in holding on until Russian climbed over him and reached the mouth of the shaft. Russian then called for help, and the party at Brunsen's was soon on the spot. No ropes were procurable, and something had to be done immediately to save Adams from death in the bottom of the pit. Men think very rapidly in cases of imminent danger, and one of the crowd around the top of the shaft proposed that the most muscular form themselves into a chain and drop into the shaft. This was acted upon at once. The heaviest man was held by one arm by several men at the mouth of the shaft, and a second man slided into the shaft clinging to his waist. A third man did likewise, grasping the second man's waist, and each successive link in the human chain did likewise until the bottom was reached, and Adams dragged from his awful predicament. Through the mutual assistance of Adams himself and his friends he managed to reach the top, completely exhausted as were his brave rescuers. It was indeed a narrow escape for both young men from a horrible death, and a creditable action on the part of those who undertook in this novel and dangerous manner to rescue Adams. — ' Sonoma Democrat.'