“Heard the news?” cried Ned and Dick in a breath. “Coleson’s mine has caved in!”
“When? How?” came the excited chorus.
“It must have happened soon after we were out there,” replied Ned. “This fellow Latrobe, who worked for Coleson, had been away for a few days, so he says, and when he got back yesterday he couldn’t find the old man. According to the story Latrobe told, when he reached town about an hour ago, he lowered himself down the shaft and followed the tunnel till he came to the water. The roof had fallen in somewhere out beyond the shoreline and the lower end of the mine is full of water.”
“Did he find—” began Tommy Beals in an awestruck tone.
Ned shook his head. “No, they say he didn’t find any sign of Coleson. They’re out at the mine searching for him now. The theory is that he got discouraged with pick-and-shovel work and fired a blast to bring down a big bunch of copper ore. What he brought down was the roof of the tunnel and the lake with it. Some think he was blown to bits and buried in some crevice where he’ll never be found.”
For the next few days, gossip of Copper Coleson and his mine was the principal topic of conversation in the town of Truesdell. The wildest rumors were in circulation. Somebody stated that Coleson had been seen across the lake in Canada. Others declared that he was hiding somewhere about the premises. Still another story was whispered to the effect that Latrobe knew more of the matter than he had told. He was said to have bought a quantity of blasting powder a short time before, and it was hinted that he might have fired the blast for reasons of his own.
A diver made a search of the flooded mine but found no trace of Coleson. The diver reported a considerable amount of loose copper ore at the lower end of the tunnel, and it was determined to bring this to the surface. A floating dredge was brought and anchored above the point where the bottom of the lake had caved in.
“Look at her scoop it up!” yelped Tommy Beals, who, with most of the younger population of Truesdell, was watching operations from the shore. “Why, every bucketful is more than poor, old Copper Coleson took out in a week!”
“Yes, and when they clean up in one place, they’ll pull the dredge in shore a few feet and start over again,” asserted Ned. “All they have to do is keep the dredge in line with that tall stake on the beach and that white mark on the chimney of Coleson’s house and they know they’re right plumb over the hole. I heard the foreman explain it. He says the hole is about fifty feet long.”
“Look! The diver’s going down again!” exclaimed Dick Somers.