"Is it work in the mines you are looking for?" asked Tom Trefethen, evidently doubting if he had heard aright.
"Yes, that or any other by which I can make an honest living."
"Well, sir, I wouldn't have believed it if any one but yourself had told me."
"But you must believe it, for it is true, and I am now on my way to Red Jacket because I have been told there is more work to be had there than at any other place in the whole copper region, or in the State, for that matter."
"And more people to do it, too," muttered Tom Trefethen, as he sank into a brown-study.
By this time the train had climbed from the muddy level of Portage Lake, which with its recently cut ship-canals bisects Keweenaw Point, making of its upper end an island, and was speeding northward over a rough upland. Its way led through a naked country of rocks and low-growing scrub, for the primitive growth of timber had been stripped for use in the mines. Every now and then it passed tall shaft-houses and chimneys, belching forth thick volumes of smoke, which, with their clustering villages, marked the sites of copper-mines. Finally, as darkness began to shroud the uninteresting landscape, the train entered the environs of a wide-spread and populous community, where huge mine buildings reared themselves from surrounding acres of the small but comfortable dwellings of North-country miners. Everywhere shone electric lights, and everywhere was a swarming population.
Peveril gazed from his car window in astonishment. "What place is this?" he asked.
"Red Jacket," answered his companion. "That is, it is Red Jacket, Blue Jacket, Yellow Jacket, Stone Pipe, Osceola, White Pine, and several other mining villages bunched together and holding in all about twenty-five thousand people."
"Whew! and I expected to find a place of not over one thousand inhabitants."
"You don't know much about the copper country, that's a fact," said Tom Trefethen, with the slight air of superiority that residents of a place are so apt to assume towards strangers. "Why, a single company here employs as many as three thousand men."