Rutledge smiled, although he still scowled disapproval.
“That’s all right, Joe; there are no cowards around the Gray Eagle shaft-house, but I couldn’t blame any one for keeping out of the mine to-day—not but what it’s safe enough, as far as I can see—I’ve just been down.”
For an instant his words startled and thrilled me. Could it be that there was so much danger in working in the mine then? I glanced at father. He was just stepping into the cage, and his face was as serene as if Rutledge’s discourse had been of some possible disturbance in the moon. The look of displeasure on Rutledge’s face deepened as I caught hold of one of the ropes and swung myself lightly into the cage, following father and Joe. Delaying the signal for descent, Rutledge said:
“While it may be safe enough down there, it isn’t exactly like a lady’s parlor, Gordon—not to-day, anyway.”
“Oh, Leslie is just going down on an errand,” father explained. “But, Leslie, perhaps you had better wait here and let me send the spade up to you.”
“And make you walk from your tunnel clear back to the hoisting cage again!” I remonstrated. “Why, Mr. Rutledge, I’ve been down lots of times, you know, and I’m not at all afraid.”
The superintendent had looked relieved when he heard that my stay in the mine was likely to be a short one. I wondered, inconsequently, as the cage started on its downward passage, if he had thought that I was going down on a tour of inspection. There would have been nothing for him to fear from any one’s inspection; he was a good superintendent. “Don’t stay long, Miss Leslie,” he called down after us. I could no longer see his face, but his voice sounded anxious, and father remarked:
“Rutledge seems quite uneasy, somehow.”
“Dese yer minin’ bosses, dey knows dey business,” muttered old Joe. “Dey knows dat de rheumatiz hit lays in wait, like a wile beas’ scentin’ hits prey. ’Spect’s Mas’r Rutledge he hate fur ter see a spry young gal like Miss Leslie git all crippled up, same’s a ole lame nigger.”
“Yes; it must be that he feared Leslie would get the rheumatism,” father said, in a lighter tone. Old Joe’s explanations and reasons for things were always a source of unfailing delight to him. The cage reached the bottom of the shaft and we stepped out. By the light that was always burning at the tunnel’s mouth father and Joe each selected a miner’s lamp from the stock in a corner, and, as father was lighting his, he said: “You had better carry a lamp, too, Leslie.” I picked one up while father slipped the bar of his under his cap band. Then he glanced at my big hat. “You’ll have to carry yours in your hand, child; there’s no room for so small a thing as a miner’s lamp on that great island of straw that you call a shade hat.”