Munroe Kirk
The Copper Princess: A Story of Lake Superior Mines

CHAPTER XXV
A SEA-FIGHT ON LAKE SUPERIOR

As no other schooner was in sight, and as this one was standing off the coast when discovered, the Broncho people had from the very first believed her to be the one they wanted. Her hoisting of British colors strengthened this belief, and it was finally confirmed by Connell's recognition of her captain. Until that moment, however, they had entertained serious doubts as to whether they should find Peveril on board; for it did not seem credible that even a smuggler, accustomed to running great risks, would dare abduct and forcibly carry off an American citizen. They did not know of the tempting reward promised to the schooner's captain for doing that very thing, nor of his determination to make this his last voyage on the great lake. So they anxiously awaited his answer to the question:

"Have you a man named Richard Peveril aboard your craft?"

When it came, although it was neither yes nor no, it so thoroughly confirmed their suspicions that they had no hesitation in attempting to rescue their friend by force, and the Broncho's men gave a yell of delight as the two vessels crashed together.

On board the tug this moment had been foreseen and prepared for. Two small anchors had been got ready to serve as grappling-irons, and each man had been told off for special duty. The regular crew of four men had been materially strengthened by the addition of the two passengers; but, as the engineer must be left on board under all circumstances, the available fighting force was reduced to five. As it happened, this was the exact number on board the schooner. So, as the Bronchos scrambled to her deck, each singled out an individual and went for him.

The vessel had been thrown into the wind by the collision, her sails were thrashing to and fro with a tremendous clatter, which, combined with a roar of escaping steam from the tug, created such dire confusion among the smugglers as rendered them almost incapable of resistance. In fact, their captain was the only one who made a show of fighting; and, springing at him with a howl of delight, Mike Connell sent him sprawling to the deck with a single blow. Then the Irishman dove down the companionway, cast a hasty glance about the little cabin, and made for the only door in sight. A couple of vigorous kicks burst it open, and in another minute Richard Peveril was again a free man.

As the two friends reached the deck, Connell uttered a wild Irish yell of triumph, while the released captive, who now gained his first inkling of what had taken place, stared about him in bewilderment.

Then he burst into a shout of laughter at the spectacle of four men, one of whom was the dignified manager of the great White Pine Mining Company, calmly sitting on the prostrate bodies of four others, while a fifth, who had just struggled to his feet with a very rueful countenance, suddenly dropped to the deck again as he caught sight of Connell.

Greeting Peveril with a hearty cheer, and carrying him with them, the Bronchos regained their ship and cast off the lines that held her to the schooner. As these were loosed her jingle-bell rang merrily, her screw churned the dimpled waters into a yeasty foam, and, with a derisive farewell yell from her exultant crew, she dashed away, leaving her recent antagonist enveloped in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. The whole affair had occupied just five minutes.

There was no lack of entertainment on board the good tug Broncho as she again headed southward and ploughed her way briskly towards Laughing Fish, for every one had thrilling stories to tell or to hear.

"It seems to me," remarked Major Arkell to Peveril, after listening attentively to the young man's narration, "that you have managed to compress a greater number of desperate adventures and hair-breadth escapes into a short space of time than any other man in the Copper Country. I, for instance, have been here for ten years, and haven't yet had an adventure worth the telling."

"Not even the one of this morning?"

"Oh, that was only an incident compared with what has happened to you. How do you manage it? Do you always find such stirring times wherever you go?"

"No, indeed," laughed Peveril; "until very recently I have led a most quiet and uneventful life. Even now I would gladly exchange all my adventures, as you are pleased to call them, for the smallest scrap of information regarding the mine that I came out here to find."

"Haven't you learned anything concerning your Copper Princess yet?"

"Not one word."

"That's strange! I wonder if it can be located in the Ontonagon region?"

"I had just about made up my mind to visit that section and find out," replied Peveril. "That is, if I have earned enough money while working for you to pay my travelling expenses."

"I guess you have," laughed the major; "but I can't let you go yet a while, for I shall want you to help me settle accounts with that old fellow who stole our logs. Besides, you have so aroused my curiosity regarding those prehistoric workings of yours that I should like very much to visit them. Do you think you could find the entrance again?"

"Which entrance – the hole down which I was thrown, or the one through which I crawled out?"

"The one by which you were introduced to them, of course. From your own account, the other is altogether too small for comfort, and the chances of being shot for trespass are altogether too great in its vicinity."

"I expect I could find the locality, but I hate the idea of ever going near it again. I don't think you can imagine what I suffered while down there. I am sure the place will haunt my worst dreams during the remainder of my life."

"By going down again with plenty of light, company, and an assured means at leaving at any moment, the place will present a very different and much more cheerful aspect. Besides, the ancient tools that you mention as existing in such numbers down there are becoming so scarce as to be very valuable and well worth collecting. So, on the whole, I think we had better go and take a look at your prehistoric diggings this very day."

"Very well, sir. Since you insist upon it, I will act as your guide; but I must confess that I shall be heartily glad to leave this part of the country and return to the civilization of Red Jacket."

"Civilization of Red Jacket is good!" laughed the other. "How long since you considered it as civilized?"

"Ever since I left there and found out how much worse other places could be."

As a result of this conversation, four men left Laughing Fish soon after the tug again dropped anchor in its cove, and took to the trail that two of them had followed before. These two were Peveril and Connell. The others were the White Pine manager and Captain Spillins. Arrived at the point from which "Darrell's Folly" could be seen, they turned abruptly to the right and plunged into the woods.

Only too well did Peveril remember the path over which he had been dragged a helpless captive only three days before. But the way seemed shorter now than then, and he was surprised to discover the dreaded shaft within a few hundred feet of the trail they had just left.

They had brought ropes with them, as well as an axe, and candles in abundance. Now, after cutting away the bushes from the shaft-mouth, and measuring its depth by letting down a lighted candle until it was extinguished in the water at the bottom, they prepared for the descent. The major was to go first, and Peveril, whose dread of the undertaking had been partially overcome, was to follow. The others were to remain on the surface to pull their companions up, when their explorations should be finished.

So Major Arkell seated himself in a loop of the rope, swung over the edge of the old shaft, and was slowly lowered until the measured length had run out. Then the others, peering anxiously down from above, saw his twinkling light swing back and forth until it suddenly disappeared. A moment later the rope was relieved of its strain, and they knew that its burden had been safely deposited on the rocky platform described by Peveril. He went next, and was quickly landed in safety beside his companion.

Still filled with his recent horror of the place, Peveril tried to dissuade the other from penetrating any farther into the workings, but in vain; and so, each bearing a lighted candle, they set forth. At the several piles of material, previously noted as barring the way, the major uttered exclamations of delight and astonishment.

"It is copper!" he cried. "Mass copper, almost pure! The very richest specimens I have ever seen! Why, man, the old mine must have been a bonanza, if it all panned out stuff like this! These piles were evidently ready for removal when something interfered to prevent. Wonder what it could have been? Didn't find any bones, did you, or evidences of a catastrophe?"

"No. Nothing but what you see. Good heavens, major! What's that?"

With blanched faces the two stood and listened. Strong men as they were, their very limbs trembled, while their hearts almost ceased beating.

Again it came from the black depths beyond them – a cry of agony, pitiful and pleading.

"Let's get out of this," whispered the major, clutching at Peveril's arm and endeavoring to drag him back the way they had come. "I've had enough."

"No," replied the other, resolutely; "we can't leave while some human being is calling for deliverance from this awful place."

"You don't think it a human voice?"

"I do, and at any rate I am going to see. There! Hear it?"

Again came the shrill cry, echoing from the rocky walls. "Help! For God's sake, don't leave us here to perish!"

At the sound Peveril sprang forward, and the major tremblingly followed him.

Back in the gloom, a hundred yards from where they had halted, they came upon a scene that neither will ever forget so long as he lives.

A slender youth and a white-haired man stood clinging to each other, and gazing with wildly incredulous eyes at the advancing lights.

"It is Richard Peveril, father! Oh, thank God! Thank God, sir, that you have come in time!" cried the younger of the two.

"Richard Peveril?" repeated the old man, huskily. "No, no, Mary! It can't be! It must not be! Richard Peveril is dead, and the contract is void. He has no claim on the Copper Princess. It is all mine. Mine and yours. But don't let him know. Keep the secret for one week longer – only one little week – then you may tell it to the world."

CHAPTER XXVI
FIRST NEWS OF THE COPPER PRINCESS

When Peveril made his miraculous escape from the old mine, he left his place of exit open. In his impatience to get away from the scene of his sufferings, he had not even given another thought to the great stone slab that he had raised with such difficulty and precariously propped into position by a few fragments of rock. So the narrow passage leading down from the cavern into the ancient workings that had been so carefully concealed for centuries was at length open to the inspection of any who should happen that way. Thus it remained during the day of exciting incidents in the cavern, and through the struggle that was ended by the smugglers bearing Peveril away captive to their schooner.

Having thus disposed of the person whom of all in the world he most dreaded, and placed him where it was apparently impossible for him to make a claim on the Copper Princess before the expiration of the term of contract, Ralph Darrell rejoined his daughter.

She, noting his excitement and fearing to increase it, made no mention of her own encounter with the other stranger, whose presence in the cavern seemed to have escaped her father's notice. So they only talked of Peveril; and the girl, picturing him as he had appeared on the several occasions of their meeting, wondered if he could really be trying to rob them of their slender possessions, as her father claimed.

The latter talked so incoherently of a conspiracy, a contract, and of the great wealth that would be theirs in one week from that time, that she was completely bewildered, and for the first time in her life began to wonder if her papa knew exactly what he was saying.

Thus thinking, she soothed him as best she could, and finally succeeded in getting him off to bed; but in the morning the subject was again uppermost in his mind, and he would talk of nothing else. Now he wondered how Peveril could have found his way into the cavern; and as Mary was also very curious on that point, she willingly accompanied him on a tour of investigation.

In this search it was not long before they discovered the upraised stone slab at the rear end of the cavern, and peered curiously into the black passage beneath it, which from the very first Ralph Darrell was determined to explore.

"It is a part of our own mine," he said, "and so I must find out all about it. There is no danger, for I can go very carefully, and return when I please. I must go, though, for it is clearly my duty to do so. Who knows but what I may strike another vein down there, as valuable as the one we are already working. So, dear, do you wait here, and I will come back to you very shortly."

But brave Mary Darrell would not agree to any such proposition, and declared that if her father insisted on going into that horrid place she should follow him.

So the old man and the girl – the former filled with eager curiosity and the latter with a premonition of danger – crept under the great slab and entered the sloping passage. They had but a single candle with them, and of this Mary was glad, for she knew it would limit their exploration and compel a speedy return.

Both of them being of much slighter frame than Peveril, they found little difficulty in slipping through the passage and reaching the ancient workings to which it led. Here Darrell began to find copper, and went into ecstasies over its richness.

Forgetful of everything else, he pushed eagerly forward from one pile of the valuable metal to another, and Mary, inspired by his enthusiasm, almost forgot her dread of the gloomy place in which so much wealth was stored. So absorbed were they that neither of them paid any attention to a dull sound, as of some heavy body falling, that came from a distance.

Finally, their candle burning low warned them to hasten their return; but to their consternation, when they again reached the end of the passage, they found its entrance closed. The great slab, insecurely supported, had fallen into place, and the utmost exertion of their feeble strength was insufficient to move it.

As they realized the full extent of the disaster that had thus befallen them, the girl was awed into a despairing silence; while the old man's impaired intellect gave way completely beneath the awful strain of the situation, and he broke into incoherent ravings. At length Mary Darrell knew that her beloved father had lost his mind, and that she must share her living tomb with a madman.

In his ravings he declared that the situation was exactly as he wanted it; for now no one, not even Richard Peveril himself, could share their new-found wealth. With the next breath he expressed an intention of getting back to the piles of copper as quickly as possible, that he might defend them with his life against all claimants.

Terrible as it was to the girl to hear her father talk in this way, his mention of Peveril brought a faint ray of hope. If the young man had indeed gained access to the cavern from this direction, then the old workings must possess some other exit. If they could only discover such a place, it was barely possible that they might still escape. Thus thinking, she humored her father's desire to return to the piles of copper, and even hastened his steps in that direction, for their candle was burning perilously low. So nearly had it expired that they had hardly regained the old workings before its feeble flame gave a final flicker, and they were plunged into blackness.

"Dear Christ, help me in this time of my bitter trouble, for I have no strength save in Thee!"

Her cry was heard and her prayer was answered even as it was uttered; for with the opening of her eyes she caught a far-away gleam of light. A minute later, when Richard Peveril came to her, he seemed like one sent from heaven, and at that moment she could have worshipped him.

Peveril's heart leaped at the sound of her voice, and he received two other distinct thrills of delight from her father's incoherent words. One was when he addressed the slight figure at his side as "Mary," and the other was caused by his mention of the Copper Princess. By the first Peveril's recently aroused suspicion concerning the sex of the wearer of that golf costume was reduced to a certainty, while by the other he gained his first clue to the mine of which he was in search.

At the moment, however, these things merely flashed through his mind; for he realized that the present was neither the time nor the place to discuss them. The two helpless ones, so wonderfully intrusted to his care, must be removed at once from the place in which they had suffered so keenly. Both he and the major agreed that it would be best to take them out by way of the shaft, and though they were full of curiosity as to how the Darrells came into their distressing position, both manfully refrained from asking questions until they had escorted them to the entrance. For this forbearance the major deserved even greater credit than his young friend; for as yet he had no knowledge of who the strangers were, nor how it happened that they seemed to know Peveril.

Arrived at the shaft, it was decided that the major should ascend first, to prepare those at the top for what was coming, as well as to receive the old man, who would be sent up next. As he adjusted the rope about his body, he whispered to Peveril, who was assisting him:

"Who are they?"

"Darrells," was the laconic answer.

"Not old man Darrell of the 'Folly'?"

"Yes."

"And his daughter?"

"I believe so," replied the young man, at the same time wondering how the other had discovered so quickly the rightful sex of the apparent lad.

"But how on earth do they happen to know you?"

"They ought to, seeing that the old man has shot at me twice; while Miss Darrell and I have met several times, and on one occasion, at least, she saved my life."

"Whew! No wonder you greet each other like old friends," rejoined the major, as he swung off over the black pool and began slowly to ascend the ancient shaft.

When the rope was again lowered it brought some bits of stout cord for which Peveril had asked, and with these he fastened the old man so securely into the loop that there was no possibility of his falling out. Although Ralph Darrell was still highly excited and talked constantly, he readily agreed to every proposition made by his daughter, and offered no objection to going up the shaft.

As he swung out from the platform, and those above began to hoist on the rope, his daughter bent anxiously forward to note his progress. Apparently unconscious of her own danger, she leaned out farther and farther, until Peveril, fearful lest she should lose her balance and plunge into the pool, reached an arm about her waist and held her.

The girl was so intent upon watching her father that for a moment she paid no attention to this. Then, suddenly becoming conscious of the strong support against which she was leaning, she stepped quickly back to a position of safety.

"I didn't suppose you would think it necessary to take such care of a boy," she said, with an attempt at dignity.

"I shouldn't," laughed Peveril; "but why didn't you tell me yesterday that you were a young lady, and that your name was Mary?"

"I don't remember that you asked me."

"That's so. It was you who asked all the questions and I who answered them. So now it is my turn."

"I sha'n't promise to answer, though."

"Oh, but you must; for there are some things that I am extremely anxious to know. For instance, why do you dress in boy's costume?"

"Because my father wished me to."

"An excellent reason. Now I want to know if 'Darrell's Folly' and the Copper Princess are one and the same mine?"

"I believe the Copper Princess has been called by that other name, which, however, I will thank you not to repeat in my presence."

"All right, I won't; but tell me – "

"Here is the rope, Mr. Peveril, and, thanking you over and over again for your very great kindness, I will bid you au revoir," said the girl, hurriedly adjusting the loop and preparing to ascend.

There was never a more amazed or abashed man in this world than was Mike Connell when the "young lady" whom he, full of curiosity, was helping to hoist from the old shaft made her appearance, and he discovered her to be the "lad" whom he had treated with such freedom the evening before. He was so staggered that he could not utter a word, but simply stared at her with an expression in which mortification and admiration were equally blended.

The moment the girl gained a footing on the surface she made a comprehensive little bow to the men assembled about the shaft-mouth, and said:

"My father and I thank you, gentlemen, from overflowing hearts, for your great kindness to us, and shall hope to see you at our home for supper, after you have been rejoined by Mr. Peveril. Come, papa, let us go and make ready for company." With this she led the old man away in the direction of his "Folly."

Half an hour later the four men from White Pine were received at the door of the Darrell house by a dignified young lady, simply but becomingly dressed in the usual costume of her sex. Looking directly at one of them, she said:

"I bid you welcome, Mr. Peveril, to your own Copper Princess."