I inched along, face down, clawing at the rocks with my one free hand, dragging my legs forward, my long skirts hampering every move. Only occasionally could I catch the gleam of Johnny’s candle ahead. Unable to look back I could hear George calling a word of encouragement as he followed.
But what if the rock overhead should cave in? The thought was torture. I struggled to wipe it from my mind. In the darkness, broken only by a flicker of the nearby candle, I twisted, turned, writhed like a snake, stopped many times to rest and capture a mite of courage.
It was one hundred and fifty feet of pure hell! Yet I lived through it. We had crossed the awful stope and there remained the descent, straight down another hundred-foot ladder in a well, scarcely four feet square, cut in solid rock. It seemed easy. I had room to breathe. With each rung lower there was more space above my head. The tunnel at last! I hurried toward the streak of daylight at its mouth, and the great outdoors. Heaven!
I was still trying to shake off the remembered terror of that adventure, when a few days later, Johnny came to our shack.
“Now you’ve been through a stope, let’s go down into the diggin’s.”
My face showed how startled I was at the prospect of suffering again as I had done before. Johnny noticed it.
“Oh, it won’t be like that, this time,” he assured me. “We’ll ride down as soon as George finishes his work.” He was doing me a favor, giving me a treat, according to his ideas. Reluctantly I consented.
That afternoon George, Johnny, and I got into the cage which ran on wheels down an inclined track and were lowered into the mine one hundred feet, two hundred feet … down, down to the one-thousand-foot level. All the levels were lighted by electricity and we carried candles only for an emergency. The day shift had left. The air had cleared after the blasting. We three were alone in the bowels of the mountain. Sounds of water gurgling out of crevices echoed through the vaulted caverns. Our voices resounded weirdly. I wandered around the large underground cave peering into empty stopes, drifts and storage rooms until mounting claustrophobia started my stomach to quiver.
“I’m ready to get out of this,” I said to Johnny.
He walked to the shaft and with a hammer pounded three times on the air line, the signal to the man at the top that we were ready to be hoisted. The resonant sounds carried along the pipe and we waited. And waited. No answering tap-tap came from above. Several minutes passed. Johnny and George, unperturbed, talked of assays, high-grade, waste, and tonnage. I fidgeted. The happy-go-lucky Cornishman again rapped on the pipe and the metallic sounds rang loud underground. Silence.
“Why don’t they answer?” I asked, a picture of being buried alive flashing in my mind.
“They will soon. Probably the cageman has gone away from the hoist to attend to something,” and Johnny sauntered away, returning with a piece of ore to show George.
“Fairly good ore,” he said turning it over and over, “but so far we haven’t found enough of it, or a large enough vein to make it pay.” While they discussed values, my ears were straining to catch a sound from above.
It was a full fifteen minutes before the answering signal sounded, clink-clank, faint and wavering at first, then louder as the cage wheels rattled on tracks only slightly off vertical. Never was music sweeter to my ears, and as the platform settled gently on the floor, one thousand feet down, I was instantly on it. George and Johnny took their time, talking as they strolled. Men! But answering the “up” signal the cage began to climb, and I was thinking—never again! A morning stroll to the stable to pick up the mail was all the adventure I wanted for a while.
Next morning I encountered my Finnish neighbor pacing back and forth close to her shack and at my “Good Morning” she merely inclined her head, not from shyness I decided, but from some inhibition that repelled friendly advances. I had seen her husband, a tall blond Finn, several times and on each occasion he too seemed preoccupied and avoided speaking. Their reserve intrigued me. It was so unlike the attitudes of everyone else on the hill. And after weeks of hearing that strange sound of pounding in the early dark of every morning, I began to think it was coming from their house. Well, George had said it was nothing to worry about so again I dismissed it from my mind.
One noon early in March, George came home unexpectedly, a worried look on his face.
“What in the world is the matter, dear? Do you feel sick?” Fear really struck me because of his expression.
“No, I’m not sick, but the manager told me that in a month the Japan Flora will have to close down. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Oh, just get another job.” I answered unconcernedly, hoping to lessen his anxiety.
“That’s not so easy, Kiddy (one of his pet names for me). It will take money to leave here and hunt for work.”
“Why not go to the Tomboy and apply?” I suggested.
“I couldn’t get on there, they always have a full crew. Men stay on and on there, when they’re lucky to get hired.”
“Why not take a chance? What can you lose? We’ll skimp more with money until you get something else. Don’t worry, we’re young and everything will work out for us.” I was so confident.
My beloved husband always listened to what I had to say and we always worked things out together. He was always right when it came to the final decisions. I had hoped my cheerful attitude toward the news he brought would lend encouragement, but he returned to his office with a heavy heart. Our first problem had arisen after only three months.
Late in the afternoon he went to the Tomboy office and asked to speak with Mr. Herron, the manager.
“He’s up on the pipe line but will be here later on,” Alex told him.
George came home, had a hurried dinner, and returned to the Tomboy office. There he met Mr. David Herron, known as a kind, loyal, and considerate gentleman, esteemed by both his friends and his employees.
George stated his problem and asked for work. “Yes, George,” Mr. Herron answered. “I’ll have a job for you whenever your work at the Japan Flora terminates.”
A changed husband returned to me … full of joy and happiness. He completed his assay work, closed the records, and lost not a single day in transferring to the Tomboy Mine, the richest gold mine in Savage Basin.
CHAPTER 5
Baby Billy Batcheller was losing weight. His beautiful brown eyes were dull and lifeless. Jim had rigged a pulley to raise the bassinet into the center of the room and there Billy lay halfway to the ceiling out of the drafts that blew frigidly through Castle Sky High. Dr. Hadley had prescribed fresh milk for him and by special permission it was brought up on the pack train. Anxiety and the troubled days and nights were beginning to show on Beth.
I was greatly concerned about the baby and every morning I went across the trail to help her, although the slightest exertion or attempt to hurry made my heart work faster.
On some mornings I did Beth’s housework while she hovered over little Billy. On other days I watched him, always alert to note any change. He was never a moment unwatched or alone. But he did not improve and lay in a stupor. Beth tried canned milk. Finally, after two days of a special mixture, he showed the first signs of improvement. The bond of friendship between Beth and me grew stronger as happily we watched Billy
