The Copper Princess: A Story of Lake Superior Mines

Although smoke was curling lazily from a lofty stack, that he imagined belonged to an engine-house, and though there was a certain amount of noise, as of machinery in motion, there were no other signs of activity about the place. In fact, it was pervaded by an aspect of desolation and desertion. There were no hurrying men nor teams. Most of the buildings appeared to be permanently closed; doors were boarded up, windows were broken, and the smaller dwellings were almost hidden by the rank growth of weeds and bushes that closely surrounded them.

As Peveril stared in perplexity at this melancholy picture his attention was attracted by a sound of voices near at hand. He gazed eagerly, and even took a few steps forward, hoping to meet his own party, but was grievously disappointed to see instead a group of three burly strangers clad in mining costume. As they drew near he recognized them to be Bohemians, and was particularly struck by the hideous expression of him who seemed to act as leader of the party.

Although the new-comers started at sight of the young man, and regarded him with scowling faces as they drew near, they did not speak nor offer to molest him, but passed by in silence.

Disappointed that they were not his own men, but relieved to be so easily rid of them, Peveril again turned his attention to the semi-deserted mining village that had so aroused his curiosity. So deeply interested did he at once become in watching a team of oxen that had just appeared, hauling a log over a rise of ground, that he did not hear the approach of stealthy footsteps nor note the crouching forms creeping up behind him. Closer and closer they came, until they were within reach of their unconscious victim. Then they sprang upon him all at once, and he was hurled to the ground.

In another moment his arms were bound, and he recognized in one distorted face, leering close above his own, that of the man who had led the attack on him in the mine, and whom he had sent reeling away with a broken jaw.

Now the cruel face was rendered doubly hideous by a grin of triumph, and Peveril's heart sank within him as he gazed into the pitiless eyes that lighted its brutish features.

CHAPTER XV

PEVERIL IN THE HANDS OF HIS ENEMIES

Having been driven from Red Jacket by the Cornishmen under Mark Trefethen, the Bohemian, Rothsky, and his fellow car-pushers of the White Pine Mine who had assaulted Peveril on his first day of work, had taken to the woods like wild beasts. Although restrained of their evil intentions for the time being, they were more bitter than ever against the innocent cause of their trouble, and swore, with strange, foreign oaths, to kill him if the chance should ever offer.

In the meantime they must find some way of gaining a livelihood, and this finally came to them at a queer, semi-abandoned mine across which they stumbled in the course of their wanderings. Its proprietor was an old man who seemed half crazed; and the mine that he was working in a small way, with a pitifully inadequate force, was absolutely barren of copper; but, as he paid their wages promptly, the car-pushers were willing to do his bidding without asking questions.

One of the scarcest things about this mine was timber with which to support the roof of the only drift that was being opened. The proprietor tried to force his men to continue their work, and open the drift far beyond a point of safety without the protection of this most necessary adjunct, and when they refused he became furiously angry. Their job seemed to have come to an end, and all hands were about to leave, when, by an opportune gale, a supply of the desired material was cast up on the adjacent coast.

Every able-bodied man was immediately set to work collecting this, and in towing raft after raft of the Heaven-sent logs to a land-locked basin that lay but a short distance from the mine. In this way, even before the arrival of Peveril and his wreckers, a large amount of the needed timber had been secured.

Although the miners were well aware that their employer carried on some other business besides the development of his barren property, they neither knew nor cared to know what it was. They discovered that it was in some way connected with the coming and going of certain vessels, but beyond this they were kept in ignorance.

When one of these vessels reported a party at Laughing Fish also engaged in a search for wrecked logs, the exertions of the white-haired mine-owner were so redoubled that before Peveril found time to work the coast to the northward of his camp, it had been stripped of every log. Having obtained possession of his coveted timber, the old man was now making every effort to have it transported to the mouth of his shaft, believing that, if he could once get it underground, his right to the logs would remain unquestioned. He had, however, only partially succeeded in effecting this removal, when, to his chagrin, Peveril appeared on the scene of activity.

After the defeat of the young man's attempt to capture the raft, his two Bohemians were easily induced to join the enemy by promises of better pay than they were getting. As for Joe Pintaud, he was indeed taken prisoner, but was purposely so loosely guarded that he found no difficulty in escaping to the schooner of his friends, which came into port that afternoon, and on which he was carried off to Canada.

Thus was the White Pine wrecking expedition completely broken up, and only its leader was left to carry out, if he could, its objects. Even he had been set adrift in an oarless skiff, with the hope that he would be so long delayed in reporting to his employers as to allow time for the captured logs to be put underground before another demand for them could be made.

This disposition of the captive was only known to the old man, who had, unobserved, removed the oars from Peveril's skiff; and so it was generally supposed that he would return directly to his camp at Laughing Fish.

Rothsky, the Bohemian, who was one of those working near the log raft, had instantly recognized Peveril, and at sight of him his hatred blazed up with redoubled fury. To be sure, his broken jaw had healed, but so awry as to disfigure his face and render it more hideous than ever. Now to find the man who had done him this injury again interfering with his plans filled him with rage.

Although he had no opportunity for venting it at the moment, he easily learned from Peveril's late followers the location of their camp, and, believing that the young man would be found there, he planned an attack upon it for that very night. He had no difficulty in inducing the two other car-pushers who had been driven from the White Pine to join him, and as soon as they quit work that evening they set forth on foot.

They had not settled on any plan of action, and, though Rothsky was determined to kill the man he hated, his associates imagined that the young fellow was only to be punished in such a way as would cause him a considerable degree of suffering and at the same time afford them great amusement. They did not anticipate any interference with their plans, even should they be discovered, for the fishermen of the cove were their fellow-countrymen, bound to them by the ties of a common hatred against all native-born Americans.

Now it so happened that the only daughter of the erratic old mine-owner had set forth that afternoon, accompanied only by her ever-present body-guard, a great, lean stag-hound, on a long gallop over the wild uplands surrounding her home. For that desolate little mining village was the only home Mary Darrell had known since the death of her mother, five years before, or when she was but twelve years of age.

Until then she had lived in New England, and had only seen her father upon the rare occasions of his visits from the mysterious West in which his life was spent. To others he was a man of morose silence, suspicious of his fellows, secretive and unapproachable, but to his only child, the one light of his darkened life, and the sole hope of his old age, he was ever the loving father, tender and indulgent.

Bringing her to the only home he had to offer, he had made all possible provision for her comfort and happiness. The most recent books were sent to her, and the latest music found its way into the wilderness for her amusement. Himself a well-educated man, Ralph Darrell devoted his abundant leisure to her instruction, and to the study of her tastes. Only two of the girl's expressed wishes were left ungratified, and both of these he had promised to grant when she should be eighteen years of age.

One of them was that they might return to the home of her childhood. To this her father's unvarying answer was that business and a regard for her future welfare compelled him to remain where they were until the expiration of a certain time. When it should be elapsed, he promised that she should lead him to any part of the world she chose. Cheered by this promise, she planned many an imaginary journey to foreign lands, and many a long hour did Mary and her father beguile in arranging the details of these delightful wanderings.

Her other wish was for a companion of her own age; but this was so decidedly denied that she knew it would be useless to express it again after the first time.

"It would mean ruin, absolute ruin and beggary for us both," said Mr. Darrell, "if I were to allow a single stranger, young or old, of even ordinary intelligence, to visit this place. From the time you are eighteen years of age you shall have plenty of friends of your own choosing; but until that date, dear, you must be content with only the society of your old dad."

So Mary Darrell studied, sang, read, rode, and thought the fanciful thoughts of girlhood alone, but always with impatient longings for the coming of the magic hour that should set her free. And yet she was not wholly alone, for her father would at any time neglect everything else to give her pleasure, while she also had both "Sandy," her stag-hound, and "Fuzz," her pony, for devoted companions.

She was allowed to ride when and where she pleased, with only these attendants, on two conditions. One was that she should never visit, nor even go near, a human residence; and the other that, when on such excursions, she should, for greater safety, dress as a boy. When she was thus costumed her father was very apt to call her by her middle name, which was Heaton; and so it was generally supposed by the few miners who caught glimpses of her that the old man had two children – a girl, and a boy who was not only younger than she, but devoted to horseback riding.

Only one duty devolved upon the girl thus strangely reared, and that was the keeping watch for certain vessels that came in from the great lake and sailed away again at regular intervals.

So Mary Darrell was out riding on the evening that witnessed the capture of Richard Peveril by his bitterest enemies, and as twilight deepened into dusk she was urging her way homeward with all speed.

In the meantime the three rascal car-pushers, who had come so unexpectedly upon him whom they sought, and had so easily effected his capture, led Peveril directly away from the trail he had been following to a place in the woods known only to Rothsky. Close to where they finally halted and began preparations for the punishment of the prisoner, who was also expected to afford them infinite amusement by his sufferings, yawned a great black hole. It was of unknown depth, and was nearly concealed by a tangle of vines and bushes. Rothsky had stumbled upon it by accident only a few days before, and now conceived that it would be a good place in which to dispose of a body, in case they should happen to have one on their hands.

Trusting to the wildness of their surroundings and the absence of human beings from that region to shield them from observation, they ventured to build a fire, by the light of which they proposed to carry out their devilish plans.

Besides binding Peveril's arms, they had, on reaching this place, taken the further precaution of tying his ankles, so that he now lay on the ground utterly helpless, a prey to bitter thoughts, but nerving himself to bear bravely whatever torture might await him.

All at once the deep baying of a hound and a crash of galloping hoofs, coming directly towards the fire-light, sounded through the wood.

With a fierce imprecation Rothsky gave a hasty order, at which all three men sprang to where Peveril was lying in deepest shadow. Hurriedly picking him up, they carried him a short distance, gave a mighty swing, and flung him from them. There was a crash of parted bushes and rending vines, a stifled cry, and all was still.

A minute later, when a boyish figure on horseback swept past the fire, the three men seated by it only aroused a fleeting curiosity in Mary Darrell's mind as to what they could be doing in such a place at such a time.

CHAPTER XVI

LOST IN A PREHISTORIC MINE

After the disappearance of the young rider, whose coming had so materially changed the plan of Rothsky and his associate scoundrels, they gazed at each other for a full minute in sullen silence. In the minds of two of them the anger of their disappointment was mingled with a cowardly terror at the awful deed they had committed, and they began fiercely to denounce their leader for having implicated them in it.

Rothsky answered with equal bitterness that he was no more to blame than they, and the quarrel grew so furious that for a time it seemed as though only the shedding of blood could settle it. At length they were quieted by a realizing sense of the common danger that might only be averted by mutual support. So they finally swore with strange oaths never to betray each other, or breathe a word to a living soul of what had just taken place.

Of course they did not for a moment anticipate that their crime would ever come to light, though each was secretly determined that if it did he would promptly secure his own safety by denouncing his comrades.

With the patching up of this truce and the forming of their worthless compact the three wretches prepared to depart from the scene of their villany. First, however, they advanced cautiously as close as they dared to the edge of the pit into which they had flung their victim, and, peering into its blackness, listened fearfully. No sound broke the awful silence, and of a sudden the three men, moved by a common impulse, turned and fled through the darkness, stumbling and falling, clutched at by invisible fingers as they ran, and uttering inarticulate cries of terror.

At that same moment their victim was lying on a ledge of rock deep down in the ground beneath them, still alive, but numbed almost into unconsciousness by the hopeless horror of his situation. In the first agony of falling he had instinctively exerted a strength of which he would have been incapable under other circumstances, and burst asunder the bonds confining his arms.

He believed that in a moment he would be dashed into eternity, and yet a medley of incongruous and commonplace thoughts darted through his mind with inconceivable rapidity. Innumerable scenes of his past life glanced before him, but more distinct than any, sharp and clear as though revealed by a flash of lightning, shone the wonderful eyes that had appeared to him from the red-stained cliffs overlooking the great lake. And, strangest of all, the face seemed to smile at him with a promise of hope.

In another instant all the pictures were blotted out, and his whole world was gulfed by a rush of water in which he sank to fathomless depths.

After an endless space of time he began slowly to rise, until at length, to his infinite amazement, he found himself still alive and gasping for a breath of the blessed air into which he had once more emerged.

Although his ankles were still bound, his arms were free, and, with the instinct of self-preservation strong within him, he began, awkwardly and feebly, to swim. Dazed, fettered, and weighted by clothing as he was, his utmost efforts would not have carried him more than a few feet, and then he must have sunk forever in that black flood. But the strength given him was sufficient, and ere it was exhausted his hands struck a shelf of rock upon which he finally managed to drag himself.

On the flinty platform that he thus gained he lay weakly motionless, chilled to the bone, dimly conscious that he had for a time been granted a respite from death, but without a hope that it would be much longer extended.

After a while the sense that he still lived became stronger, and with it grew the desire for life. Animated by it he sat up and made an effort to loosen the cord that still bound his ankles. It was tightly knotted, and the knot was so hardened with the water that for a long time his trembling fingers could make no impression on it. Still he persevered, and his exertions infused him with a slight warmth. Finally the knot yielded and his limbs were free, though so numbed that it was several minutes before he could stand up.

Knowing nothing of his surroundings he dared not move more than a step or two in any direction for fear of again plunging into that deadly water. Nor could he with outstretched arms touch a wall on any side.