Here Mr. Jones opened a drawer of his desk, and took from it a dirty sheet of paper, which he handed to Derrick. On it was scrawled the following:
"Bosses take Wornin'. New breakers can burn as well as old. Fires cost munny. Better pay it in wage to
"Mollie."
As the boy finished reading this strange communication which was at the same time an admission and a threat, he looked up in surprise and began, "Then you think, sir"
"Yes," interrupted the mine boss. "I not only think, but I feel convinced, that the mischief has begun. Moreover, I am determined that it shall end before it goes any further. I am most anxious to discover who is at the bottom of it, and in this I want you to help me."
"Want me to help!" exclaimed Derrick, in astonishment.
"Yes, you," answered Mr. Jones, smiling. "Your very youth and inexperience will render you less likely to be suspected than an older person. I am certain that I can count upon the son of my old friend Gilbert Sterling to perform truly and faithfully any duty which his employers may see fit to intrust him with. Is it not so, Derrick?"
"Yes, sir, it is," cried the boy. "Just tell me what you want me to do, and if I don't succeed it won't be because I haven't tried my best."
"That is just what I expected you to say," remarked the mine boss, quietly. "Now we will lay our first plans. I suppose you have had enough of the breaker, haven't you?"
"Indeed I have, sir."
"Very well. For a change I am going to offer you a job in the mine where I will give you a bumping-mule to drive. Your wages will be five dollars a week."
"A bumping-mule?" queried Derrick, in a tone of perplexity not unmixed with disappointment. From the preceding conversation he had expected to be intrusted with something very different from mule-driving; nor had he any idea what sort of an animal the one in question might be.
This time Mr. Jones not only smiled but laughed outright; for, from the boy's face and tone, he easily understood what was passing in his mind.
"A bumping-mule," he explained, "is the animal that draws the loaded coal-cars from the chambers, or breasts, to where they are made up into trains. These trains are then hauled by a team of mules to the foot of the slope. Then, when the empty cars are brought back, the bumping-mule distributes them to the several places where they are required. I suppose his title comes from his causing the cars to bump together as he makes them up into trains. In attending to your duties as driver of this most important mule, I can assure you that your time will be fully occupied from the minute you go into the mine until you leave it.
"I suppose," he added, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes, "that our conversation led you to think you were to be appointed 'air boss' of the mine, or placed in charge of a gang at the very least?"
"No, sir," answered Derrick, a little hesitatingly; "I ain't quite such a greeny as that. But I don't see how I can help you very much by just driving a bumping-mule."
"You can help me in two ways: first, by doing your duty so faithfully that I may be able to depend on you at all times; second, while I am in doubt as to whom I may trust, it will be of great assistance to me to know that there is at least one person constantly in the mine who will be true to the interests of his employers, and on the alert to detect any attempt to injure them."
"I hope you don't mean that I am to be a spy in the mine, sir?"
"No, my boy, I do not. I want you to attend strictly to your duties as driver of a bumping-mule. At the same time I want you to consider that your eyes and ears are acting in the place of my eyes and ears. If at any time they see or hear anything which according to your best judgment I ought to know, I hope you will be man enough to tell me of it."
"Well, sir," answered Derrick, "I am glad of a chance to go into the mine and to earn five dollars a week. If you will let me do whatever I think is right about telling you things without making any promises, I will keep my eyes and ears wide open."
"That is all that I want you to do, my boy."
"All right, sir, then I'll do my best; and I hope I sha'n't have anything to tell you except about the bumping-mule."
"So do I hope so with all my heart, Derrick," said the mine boss, gravely; "for I am inclined to think that if you have anything else to tell me it will be something very serious and unpleasant. Now you may take this order for a pair of rubber boots and a miner's cap and lamp over to the store and get the things. Be on hand to go down with the first gang of the morning shift. You will find me in the mine, and I will see that you are properly set to work. Good-night."
"Good-night," answered Derrick, as, with the store order in his hand, and his mind full of conflicting emotions, he left the house.
Several miners of the day shift were in the store when Derrick went to present his order. By questioning him as to what he wanted with mine clothes, they soon learned that he was to begin life underground the next day as driver of a bumping-mule.
"De young bantam'll find it a tougher job than riding empty cars down de slope," sneered one big ugly-looking fellow, whose name was Monk Tooley, and who was Bill Tooley's father.
"I reckon you've laid in a big supply of cuss-words as a stock in trade! Eh, lad?" asked another.
"No, I haven't," said Derrick, flushing hotly. "I don't believe in swearing, and if I can't drive a mule without it I won't drive him at all."
"Then I reckon you'll hunt some other business putty quick," answered the miner with a coarse laugh in which the others joined. "Mules won't work without they hears the peculiar langwidge they's most fond of."
"Well," said Derrick, "we'll see." And leaving the store with his purchases he started homeward. On the way he stopped to deliver Mr. Guffy's message to Paul Evert, and to tell his friend the great news that on the following day he was to begin the life of a miner.
"I wish I was going with you," said Paul.
"I wish you were, Polly," answered Derrick. "Perhaps there will be a chance for you down there before long, and by that time I will have learned all the ropes, and can tell you what's what."
Although Derrick had lived much among collieries, he had never been allowed to go down into a mine. His parents had kept him as much as possible from associating with the rough mine lads of the village. Thus, until he went into the breaker to earn his own living, he had held but slight intercourse with them. His friend Paul, being the son of a miner, knew far more of underground life than he, and often smiled at his ignorance of many of the commonest mine terms.
Derrick was a peculiar boy in one respect. He disliked to ask questions, and would rather spend time and patience in finding out things for himself, if it were possible for him to do so. What he thus learned he never forgot.
He was thoroughly familiar with the surface workings of a colliery, and could explain the construction of the great pumps that kept the mine free from water, the huge, swiftly revolving fan that drew all foul air from it, or any of its other machinery. His father's profession had long seemed to him a most desirable one, and he spent much of his spare time in studying such engineering books as still remained in the house. He loved to pore over his father's tracings and maps of the old workings. With these he had become so well acquainted that he believed he could locate on the surface the exact spots beneath which ran the gangways, headings, and breasts of the abandoned portions of the mine.
By means of these old maps he had also discovered on the mountain side, more than a mile away, the mouth of a drift leading into a vein worked out and abandoned more than twenty years before. This discovery he kept to himself as a precious secret bequeathed to him by his father, though he had not the slightest idea that it would ever be of any practical value to him.
By means of these old maps he had also discovered on the mountain side, more than a mile away, the mouth of a drift leading into a vein worked out and abandoned more than twenty years before. This discovery he kept to himself as a precious secret bequeathed to him by his father, though he had not the slightest idea that it would ever be of any practical value to him.
After leaving Paul, Derrick hurried home to tell his mother the great news that he was to work in the mine and earn five dollars a week, and to show her his mine clothes. He was greatly disappointed that instead of rejoicing over his brightening prospects she only gazed at him without speaking, until the tears filled her eyes and rolled down her pale cheeks.
"Why, mother," he said, "aren't you glad? Only thinkfive dollars a week!"
"Oh, my boy, my boy," she exclaimed, drawing him to her, "I can't let you go down into that horrible place! 'Twas there your father met his death."
"Shall I go back to the breaker, then, mother?"
"No, no; I didn't mean what I said. God has delivered you from one fearful peril, and he can guide you safely through all others. Yes, I am glad, Derrickglad of any step that you take forward; but oh, my boy, be very careful wherever you go. Remember how precious your life is to me."
Dressed in his new mine clothes, Derrick hurried through breakfast the next morning, and started for the mouth of the slope bright and early.
On his way he met Bill Tooley, who stopped him by calling out, "Look a-here, young feller. They say yer a-going down ter drive my mule."
"Didn't know you had a mule," answered Derrick, pleasantly.
"Well, I did have a mule; an' what's more, I'm going ter have him again. Any feller that goes to driving him before I get back will be sorry he ever done it, that's all. I don't care if he is the bosses' pet, and did take a ride in a hand-car."
CHAPTER IV
INTRODUCING HARRY, THE BUMPING-MULE
As Derrick walked towards the entrance to the mine, he wondered what the bully whom he had just met meant by what he said. He did not then know that Bill Tooley had been discharged from the mine by Mr. Jones for brutal treatment of the mule he had driven, and for general laziness and neglect of his duties.
At the mouth of the "travelling-road," down which the early arrivals were compelled to make their way into the mine, Derrick was greeted by a little group of miners who were lighting their lamps and preparing to descend.
"'Tis bonny to see thee, Derrick lad," called out one of them.
"'Twill be luck to the mine to have such as you in her," said another.
"My lad would ha' been your age an' he'd lived," said a third. "'Twould ha' been a proud day for me to ha' seen him alongside o' thee, lad, lighting his bit lamp, and ready to take up the life of an honest miner."
In the group was Tom Evert, Paul's father, a brawny, muscular man, who was considered one of the best miners in Raven Brook. Taking Derrick a little to one side, he said,
"They tell me, lad, thou'rt to drive Bill Tooley's mule."
"I don't know anything about Bill Tooley's mule," answered Derrick. "I only know that Mr. Jones said I was to drive a bumping-mule, and I intend to do exactly what he tells me."
"Of course, lad, of course; but the bumping-mule he has in mind will be Bill Tooley's, I doubt not, and I'd rather 'twould be another than you had the job. Bill Tooley, with his feyther to back him, is certain to take it out, some way or another, of the lad that steps into his place."
"I'm not afraid of Bill Tooley, as you ought to know, Mr. Evert," said Derrick, somewhat boastfully, as he thought of the thrashing he had so recently given the young man in question.
"Of course not, lad, of course not. I know you can lick him fast enough in fair fight. My poor little Paul can bear ready witness to that, for which I'm under obligations to you. It's not fair fighting I mean; for when it comes to argyfying with them Tooleys, it's foul play you must look out for; and what the young un lacks in pluck he makes up in inflooence."
Derrick was about to ask what he meant, but was interrupted by a movement of the miners towards the entrance. In another moment he found himself rapidly descending the steep steps of the travelling-road, and feeling that the attempt to keep pace with the long-limbed fellows ahead of him must certainly result in his pitching headlong into the unknown depth of blackness.
The travelling-road was a gigantic stairway, leading at a steep angle directly down into the earth. It was high enough for a man to stand upright in without hitting his head against the roof, and it was provided with steps. They were cut or dug out of the rock, earth, or coal down through which the road passed, and were very broad and very high. The front edge of each was formed of a smooth round log. From the roof and sides of the road dripped and trickled little streams of water that made everything in it wet and soggy, and rendered the edges of the steps particularly slippery.
The air in the road was chilly in comparison with that of the warm summer's morning in which the outside world was rejoicing, and Derrick shivered as he first encountered its penetrating dampness. Of course the darkness was intense, but at first it was partially dispelled by the lights of the half-dozen miners in whose company he had entered the road. As they gradually left him behind, their twinkling lights grew fainter and fainter, until at last they vanished entirely, and Derrick found himself stumbling alone down the apparently interminable stairway.
While yet in company with the miners, he had passed through one door made of heavy planks, that completely closed the road, and now he came to another. Through its chinks and cracks there was a rush of air from outside inward that hummed and whistled like a small gale. It took all of Derrick's strength to pull this door open, and it closed behind him with a crash that reverberated in long, hollow echoes down the black depths before him.
Some distance below he was startled by a heavy booming sound from above, which was followed by a tremendous clattering, mingled with shouts and cries. In the first of these sounds he recognized the closing of the door through which he had recently passed, but he could not account for the others.
They were continued, and grew louder and louder as they approached, until at length they were close at hand, and he saw lights and a confused mass of struggling forms directly above him. Stepping to one side, Derrick flattened himself against the wall to let them pass; but just as the miner who came first reached that point, he tossed the end of a rope into the boy's hands, saying, "Here, lad, lead this mule down the rest of the way, will ye? I'm in a powerful hurry myself."
In another instant he had gone, leaping with immense strides down the precipitous steps, and Derrick found himself staring into the comical face of a large mule which, with his fore-feet on one step and his hind ones on that above, looked as though he were about to stand on his head.
"Go on, can't yer!" called out an impatient voice from behind the mule. "Do ye think I can hang onto this 'ere blessed tail all day? A mule's no feather-weight, let me tell yer."
Then Derrick realized that another man held the mule by the tail, and was exerting all his strength to prevent him from going down too fast. Accepting the situation, he started ahead, encouraging the mule to follow; but this arrangement did not seem to suit the animal, for he refused to budge a step from where he stood, nor could the man in the rear push him along.
"Here, you!" the man called out to Derrick, "come back here and steer him while I take his head. When he gets started, hang on to his tail with all your might, and hold back all yer can."