The Copper Princess: A Story of Lake Superior Mines

It must be confessed that Peveril's present appearance was not so prepossessing as it had been at other times, and might be again. He had lost his hat, his hair was uncombed, his hands were bruised and soiled, while his clothing was torn and covered with dirt from the underground passages through which he had so recently struggled. But his face was quite clean, for he had just given it a thorough scrubbing, and to it the girl's gaze was principally directed.

It was Peveril who first broke the embarrassing silence.

"I am very glad to see you again," he said, "and to find that you are a real flesh-and-blood girl, instead of only a vision, or a sort of a rock-nymph, as I imagined you might be from the way you disappeared that other time."

"What makes you think I am a girl?" asked Mary Darrell, whose face was the only part of her that Peveril could see.

"Why, because," he began, hesitatingly – "because you are too good-looking to be anything but a girl, and because – Oh, well, because I am certain that you are. What else could you be, anyway?"

Mary Darrell's face was crimson, but still she answered, stoutly, "I might be a boy, you know."

"No, indeed. No boy could blush as you are doing at this moment."

In reply, the girl rose to her feet and stepped out on the ledge in full view of the young man. She was clad in a golf suit, neat-fitting and becoming, but masculine in every detail. She had become so accustomed to dressing in that way that she was perfectly at her ease in the costume, and even preferred it to her own proper garments.

"I beg your pardon," stammered poor Peveril, as he gazed in bewilderment at the apparition thus presented. "I'm awfully ashamed to have made such a stupid mistake, but really, you know – "

"Oh, it's all right," replied the other, "and you needn't apologize. I have so often been taken for a girl that I am quite used to it. And now may I ask who you are? why you are here? what you are doing down there? how you propose to get away? and – "

"Hold on, my dear fellow!" interrupted Peveril. "Don't you think your list of questions is already long enough without adding any more?"

"I suppose it is," laughed the other, assuming a seat in an expectant attitude at the base of the stunted cedar.

The novelty of the situation, combined with its absolute safety, so far as she was concerned, was fascinating to the lonely girl. "Now you may begin," she added, "and tell me everything you know about yourself."

"That would be altogether too long a story," replied Peveril, a little nettled at what he mentally termed the cheek of the youth. "Besides," he continued, "I am too nearly starved to do much talking, seeing that, for more days than I can remember, I have had nothing to eat but a rat, and – "

"A rat!" cried the other, in a tone of horror. "You didn't really eat a rat?"

"Indeed I did, and I would gladly eat another at this very minute, I am so hungry. Don't you think you could get me one? Or if you had any cold victuals that you could spare – "

At that moment Mary Darrell, without waiting to hear another word, jumped up and disappeared, leaving Peveril to wonder what had struck the young fellow, and hoping that he had gone for something in the shape of food.

"I wish I'd got him to let down that rope again first," he said to himself, as he paced back and forth across the ledge; "then I could have pulled myself up and gone with him, thereby saving both time and trouble. I would have sworn, though, that he was a girl. Never was so deceived in my life. He must have a sister, and perhaps they are twins, for it surely was a girl that I saw here the other time. All the same, I'm rather glad she isn't on hand just now, for I should hate to have any girl see me in my present disguise. My appearance must be decidedly tough and tramp-like. Wonder if I can't do something to improve it? That chap might be just idiot enough to bring his sister back with him."

Thus thinking, the young man attempted to get a look at himself in the water-mirror of the lake, and was trying to comb his hair with his fingers, when a merry laugh from above put an end to his toilet and caused him to start up in confusion.

His young friend of the golf suit had returned, and was letting down a small basket attached to a stout cord.

"Oh no," said the other, hurriedly, "I can't do that. But look out! catch the basket. I am sorry not to have brought you a better lunch, but you seemed in such a hurry that I thought you might not be particular."

"It's fine," rejoined Peveril, who was already making a ravenous attack on the bread and cold meat contained in the basket. "You couldn't have brought me anything that I should have liked better, or that would have done me more good, and I am a thousand times obliged."

A few minutes of silence ensued after this, while the one in the golf suit eagerly watched the other satisfy his hunger.

When the last crumb of food had disappeared, Peveril heaved a sigh of content. "I feel like a new man now," he said, "and if you will only be so kind as to throw down that tackle – "

"But you haven't answered a single one of my questions," interrupted the other.

"Can't I do that up there as well as here?"

"No, I want them answered right off, now."

"Well, you are a queer sort of a chap," retorted Peveril; "but, seeing that you were so kind about the lunch, I don't mind humoring you a bit. Let me see: What were they? Oh! First – who am I? Well, I am Richard Peveril; but beyond that I hardly know how to answer. Second – why am I here? Because I can't get away. Third – what am I doing? Answering questions. Fourth – how do I propose to get away? By climbing the rope that you will let down to me, of course, and then have you show me the same way out of the cavern that you take."

"Oh, but I can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because I have promised never to show it to any one. But, if you don't know the way, how did you get into the cavern?"

"If you'll show me your way out, I'll show you mine," replied Peveril, who was growing impatient.

"I tell you I can't. It is simply impossible."

"Oh, well! I won't urge you, then. Only let down the rope, so that I can get up to where you are, and I'll manage to find my own way out."

"But I don't dare even to do that," answered the other, in genuine distress.

"You don't mean to leave me down here forever, do you?"

"No, of course not; but – Oh, I know! I'll send a boat for you. So, just wait patiently a little while longer and you shall be taken off."

"I say! hold on!" cried Richard; but his words were unheeded, for, acting on the impulse of the moment, the other had disappeared, and he was talking to empty space.

"Confound the boy!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "I never heard of anything so utterly absurd. Why, in the name of common-sense, should he object to showing me the way out of his old cave? One would think that ordinary humanity – But boys are such heartless young beggars that there's no such thing as appealing to their sympathies. If it had only been his sister now!"

In the meantime Mary Darrell had hastened from the cavern full of her new plan for rescuing the prisoner without betraying the secret of the underground passage.

She at first thought of appealing to her father for aid, but, remembering his bitterness against the young man, decided to act without him. So she called two miners who were at work about the mouth of the shaft and bade them follow her. As they did so she led the way to the basin, and, entering a boat, ordered the men to row her out into the lake.

They obeyed without hesitation, and, as Mary steered, she soon had the satisfaction of seeing her prisoner just where she had left him.

He was at the same time relieved of a growing anxiety by the approach of the boat, in which he finally recognized the young fellow who, although acting so curiously, had, on the whole, proved himself a friend.

The boat approached so close to the ledge that Mary had given the order to cease rowing before the oarsmen turned their heads to see where they were. As they did so, they uttered a simultaneous cry of terror, again seized their oars, whirled their light craft around, and, in spite of Mary Darrell's angry protestations, began to row with frantic haste back in the direction from which they had come.

Although Peveril was not so much surprised at this proceeding as he might have been had he not recognized the villain Rothsky in the bow-oarsman, he was bitterly disappointed, and paced up and down his narrow prison with restless impatience.

"Oh! If I ever get out of this scrape!" he cried.

Less than an hour afterwards, when Mary Darrell again entered the cavern, but this time in company with her father, to whom she had confided the whole story, Peveril had disappeared. There was no boat to be seen, and they were confident that none had been on the coast that day. The derrick, with its tackle, was just as Mary had left it, yet neither in the cavern nor on the ledge was a trace of the young man to be seen.

CHAPTER XXI

MIKE CONNELL TO THE RESCUE

On the very day that the White Pine logging expedition had been so completely disbanded, the tug Broncho had been sent up the coast in a hurry after a supply of timber. She reached Laughing Fish Cove in the evening after Peveril's departure from his camp, and spent the night there awaiting him. Her captain was greatly perplexed by the failure of any of the party to put in an appearance, and the more so when he learned from the fishermen that Peveril had returned alone only to depart again on foot soon afterwards.