CHAPTER II—AT THE SILENT SUE
Those few yards between the corral and the back door of the Havens’ pretty home in the Silver Run suburb were the hardest steps Chet had ever taken. For his age he was naturally a thoughtful boy, and he had been impressed by the manner in which his father ever shielded the delicate, gentle mother from all the rough things of life. If there was an accident in the mine, Mr. Havens seldom mentioned it before his wife, and never did he repeat the particulars.
Chet had seen and understood. He knew that his mother was not to be troubled by ordinary things if it could be helped. Of course, she must know of his father’s danger; but the news must be broken to her carefully. He could not allow rough but kind-hearted Dan Gubbins to go in with his story of the accident at the Silent Sue claim.
As he entered the sewing-room where his mother was engaged at her work, she looked up with a little smile on her face.
“What’s wanted, Chetwood?” she asked.
She was a small woman, with a very delicate pink flush in her cheeks and bands of prematurely grey hair above her forehead and over the tops of her ears. Chet often said, laughingly, that if he ever wanted to marry a girl, he’d wait to find one who wore her hair just like his mother wore hers.
“What’s wanted, Chetwood?” she repeated, as the boy remained silent after quietly closing the door. Then she saw his troubled face and the work on which she was busied fell from her hands and, from her lap, slipped to the floor as she slowly rose.
“Chetwood! My son! your father—?”
Her cry was low, but it thrilled Chet to the heart. He sprang forward to seize her shaking hands. He knew that she was ever fearful when Mr. Havens was in the mine.
“It’s not so bad as all that, Mother! Wait! don’t believe the worst!” begged the boy, his voice choked with emotion.
“He—he isn’t killed?”
“Not a bit of it! There’s been a—a little accident. Father is down there with some of the other men.”
“Down where?” she asked sharply.
“In Number Two drift. There was a cave-in. Of course they’ll get them out. Old Rafe Peters is on the job already with a gang. I’m going right up there.”
“Oh, Chet! Are you sure that is all? They are still alive?”
“Of course!” cried the boy, with strong conviction and even calling up a smile. “Dan Gubbins came down to bring the news and get some more men. Dig and I are going to ride right up.”
“Where is Digby’s father?” queried Mrs. Havens anxiously.
“He didn’t happen to be there when the cave-in took place. But he’s probably there now. We’ll get at them all right. Don’t you fear, Mother.”
“Oh, but my son! I shall be fearful indeed until I know your father is safe. I am always afraid when he is in the mine. The men take such chances!”
“Well, the Silent Sue has not recorded many accidents. Father and Dig’s father are both very careful. Now, Mother, don’t worry any more than you can help. I’ll send down word just as soon as we know anything for sure.”
He kissed her—and kissed her cheerfully. That was the hardest part of his mission, for he, too, was greatly worried. Then he seized his cap and quirt and hurried out to the corral. Dig Fordham had, for once, been prompt. He held Chet’s handsome bay, Hero, by the bridle, while his own sleepy-looking, Roman-nosed Poke was cropping grass at the edge of the road.
“Come on, Dig!” Chet cried, hastily jerking the reins from his chum’s hand. “We must hurry.”
“Did you tell her?” whispered his chum, awe-struck.
“All she needed to know now,” snapped back Chet. “Look alive!”
He was astride of Hero in a moment and the noble animal took the trail without urging. Dig whistled for Poke. Then he whistled again. The ugly, sleepy-looking animal stopped for just one more bite.
“Isn’t that just like you, you ornery brute!” growled Digby. “If ever I wanted you in a hurry you wouldn’t mind. Come on!”
He jumped for the horse, caught at the trailing bridle, and Poke stood on his hind legs and pawed the air, his eyes suddenly afire, striving to wheel about and escape Dig’s clutching hand.
Digby Fordham wasn’t afraid of any horse. He sprang right in under the pawing hoofs, and seized the dangling reins. His hold was secure; his wrist firm. At his first jerk Poke’s head came down and, naturally, the horse’s forefeet as well.
The instant the hoofs struck the ground, and before Poke could begin any further display of antics, Dig was in the saddle. Chet, looking back over his shoulder as Hero set the pace up the mountain, saw that his chum was securely astride Poke. Give Dig both feet in the stirrups, and no horse living could dismount him. He rode as though he were a part of the horse.
Digby and Poke were not always in accord, but Poke was tireless and carried the heavy boy as though he were a feather-weight. Poke could go without food and water much longer than most mountain-bred mustangs. Dig declared there must be a strain of camel in him. But there was not an attractive thing about the brute, either in temper or appearance.
In a minute he was neck and neck with Hero, and both horses were carrying their young masters up the slope at a fast pace. Dig grumbled:
“This old rascal always cuts up when I want him in a hurry. I’m going to trade him off for a horned toad, and then use the toad for a currycomb. Your Hero is a regular lady’s horse ’side o’ him.”
“You know you wouldn’t take any money for old Poke,” returned Chet, reaching out and smiting the black across his ugly nose with his own palm. “Why do you give him a chance to get away from you?”
“Because hope springs eternal in my breast,” declared Dig, who would joke under any and all circumstances. “I’m always hopin’ I’ve got the rascal broken of his bad habits.”
Chet was not in a mood for laughter; nor was his chum careless of thought. He really hoped to get Chet’s mind off the mine accident. It might not be anywhere near so bad as Dan Gubbins had said.
Mining at Silver Run was now carried on with much more care for human life than it had been when the claims were first staked out and the original owners had begun to get out “pay dirt.” Mr. Havens was a practical engineer, a graduate from a College of Mines, and with a long experience at other diggings before he had obtained a controlling interest in the Silent Sue.
It was a mine the stock of which had never been exploited in the eastern market. Mr. Fordham and Mr. Havens had always been able to obtain sufficient capital to buy machinery and improve their methods of getting out the ore; and they found the Silent Sue too steadily productive to need any other partners.
Mr. Havens owned, also, a second claim near the first that might some day develop into a rich one.
When the two chums rode up to the collection of rude miners’ cabins, sheds, the stamp-mill, and other shanties that surrounded the mouth of the mine-shaft, they found a crowd already gathered. Men and women alike were commingling excitedly about the shaft in which the rescue party was at work.
A big, bushy-whiskered man in yellow overalls and a tarpaulin hat was urging on the workers, and trying to keep the women and children back from the open mouth of the pit.
“Oh, Rafe!” cried Chet, throwing himself out of the saddle and running up to the mine boss. “Are they down there yet?”
“They’re all right so fur, Chet,” declared the man.
“Can you get them out?”
“I kin try—and that’s what I’m doin’,” the mine boss said huskily. “Thirty foot of the bottom of the shaft’s caved in. It’s caved from all four sides. We’re diggin’ out the earth and rubbage and sendin’ it up by the bucket-load. Fast as we kin, we’re replacin’ the timbering. That’s the best we can do.”
Chet had a quick mind and he knew a good deal about such accidents, although there had been nothing like this at the Silent Sue since he could remember.
“You can’t work a big gang in the shaft, Rafe,” he said anxiously. “How long will it take ’em to get down to the bottom and into the side tunnels?”
“I dunno, boy, I dunno,” the old man said, plainly worried. “But we’re workin’ jest as fast as ever we can. I’m shiftin’ the men ev’ry two hours and they’re all puttin’ in their very best licks.”
“You haven’t heard—heard from fa-father?” gasped Chet, trying to control his voice.
“Golly! No, boy!” exclaimed the mine boss. “Thar’s thirty foot of rubbage, I tell yer, at the bottom of the shaft. If they was hollerin’ their heads off we wouldn’t hear ’em yet. The fall of earth and stuff is packed like iron.”
“Oh, it’ll be all right, Chet! It’ll be all right,” urged his chum, who had come up after hitching the two mustangs.
Dig’s father had not as yet arrived. Nobody seemed to have much head about him but old Rafe. But perhaps nobody could do much. Chet stared at his chum and the mine boss hopelessly.
“Why, see!” he gasped. “It may be a week before you can clear the bottom of that shaft—it may be longer! What will father—and the others—do all that time? Oh, Dig! it’s awful—it’s awful! They’ll starve to death!”
“Whew! I hadn’t thought of that,” muttered Digby Fordham.
Old Rafe Peters shook his head. He was keeping his eyes on the buckets of “rubbage,” as he called it, that were being swiftly brought to the surface by the steam winch. He had excavated the lower end of the shaft himself and he knew the strata of earth through which it passed. By the colour of that which came up in the buckets, he knew the diggers had not gone far as yet.
One bucket went down as the other came up. It was not down three minutes before the signal rang for it to be hoisted again. But thousands upon thousands of buckets of debris would have to be hoisted out of the shaft ere the way would be opened into tunnel Number Two, lower level, in which Mr. Havens and the miners were entombed.