The Copper Princess Part 15

At length a slight sound caused him to turn quickly and look upward.

To his dismay and astonishment the tackle by which he had lowered himself had disappeared. Unless he could make up his mind to swim for miles through water of icy coldness, he was as truly a prisoner on that ledge of rock as ever he had been in the underground depths from which he had so recently escaped.

CHAPTER XIX

"DARRELL'S FOLLY" AND ITS OWNER

Ralph Darrell was possessed by a pa.s.sion for acc.u.mulating wealth, and, not satisfied with the certain but slow gains of his legitimate business of banking, was always on the lookout for extraordinary investments, in which he was willing to take great risks on the chance of receiving proportionate returns. During an excitement caused by marvellous finds of copper in the upper peninsula of Michigan, he, too, caught the fever, and became convinced that here was his opportunity for acquiring a fortune.

From experts in whom he placed confidence he received such good accounts of a certain mineral tract located on Keweenaw Point, where mines of fabulous richness were already opened, that he purchased it, and persuaded Richard Peveril's father to become a.s.sociated with him in a scheme for its development.

When the crash came, and their golden dreams were dispelled by a rude awakening, he had sunk his own modest fortune, together with half of Peveril's, in a barren mine, and the blow was so heavy as to partially deprive him of his reason. He imagined himself to be the object of a conspiracy, headed by his partner, to obtain entire control of the mine, which he also imagined to be immensely valuable.

For the purpose of protecting the interests that he fancied to be thus endangered, Ralph Darrell disappeared from his home, made his way to the scene of his wrecked hopes, and took up a solitary abode in the deserted mining village. Although he was now a desperate man, and also one so crazed by misfortune that he believed every rock taken from the Copper Princess to be rich in metal, he retained much of the business shrewdness gained by years of experience. At the same time, he had become sly, suspicious of his fellows, and absolutely non-communicative. He had conceived the idea of holding on to the mine, and at the same time spreading reports of its worthlessness until the term of contract had expired, when he hoped that, in default of other claims, the entire property would fall into his hands. Then he would proclaim its true value and reap his long-delayed reward.

So he lived alone in the comfortable house that had been built for the manager of the mine, held no intercourse with his widely scattered neighbors, discouraged all attempts on the part of outsiders to learn anything concerning him, rejoiced when he heard his mine spoken of as "Darrell's Folly," and devoted himself to keeping its valuable plant in repair, against the time when he should be free to use it for his own sole benefit.

In looking about for some method of acquiring means with which to reopen and work the mine when it should be wholly his, he ran across a crew of Canadian fishermen, who were also smugglers in a small way, and, joining them, soon developed their unlawful trade into a flourishing business.

Having discovered a deep cavern opening on the lake and extending close to the cellar of the very house in which he dwelt, he decided to use it as a receptacle and hiding-place for smuggled goods. To enhance its value for this purpose, he connected it with his own residence by an underground pa.s.sage. On this he expended a vast amount of labor, digging it with his own hands, and holding it a secret from every human being. Even the smugglers, who implicitly obeyed his orders, since he had made it so profitable for them to do so, knew nothing of it, nor what became of their goods after they were delivered at night on a certain rocky ledge, and hoisted up the face of the cliff to some place that they never saw. Nor were the peddlers, by whom these same goods were carried far and wide, any wiser, for they always transacted their business with "old man" Darrell, and received their merchandise after dark, in a certain room of his house, the only one they were ever allowed to enter.

Not only had Darrell retained to himself the secret of the cavern, but he had also conceived the idea of hiding it from the observation of pa.s.sing vessels by means of a canvas screen drawn over its entrance, and cleverly painted to resemble the adjacent cliffs.

Surrounded by these safeguards, and further protected by its locality in that desolate region, the unlawful business flourished amazingly.

It not only yielded its chief promoter a sufficient income to support his family comfortably in their distant Eastern home and enable him to keep his mining-plant in good repair, but each year saw a very tidy surplus stored away for the future development of the Copper Princess.

Darrell had learned of his partner's death, and waited anxiously for years to hear from the Peveril heirs. As they remained silent, and made no claim against the property in which his own life was so completely bound up, he cherished the belief that they considered it too worthless even to investigate, and that he would be left in undisturbed possession to the end. He became so emboldened by this belief that, when the term of contract had so nearly expired that it had but a few months more to run, he even began in a small way to resume work in the mine. Thus he had it pumped out and partially retimbered. He also started work on a new level, and in every way possible, without attracting too much attention, got his property ready for the great scheme of development upon which he was determined the moment he should be freed from his contract.

In the meantime his wife had died, and his only child, who had been born since he entered upon this strange existence, had come to share his lonely home. As she was but twelve years old when this great change in her life took place, she of course knew nothing of business, and had never heard of such a thing as smuggled goods. In her eyes everything that her dear papa did was right, and she was too happy at being permitted to become in any degree his a.s.sistant to think of questioning his methods.

So the secret of the cavern and its underground connection was finally confided to her. She was also intrusted with the duty of watching for the little vessels that brought the goods in which her father dealt, and of hanging out the signal-lights by which their movements were guided. As these lights were always displayed from the stunted cedar at the mouth of the cavern, and as this place also served her for a post of observation, she pa.s.sed much of her time within the limits of the great cave.

Her father had won her promise never to mention the existence of the cavern, and had also warned her not to allow herself to be seen in it.

There was, however, no necessity of such a warning, for Mary Darrell was too proud of her great secret to share it. Even Aunty Nimmo, the old black nurse who had come West with her, and had remained to care for her ever since, was not told of the cavern, though she shrewdly suspected its existence.

If to the foregoing explanation it is added that the little trading-vessels, which were also to all appearance fisher-boats, never took on their return cargoes from the cavern, but always at either Laughing Fish Cove or the land-locked basin, the situation as it existed at the time of Peveril's appearance on the scene will be understood.

As the sister schooner of the one that had carried off Joe Pintaud was due to arrive at about this date, Mary Darrell was keeping a sharp watch for it, and paying frequent visits to her post of observation at the mouth of the cavern for that purpose. On each of these she of course drew aside the painted curtain, thereby letting in a rush of air that penetrated to the innermost recesses of the great cavity behind her.

It was a little breath from one of these that, finding its way through the aperture beside the slab of rock, and so on down the narrow pa.s.sage that led to the prehistoric mine, had blown out Peveril's candle. Of course the girl, who was the innocent cause of that bit of mischief, had no idea of what the breeze was doing, for neither she nor her father, or any one else for that matter, knew of the existence of the old workings so close at hand.

On the following morning Mary again entered the cavern, singing light-heartedly as she did so. This time she remained but a few minutes, for she had something to attend to in the house; but she held aside the canvas curtain long enough to look out, a.s.sure herself that no vessel was in sight, and to allow another inrush of air. From it a second little breeze found its way beneath the great slab and into the darkness of the underground pa.s.sage, where it restored poor, despairing Peveril to life and hope by cooling his fevered brow and carrying the sound of singing to his ears.

The very next time the girl entered the cavern she was at first bewildered to find the canvas screen drawn aside from its opening and the place flooded with light. Next she was frightened to note that the derrick was swung outward, and that its attached tackle was hanging down out of sight.

Her first impulse was to run and call her father. Then she remembered that, as he was down in the mine, it would be a long time before he could come. Also, being a brave young woman and not easily frightened, she determined to find out for herself if there was any real cause for alarm. So she crept softly to the mouth of the cavern and peered cautiously out.

At sight of a man lying on the rocks at the foot of the cliff, with his head in the water, her heart almost stopped its beating and she almost screamed. He lay so still that for a moment she imagined him to be dead, though the next instant she knew he was not, for he lifted his head to catch a breath. Then he again plunged it into the water, and quick as thought the girl drew up the tackle by which he had lowered himself.

"There," she said to herself; "I guess you will stay where you are, Mister Man, until I can bring papa; and he'll know what to do with you!"

She had drawn in the tackle very cautiously, without noticing the little sc.r.a.ping noise that its lower block made in crossing the rocky ledge, and she turned to go as she spoke.

But she must take one more look, just to see if that horrid man was still there, and what he was doing.

So she very carefully leaned forward and gazed straight down into the upturned face of Richard Peveril.

CHAPTER XX

PEVERIL IS TAKEN FOR A GHOST

The situation in which the two princ.i.p.al characters of this story were left at the close of the preceding chapter was so embarra.s.sing to both that for several seconds they continued to stare at each other in silent amazement. Mary Darrell, her face alternately flushing and paling with confusion, seemed fascinated and incapable of motion. In spite of Peveril's astonishingly disreputable appearance, she at once recognized him as being the young stranger whom she had seen twice before, and had even helped out of an awkward predicament. She also knew that he had in some way aroused her father's enmity. But he had taken his departure from that vicinity several days earlier, and, though she had wondered if he would ever come back, she had not really expected to see him again.

Now to come upon him so suddenly, looking so dreadful, and to realize that, incredible as it seemed, he must have learned the secret of the cavern, was all so bewildering and startling as to very nearly take away her breath. So she simply stared.

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 pa.s.sages 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 princ.i.p.ally directed.

It was Peveril who first broke the embarra.s.sing 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, a.s.suming a seat in an expectant att.i.tude 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,"