GHOST-HAUNTED SHAFTS.
Thus far we have seen only such levels, drifts, and cross-cuts as were
well-timbered and in perfect order. We will now take a trip through an
old upper level, where the ore has all been extracted, and where no
trouble is taken to keep the ground up—one of the old upper levels of
the Belcher mine, for instance. Here we find about ten acres of
worked-out ground which is a regular wilderness.
In this place one sees something of the tremendous weight and pressure
of the superincumbent earth. It is a place to make the hair rise erect
on the head of any clothes-wearing man who has not been scalped by
nature or by art. The large, square timbers are crushed down to half
their original height, and are splintered and twisted; chambers
originally square are squeezed into a diamond shape, and their roofs
almost touch the floor in the centre; solid piles of timber that have
been packed into the ground as long as there was room for another stick,
are pressed into pancakes; winzes and chutes are “telescoped;”
ladder-ways, once spacious, are crushed out of all shape, and now can
hardly accommodate a cat—all is confused and shapeless.
This region somewhat resembles the track of a tornado in a timbered
country—what is called a “windfall.” In places we enter immense caverns
where the timbers are gone, and where huge flakes of clay lean far out
from the walls, and composedly look down upon us as we tremblingly glide
along underneath. One is afraid to sneeze lest he bring these down upon
his head. A smell of mustiness and decay pervades the whole place. The
whole level is gradually settling down and squeezing together. There is
no danger of the sudden caving of any considerable area of ground, but
eventually all the timbers will be pressed into a pancake, and the place
will be forever closed.
In these deserted levels the paths are circuitous and uncertain, and in
threading the labyrinth of fast-disappearing drifts, galleries, and
cross-cuts, one must have a guide who passes through them almost daily.
To those not familiar with mines it may appear strange, but the lower
levels—indeed, all of the levels—are alive with rats. The miners never
kill or molest them, therefore they become quite tame and saucy. As the
miners all carry a lunch with them into the mine, the rats live well on
the fragments. These rats are really of service, as they devour the
scraps of meat and bones thrown upon the ground, which would in a short
time create a bad odor in the mine. The decay of the smallest thing in a
mine cannot be endured. Should a rat be killed by any accident it must
be sent up out of the mine. Should a small piece of cotton cloth be
burned in a drift, the miners would smell it throughout the level, and
to burn a small splinter of pine would probably cause serious alarm, if
not a grand stampede among them, as they would think there was a fire in
the timbers of the mine.
In the old upper levels we find as many rats as in any other place. If
we sit down upon a fallen timber and converse for a few minutes they
will come about us. They think we are miners sitting down to lunch. They
come and sit near us on the ends of the timbers, and cock their heads
this way and that, as they look inquiringly about. Evidently they do not
at all understand it. Why we should be sitting there talking, with no
dinner-pails in sight, seems to puzzle them not a little.
There are frequently rats that are the pets of the men working in a
particular part of the mine—a rat known to them by some mark, as his
having lost a piece of his tail. To this rat they give some such name as
“Bobby,” or “Tommy,” and feed and pet him until he becomes so saucy that
he can hardly be kept out of the dinner-pails.
When there is about to be a great cave in a mine, the rats give the
miners their first warning. They become very uneasy, and are seen
scampering about at unwonted times and in unusual places. The rats first
discover that the mine is settling, and they start out in search of a
place of safety. It is supposed that in settling, the waste rock and
timbers pinch them in their usual holes and haunts, and they are obliged
to go forth in search of new quarters, in order to escape being crushed
to death. A fire in a mine kills them by thousands. The poisonous gases
penetrate to every part of the level, and not a rat is left alive.
Sometimes after a fire in a mine they are gathered up on the floors by
bushels. In trying to jump across the main shaft, a rat occasionally
miscalculates the distance, and falls to the bottom. A rat falling a
thousand feet and striking a miner on the head is sure to knock him
down. The rat is killed, of course, as he generally explodes wherever he
strikes. Dogs are dangerous about a shaft. Some years since, at Gold
Hill, a dog fell into a shaft across which he attempted to jump, and
killed two men who were at work at its bottom, three hundred feet below
the surface.
So many men have been killed in all of the principal mines that there is
hardly a mine on the lead that does not contain ghosts, if we are to
believe what the miners say.
Some of the miners are very superstitious, while others are afraid of
nothing living or dead, and lay plans for frightening those known to be
timid. At times, the miner who is passing through unfrequented drifts in
the old upper levels is almost paralyzed by the sudden breaking forth of
most fearful groans and shrieks, all ending, perhaps, in a burst of
fiendish laughter. These sounds sometimes follow him to a considerable
distance, coming from various directions. When a timid man hears these
ghostly salutations, he loses no time in making his way to the settled
portions of the mine.
The last troublesome ghost was one that haunted the 700-foot level of
the Ophir mine, where a miner was killed some years ago. The bells of
the engineers and all the signal-bells in the Ophir are worked by
electricity. Although there was no one at work on the 700-foot level,
troublesome signals often came from there. When the cage arrived at that
point the engineer would be signalled to stop. Although confident that
there was no one at the level, he could not do otherwise than obey the
signal; not to heed it might cost a life.
Next would come a signal to lower to the level below; then a signal to
hoist to the top, and the cage which had thus been travelling about
would come to the surface with nothing upon it but the car-load of ore
with which it started from the bottom of the shaft.
Sometimes there would come from the haunted level a perfect storm of
signals, such as no man could understand; then for a day or two there
would be no trouble. A man who was set to watch at the level was
frightened nearly out of his wits by groans and shrieks, flashing
lights, and all manner of fearful things, and swore he would not go
there again for the whole Ophir mine. He even went so far as to declare
that a ghost crept up behind him and threw its arms about him. All this
perplexed the electrician of the mine not a little. One day, therefore,
when signals were coming from the haunted level, he took a dark lantern
and went down to that point. He had hardly stepped off the cage before
he was saluted with an awful groan. Advancing into the drift a blinding
light flashed into his eyes, and he heard a low, gurgling laugh that
almost froze the blood in his veins.
He had gone down to the level, however, to clear up the mystery of the
disturbances at that point, and he determined that no ghost should
frighten him away.
He advanced towards where he had heard the laugh, and was again blinded
by a flash of light. He then threw the light of his dark lantern before
him along the drift, but it was empty. Far away, however, he heard
groans, and then a fearful shriek.
Pushing on and flashing his light this way and that, he pursued the
ghost. Time and again the light was flashed in his eyes, and the low,
mocking laugh was heard, but however quickly he might turn his own light
in the direction whence came the sound, he could see nothing. A moment
after, the whole mine would seem to be lighted up in the distance, and
the laugh would be heard far away.
[Illustration: MERRIMAC MILL, CARSON RIVER.]
Did he attempt to advance, the light flashed in his face from some nook
near at hand, and a shriek was uttered almost at his side. Becoming
desperate, the electrician charged about at random through the level,
flashing his lantern in all directions. At length his light fell upon a
man just as he was making into the mouth of an old drift. Keeping his
light upon the spot, our electrician rushed forward, and pushing into
the drift saw his man crouched behind some timbers at the further end.
He was cornered at last.
Finding that he was caught, the fellow rose up and coolly said: “Well,
_you_ don’t scare worth a cent!” In his hand the man held the bulls-eye
lantern which he had been flashing in the face of the electrician, and
he owned to having a confederate somewhere on the level who was
similarly equipped, but refused to give his name.
The mysterious signals from the level were now accounted for. This man
and two or three other mischievous fellows, who were the only men
employed in that part of the mine, had been ringing themselves up and
down between the almost deserted levels, and had been frightening out of
their wits all who ventured near the haunted 700-foot level. Since the
day of the electrician’s adventure nothing more has been heard of the
Ophir ghost.
[Illustration]