When Derrick and Paul found themselves descending the slope, together with a carful of miners, the next morning, it seemed to them a long time since they had traversed its black depths. So accustomed do the toilers of the colliery become to exciting incidents that elsewhere would furnish subject for weeks of thought and conversation, that often a single day suffices to divert their attention to something new. So it was with our two boys, in whose minds their recent adventures were already shorn of their terrors, and only thought of as something unpleasant, to be forgotten as quickly as possible. Therefore they did not speak of them as they talked together in low tones, but only of the present and the future.
"I think it's awful good of you and your mother to take Bill Tooley into your own house and nurse him," said Paul.
"Oh no," laughed Derrick, "it isn't so very good. Revenge is what we are after, and that is one way of getting it."
Hearing Bill Tooley's name mentioned between the boys, one of the miners who rode in the car with them had leaned forward to learn what they were saying. At Derrick's last remark this man started back and gazed at him curiously.
"He's got the very stuff in him to make a Mollie of," he thought. "To think he's so sly. He's got the fellow he hates into his own house, pretending that he wants to nurse him, and now he's going to take out his revenge on him. Perhaps he's going to poison him, or fix pins in the bed so they'll stick him. Anyway, I'll have to give Monk the hint of what he's up to." Then, admiringly, and half aloud, he muttered, still looking at Derrick, "The young villain!"
From the foot of the slope Derrick set off for the stable to get Harry Mule, while Paul waited for the making up of a train of empty cars, in which he was to ride to the junction near the blacksmith's shop. There Derrick was to meet him, take him to his post of duty, and tell him about opening and closing the door, and tending the switch of which he was to have charge.
In spite of the fact that he and Derrick had been friends but a single day, Harry Mule appeared to recognize his young driver, and gave him a cordial greeting as he entered the stable. At least he threw up his head and uttered a tremendous bray, which went "Haw! he-haw, he-haw, he-haw!" and sounded so absurdly like a laugh that Derrick laughed from sympathy until the tears ran down his cheeks. The mule gazed at him with a look of wonder in his big eyes, and stood so meek and quiet while his harness was being put on that Derrick thought perhaps his feelings had been hurt. To soothe them he talked to him, and told him that Paul had come down into the mine to work.
As they left the stable, and Derrick stopped to fasten the door, Harry started in the opposite direction from that in which he should have gone, and ran down the gangway, kicking up his heels and braying, as though he were a frisky young colt in a pasture instead of an old bumping-mule down in a coal-mine. Derrick ran after him, and for some time could see the reflection of the collar-lamp, which was swung violently to and fro by the animal's rapid motion. The disappearance of this light in the distance was followed by an angry shouting and a muffled crash.
Derrick was provoked that his mule should have made all this trouble, and was anxious to discover the full extent of the mischief done, but he could not help laughing when he reached the scene of confusion. The first object he saw was Harry himself, standing still and gazing demurely at him with the wondering look which was his most common expression. He was hitched in front of a string of mules which were attached to a train of empty cars, and was evidently prepared to act as their leader. The boy driver of these mules, with many muttered exclamations, was trying to disentangle their harness from the snarl it had got into, and in one of the cars stood Paul Evert, looking somewhat dilapidated and greatly disgusted.
"Hullo, Derrick!" he called out. "Where did that mule come from?"