  If Tommy Beals found the open-air gymnasium impracticable, the same was not true of Dick Somers, whose slim, wiry body took most kindly to the various hanging rings and flying trapezes that adorned the limbs of the old apple tree. Only in such stunts as depended upon sheer muscular strength could Ned Blake greatly excel this new friend, who had accepted with enthusiasm the invitation to make himself at home in the Blake back-yard. “Let’s go for a swim,” suggested Tommy from the soap box, where he sat fanning himself with his hat and watching the two young acrobats do their stuff. “That’s a good idea, Fatty,” agreed Ned. “Where’ll we go?” “Oh, most anywhere,” wheezed Tommy. “It’s ninety right here in the shade!” and he glared reproachfully at a rusty thermometer, which was nailed to the tree trunk. “Let’s get Dave Wilbur to run us out to Coleson’s in his flivver,” suggested Ned. “I’ll go in and phone him.” “Where’s Coleson’s—and what is it?” asked Dick, when Ned had returned with the information that Wilbur would be over in a few minutes. “It’s an old copper mine on the shore of the lake about ten miles out from town,” explained Ned. “It used to be just a third-rate farm where Eli Coleson lived and grubbed a scanty living out of his few acres. The story is that one day he started to dig a well in his back-yard and down about ten feet he came upon a vein of almost pure copper ore. They say he quit farming that very minute and went to mining copper. For awhile he made money hand over fist, but, like lots of people who strike it rich, Eli Coleson couldn’t stand prosperity.” “Here comes Dave,” interrupted Tommy Beals, as a battered car came into sight around the corner. “He’s brought Charlie Rogers with him. Hey there, Red!” he shouted to a boy on the front seat, who by reason of his fiery locks had been given that expressive nickname. “Who asked you to the party?” “Nobody asked me, Fatty. I just horned in,” grinned Rogers. “I figured that if four of us sat on the front seat there’d be room for you in back.” “Tell me some more about this Eli Coleson,” urged Dick, when the seating arrangements had been settled and the car was again in motion. “Well,” resumed Ned, “the old man just naturally lost his head when he saw the dollars rolling in so fast. The first thing he did was to rip down his old farmhouse, which job he accomplished with a couple of sticks of dynamite, and right on the old foundation he began a great house of brick and stone.” “Yes, and if he’d ever finished it, he’d have had one of the swell places of the state,” declared Rogers. “There’s no doubt of that,” agreed Ned. “Every dollar old Eli got for his copper he spent on the house. The vein of ore was only about ten feet wide and extended toward the lake. They followed it out under the lake bottom as far as they dared; then they started digging in the other direction and tunneled back under the cellar of the house, but soon afterward the vein petered out and so did Eli’s fortune. The workmen had just got the roof on the new house when they had to stop. Eli was broke.” “What became of him?” asked Dick. “Oh, he’s still hanging around out there, living in one of the partly finished rooms and pecking away with pick and shovel trying to get a few more dollars out of the mine,” explained Ned. “Maybe we’ll see him. He’s got a long white beard streaked with green stains from copper ore he’s always handling. Copper Coleson, they call him.” “I hear he’s got a fellow named Latrobe working for him,” remarked Beals. “I never saw him, but they say he’s an ugly guy.” “Ugly is right,” declared Rogers. “Since Latrobe’s been out there, nobody’s allowed to go down into the mine, but I guess he won’t object if we take a swim off the beach.” Eight miles from town the car turned sharply from the main highway to follow a narrow road which wound through a desolate stretch of scrubby woodland for some three miles and emerged upon the shore of Lake Erie. Here on a slight elevation dotted with thickets of scrub oak and birch stood the unfinished mansion known locally as Copper Coleson’s Folly. “It surely started out to be a grand place,” exclaimed Dick, as he gazed up at the tall brick front with its rows of windows, in none of which glass had ever been placed. “We’ll leave the car out here in the road,” decided Wilbur. “We can walk around the house and get down to the beach without bothering anybody.” Beyond the house the land sloped to the water’s edge, ending in a sandy shore which afforded fine bathing, and here the boys disported themselves for an hour, swimming and diving in the cool water. “I’d like to get a look at this copper mine,” remarked Dick. “I never saw a mine or anything like one—except an old limestone quarry, and that was only a big hole in the ground.” “There isn’t a whole lot to see in this mine,” replied Ned; “just a vertical shaft about fifteen feet deep, which is nothing more than the old well Coleson was digging when he struck the copper ore. It’s right behind the house. We can go up there and look down it, if you want to, but it’s hardly worth the trouble.” Getting into their clothes the boys followed a footpath up the slope and crossed a sandy stretch to the rear of the house. Nobody appeared to oppose their progress, and in a moment they were grouped about the mouth of the shaft staring down into the blackness below. “The tunnel runs both ways from the bottom of this shaft,” explained Ned. “One end is right under the house but the other is some distance out under the lake-bottom—I don’t know just how far it extends, although I’ve been down through it several times. Probably Coleson is down there now with his pick and shovel. He fills a dump car with ore, hauls it to the bottom of the shaft and hoists it with this rigging,” and Ned indicated a rusty windlass which stood at the edge of the pit. “Some job turning that crank,” murmured Dave Wilbur, as he eyed the dilapidated mechanism. “Yeah, it would be a lot wors’n turning a grindstone,” chuckled Tommy Beals. “By the way, Weary, when are you going to finish that job on Ned’s axe?” “D’j’ever hear about the man who ‘always had an axe to grind’?” drawled Wilbur. “What does Coleson do with the ore after he gets it to the surface?” asked Dick, who was still staring down into the mine. “He loads it onto a truck and runs it up to the smelter at Cleveland,” explained Rogers. “There’s only about one load a week, because it’s mighty slow work knocking chunks off the walls of the tunnel, and they don’t dare fire a blast for fear of bringing down the roof of the mine and the lake with it. There’s no money in this kind of mining, and I don’t see how Coleson makes enough to keep him from starving.” “You’re right!” exclaimed Tommy Beals, with an expression of genuine concern on his plump features. “And speaking of starvation reminds me that—” “That you’ve been dieting for almost four hours and are about to pass out of the picture,” laughed Ned. “All right, boys,” he continued, “if Dick has seen enough, let’s save Fatty’s life right now by heading back for home and supper.” |
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