The Cross-Cut Part 7

Red-faced, she pushed him away and slapped his cheek playfully; it was like the tap of a light breeze against granite. Then Harry turned.

"'Ave you looked at the mine?"

The question brought back to Fairchild the happenings of the morning and the memory of the man who had trailed him. He told his story, while Mother Howard listened, her arms crossed, her head bobbing, and while Harry, his big grin still on his lips, took in the details with avidity. Then for a moment a monstrous hand scrambled vaguely about in the region of the Cornishman's face, grasping a hair of that radiating mustache now and then and pulling hard at it, at last to drop,--and the grin faded.

"Le 's go up there," he said quietly.

This time the trip to Kentucky gulch was made by skirting town; soon they were on the rough, narrow roadway leading into the mountains.

Both were silent for the most part, and the expression on Harry's face told that he was living again the days of the past, days when men were making those pock-marks in the hills, when the prospector and his pack jack could be seen on every trail, and when float ore in a gulley meant riches waiting somewhere above. A long time they walked, at last to stop in the shelter of the rocks where Fairchild had shadowed his pursuer, and to glance carefully ahead. No one was in sight. Harry jabbed out a big finger.

"That's it," he announced, "straight a'ead!"

They went on, Fairchild with a gripping at his throat that would not down. This had been the hope of his father--and here his father had met--what? He swerved quickly and stopped, facing the bigger man.

"Harry," came sharply, "I know that I may be violating an unspoken promise to my father. But I simply can't stand it any longer. What happened here?"

"We were mining--for silver."

"I don't mean that--there was some sort of tragedy."

Harry chuckled,--in concealment, Fairchild thought, of something he did not want to tell him.

"I should think so! The timbers gave way and the mine caved in!"

"Not that! My father ran away from this town. You and Mother Howard helped him. You didn't come back. Neither did my father. Eventually it killed him."

"So?" Harry looked seriously and studiously at the young man. "'E did n't write me of'en."

"He did n't need to write you. You were here with him--when it happened."

"No--" Harry shook his head. "I was in town."

"But you knew--"

"What's Mother Howard told you?"

"A lot--and nothing."

"I don't know any more than she does."

"But--"

"Friends did n't ask questions in those days," came quietly. "I might 'ave guessed if I 'd wanted to--but I did n't want to."

"But if you had?"

Harry looked at him with quiet, blue eyes.

"What would you guess?"

Slowly Robert Fairchild's gaze went to the ground. There was only one possible conjecture: Sissie La.r.s.en had been impersonated by a woman.

Sissie La.r.s.en had never been seen again in Ohadi.

"I--I would hate to put it into words," came finally. Harry slapped him on the shoulder.

"Then don't. It was nearly thirty years ago. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Take a look around before we go into the tunnel."

They reconnoitered, first on one side, then on the other. No one was in sight. Harry bent to the ground, and finding a pitchy pine knot, lighted it. They started cautiously within, blinking against the darkness.

A detour and they avoided an ore car, rusty and half filled, standing on the little track, now sagging on moldy ties. A moment more of walking and Harry took the lead.

"It's only a step to the shaft now," he cautioned. "Easy--easy--look out for that 'anging wall--" he held the pitch torch against the roof of the tunnel and displayed a loose, jagged section of rock, dripping with seepage from the hills above. "Just a step now--'ere it is."

The outlines of a rusty "hoist", with its cable leading down into a slanting hole in the rock, showed dimly before them,--a ma.s.sive, chunky, deserted thing in the shadows. About it were cl.u.s.tered drills that were eaten by age and the dampness of the seepage; farther on a "skip", or shaft-car, lay on its side, half buried in mud and muck from the walls of the tunnel. Here, too, the timbers were rotting; one after another, they had cracked and caved beneath the weight of the earth above, giving the tunnel an eerie aspect, uninviting, dangerous.

Harry peered ahead.

"It ain't as bad as it looks," came after a moment's survey. "It's only right 'ere at the beginning that it's caved. But that does n't do us much good."

"Why not?" Fairchild was staring with him, on toward the darkness of the farther recesses. "If it is n't caved in farther back, we ought to be able to repair this spot."

But Harry shook his head.

"We did n't go into the vein 'ere," he explained. "We figured we 'ad to 'ave a shaft anyway, sooner or later. You can't do under'and stoping in a mine--go down on a vein, you know. You 've always got to go up--you can't get the metal out if you don't. That's why we dug this shaft--and now look at it!"

He drew the flickering torch to the edge of the shaft and held it there, staring downward. Fairchild beside him. Twenty feet below there came the glistening reflection of the flaring flame. Water!

Fairchild glanced toward his partner.

"I don't know anything about it," he said at last. "But I should think that would mean trouble."

"Plenty!" agreed Harry lugubriously. "That shaft's two 'unnerd feet deep and there 's a drift running off it for a couple o' 'unnerd feet more before it 'its the vein. Four 'unnerd feet of water. 'Ow much money 'ave you got?"

"About twenty-five hundred dollars."

Harry reached for his waving mustache, his haven in time of storm.

Thoughtfully he pulled at it, staring meanwhile downward. Then he grunted.

"And I ain't got more 'n five 'unnerd. It ain't enough. We 'll need to repair this 'oist and put the skip in order. We 'll need to build new track and do a lot of things. Three thousand dollars ain't enough."

"But we 'll have to get that water out of there before we can do anything." Fairchild interposed. "If we can't get at the vein up here, we 'll have to get at it from below. And how 're we going to do that without unwatering that shaft?"

Again Harry pulled at his mustache.

"That's just what 'Arry 's thinking about," came his answer finally.

"Le 's go back to town. I don't like to stand around this place and just look at water in a 'ole."

They turned for the mouth of the tunnel, sliding along in the greasy muck, the torch extinguished now. A moment of watchfulness from the cover of the darkness, then Harry pointed. On the opposite hill, the figure of a man had been outlined for just a second. Then he had faded. And with the disappearance of the watcher, Harry nudged his partner in the ribs and went forth into the brighter light. An hour more and they were back in town. Harry reached for his mustache again.

"Go on down to Mother 'Oward's," he commanded. "I 've got to wander around and say 'owdy to what's left of the fellows that was 'ere when I was. It's been twenty years since I 've been away, you know," he added, "and the shaft can wait."