DOWN THE MINE SHAFT
The next three days were busy ones for the girls. Miss Prudence had
bought scores of yards of gay-colored cretonnes and other materials, and
she now set all three to work making couch and pillow covers and
draperies.
"I've got to have draperies to hide the iron bars at the bedroom
windows," she had said. "I don't like to see those iron bars. They make
me feel as if I'm in prison."
When she escorted the girls to her bedroom and showed them the heaps of
materials, Jo Ann remarked with a whimsical smile, "I didn't realize what
I was getting us into when I suggested brightening up this house with
draperies and cushions. It looks as if we'll be running the sewing
machine instead of Jitters for the next week or two."
Florence and Peggy both laughed. They knew Jo Ann did not like any task
that kept her in the house, and especially one of the sitting-still kind,
like sewing.
"'Outdoor action and plenty of it,' is Jo Ann's slogan," Peggy explained
a moment later for Miss Prudence's benefit. "She says sitting still and
sewing make all her muscles feel cramped and her head ache and her mind
tired."
"Well, it does," Jo Ann defended. "I feel as if I'm getting petrified.
I'd rather climb mountains any time."
"I'll let you run the machine, then," Miss Prudence spoke up briskly.
"That'll keep your feet moving up and down as if you're climbing."
"A poor substitute," Jo Ann returned, smiling.
"Before you begin sewing, I'll give you an active job that'll bring into
use more of your muscles--measuring windows. Be sure to get the exact
length. Nothing looks worse than draperies that're too short."
After Jo Ann had finished measuring windows, she set to work basting and
stitching the hems in the draperies. By this time her thoughts had
wandered from sewing to the mystery man and the smugglers. Was that
smuggler still lurking around the mine and had the other one reached the
border without being caught? And was the mystery man still safe and
sound? She must get word someway to him when the smugglers were to make
their next trip, so he could follow them. If only he could catch those
ringleaders and break up that gang!
So engrossed was she in these thoughts that she did not heed Peggy's
sudden outburst of laughter several minutes later till Florence called
out a merry, "Jo! Will you look what you've done! You've hemmed all your
draperies upside down, so that the parrots or parrakeets--or whatever
kind of birds they are in the design--are all standing on their heads."
"They'll look comical with their tails perpetually in the air," giggled
Peggy. "I'm getting dizzy already even at the thought of those poor birds
hanging head downward that way."
"Oh dear!" groaned the discomfited Jo Ann on viewing her mistake. "Now
I've got to rip out every hem. Oh, woe is me!"
"I'll help you," Florence offered, taking one of the draperies from her.
"Next time concentrate on your sewing instead of on the mystery man and
those----" Peggy stopped talking abruptly on seeing Miss Prudence enter
the room.
As soon as José came to the house that evening, Jo Ann slipped to the
kitchen to ask him if he had seen the smuggler hanging around the mine.
At his reply that he had not, Jo Ann felt relieved till the next moment,
when he added, "We have much trouble at the mine today. No get out much
ore." He went on to explain that the tram-car wrecked the previous day
had torn up the track badly and that there had been trouble with some of
the mine machinery.
"Have they found out who wrecked the car?" she asked.
"No. One man told me he saw Luis, a bad workman _El Señor_ discharged
last week, near the track before the wreck." José shrugged his shoulders.
"I do not know who did it. Maybe it was Luis--maybe it was the strange
man you saw."
"Why did Mr. Eldridge discharge this Luis?"
"He steal ore."
As Miss Prudence entered the kitchen just then and sat down, Jo Ann could
not question José further. She left the room wondering if after all she
had not been wrong in her surmise about the smuggler's having wrecked the
car. He might have become alarmed after she and Florence had seen him and
have left immediately. She certainly hoped that was the case.
By the time the girls had finished sewing, Jo Ann was thoroughly weary of
staying in the house. "If I don't get outside for a long horseback ride
or a climb up the mountains today, I'll go raving crazy," she said.
Peggy laughed at this exaggerated speech, and Florence remarked
smilingly, "Well, by all means let's get out and explore the country this
afternoon. I'm fed up with staying inside, too."
"To tell you the truth," Peggy put in, "I've been rather glad to stay
inside. Ever since I heard about that smuggler's hanging around here, the
house looks good to me."
"Oh, he's gone away by now, surely," Jo Ann answered. "José says no one
else has said a word about having seen a stranger around, and in a small
camp like this a stranger surely couldn't escape being noticed. I feel
sure he's gone back to join the other man. If that man returns for the
pottery the same time that he did last week, he'll be back at the village
Friday. I've got to get word to the mystery man what day they're starting
for the border."
"The woman promised me to save some of the pottery for me, but I want to
select the best designs from the entire lot before she sells any of
them," Florence put in.
"That means we'll have to go and get the pottery before those men come,"
Jo Ann remarked. "That suits me to a T. You've already written to your
friend in St. Louis that you're sending the pottery in a few days,
haven't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, that settles it. We'll go to the village to get the pottery
Thursday morning and take it to the city and ship it from there. That'll
give me a fine chance to find out from the woman when the smugglers're
coming and to see the mystery man and tell him when to look out for
them."
"I see where you're headed for more trouble," Peggy spoke up. "You'd
better keep your fingers out of this whole affair. You're too
adventuresome."
Jo Ann half smiled. "Oh, skip it--the lecture, I mean. Let's get the
horses and go for a ride now."
"There's one thing I'd like better than to go for a long ride, and that's
to go through the mine," Florence said. "Mr. Eldridge promised me he'd
take us through it while I'm here this time. When he comes in to lunch,
let's beg him to take us down into it this afternoon."
"Fine!" approved Jo Ann. "I've been eager to see how the _malacate_ works
now that it's run by electricity."
"What's a _malacate_, and what does it do?" Peggy asked curiously.
"It's a windlass arrangement that draws the ore up out of the mine. A
rawhide bag is tied to the end of a long cable and let down into the
shaft. Using electricity is a vast improvement over the old way."
"Did the peons have to work the windlass--wind it by hand?" Peggy asked,
puzzled.
"No, burros were used for that purpose. But before they used a windlass,
back in primitive times, they made the Indians carry the ore up in bags,
and they had to climb all the way up out of the mine on dangerous notched
logs for ladders. Many and many of those Indians have fallen into the
deep shafts, to their death."
There was silence for a moment; then Florence spoke up: "I have my doubts
if Mr. Eldridge'll take us into the mine in the daytime. The miners are
very superstitious about women going into the mine, he said. They think
every time a woman goes in, something terrible always happens--an awful
explosion or a cave-in, killing one or more of the miners."
Jo Ann nodded understandingly. "That's so. I'd forgotten about that.
We'll ask him to take us tonight, then."
As soon as Mr. Eldridge came in to lunch, all three girls greeted him
with requests to show them through the mine that night.
"We-ell, I don't know quite what to say to that," he replied slowly.
"There've been two peculiar accidents lately that make me somewhat
reluctant to take you down into the mine. Those accidents haven't been
accounted for to my satisfaction yet."
"But they were both outside the mine, weren't they?" asked Jo Ann.
"Yes."
"And two days have passed by without any more trouble," Florence added.
Mr. Eldridge smiled. "Well, I might as well say you may go. When three
girls pounce upon one poor defenseless man, he has to agree to their
plans. There's no night shift working tonight, so this'll be a good time.
Be ready by eight o'clock."
"All right," the girls chorused in reply.
That afternoon the three, accompanied by Carlitos and Miss Prudence, took
a long horseback ride over a beautiful mountain trail.
Miss Prudence refused, however, to go with them on their trip to inspect
the mine that night or to let Carlitos go. "Carlitos is tired and sleepy
from the long ride, and bed's the best place for him," she said. "I
should think you girls would've had enough exercise, too."
By a quarter of eight the girls were ready and waiting. Knowing that the
mine was damp and cold, they had put on their sweaters and heaviest
oxfords, and Jo Ann and Peggy had prepared themselves for darkness as
well, as they had their flashlights.
When Mr. Eldridge and they reached the shaft, he switched on the
electricity to work the _malacate_ so they could go down into the mine.
No sooner had the machinery started running than the Mexican night
watchman came running to investigate, an alarmed expression on his face.
"Ah, it is you!" he exclaimed in a relieved tone on seeing Mr. Eldridge.
Mr. Eldridge smiled. "You are a good watchman, Manuel. I am taking the
señoritas down to show them how we mine the ore. Do not tell anyone the
señoritas have been in the mine. _Sabe?_"
"_Sí._ I _sabe_," Manuel replied quickly, knowing at once why _El Señor_
had given this order.
"Don't turn off the _malacate_. See that nobody comes near it. Stay close
by."
Manuel nodded assent. "I stay here."
"Manuel is the best watchman we've ever had," Mr. Eldridge told the
girls. "I can trust him not to go to sleep."
When Jo Ann found herself in the rawhide bag tied at the end of the long
cable and being dropped down into the shaft's eerie darkness, she felt a
queer sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach, as if she were falling
through bottomless space. "It's breath-taking--scary," she thought.
It was with a gasp of relief that she stepped out of the bag and onto the
rocky bottom of the shaft. She knew exactly how Peggy felt when she
scrambled out of the bag a little later and exclaimed, "Wh-ew! My heart's
up here!" She was clutching her throat dramatically.
Together they waited for Florence's descent. By their flashlights' gleam
they could see that her eyes were dilated and her lips tightly closed.
"It scared you speechless," grinned Peggy after waiting a moment for her
to speak.
Florence nodded and managed a "Took my breath!"
It seemed to all three that of all the cold, damp, terrifying places to
work, a silver mine was the worst. Mr. Eldridge led them through low
narrow tunnels and into several black, cavernous recesses opening from
these passageways and showed them the different mining processes.
Peggy became decidedly nervous on learning that the ore was dynamited
down. "There might be some dynamite around here now, and it might explode
and blow us into smithereens," she whispered to Jo Ann.
A few minutes later she bumped into something against the wall that made
her leap back in haste. When Mr. Eldridge told her it was a dynamite box,
her heart began leaping faster than ever.
"He means an empty dynamite box," Jo Ann explained hastily as her
flashlight's beam showed her the ghastly pallor of Peggy's face. "Some
miners are using it as an altar," she added comfortingly. "See, there's a
picture of the Virgin inside."
"I believe I'm ready to leave this murky gloom and get back up into the
good fresh air," Peggy said, her voice still shaky.
"Well, I believe you've seen all the most interesting things." Mr.
Eldridge smiled. "We'll go on up."
When they came back to the shaft, to Mr. Eldridge's amazement, the
_malacate_ was not working. "Now what's the matter!" he exclaimed,
annoyed. "I told Manuel to keep the _malacate_ running so we could get
back."
For several minutes they stood waiting in vain for the cable and bag to
appear.
Finally, in an exasperated tone Mr. Eldridge remarked, "Never had
anything like this happen before. Can't imagine what's the matter.
Manuel's always been so dependable. We may have to walk all that long
distance to the entrance of the workings. And you're all so tired
already."
Just then there sounded an excited cry that reverberated uncannily
through the shaft.
"Why, that's José's voice!" Jo Ann exclaimed. "What's----"
The next instant the words, "Manuel's--killed!" echoed down to them.
A moment's stunned silence fell; then Mr. Eldridge gasped,
"Manuel--killed! Start the _malacate_ at once, so we can get up there!"
"No can--the wires all broke," came back the wailing answer.
"Wires broken--and Manuel killed and----" Mr. Eldridge's voice trailed
off into silence.
Jo Ann cut in, "José's so excitable! Manuel may have only fainted or been
shocked unconscious."
"That's true. All the more reason I must get up there at once. It'll take
us so long to walk to the entrance."
"Can't José attach burros to the _malacate_ and pull us up that way?" put
in Jo Ann.
"Yes, he could. That'd take lots less time." Mr. Eldridge called
immediately to José to attach the burros to the _malacate_ and start it
working, ending with the usual, "_Sabe?_"
"_Sí_," José called back. "I go now."
While they were anxiously awaiting for José to start the _malacate_, Mr.
Eldridge remarked that he had better go up first to see about Manuel. "I
hate to go ahead of you, though."
"Don't worry about us," Jo Ann said, more confidently than she felt.
"There's nothing here to harm us."
"Nothing at all," agreed Florence in a voice that quivered
unconvincingly.
Just then Peggy's hand clutched Jo Ann's convulsively. "Poor Peg's scared
stiff at the idea of his leaving us," thought Jo Ann as she grasped the
cold hand in a comforting pressure. Her mind, however, flew back to
Manuel. Surely he couldn't have been killed. He must've fainted. But he
was so strong-looking. What could have happened in that short time? If
only José would hurry faster and let down that cable. "Oh, surely Manuel
can't be dead!" she kept repeating to herself.