“I’ll have nothing to do with this.” At the back of the room two others rose quickly and ducked out the door.
Hayes hesitated, as if wanting to say something more. “You can’t ride the fence, Tom,” Townsend said quietly. “We called you in to give you your chance.” “Chance! Why you ain’t got no chance at all.
The minute Ben Stowe hears about this you’ll all be riding for a slab on Boot Hill!” Billy Townsend was smiling a little. “Are you going to tell him, Tom?” Hayes flushed angrily. “No, I ain’t!
And don’t come blamin’ me if he hears of it!” He went out the door and closed it quickly after him.
For a moment there was silence, and then Pete Hillaby stood up. “You can count me in, Doc. I’ll stand with you.” In the end, there were nine men left. Doctor Rupert Clagg glanced from one to another. “All right, boys. From this moment we go armed, and no one of us is to be alone. You’ll get the word from Billy here, and we’ll all meet at his place. In the meantime I’ll have a talk with Wilson Hoyt.” When all of them had left, Dr. Clagg turned to Laine. “Well, we’ve made a start, and I believe we’ll carry it off.” “With only nine men?” Laine was frightened.
“Rupert, we’ve got to get word to Mike Shevlin before anything happens.” “He’s a tough man–we could use him,” Clagg agreed. He hesitated. “I’ll ride out and get him.” “No,” Laine protested. “You stay here.
If you ride out there everyone will know something is happening. I’ll go get him.” And at last he agreed, for there was much to do in Rafter, and very little time.
Laine Tennison rode her dapple-gray mare out of town toward Parry’s claim, following only a few minutes behind Ben Stowe. She rode swiftly, keeping in mind the location of Parry’s claim, for the mining maps of the area that she had studied for hours were clearly fixed in her memory. The trail to the claim was round about, although the actual distance, as the crow flies, was quite short.
Finally she turned into the narrow canyon. It was not hard to recognize the mountain in which the two mines were located, and she knew at once the mouth of the discovery tunnel when she saw it. Though the tunnel had not been used, it was clearly indicated on her maps.
As she rode up to the claim, the first thing she saw was Ben Stowe’s horse. Stowe was nowhere in sight, and neither was Burt Parry or Mike Shevlin.
Laine stood very still and looked across the canyon.
There was the dump at the discovery claim. And then she suddenly knew where they were.
She went to her saddlebag and got her pistol.
CHAPTER 15
When he was well within the tunnel, Mike Shevlin paused to light his candle, then placed it in the holder on his cap. Although he had worked underground, he had never cared much for it; and he hesitated now, knowing the traps that might lie before him.
As he went forward, he counted his steps, and when he had gone fifty paces into the tunnel he paused to listen, but there was no sound. He tilted his head back, letting the light play on the rock overhead. It looked solid. The chances were that if this place was in use at all, somebody was barring down to prevent loose rock from falling.
He walked on a little further, and an ever so slight bend in the drift cut him off from the spot of light that was the mouth of the tunnel. Suddenly he saw the ladder of a manway, and beyond it the end of the drift. The ladder led upward into the darkness.
Again he listened.
There was no sound but the slow drip of water near the end of the drift. He turned and started up the ladder.
Then he thought he heard the sound of a single-jack, somewhere far off, but the sound ceased almost at once and he was not sure about it. He paused again, looking up the ladder, remembering how Laine’s investigator had been caught in just such a place by falling drills. The long steel shafts must have gone clear through him… it was an unpleasant thought.
Suddenly he saw the opening of a drift on his left. The ladder continued on upward, but he stepped off and stood on the platform at the lip of the manway. He listened, but could hear nothing; then, squatting on his heels, he studied the planks of the platform. The dust was thick, and undisturbed. Obviously this area was unworked, yet the flame of his candle indicated a slight movement of air. Somewhere down that tunnel there was an opening, either from the drift he was in, or from a connecting one.
He felt nervous and jumpy. This was different from facing a man with a gun in the open air. Here it was dark and still, a place where a man without a light would be helpless. For anyone who had never worked underground it was always a shock to realize the complete absence of light, the utter blackness, deep in a mine or a cave. There is no such thing as the eyes growing accustomed to absolute darkness… there one is completely blind.
Anyone he might meet down here would have the advantage of knowing the mine–he would know every manway, every cross-cut, raise, or winze.
He would know where to go and how to get there. Mike, a stranger to the mine, might find himself in an old stope or a waste-fill from which there was no escape.
He turned back to the ladder and began climbing, but he paused after only a few steps.
He was perspiring profusely, and he knew it was not from heat–it was from fear.
Mike Shevlin had known fear before: only a man who was a fool could say that he had never been afraid. On that manway Shevlin would be almost helpless if someone decided to do to him what they had done to the other investigator. And nobody could prove it was anything but an accident.
He had climbed only fifty feet when he heard voices, and far above him he saw a faint glimmer of light. Someone was coming toward him.
To go back down was impossible in the time he had, but right above him, on his left, another drift opening showed, black and empty. With quick steps he was up the ladder and into the dark opening.
He had an instant, no more, in which to see that he stood on a “station” about twenty feet across; opposite him the drift disappeared into the depths of the mountain.
There was no time to hesitate, for already he could hear feet on the ladder. He took off his cap and pinched out the light. And then, in absolute blackness, he tip-toed across to the tunnel. He missed the opening by a few feet, but he found it and had only just got inside when he saw the glimmer of light nearing the station he had just abandoned.
Feeling his way along the wall of the drift, he worked his way deeper into the mine, hoping for a cross-cut that would enable him to get out of sight.
The men on the ladder might go on down, but if they stopped he was in trouble.
They stopped.
Flattened against the wall of the drift, he waited. He could hear the murmur of voices, and in another moment a man came into sight–a stocky, powerful-looking man lighting a pipe.
The second man followed. Neither man seemed to be armed with anything but a pick-handle, though that was quite enough in case of a hand-to-hand fight in the mine.
At first Shevlin could hear only snatches of their conversation. Obviously, they had stopped off on the station to have a smoke… but what would they do when they finished that? Would they come along the drift toward him?
his… jumpy. I tell you, Also, I don’t like the looks of it. You been down to the Nevada House since? Or the Blue Horn?” Shevlin could not distinguish the words of the other man, but the first one spoke again. “Well, I was down there, and there wasn’t nobody around. That’s a bad sign. I tell you, I can smell vigilantes. I seen this happen before. You can raise all the hell you want, rob a man, or even kill one, and nobody says much; but you bother a woman or do one any harm, and folks change.” There was another indistinguishable comment, and then: “You may not be worried, but I am. And I ain’t the only one. The boss is worried, too. You watched him lately? He’s jumpy as a cat.” Presently they returned to the manway and went on down. Shevlin waited for them to be well away, then he struck a match and lighted his cap-lamp.