"DARRELL'S FOLLY" AND ITS OWNER
Ralph Darrell was possessed by a passion for accumulating wealth, and, not satisfied with the certain but slow gains of his legitimate business of banking, was always on the lookout for extraordinary investments, in which he was willing to take great risks on the chance of receiving proportionate returns. During an excitement caused by marvellous finds of copper in the upper peninsula of Michigan, he, too, caught the fever, and became convinced that here was his opportunity for acquiring a fortune.
From experts in whom he placed confidence he received such good accounts of a certain mineral tract located on Keweenaw Point, where mines of fabulous richness were already opened, that he purchased it, and persuaded Richard Peveril's father to become associated with him in a scheme for its development.
When the crash came, and their golden dreams were dispelled by a rude awakening, he had sunk his own modest fortune, together with half of Peveril's, in a barren mine, and the blow was so heavy as to partially deprive him of his reason. He imagined himself to be the object of a conspiracy, headed by his partner, to obtain entire control of the mine, which he also imagined to be immensely valuable.
For the purpose of protecting the interests that he fancied to be thus endangered, Ralph Darrell disappeared from his home, made his way to the scene of his wrecked hopes, and took up a solitary abode in the deserted mining village. Although he was now a desperate man, and also one so crazed by misfortune that he believed every rock taken from the Copper Princess to be rich in metal, he retained much of the business shrewdness gained by years of experience. At the same time, he had become sly, suspicious of his fellows, and absolutely non-communicative. He had conceived the idea of holding on to the mine, and at the same time spreading reports of its worthlessness until the term of contract had expired, when he hoped that, in default of other claims, the entire property would fall into his hands. Then he would proclaim its true value and reap his long-delayed reward.
So he lived alone in the comfortable house that had been built for the manager of the mine, held no intercourse with his widely scattered neighbors, discouraged all attempts on the part of outsiders to learn anything concerning him, rejoiced when he heard his mine spoken of as "Darrell's Folly," and devoted himself to keeping its valuable plant in repair, against the time when he should be free to use it for his own sole benefit.
In looking about for some method of acquiring means with which to reopen and work the mine when it should be wholly his, he ran across a crew of Canadian fishermen, who were also smugglers in a small way, and, joining them, soon developed their unlawful trade into a flourishing business.
Having discovered a deep cavern opening on the lake and extending close to the cellar of the very house in which he dwelt, he decided to use it as a receptacle and hiding-place for smuggled goods. To enhance its value for this purpose, he connected it with his own residence by an underground passage. On this he expended a vast amount of labor, digging it with his own hands, and holding it a secret from every human being. Even the smugglers, who implicitly obeyed his orders, since he had made it so profitable for them to do so, knew nothing of it, nor what became of their goods after they were delivered at night on a certain rocky ledge, and hoisted up the face of the cliff to some place that they never saw. Nor were the peddlers, by whom these same goods were carried far and wide, any wiser, for they always transacted their business with "old man" Darrell, and received their merchandise after dark, in a certain room of his house, the only one they were ever allowed to enter.
Not only had Darrell retained to himself the secret of the cavern, but he had also conceived the idea of hiding it from the observation of passing vessels by means of a canvas screen drawn over its entrance, and cleverly painted to resemble the adjacent cliffs.
Surrounded by these safeguards, and further protected by its locality in that desolate region, the unlawful business flourished amazingly. It not only yielded its chief promoter a sufficient income to support his family comfortably in their distant Eastern home and enable him to keep his mining-plant in good repair, but each year saw a very tidy surplus stored away for the future development of the Copper Princess.