“I’ll call my mates,” says young Joe Ferguson
“I’ll run back before I go.”
Right there behind him, his cousin Richard
Helping their friends through the muddy flow.

“Steady lads, and keep your lights now
“It may look hopeless, we can but try.”
With these words, he urged them forward
The last one out to see the morning sky.

Six of their friends, they didn’t make it
Awaited their fate, in the darkened mine
But thanks to the courage of Joe and Richard
The others were rescued, just in time.

The whistle screamed – a piercing warning
Awakened the town to the miners’ plight
Down in the tunnel, where the mud ooze thickened
All was not well in the mine that night.

Resting in the earth that killed them
Side by side in the ground below
The night shift miners of the McEvoy Company
Now at peace in the fields of Eldorado.

© Jim Low