The Air Patrol Part 4

"What a treasure!" said Lawrence. "Our old school porter at Rugton was pretty big about, but this fellow would make two of him. What a rag the chaps would have if we could transport him!"

"I can't spare him. He's an abiding joy. But come, let me take you round."

The next hour was spent in going over the not very extensive settlement.

The boys found that the portion on the west side of the gorge was divided into three. The first contained Mr. Appleton's dwelling-house, the engine-house and stores, and a set of small stamps, together with sheds for a.s.saying, and a number of huts occupied by the personal native servants and the Sikh garrison. The dwelling-house was built in an angle of the cliff, which rose sheer behind it. Between house and cliff, however, was a s.p.a.ce of about three yards filled with heavy beams, which were all loopholed. The whole of the enclosure in which the house stood was surrounded by a bank of earth about six feet high, formed of "tailings" from the mine. This bank was broken only in two places, one for the gate leading into the second enclosure or compound, the second for the drawbridge connecting with the east side of the gorge.

The second compound was somewhat smaller than the first. Here were to be seen barrows, trucks, and other implements; a line of rails led into a cave-like opening in the hillside, which, Mr. Appleton explained, was the entrance to a vein or lode sloping upwards into the heart of the mountain.

"It was lucky I hadn't to sink shafts," he said, "considering the difficulty of bringing mining appliances to this remote region."

"What led you to pitch here?" asked Bob.

"Well, you may call it accident, or you may put it down to my being possessed of a roving eye. I was hunting hereabout some years ago, and caught sight of what seemed to be an outcrop of copper ore. I poked about rather carefully, and collected a number of samples of this and other ores, which I had tested by a capital fellow in Peshawar. His a.s.says confirmed my suspicions, and I thought I couldn't do better than try my luck."

"Who does the place belong to?" asked Lawrence. "Do you pay rent?"

Mr. Appleton smiled.

"I'm afraid I'm a squatter," he said, "not unlike the ancestors of some people I could name nearer home. The natives, I believe, used to pay tribute to the Amir, and also to the Chinese emperor--a little gold dust (where they got it I don't know)--a dog or two, and a basket of apricots: some trivial thing like that; and as the people are nomads, their suzerains, I dare say, thought they were lucky to get anything.

Then the Russians came along, and among other unconsidered trifles snapped up this little no-man's land. They had a small military post a couple of marches across the hills to the north. This was raided by the Afghans when they got news of the Russian smash-up in Mongolia. The Mongols turned out the Afghans; then the post was destroyed by another Afghan raid; and since then n.o.body has troubled about it. It would puzzle even an international jurist in a Scotch university to decide who is the rightful sovereign of this tract of hill country; and meanwhile I'm on the spot, and I'll stay here and get on with my work until I'm turned out.

"This gallery here is worked by the Kalmucks: you saw some of them at the stamping presses as you came up. The slope makes it easy to dig the ore out, and also drains what little water there is: there's only a trickle, as you see. Come into the next compound."

He unlocked the door in the stout fence, and led the boys into a third enclosure, like the second, and having another line of rails leading into a gallery.

"This is the Pathan section," said Mr. Appleton. "There are not quite half as many Pathans as Kalmucks."

"I suppose you keep them apart for fear of ructions," said Bob.

"Partly," said Mr. Appleton, smiling a little as he added: "But there's another reason; I'll tell you that later. We are not treating the ore from this gallery at present. Look here."

He led them to the further fence, in which there was a gap, and bade them look down. They saw a heap of greenish rock lying in a deep saucer-shaped hollow between the yard and the river below. A line of rails ran from the mouth of the gallery to the gap, and while the three men stood there a couple of Pathans emerged from the hill, pushing a laden truck before them. On arriving at the fence they tilted up the truck, and the contents fell crashing upon the heap beneath.

"Now we'll go over the bridge and have a look at the miners' quarters on the other side," said Mr. Appleton. "I have to inspect them frequently: I'm magistrate, sanitary inspector, a regular Jack of all trades."

"Why did those two miners look at us so curiously when you were jawing them?" said Lawrence.

"I had just told them who you were, my nephews and the new superintendents. You've got to earn your living, you know. Bob will be responsible for the Pathans, and you for the Kalmucks. Of course you've a lot to learn."

"They looked as if they didn't much like their new bosses," said Bob.

"I daresay; but you'll be a comfort to me. I'm not troubled with nerves, but at times, I confess, I have felt what the old ladies call lonesome for want of a white man to talk to. The Babu is all very well, but now and again he worries me. When I'm tired and bothered he'll expound a knotty pa.s.sage of Browning or some other incomprehensible poet; and when I should enjoy a little stimulating conversation, he 'havers,' as the Scotch say, in a mixture of high falutin' and outrageous slang. Now that you are here I've no doubt he'll be nothing but the joy I find him in my cheerful moods. I'm very glad of your company, boys."

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

THE AEROPLANE ARRIVES

During the next three weeks the younger Appletons were fully occupied in studying the working of the mine. Dressed in calico overalls they penetrated into the torch-lit galleries and watched the miners at their work. They saw the process of crushing the ore, but Mr. Appleton's operations went little further, for owing to his distance from civilisation and the limited s.p.a.ce at his disposal, he left the final stages of purification to be performed in India. The boys were rather curious to know why the colours of the stains upon the clothing of the two bands of miners differed, but they forbore to question their uncle, guessing that he would tell them all in good time, and would meanwhile be pleased by their showing patience. In this they were right. Mr.

Appleton had no wish to keep any secrets from them; he was only waiting until he had learnt something of the characters of the two young fellows, whom he had not seen for several years, and at no time had had many opportunities of studying.

They both soon showed their bents. In the evenings, when work was done, there was little to occupy them. Mr. Appleton's books were few; they were mainly books on mining and grammars and dictionaries of the local dialects. Robert seized on the former; Lawrence devoted himself to the latter; and their uncle was very well pleased, for each of these studies would prove useful. Their recreations were for the present confined to an occasional game of chess or cards, a still rarer shooting expedition in the hills, and the reading of the rather dilapidated magazines which had come at odd times from India and home. Lawrence missed his cricket, and Bob his golf; but in spite of what Mr. Appleton had said about the impossibility of using the aeroplane when it should arrive, they both looked forward privately to trying their wings by and by.

Lawrence soon became popular with the natives. He had a turn for languages, and managed to pick up quickly a little Turki and sc.r.a.ps of the other tongues spoken by the very mixed crowd that const.i.tuted the mining staff. Robert had not the same quickness in learning languages, but he made himself useful on the engineering side. He had been accustomed to spend part of his holidays in the engine shops of the father of one of his schoolfellows, and found his experience valuable.

Once, for instance, when there was a breakdown of the somewhat crazy engine that worked the stamping presses, he was able to make the necessary repairs more quickly than Mr. Appleton himself, or the regular engine man, could have done. Mr. Appleton was a very good prospector and an all-round man in general, but he had no particular gift in the direction of mechanics, while the engine man had picked up from his master all he knew. He was a Gurkha, a short, compact little fellow, of hard muscles and a very quick intelligence. His race is more accustomed to military service than to machinery, and Fazl, as this man was named, had never seen a steam engine before he came to the mine. Mr. Appleton had found him wandering half starved in Turkestan two seasons before, and out of sheer kindness of heart put him on as cleaner. Some time after, the Mohammedan Bengali who had hitherto driven the engine asked leave to go home and bury his grandmother, and Fazl was promoted to his place. The Bengali, of course, never returned, and Fazl was still engine man.

One evening after supper Mr. Appleton said--

"Don't get your books yet, boys; I want to show you something."

He placed a Bunsen burner on the table, and brought a blowpipe and a piece of charcoal from a cupboard. Then he took from his pocket a small lump of ore, which he laid on the charcoal with a little powdered carbonate of soda, and proceeded to treat in the Bunsen flame. The boys watched his experiment curiously. After a time they saw a bright bead form itself on the surface of the ore. Mr. Appleton laid down the blowpipe.

"What do you make of that?" he said.

"Is it tin?" asked Robert.

"Well, I have known school-boys call it 'tin' in the shape of sixpenny bits. It is silver. Now I'll let you into my secret. The ore obtained from the farther gallery, and dumped down into that very convenient cavity, contains almost pure silver; there's method in my madness, you see. n.o.body knows it but yourselves; though I can't say what some of the men may suspect. I don't attempt to work it for the simple reason that I don't want the news to get about. If it became generally known that I have struck silver, somebody might put in a claim to this neglected region, and I should either have to decamp or be in constant fear of attack. As it is, I think I am pretty secure; and when I have got a sufficient quant.i.ty of the ore I shall close down, dismiss the men, and carry the stuff to India."

"But isn't there silver also in the other gallery?" asked Bob.

"No. The two metals, so far as I can discover, lie in parallel vertical streaks, with a band of quartz between them, and the men who are working at the copper know nothing of the silver a few feet away. You see now the reason why I keep the Kalmucks and the Pathans apart. The Kalmucks work the copper; they belong more or less to the neighbourhood; but the Pathans come from far distant parts, and if they should discover that their ore is silver, they are not at all so likely as the Kalmucks to bring unwelcome visitors upon me. I confess I was a little uneasy when I heard the explanation of that scrimmage we happened upon as we rode down. I wondered whether Nurla Bai's presence in the Pathan section was due to some suspicion of the truth. But he has given no more trouble, and I hope that I was wrong."

"He's a sulky beggar," said Lawrence. "I can't get a word out of him, and I don't like those ugly eyes of his."

"I'm watching him," said Mr. Appleton. "He works well, and has a great influence with the other Kalmucks. He's certainly far and away more intelligent, and he has brought in a good many labourers. In fact, I had to put a stop to his recruiting. I wanted to keep the Kalmucks pretty equal in number to the Pathans, but, as you see, they already outnumber them by more than two to one. One great nuisance is their possession of firearms. I tried to induce them to hand them over when I engaged them, but in these regions the hillmen are as tenacious of their guns as our sailors are of their knives. Without my police Pathans and Kalmucks would be at each other's throats."

A few days after this conversation, the caravan which the boys had for some time been expecting arrived. It was larger than that which had accompanied them, and Mr. Appleton threw up his hands with a dismay that was not wholly feigned when he saw how many additional mules had been required for the transport of the aeroplane.

"You said two or three," he remarked to Bob as the laden beasts defiled along the path; "but I'm sure there are seven or eight more than my stuff needed."

"I expect it's the petrol," said Bob humbly.

"You didn't mention petrol."

"No; but of course we couldn't work the engine without it, and I left word to send up a good quant.i.ty. I didn't suppose you had any on the spot."

"And wasn't there a single sensible creature to tell you that you can't go skylarking with an aeroplane in the Hindu Kush? Whoever sold you the petrol must have laughed in his sleeve."

"He seemed uncommon glad to sell it, anyway," said Bob, a trifle nettled.

"Of course he was. There are no end of sharks always on the watch for a griffin. He sold the petrol, and he sold you. And the expense of it!

D'you know how much it costs to bring a mule from India here?"

"You can dock it out of my screw," growled Bob.