  Dave Wilbur was washing the flivver—or, to be entirely accurate, Dave was playing the hose on the car while Tommy Beals and Charlie Rogers wielded sponge and rag in an effort to remove mud and road oil. The job was nearly completed when Ned Blake and Dick Somers vaulted the back fence and joined the group. “Heard the news?” cried Ned and Dick in a breath. “Coleson’s mine has caved in!” “When? How?” came the excited chorus. “It must have happened soon after we were out there,” replied Ned. “This fellow Latrobe, who worked for Coleson, had been away for a few days, so he says, and when he got back yesterday he couldn’t find the old man. According to the story Latrobe told, when he reached town about an hour ago, he lowered himself down the shaft and followed the tunnel till he came to the water. The roof had fallen in somewhere out beyond the shoreline and the lower end of the mine is full of water.” “Did he find—” began Tommy Beals in an awestruck tone. Ned shook his head. “No, they say he didn’t find any sign of Coleson. They’re out at the mine searching for him now. The theory is that he got discouraged with pick-and-shovel work and fired a blast to bring down a big bunch of copper ore. What he brought down was the roof of the tunnel and the lake with it. Some think he was blown to bits and buried in some crevice where he’ll never be found.” For the next few days, gossip of Copper Coleson and his mine was the principal topic of conversation in the town of Truesdell. The wildest rumors were in circulation. Somebody stated that Coleson had been seen across the lake in Canada. Others declared that he was hiding somewhere about the premises. Still another story was whispered to the effect that Latrobe knew more of the matter than he had told. He was said to have bought a quantity of blasting powder a short time before, and it was hinted that he might have fired the blast for reasons of his own. A diver made a search of the flooded mine but found no trace of Coleson. The diver reported a considerable amount of loose copper ore at the lower end of the tunnel, and it was determined to bring this to the surface. A floating dredge was brought and anchored above the point where the bottom of the lake had caved in. “Look at her scoop it up!” yelped Tommy Beals, who, with most of the younger population of Truesdell, was watching operations from the shore. “Why, every bucketful is more than poor, old Copper Coleson took out in a week!” “Yes, and when they clean up in one place, they’ll pull the dredge in shore a few feet and start over again,” asserted Ned. “All they have to do is keep the dredge in line with that tall stake on the beach and that white mark on the chimney of Coleson’s house and they know they’re right plumb over the hole. I heard the foreman explain it. He says the hole is about fifty feet long.” “Look! The diver’s going down again!” exclaimed Dick Somers. “That’s not the regular diver,” declared Rogers, “that’s Latrobe. He says that he and Coleson were partners and he claims a share of this ore they’re taking out. I guess that’s why he’s keeping such a close watch on the job.” “Well, I’ll say I admire Latrobe’s nerve,” remarked Beals. “I wouldn’t go down and explore that tunnel for a million times what he or anybody else will ever get out of it!” A murmur of agreement followed this declaration as the boys watched while the diving helmet was fitted over the man’s head. In a moment he had been lowered from the forward end of the dredge and he sank from view amid a burst of silvery bubbles that shot upward from the air valve in the top of the helmet. For several days the work of dredging went on, until the diver reported that there was no more copper ore remaining in the caved-in part of the tunnel. This was confirmed by Latrobe, who made a final examination for his own satisfaction. There was some talk of firing another blast to bring down more of the tunnel’s roof, but as fully half the stuff recovered by the dredge had proved upon examination to be worthless sand and rock, the project was abandoned. “Who’s going to own the Coleson place now?” asked Dick when it was reported that the dredge had been taken back to Cleveland. “The town will take the house and sell it for taxes—if anybody is foolish enough to buy it,” announced Dave Wilbur. “They’ve locked it up and put shutters over every window to keep folks out.” “Yes, and they took the windlass away and sealed up the mouth of the shaft with big stone slabs set in cement to keep people from falling down the hole and breaking their necks,” added Ned. “I guess that’s about the finish of both Copper Coleson and his mine.” This seemed to be the general verdict. During the following weeks a few people drove out to the deserted house, drawn to the spot by a morbid curiosity; but as there was really nothing to be seen, these visits soon ceased and the place was abandoned to desolation and decay. Summer passed and autumn’s falling leaves collected upon the broad porch and banked themselves at the angles of the wide cornices. Later came the eddying snow, sifting through crevices in the rattling window-shutters to melt and trickle down the inner walls in little streams of staining moisture. Storm-driven owls sought temporary shelter in the gables and sent their ghostly screams echoing through the night. Dubious rumors began to circulate regarding the house. A negro, returning after dark from a duck-hunting foray along the lake-shore, made a frightened report of strange, dancing lights and uncanny sounds in and about the building. Most people scoffed at these stories, but such as were more credulous or more imaginative made them the basis for a revival of gossip to the effect that old Copper Coleson still lurked in the neighborhood. Others of superstitious mind derived a kind of blood-curdling satisfaction in the belief that the house and the sealed-up mine were haunted by the ghost of Copper Coleson. |
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