THE HAUNTED MINE
Dave Wilbur was washing the flivver—or, to be entirely accurate, Dave
was playing the hose on the car while Tommy Beals and Charlie Rogers
wielded sponge and rag in an effort to remove mud and road oil. The job
was nearly completed when Ned Blake and Dick Somers vaulted the back
fence and joined the group.
“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.
“That’s not the regular diver,” declared Rogers, “that’s Latrobe. He
says that he and Coleson were partners and he claims a share of this ore
they’re taking out. I guess that’s why he’s keeping such a close watch
on the job.”
“Well, I’ll say I admire Latrobe’s nerve,” remarked Beals. “I wouldn’t
go down and explore that tunnel for a million times what he or anybody
else will ever get out of it!”
A murmur of agreement followed this declaration as the boys watched
while the diving helmet was fitted over the man’s head. In a moment he
had been lowered from the forward end of the dredge and he sank from
view amid a burst of silvery bubbles that shot upward from the air valve
in the top of the helmet.
For several days the work of dredging went on, until the diver reported
that there was no more copper ore remaining in the caved-in part of the
tunnel. This was confirmed by Latrobe, who made a final examination for
his own satisfaction. There was some talk of firing another blast to
bring down more of the tunnel’s roof, but as fully half the stuff
recovered by the dredge had proved upon examination to be worthless sand
and rock, the project was abandoned.
“Who’s going to own the Coleson place now?” asked Dick when it was
reported that the dredge had been taken back to Cleveland.
“The town will take the house and sell it for taxes—if anybody is
foolish enough to buy it,” announced Dave Wilbur. “They’ve locked it up
and put shutters over every window to keep folks out.”
“Yes, and they took the windlass away and sealed up the mouth of the
shaft with big stone slabs set in cement to keep people from falling
down the hole and breaking their necks,” added Ned. “I guess that’s
about the finish of both Copper Coleson and his mine.”
This seemed to be the general verdict. During the following weeks a few
people drove out to the deserted house, drawn to the spot by a morbid
curiosity; but as there was really nothing to be seen, these visits soon
ceased and the place was abandoned to desolation and decay. Summer
passed and autumn’s falling leaves collected upon the broad porch and
banked themselves at the angles of the wide cornices. Later came the
eddying snow, sifting through crevices in the rattling window-shutters
to melt and trickle down the inner walls in little streams of staining
moisture. Storm-driven owls sought temporary shelter in the gables and
sent their ghostly screams echoing through the night. Dubious rumors
began to circulate regarding the house. A negro, returning after dark
from a duck-hunting foray along the lake-shore, made a frightened report
of strange, dancing lights and uncanny sounds in and about the building.
Most people scoffed at these stories, but such as were more credulous or
more imaginative made them the basis for a revival of gossip to the
effect that old Copper Coleson still lurked in the neighborhood. Others
of superstitious mind derived a kind of blood-curdling satisfaction in
the belief that the house and the sealed-up mine were haunted by the
ghost of Copper Coleson.