CHAPTER VII—THE RESCUE—AND AFTERWARD
The two boys went at the task of digging into the other mine with renewed vigour. A murmur of sound came through the intervening wall of earth—unmistakably the voices of the entombed miners.
“Hurrah!” cheered Digby Fordham. “They hear us!”
Chet’s heart was too full for him to speak. He worked at the wall of dirt and small stones furiously, and without regard to the bringing down of a possible avalanche upon his own and Digby’s heads.
John Peep stood back and held the lantern so that they could see. He did not say a word after the chums began this second attack upon the wall.
Again the muffled shouts were heard. The chums replied—screaming at the very tops of their voices. A mass of earth fell inward.
“They are digging too! Keep it up, Chet,” called out his chum.
“I’m—getting—wind—ed!” gasped Chet.
“Let me take hold there!” cried the sturdy Dig. “You take the shovel.”
They exchanged implements, and the furious excavating went on for several minutes. They were making a round hole about breast high in the wall of the tunnel. The noise of their own pick and shovel drowned other sounds. Suddenly the pickaxe in Dig’s hands clashed with another iron implement wielded by somebody on the other side of the wall!
“Hurrah!” cried Dig Fordham. “We’ve found ’em, Chet!”
Another mass of earth fell in and the boys saw a light twinkling ahead of them.
“Is that you, Father?” called Chet Havens.
“Is that you, my boy? Well, well!” exclaimed the jolly voice of Mr. Havens, and it was filled with pride. “It didn’t take you two boys long to find us, did it?”
“And John Peep, the Cheyenne,” returned Chet. “He did more than we.”
But when he turned to look at the Indian youth, he was not there. With his lantern he had stolen away the moment he saw through the broken wall that the entombed miners had lamps.
“We have been trying to hit that old tunnel you are in, boys, for hours,” pursued Mr. Havens, as the men broke down the barrier between the two mines, and swiftly cleared the earth and rock away. “We knew we could escape through the Crayton shaft if once we could hit the old drift.”
“But you couldn’t, Father!” exclaimed Chet eagerly.
“Why not, Son?” demanded the gentleman, who still remained back in the darkness while his men worked.
“Because the shaft is caved in.”
“What’s that?” queried Mr. Havens quickly, and with some anxiety in his tone. “It was all right a week ago, for I saw it.”
“Somebody has pried out some of the timbering and caused a cave-in. It’s as bad as the one in our shaft, Father.”
“Well! I declare!”
“Say! I bet that lame Indian knows who did it,” growled Dig, resting on his pick. “But he won’t tell.”
“Then how, for mercy’s sake, did you get down here, will you tell me?” cried Mr. Havens, much astonished.
“Through an old bears’ den that John Peep showed us.”
“John Peep? That young Indian lad that went to school with you, Chetwood, and was so clever at his books?”
“Yes, sir. He was with us until just a minute or two ago. Now he’s gone away—so as not to be thanked, I suppose. He’s a good fellow,” declared Chet confidently.
“He surely is a good fellow if he showed you how to get down here to our rescue,” agreed Mr. Havens. “But I must look into this strange cave-in of the Crayton shaft. It’s a most mysterious thing. People don’t go around closing old mines for nothing; unless it’s mischievous boys.”
“’Twasn’t me!” denied Dig emphatically.
“You’re not the only mischievous young scamp there is in Silver Run,” chuckled Mr. Havens. “Well, boys—how is it? Can we crawl through?”
“You come along and try it, Boss. Easy on that foot, now!” said one of the miners solicitously.
“Oh, Father! are you hurt?” cried Chet, in sudden anxiety.
“Not so much but I shall get over it,” replied Mr. Havens, hobbling through the aperture between the two mines. “Now, Jackson, you’re in charge of the work on this drift. Just as soon as you can get to it from our end, build a bulkhead of heavy timbering across this hole. We don’t want any connection between the two mines.”
“All right, sir,” agreed the man spoken to, and who followed Mr. Havens first into the old Crayton mine.
“Oh, Father!” exclaimed Chet again, seeing that Mr. Havens’ right foot was bandaged, and that his boot had been cut away; “are you sure you are not badly hurt?”
“There may be a small bone or two broken,” his father said; “but that’s all. I reckon I’ll be on a crutch for a while. I won’t be able to ride at all for some weeks. And that is going to be unhandy,” he added, “for I’ve got an errand at Grub Stake—and a mighty important errand, too.”
Chet made no comment upon this last statement, for he knew his father had spoken to himself rather than to anybody else. It appeared that Mr. Havens had been hurt at the time of the blast.
“And it was that Tony Traddles’ fault,” declared one of the men. “He just naturally lied about that timbering being all right. She shook right down when the shot went off, and the boss got the end of a beam on his foot.”
“Tony’d ought to be thrashed!” exclaimed another of the miners.
“He’ll lose his job, and that right suddenly,” declared Mr. Havens. “I won’t trust a man like him around the Silent Sue.”
The miners had several lamps and it was easy now to find the small hole into the circular cavern at the bottom of the shaft. Here the light sparkled beautifully upon the pendants from the cavern roof, and showed as well the knotted rope hanging from the beam laid across the mouth of the shaft.
“Looks as if it was going to be a tug getting you up that hole, Boss,” said Jackson. “We’d better go up first and then raise you in a sling.”
“I’ve got a good rope for that,” cried Chet. “You’ll find it right at the top of that shaft—unless it’s been removed since Dig and I came down.”
“We’ll rig up something to help him, never fear,” declared Jackson, who was the first to climb the shaft with the aid of the knotted rope. He carried a miner’s lamp with him, and the boys and Mr. Havens sat down and watched the spark of the lamp as it wavered back and forth up the shaft.
The other four men started in succession after the mine boss. Mr. Havens questioned the boys regarding their adventures since the accident at the Silent Sue shaft. He was much interested in the condition of the Crayton shaft, and in the Indian boy’s knowledge of this new entrance into the old gold diggings.
“Beats me!” was his puzzled comment. Then he continued:
“I want to get to Grub Stake in a hurry, and here I am laid up with a lame leg. It’s important for me to see old John Morrisy, who was one of the original owners of this Crayton mine. He has agreed to sell me his share, and I need it to get control of the mine. Why I want control is a secret.
“Now, it looks to me,” pursued Mr. Havens thoughtfully, “as though somebody else was anxious to get the Crayton mine—or to stop me from getting it. I don’t know which.
“I don’t care so much about the old shaft’s being closed. Maybe that is a good thing, all things considered. But I must get the deeds to John Morrisy and have him put his mark on them before a Justice of the Peace. This lame foot is going to trouble me a whole lot—
“Hi! there’s Jackson hallooing. Ay, ay! we hear you,” answered Mr. Havens, and scrambled to his feet again.
A noose was let down from a ledge some distance up the shaft, and into this Mr. Havens placed his uninjured foot. The men above raised him to the shelf, and then they climbed up to another wide footing and swung Mr. Havens up to their level, this being repeated until he was finally raised to the top of the shaft.
Behind him Chet and Dig climbed, and they were all finally in the bears’ den. They found no sign of John Peep either in the den or after they came out upon the mountainside.
“It certainly is good to be out of that mine, boys!” declared Mr. Havens. “We’ll surprise old Rafe and Mr. Fordham, I surmise, when we arrive at the Silent Sue.”
“We’ll surprise Tony Traddles,” growled Jackson. “I’d like to get my paws on to him.”
“You leave him to me,” Mr. Havens advised him. “Now, Chet, you say you’ve a horse near. Maybe you can boost me on to him, and we’ll go over to the Silent Sue. Let me lean on your shoulder, boy.”
Chet did as he was told, and as he walked beside his father down the mountainside he added some details about John Peep and the mystery of the caved-in Crayton shaft. He also told Mr. Havens of seeing the strange white man with the Indian youth as he and Dig rode over from the Silent Sue.
“Who did he look like?” queried Mr. Havens.
“Nobody I ever saw around here before,” Chet replied.
“Well, it’s a puzzle,” muttered his father. “And somehow those papers have got to be carried to John Morrisy. The old man’s funny. Something might happen to him. I shan’t feel safe till our contract is fulfilled.”
Chet knew that his father was not speaking directly to him; so he remained silent. But he kept up a tremendous thinking. He wanted to get his chum off to one side and talk over a most wondrous idea that had come to him.
They found the two horses safely tethered where Dig had left them, and Mr. Havens was helped into the saddle of the bay horse without much difficulty. Hero was willing to walk if so commanded, therefore Chet’s father could ride without being badly shaken. His injured foot gave him great pain; yet he insisted upon going around by his mine before descending the mountain to Silver Run.
The other men who had been shut in the mine tramped on ahead, and as the boys led their horses they did not catch up with the five miners on their way to the mine. Besides they were delayed.
As they approached the clearing in which John Peep had first appeared to Chet and Digby, the trio smelled smoke.
“Maybe we’ll find the Indian here,” suggested Dig. “Whew! I hope he has supper ready. I’m starved right now, if any one should ask you.”
“That’s more than a campfire!” exclaimed Chet suddenly. “Hear the flames crackling?”
“I hope the fellow hasn’t set the woods afire. Indians are so careless,” said Mr. Havens.
“Oh! I’m sure John isn’t that kind of an Indian,” said Chet.
They came in sight of the abandoned mining camp the next moment. The interior of the sheet-iron shack which the Indian youth had occupied was afire.
Smoke and yellow flames poured from the door of the shack. It was evident that the boy’s outfit was being destroyed.
Dig tossed Poke’s reins to Chet to hold and ran over to the burning structure. The sides of the shack were red-hot, and he could not get near to it; but with a long pole he managed to poke something out of the fire.
“Hi!” he yelled, trying to hold this object up by its bail. “Nobody home but the beans—and they’re canned! Heap big Injun live on white man’s grub just the same!”
“Stop, Dig!” commanded Chet. “Suppose John should hear you? And he did us a mighty big favour.”
“Oh, he isn’t around,” declared Dig. “Think he’d let his outfit burn up like this?”
“Who did burn it?” asked Mr. Havens. “Looks odd to me. Of course the Indian boy wouldn’t destroy his own property.”
“I wonder where John went to when he left us so suddenly in that mine,” Chet remarked.
“He flew the coop, and that’s a fact!” said Dig. “But I couldn’t guess where he went to. It’s pretty safe to say he did not come this way.”
“That’s so,” agreed Chet. “But I would like to see him; wouldn’t you, Father?”
“Most certainly,” said Mr. Havens. “Perhaps we might do something to help the lad. If he has lost his outfit—”
“That white man!” exclaimed Chet, interrupting.
“Hel-lo!” said Mr. Havens.
“What white man?” asked Dig, in surprise. “What are you dreaming about, Chet?”
“No dream,” said Chet, shaking his head. “But we saw a stranger talking with John Peep right here; you remember, Dig?”
“Sure. What of it?”
“Maybe he was the fellow who caved in the Crayton shaft. And maybe he didn’t want anybody to know about that old bears’ den entrance to the mine. See?”
“Just as clear as mud,” grunted Digby, shaking his head, while Mr. Havens chuckled.
“Maybe you think it’s far-fetched, Father,” Chet urged earnestly. “But perhaps because the Indian showed us the way to get you and the boys out, that white man came back here and burned his stuff.”
“That’s a good deal of villainy,” said his father, ruffling the boy’s hair with a kindly hand. “You’ve a great imagination, Chetwood.”
So Chet felt rather abashed and said nothing further about the mystery as they went on toward the Silent Sue. He was convinced, however, that John Peep had got into trouble because of the help he had given them.
It was evident as they progressed that Mr. Havens was experiencing considerable pain from his bruised foot; yet he was troubled more because of his inability to get to Grub Stake than because of the injury itself. Chet wanted to say something right then; but he scarcely dared.
They came to the Silent Sue shaft at length. The five men running ahead had announced the joyful rescue, and the crowd that was gathered around the shaft welcomed Mr. Havens and the boys with loud cheers. A man started immediately for the town to inform Mrs. Havens of the rescue.
One man stood apart from the others. His face was ugly and morose of expression. He was a bewhiskered man. His beard had once been red, but was faded and tobacco stained.
His arms were so long that when he stood with his shoulders sagged a little, as they were habitually, his great, ham-like hands hung to his knees. His face and arms were tanned to the colour of old leather, the skin looking quite as tough.
Altogether, Tony Traddles was not a pleasant person to look at. Now he was particularly offensive in appearance. He was alone while the crowd of miners and their wives were congratulating each other upon the escape of the entombed men from the mine.
Tony Traddles looked as though he would not have cared if Mr. Havens and the other five men had stayed down in the shaft forever.