The Copper Princess: A Story of Lake Superior Mines

The next day he went with his new-found friends to the mine, where, in the "Dry," he saw the underground laborers change into their red-stained working-suits. Then he watched them clamber, a dozen at a time, into the great ore-cages and disappear with startling suddenness down the black shaft into unknown depths of darkness. After all were gone he spent some time in the "compressor-room" of the engine-house with Tom, who was there on duty. The remainder of the day he passed in wandering among shaft-houses, rock-crushers, ore-cars, and shops, making close observations, asking questions, and gaining a deal of information concerning the mining of copper.

That evening Mark Trefethen told him that he had made arrangements by which he could, if he chose, go to work in the mine the following morning. "Job's wi' timber gang, lad," he said, "in bottom level. It's hard work and little pay at first – only one twenty-five the day – but if 'ee's game for it, job's thine."

"I am game to try it, at any rate," replied the young man, gratefully, "and will also try my best to prevent you from being ashamed of me."

"No fear, lad. Only fear is I'll be proud of thee, and lat others see it, which would be very bad indeed. Now, I'll bate 'ee hasn't rag of clothing fit for mine work."

"I have only what I am wearing," answered Peveril, who had left his trunks in Hancock, "but I guess they will do until I can earn the money to buy others more suitable."

"Do, lad! They'd be ruined forever in first five minutes. Besides, thee'd be laughing-stock of whole mine, if 'ee went down dressed like Jim Dandy. No, no; come along of me and I'll rig 'ee out proper."

So Peveril was taken to the company store, where, with Mark Trefethen to vouch for him, he was allowed to purchase, on credit, two blue-flannel shirts, a suit of brown canvas, a pair of heavy hobnailed shoes, two pairs of woollen socks, a hard, round-topped hat, a dinner-pail, and a miner's lamp. As these things were, by order of the timber boss, charged to "Dick Peril," that was the name under which our young Oxonian began his new life and became known in the strange community to which erratic fortune had led him.

On the following morning he sallied forth from the Trefethen cottage with a tin dinner-pail on one arm, his working-suit under the other, and uncomfortably conscious that he was curiously regarded by every person whom he met on his way to the mine. As the "Dry" was already overcrowded, he shared Tom's locker, and was grateful for the opportunity of changing his clothing in the comparative seclusion of the compressor-room rather than in company with the two hundred men who thronged the steam-heated building devoted especially to that purpose.

Having assumed his new garments, and feeling very awkward in them, Peveril made his way to the shaft-mouth. There he was joined by Mark Trefethen, who regarded the change made in his protégé's appearance with approving eyes. Together, and in company with a stream of men talking in a bewildering Babel of tongues, they climbed flight after flight of wooden stairs to the uppermost floor of the tall shaft-house.

An empty cage that had just deposited its load of copper conglomerate was again ready to descend into the black depths, and, hurrying Peveril forward, Mark Trefethen, with half a dozen other miners, entered it. An iron gate closed behind them and a gong clanged in the engine-house.

"Hold fast, lad, and remember there's no danger," was all that the timber boss had time to say. Then the bottom seemed to drop out of everything, and Peveril, experiencing the sickening sensation of having left his stomach at the top of the shaft, found himself rushing downward with horrible velocity through utter blackness. Instinctively reaching out for something by which to hold on, he clutched a rough-coated arm, but his grasp was rudely shaken off, and a gruff voice bade him keep his hands to himself.

He could not frame an answer, for his brain was in a whirl, his ears were filled with a dull roaring, and a whistling rush of air caught away his breath. The motion of the cage was so smooth and noiseless that after a while he could not tell whether it were going up or down, though it seemed to be doing both, as though poised on a gigantic spring. At length faint glimmers of light began to flash past as it shot by the mouths of working levels, and finally it stopped with a jerk that threw its passengers into a confused huddle.

A gate was flung open, and as Peveril stumbled out of the cage he was only conscious of dancing lights, a crashing rumble of iron against iron, and a medley of shouting voices. At the same time all these sounds seemed far away and unreal.

CHAPTER VI

A MILE BENEATH THE SURFACE

"Swallow, lad!"

Mark Trefethen uttered the words, and Peveril, dimly comprehending him, instinctively obeyed. The effect of that simple muscular action was marvellous. His brain was instantly cleared of its weight, the ringing in his ears ceased, and his hearing was restored to its normal keenness. At the same time he was happily conscious that his stomach had been restored to its proper position.

"This is plat of bottom level, and we're a mile underground," continued Mark. "They put us down in one-thirty this time, but often they do it ten seconds better."

"I wonder how much longer it would take to drop from a balloon one mile above the earth?" reflected Peveril, at the same time gazing about him with a lively interest.

The place in which he stood was a spacious room, hewn from solid rock. Lighted by several lanterns and little, flaring mine-lamps, it was also smoothly floored with iron plates, and from it a narrow-gauge railway led away into the blackness. Articles of clothing and dinner-pails were hung about the walls, and on the side opposite the shaft was a bench of rude workmanship.

Every few minutes an iron car holding several tons of copper rock was run into the plat with a tremendous clatter from the little railway that penetrated to every "drift" and "stope" of the level. Each of these cars was pushed by a team of three wild-looking men, who were stripped naked to the waist. Their haggard faces and naked bodies were begrimed with powder-smoke, stained red with ore-dust, and gleamed in the fitful lamp-light with trickling rivulets of perspiration. The car-pushers were all foreigners – Italians, Bohemians, Hungarians, or Poles – and the uncouth jargon of their shouts intensified the wildness of their appearance. Theirs was the very lowest form of mine drudgery, and but few of them were possessed of intelligence or ambition sufficient to raise them above it.

One, who was accounted somewhat brighter than his fellows, by whom he was regarded as a leader, had indeed been promoted on trial by the timber boss to a position in his own gang. He was a perfect brute for strength, but so densely ignorant and of such sullen disposition that when a better man was offered, in the person of Dick Peveril, the boss was only too glad to return him to his hated task of car-pushing and accept the new-comer in his place. His sentence of degradation, pronounced only the day before, had been received as a personal affront by every wild-eyed car-pusher of the mine. All knew that some one must fill the place from which their leader had been ousted, and all were prepared to hate him the moment his identity should be disclosed.

Thus, as Peveril stumbled awkwardly out of the cage in which he had just made that breathless, mile-deep descent, he was instantly spotted as being a new man, and a team of car-pushers, slaking their thirst at a water-barrel in one corner of the plat, gazed at him with scowling intentness, that they might minutely describe his appearance to their fellows. As he knew nothing of the circumstances through which a place had been made for him, he paid no attention to these men, other than to note their savage appearance as a feature of his novel surroundings.

In fact, he had barely time to take a single comprehensive glance around the plat before a man who had been one of his fellow-passengers in the cage remarked, sneeringly:

"Pretty well scared, wasn't you, young feller?"

"Yes, I was," replied Peveril, turning and facing his questioner. "But how did you know it?"

"By the way you grabbed my arm. If you'd done it again I'd have punched your head; for I don't 'low no man to catch holt on me that way."

Peveril had already recognized the speaker's face; but, without deigning a further reply, he turned to Mark Trefethen and said:

"Will you kindly give me the name of this unpleasant person, as I wish to file it away in my memory for future reference?"

"Person be blowed!" exclaimed the man, stepping forward with a menacing gesture. "What do you mean by calling me names, you damned – "

"Shut up, Mike Connell, and go about your business," commanded the timber boss. "Come, lad, he's not worth noticing," and, thus saying, Mark Trefethen led Peveril away.

Although the car-pushers had not caught the words of this brief conversation, they had readily understood Mike Connell's threatening gesture towards the new-comer, and several times during that day one or more of them might have been seen in low-voiced consultation with the scowling-faced Irishman.

"Here, lad, fill lamp wi' sunlight," said the timber boss, as he and his protégé were leaving the plat. "First rule of mine is always have lamp in trim, and carry candle, besides plenty of matches in pocket."

With this Mark scooped up in his hand a small quantity of a stiff, whitish substance from an open box beside them, and stuffed it into his lamp. The box was indeed marked "Sunlight," but when Peveril followed his companion's example he found its contents to be merely solidified paraffine.

With their lamps well filled and flaring brightly, the two walked for half a mile through a dry and well-ventilated gallery, which had been driven by drill and blast through solid rock, and from which thousands of tons of copper had been taken. Now Peveril learned for the first time what "timbering" a mine meant, and realized the necessity for the huge piles of great logs that he had seen above ground in close proximity to the shaft. Not only had it been incased on all four sides by logs mortised together and laid up like the walls of a house, but the drift through which he now walked was timbered from end to end. Its roof was upheld by huge tree-trunks standing from ten to twenty feet apart, and occasionally in groups of three or four together. Supported by them, and pressing against the roof or "hanging," were other great timbers known as "wall plates," and behind these was a compactly laid sheathing of split timber spoken of as "lagging."

As the two men advanced deeper into the drift, an occasional ore-car, pushed by its panting human team, rumbled heavily past, while every now and then came dull, tremulous shocks like those of an earthquake. These were blasts on other levels, or in other parts of the one on which they were.

At sound of a confused shouting from somewhere ahead of them, they stood still until, with a crashing roar that bellowed and echoed through the galleries like a peal of loudest thunder, one of these blasts was fired close at hand. A minute later they were enveloped in a pungent smoke, through which twinkled dimly a score of lights. Brawny, half-naked forms were already wielding pick and shovel amid the masses of rock just loosened, a powerful air-drill was being placed in position for another attack upon the wall of tough rock, and a small timber gang was struggling to hoist a huge log that they called a "stull" into position.

"Here's the place, lad. Take hold and give a lift. Now, boys, altogether"! shouted Mark Trefethen, and in another moment Dick Peveril found himself hard at work.

Within a few minutes the new hand was as begrimed and dripping with perspiration as any member of the gang, all of whom exchanged significant glances as they noted the willingness with which he exerted his great strength. Never had the heavy timbers been set in place so quickly, and never in their remembrance had a green hand "caught on" so readily.

"He won't last long, though, at that pace," remarked one of the older men to Trefethen, as he paused to wipe the sweat-drops from his eyes, "he's too fresh."

"Perhaps not," replied the timber boss. "We'll give him a bit of a try, though, before dropping him," and then he walked away to inspect the operations of another gang in a distant part of the mine.

Late that day, as Peveril's first shift of work drew towards its close, he ached in every part of his body, but was learning his new trade so rapidly that his fellows were already beginning to regard him as one of the best men in their gang. He had made several trips to and from the foot of the timber-shaft in company with others, and so, when, shortly before quitting time, the foreman of his gang sang out:

"Oh, Peril! Just run back to the stack and bring us one of them small sprags. Hurry, now!" the new man started without a moment's hesitation.

Without a word the miner directed his companion's attention to the figure still bending over the log pile, and made several significant gestures. The brutish face of the pusher lighted with an ugly leer, expressive of understanding, and he began to move cautiously towards the man who had that day displaced him from the timber gang. As he had left his light on the car, there was nothing to warn Peveril of his approach until he was close at hand and about to deliver a cowardly blow.

At that instant the mysterious premonition that always gives warning of human presence caused the young man to turn his head. Although he was too late to avoid the impending blow, it was deflected by his movement, and instead of stunning him it merely caused him to stagger and drop his lamp. He also partially warded off a closely following second blow, and then his own terrible fist was planted with crashing force full on his assailant's jaw.

The man uttered a scream of agony, covered his face with his hands, and started to run. At this moment the other two car-pushers appeared on the scene, and with fierce cries began a furious attack upon the young man whom they had sworn either to kill or drive from the mine. At this time the battleground was only dimly illumined by the flickering light of the miner who was thus far sole spectator of the contest. Peveril fought in dogged silence, but his assailants uttered shrill cries in an unknown tongue. Attracted by these, other lights began to appear from both directions, and all at once Mark Trefethen's gruff tones were heard demanding to know what was going on.

At this sound Peveril uttered a joyful shout, while at the same moment the light in Mike Connell's hat was extinguished.

Recognizing his protégé's voice, the timber boss sprang to his side, and within another minute the two car-pushers would have been annihilated had not the coming of a second car given them a reinforcement of three more half-naked savages.

Thus beset and outnumbered by more than two to one, Trefethen thought it no shame to call for aid, and, uplifting his mighty voice, he sent rolling and echoing through the rock-bound galleries the rallying cry of the Cornishmen:

"One and all for Cornwall! One and all!"

CHAPTER VII

CORNWALL TO THE RESCUE

"One and all!" The rallying-cry of the most clannish county in England. The one in which, from Land's End to Plymouth Sound, every family claims some degree of cousinship with every other, until, at home and abroad, "Cousin Richard" is the name proudly borne by all Cornishmen.

"One and all!" As the startling cry rang through the black underground depths it was heard and answered, caught up and repeated, until it penetrated the remotest corners of the far-reaching level. At its sound the men of Cornwall, working in stope or drift, breast or cross-cut, dropped their tools and sprang to obey its summons. By twos and threes they ran, shouting the magic words that Cornish tongues have carried around the world. They met in eager groups, each demanding to know who had first given the alarm and its cause. As none could answer, and the shouts still came from far away, they swept on, in ever-increasing numbers and with growing anxiety, for the call of Cornwall is never given save in an emergency.

In the meantime the fight between two and five rages with unabated fury; the two, with their backs to a wall, putting up the splendid defence of trained boxers against the fierce but untaught rush of mere brutes. Science, however, labored under the disadvantage of fighting in a gloom that was almost darkness, for Mark Trefethen's lamp had been extinguished at the outset, and the only one still burning was on a car standing at a distance from them.

Of a sudden the timber boss heard a groan at his side, and found himself fighting alone. His comrade had sunk limply to the ground, and an exultant yell from the others proclaimed their knowledge that they had no longer to fear his telling blows. As they were about to rush in and complete their victory, the battle-cry of Cornwall, accompanied by the flash of many lights, came rolling down the gallery.

Help was close at hand. If Mark Trefethen could hold out for another minute he would be surrounded by friends. With an answering shout of "One and all!" he sprang to meet his assailants, and, realizing their danger, they fled before him. At the same instant the lamp on their car disappeared, and in the utter darkness that followed Trefethen could only grope his way back to Peveril's side.

A moment later the flaring lights of the Cornish miners disclosed the old man, with face battered and bleeding, standing grimly undaunted beside the motionless form of the newest comer to the mine. The latter lay unconscious, with an ugly wound on the side of his head, from which blood was flowing freely. It had been made by a fragment of copper rock, evidently taken from the loaded car close at hand, and flung from that direction. Several other similar pieces were picked up near where the two men had defended themselves, and, now that Trefethen had time for reflection, he recalled having heard these crash against the wall behind him.

Who had flung them was a mystery, as was the cause of the attack on Peveril. Even the identity of his assailants seemed likely to remain unrevealed, for these had slipped away in the darkness, and though the rescuing party searched the level like a swarm of angry hornets, they could not discover a man bearing on his person any signs of the recent fray.

In the gloom shrouding the scene of conflict, Mark Trefethen had not been able to recognize those with whom he fought, but only knew them to be foreigners and car-pushers. It afterwards transpired that a number of these had, on that evening, made their way to a shaft a mile distant, and so gained the surface. One of them was reported to have had his head tied up as the result of an accident, but no one had recognized him.

While certain of the Cornishmen searched the mine, Trefethen and others bore the still unconscious form of Richard Peveril to the plat, and sounded the alarm signal of five bells. Nothing so startles a mining community as to have this signal come from underground. It may mean death and disaster. It surely means that there are injured men to be brought up to the surface, and the time elapsing before their arrival is always filled with deepest anxiety.

It was so in the present case, and when the cage containing the two battered miners, one of whom had also every appearance of being dead, emerged from the shaft, a throng of spectators was waiting to greet it.

These learned with a great sigh of relief that there had been no accident, but merely a fight, in which the men just brought up were supposed to be the only ones injured. Their revulsion of feeling led many of the spectators to treat the whole affair as a joke, especially as the only person seriously hurt was a stranger.

"It's always new-comers as stirs up shindies," growled a miner who, having reached the surface a few minutes earlier, formed one of the expectant group. "They ought not to be let underground, I say."

"How about Trefethen?" asked a voice. "He's no new-comer."

"Oh, Mark's a quarrelsome old cuss, who's always meddling where he has no call."

"You lie, Mike Connell, and you know it. My father never fights without good cause," cried Tom Trefethen, who had arrived just in time to resent the slurring remark.

"I'll teach you, you young whelp!" shouted the miner, springing furiously forward; but Tom leaped aside, leaving the other to be confronted by several burly Cornishmen, in whose ears was still ringing the cry of "One and all!"

"Lad's right, Maister Connell," said one of these. "If 'ee doan't believe it, come along and get proof."

But the Irishman, muttering something about not caring to fight all Cornwall, turned abruptly and walked away.

Tom Trefethen, not yet knowing that Peveril had been hurt, also hurried away to find his father, who, having left his young friend in the hands of the mine surgeon, had gone to change his clothing. At the same time poor Peveril lay in a small room of the shaft-house, having the gash in his head sewn up. Several spectators regarded the operation curiously, and among them was a gentleman, addressed by the doctor as Mr. Owen, whom none of the others remembered to have seen before, but who seemed to take a great interest in the still unconscious sufferer.

"Do you consider it a serious case, doctor?" he asked.

"No. Not at all serious. These miners are a tough lot, and not easily done for, as you'll find out before you have seen as much of them as I have. This one will probably be out and at work again in a day or two. I'm always having such little jobs on my hands, the results of accident, mostly, though this, I believe, is a case of fighting, something very uncommon in our mine, I can assure you. Splendid physique, hasn't he? Savage-looking face, though. Hate to trust myself alone with him. I understand old Mark Trefethen had a hard tussle before he brought him to terms."

"What was the trouble?"

"I don't know, exactly. Insubordination, I suppose; but old Mark don't put up with any nonsense."

"Do you know this fellow's name, or anything about him?"

"Um – yes. I have learned something, but not much. His name is Peril – Richard Peril. Odd name, isn't it? He's a new-comer, and, like yourself, has just entered the company's employ. Rather a contrast in your positions, though. Illustrates the difference between one brought up and educated as a gentleman, and one destined from the first for the other thing, eh? It is all poppycock to say that education can make a gentleman; don't you think so? In the present case, for instance, I doubt if even Oxford could make a gentleman of this fellow. His whole expression is a protest against such a supposition. But now he's coming to all right, and I'm glad of it, for I have an engagement at the club, and don't want to spend much more time with him."

Poor Peveril, whose begrimed and blood-streaked face was not calculated to prepossess one in his favor, began just then to have a realizing sense that he was still alive, and the doctor, bending over him, said:

"There now, my man, you are doing nicely, and by taking care of yourself you will be about again in a day or two. You had a close call, though, and it's a warning to behave yourself in the future; for I can assure you that one given to fighting or disobedience of orders is not allowed to linger in these parts. I must leave you now, but will call again this evening to see how you are getting along. What is your address?"

"He lives along of us, sir," answered Tom Trefethen, who had just entered the room; "and if you think it's safe to move him, we'll take him right home."

"Certainly you can move him; in fact, he could walk if there was no other way; but it will be as well to take him in a carriage. Let me see, your name is Trefethen, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well; put your boarder to bed as soon as you get him home, keep him quiet, give him only cooling drinks, and I'll call round after a while. Now I must hurry along."

The stranger, who walked away with the self-important young doctor, was none other than Peveril's Oxford classmate – "Dig" Owen – who, having obtained a position in the Eastern office of the White Pine Mining Company, had been advised to visit the mine and learn something of its practical working before assuming his new duties. He had just arrived when the rumor of an accident caused him to hurry to the shaft-mouth. There he was thunderstruck at recognizing in one of the two men brought up from the depths his recent college-mate and rival. In the excitement of the moment he had very nearly betrayed the fact of their acquaintance, but managed to restrain himself, and was afterwards careful to keep out of Peveril's sight, foreseeing a great advantage to himself by so doing.