The Island of Yellow Sands: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys

by Ethel C. Brill

“That is true, little brother. I can show you many such holes on the hills around this inlet of the waters, and I know of but one where copper has been taken out either in my time or in my father’s. They are very old, these holes, and no one knows surely who first made them. There is a tale that they were dug by the manitos of the island. One of my people, many winters ago, did a service to the manitos, and in return they showed him how to break up the rock and take out the red metal. Then they gave to him and to those who should come after him the right to carry it away. The good fathers say that such tales are not true, but I know not. This I know, only a certain brotherhood of my people has the privilege of breaking off the copper, though any one may gather the pieces that lie about the shores. Of that brotherhood I am a member.”

It occurred to Jean to wonder what the manitos, if there were such beings, would think of Nangotook’s bringing to the copper mines two white men, who according to the Indian opinion had no right whatever to touch the metal. But he did not put his thought into words. If the idea had not occurred to Nangotook, the lad certainly did not wish to put it into his head. Instead he asked: “But how do your people work these mines without tools?”

The Ojibwa picked up from the edge of the pit a smooth, rounded boulder and handed it to Jean. It was hard and heavy, weighing about ten pounds. “This is one of the tools,” he remarked briefly.

“You make game of us,” Jean retorted. “How can you mine copper by means of a stone like this?”

“That I will show you to-morrow.”

“To-morrow?” cried Ronald. “Why wait so long, when we need copper for our arrowheads? Isn’t there some place about here where we can dig out or pick up enough at once, so we can be on our way to-morrow?”

The Indian shook his head. “Pieces on the shore all little and no good,” he said. “I will show you more holes like this. Then we go back to camp. I will make ready, and to-morrow we come again for copper.”

The boys knew from his tone that he had made up his mind, and that argument would be of no use whatever, so they followed him silently around the edge of the pit. He led them up the ridge and across the summit, calling their attention to other holes, varying in size and depth. Many were mere shallow depressions almost filled with soil, and all were more or less overgrown with trees and bushes. The boys would not have recognized most of these places as ancient mines, if Nangotook had not pointed them out. In some of them grew spruces of a height and girth to prove that the pits had not been mined for at least a hundred, perhaps several hundred, years. Round boulders, more or less embedded in earth and leaf mold, showed here and there among the underbrush, and the boys dug up several to examine them. They found them all of the same hard, dark stone. Many were broken and chipped, and the lads concluded that they must have been used as hammers to break up the rock.

The pits seemed to run in rows across the ridge top, following veins of metal, and the boys marveled at the patient labor that had been spent on them. With the primitive tools the savages had used, many, many years must have been consumed in excavating the holes, especially if, as Nangotook had said, mining operations had been confined to some one brotherhood or society of medicine men. It seemed unlikely that even the chosen clan had ever spent all of its time in mining. Probably its members only visited the island occasionally and stayed for a few days or weeks, taking out a little of the metal and carrying it away in their canoes. Utensils and ornaments of copper were not uncommon among the Indians, and the metal must have been much more in demand before the white man introduced iron kettles and steel knives.

The explorers did not go down the other side of the ridge, which was steep and abrupt, but turned back and descended the more gradual slope they had come up, finding old pits most of the way to the base. The place was of great interest to the boys and they were reluctant to leave it, but Nangotook seemed to have some urgent reason for getting back to camp. When they arrived there, he borrowed the knife he had given to Ronald, saying he wanted to make something, and then told the lads that he wished to be left alone and that they had better go fish.