Copper Coleson's Ghost

by Edward P. Hendrick

  CHAPTER II COPPER COLESON

  If Tommy Beals found the open-air gymnasium impracticable, the same wasnot true of Dick Somers, whose slim, wiry body took most kindly to thevarious hanging rings and flying trapezes that adorned the limbs of theold apple tree. Only in such stunts as depended upon sheer muscularstrength could Ned Blake greatly excel this new friend, who had acceptedwith enthusiasm the invitation to make himself at home in the Blakeback-yard.

  “Let’s go for a swim,” suggested Tommy from the soap box, where he satfanning himself with his hat and watching the two young acrobats dotheir stuff.

  “That’s a good idea, Fatty,” agreed Ned. “Where’ll we go?”

  “Oh, most anywhere,” wheezed Tommy. “It’s ninety right here in theshade!” and he glared reproachfully at a rusty thermometer, which wasnailed 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 returnedwith 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 outfrom town,” explained Ned. “It used to be just a third-rate farm whereEli Coleson lived and grubbed a scanty living out of his few acres. Thestory is that one day he started to dig a well in his back-yard and downabout ten feet he came upon a vein of almost pure copper ore. They sayhe quit farming that very minute and went to mining copper. For awhilehe made money hand over fist, but, like lots of people who strike itrich, Eli Coleson couldn’t stand prosperity.”

  “Here comes Dave,” interrupted Tommy Beals, as a battered car came intosight around the corner. “He’s brought Charlie Rogers with him. Heythere, Red!” he shouted to a boy on the front seat, who by reason of hisfiery locks had been given that expressive nickname. “Who asked _you_ tothe party?”

  “Nobody asked me, Fatty. I just horned in,” grinned Rogers. “I figuredthat if four of us sat on the front seat there’d be room for you inback.”

  “Tell me some more about this Eli Coleson,” urged Dick, when the seatingarrangements had been settled and the car was again in motion.

  “Well,” resumed Ned, “the old man just naturally lost his head when hesaw the dollars rolling in so fast. The first thing he did was to ripdown his old farmhouse, which job he accomplished with a couple ofsticks of dynamite, and right on the old foundation he began a greathouse of brick and stone.”

  “Yes, and if he’d ever finished it, he’d have had one of the swellplaces of the state,” declared Rogers.

  “There’s no doubt of that,” agreed Ned. “Every dollar old Eli got forhis copper he spent on the house. The vein of ore was only about tenfeet wide and extended toward the lake. They followed it out under thelake bottom as far as they dared; then they started digging in the otherdirection and tunneled back under the cellar of the house, but soonafterward the vein petered out and so did Eli’s fortune. The workmen hadjust got the roof on the new house when they had to stop. Eli wasbroke.”

  “What became of him?” asked Dick.

  “Oh, he’s still hanging around out there, living in one of the partlyfinished rooms and pecking away with pick and shovel trying to get a fewmore dollars out of the mine,” explained Ned. “Maybe we’ll see him. He’sgot a long white beard streaked with green stains from copper ore he’salways handling. Copper Coleson, they call him.”

  “I hear he’s got a fellow named Latrobe working for him,” remarkedBeals. “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 objectif we take a swim off the beach.”

  Eight miles from town the car turned sharply from the main highway tofollow a narrow road which wound through a desolate stretch of scrubbywoodland for some three miles and emerged upon the shore of Lake Erie.Here on a slight elevation dotted with thickets of scrub oak and birchstood the unfinished mansion known locally as Copper Coleson’s Folly.

  “It surely started out to be a grand place,” exclaimed Dick, as he gazedup at the tall brick front with its rows of windows, in none of whichglass had ever been placed.

  “We’ll leave the car out here in the road,” decided Wilbur. “We can walkaround 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 sandyshore which afforded fine bathing, and here the boys disportedthemselves for an hour, swimming and diving in the cool water.

  “I’d like to get a look at this copper mine,” remarked Dick. “I neversaw a mine or anything like one—except an old limestone quarry, and thatwas only a big hole in the ground.”

  “There isn’t a whole lot to see in this mine,” replied Ned; “just avertical shaft about fifteen feet deep, which is nothing more than theold well Coleson was digging when he struck the copper ore. It’s rightbehind 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 andcrossed a sandy stretch to the rear of the house. Nobody appeared tooppose their progress, and in a moment they were grouped about the mouthof the shaft staring down into the blackness below.

  “The tunnel runs both ways from the bottom of this shaft,” explainedNed. “One end is right under the house but the other is some distanceout under the lake-bottom—I don’t know just how far it extends, althoughI’ve been down through it several times. Probably Coleson is down therenow with his pick and shovel. He fills a dump car with ore, hauls it tothe bottom of the shaft and hoists it with this rigging,” and Nedindicated a rusty windlass which stood at the edge of the pit.

  “Some job turning that crank,” murmured Dave Wilbur, as he eyed thedilapidated mechanism.

  “Yeah, it would be a lot wors’n turning a grindstone,” chuckled TommyBeals. “By the way, Weary, when are you going to finish that job onNed’s axe?”

  “D’j’ever hear about the man who ‘always had an axe to grind’?” drawledWilbur.

  “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’smighty slow work knocking chunks off the walls of the tunnel, and theydon’t dare fire a blast for fear of bringing down the roof of the mineand the lake with it. There’s no money in this kind of mining, and Idon’t see how Coleson makes enough to keep him from starving.”

  “You’re right!” exclaimed Tommy Beals, with an expression of genuineconcern on his plump features. “And speaking of starvation reminds methat—”

  “That you’ve been dieting for almost four hours and are about to passout of the picture,” laughed Ned. “All right, boys,” he continued, “ifDick has seen enough, let’s save Fatty’s life right now by heading backfor home and supper.”