The Abandoned Mine Mystery

by Norvin Pallas

  “You mean Estelle? You’re crazy.”

  “You’re right, she does have attractive eyes,” Nelson kidded. “OK. What’s on tomorrow?”

  “Mr. Winslow the first thing. And then I’m afraid that sometime or other we’re going to have to go back into that mine. I can use the background material for my story. And as you say, we’re not going to be scared off if we can help it. Then there’s Alice. I’m still wondering where she could have wandered off to while the children thought she went into the mine.”

  “OK, Ted, I’m with you all the way. But you remind me a little bit of a man who walked a short way into quicksand, but didn’t know for sure if it was quicksand, so he kept right on going to find out.”

  CHAPTER 8.

  THAT MONSTER AUTOMATION

  TED put through a call to Mr. Winslow, the president of the mining company, but found that he would not be available for an appointment until eleven o’clock.

  “Then why don’t we tackle someone else on your list, Ted? We could start right from the top with the mayor. Nobody could be higher than that.”

  Ted called the mayor’s office, and was surprised at the answer. The mayor was neither at work nor at home, but perhaps could be found sitting in the park. The boys had already noticed the park, in the center of the small city, and drove to it.

  They found him basking in the morning sun in his shirt sleeves. Though friendly, he did not rise to greet them, and they soon realized it was difficult for him to move around.

  The mayor, upon learning that Ted was a reporter, was ready to get down to brass tacks.

  “You young men know anything about figures?”

  “He does.” Nelson indicated Ted.

  “Well, then,” said the mayor, “let me tell you that that mine could be opened and worked at a profit, and I’ve got the figures to prove it.”

  “Did you ever show your figures to Mr. Winslow?”

  “Of course I did. He disputes them, naturally. But my figures are reliable. They come from somebody who knows what he is talking about.”

  “I’m expecting to talk with Mr. Winslow this morning. Maybe he’ll tell me what he thinks of your figures.”

  The mayor nodded. “He will. He’ll weasel around them somehow. He wants to get paid for all the obsolete equipment he owns, and wants all his old debts paid off. Then, he’ll tell you, maybe something could be done with these figures.”

  “When you speak about opening the mine again, are you talking about automation, or the old way?”

  “I look upon automation as pretty much of a scare word, Ted. You’re always going to need men, and maybe a great many men. You can invent a machine that can add better than you can, but what else can it do? The truth is it can’t do anything at all until you tell it what to do. No machine has ever yet been invented that could decide why it ought to do something, or whether what it was doing was good or bad. But suppose fewer men are needed, if the change is made gradually no one need be hurt. As men retire or leave voluntarily, they simply won’t be replaced.”

  “I’ve heard that argument before, and it doesn’t convince me,” Nelson said. “That way the older workers are protected, but young people can’t find jobs because they aren’t there to find.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite as bad as you suggest,” said the mayor. “Young people can be educated for other jobs.”

  “I understand that it was a bad accident that led to the closing of the mine,” Ted said.

  “Yes, it was. As a young man I was a miner myself, so I’m not speaking as an outsider. I know what the risks are. I wouldn’t tell you that it’s the safest job in the world, but I think the risks have been exaggerated, too. You’ve heard about some of these big disasters. What do you think caused them? I don’t care what the bosses say, or the unions say, or the legislators say, or the safety committees say. I can tell you what the miners say among themselves. They say that some miner sneaked off into a deserted pocket for a smoke, and touched off the accumulated gas.”

  “Do you think the miners are right?”

  “It would be hard to prove it, but I’d be more inclined to take the word of a miner than that of anyone else. They’re right at the root of the problem, and they know what’s going on.”

  “Is it more dangerous for the coal pirates?” Ted inquired.

  “Any time you have men working without supervision, it’s dangerous. There’s no one to enforce any standards upon them. Even under the best of circumstances it’s always hard to enforce safety standards in a mine. The men are more interested in making money than they are in safety. But I will say that most miners, though they may be reckless about their own safety, try to protect their fellow workers.”

  “Wouldn’t guards at the mine entrances put an end to the coal pirating?”

  “Who knows how many entrances there are, after all these years, and who could afford full-time watchmen at each entrance? So the company puts up warning signs and erects barricades that are soon torn down, and hopes that that will be enough to keep them out of legal trouble. I suspect that it isn’t enough, when it comes to small children too young to know what they’re doing.”

  “Is there any way that Mr. Winslow could be forced to reopen the mine?”

  “There are various ways of putting pressure on him. I think that Mr. Winslow is hoping too much for financial assistance. If he knew once and for all that he wasn’t going to get any help from the state, he’d stop stalling around and figure out something else.”

  The boys had a chance a little later to compare the mayor’s viewpoint with Mr. Winslow’s. The mine president greeted them in a friendly manner.

  “You’re here because you want to know why the mine is closed, and what can be done about opening it again,” he began. “Why else would you be here? It’s the same question that’s on everyone’s mind, including my own.”

  “Are you the person who makes the decision?” Ted questioned.

  “Yes, ultimately.”

  “What did you think of the figures that show the mine can be opened?” Ted went on.

  “Very interesting, if you happen to like fairy stories. Do you know who prepared those figures? They were compiled by Mr. Patrick Sorrel. If you’ve been around town very much, you’ve heard about him.”

  The visitors nodded.

  “He didn’t publicly back up his figures, because he thinks the community is down on him. If I could start all over again, the mine could be operated competitively, just as he says. But how can I start over again? I’m hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.”

  “What good are figures?” Nelson maintained. “Two people can take the same figures and come to exactly opposite opinions.”

  “It’s a question of getting all the figures in, I suppose. If I could agree that all our equipment is obsolete, I might be won over to Mr. Sorrel’s point of view.”

  “Isn’t it true that your equipment is obsolete?” asked Ted.

  “Of course, by automated standards, but that doesn’t mean we have to scrap everything and start over. Here, let me show you something.”

  He took out a folder and showed them some pictures of a modern, automated mine. The cutting was done by huge machines that looked like monsters from outer space. Conveyor belts moved the coal out through brightly lighted tunnels. Everything was electrically powered, and the electricity in turn was probably generated by means of coal. Fifty years ago one man could produce about three tons of coal a day; today the production might be sixty tons, one man doing the work of twenty.

  “It was an accident that closed the mine, I’ve heard,” Ted said as he returned the folder.

  “Yes, it did. The explosion made me realize that our safety standards were inadequate. I’m not a murderer, believe me. But I couldn’t hire you to walk across the street for me and guarantee 100% safety.”

  “Mightn’t there be some quite common and preventable cause of accidents?”

  “You mean such as smoking in the mines? I’m afraid it
’s a much more complicated matter than that.”

  “You don’t think this particular explosion was deliberately set?”

  “Of course not, of course not. It’s just a silly rumor. It’s no wonder Mr. Sorrel grew bitter—and the people in East Walton don’t even know how hard he tried to get the mines open, even to the point of writing a fairy story!”

  “What about the coal pirates?”

  “Oh, I know about them, of course, and I keep my eye on them. How much coal can you truck away in a night? But with practically no overhead, everything is profit.”

  “You heard about the Llewellyn children wandering into the mine?”

  “Yes, and I’ll put the barricade back up, but it won’t keep older people out.”

  “Is it safe enough for anyone to go into the mine?”

  “I turn on the air-conditioning equipment at intervals to keep poisonous gases from accumulating, and the water pumps have to be manned, and there are other ordinary maintenance measures.”

  “But no guards?”

  “Our equipment is guarded, of course, but other than that I just couldn’t do it. Nobody knows how far that mine reaches. There were dozens of tunnels made long before this company ever came on the scene.”

  Ted rose to his feet and Nelson followed his example. “I think we’ve taken enough of your time, Mr. Winslow, and I appreciate your help. Just one more question: what is being done about getting the mine back open?”

  Mr. Winslow also rose. “I think the most honest answer I could give would be: nothing.”

  “And that’s about the most honest answer I ever heard to anything,” Nelson commented, as he and Ted walked toward the car. “Talk, talk, talk, and nothing is getting done, but our boy, Ted Wilford, comes along and thinks he’s going to solve the whole problem.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Ted. “It’s too big for me, and it makes me wonder if maybe it’s too big for everyone.”

  “When are we going down in the mine again?”

  “Let’s make it tonight. Night or day, it’s just as dark down there. But we can perhaps be a little more secretive about our plans, and if anybody else is up to anything, we might have a better chance of discovering it. And that’ll give us time to make our preparations. Take along a little lunch, and make sure you’ve got plenty of fresh batteries.

  It was agreed that they would spend the day on a few things that had been on their minds. Ted wanted to take a ride up to the railroad bridge crossing the river, to see if there was any likelihood that Alice had crossed there. They wanted to stop again at the Llewellyn farm. So far Nelson had not done much with his camera, until he had an idea what Ted wanted. But now that Ted’s story was starting to take form in his mind, it was time for Nelson to get into action.

  They left East Walton shortly after lunch, and some miles north arrived at the railroad crossing. The tracks crossed the highway in an overpass, and they parked the car to get out and look at it. It was with some difficulty that they climbed up the steep embankment.

  “I don’t think a mule could have made it,” Nelson decided.

  “No,” Ted was obliged to agree, “unless Alice wanted to climb up the stone ledges, and I can’t see her doing that. But is there an easier way?”

  There didn’t seem to be. There were fences along the right of way enclosing fields and pastures, which shut off any easy access. To get to the tracks, Alice would either have to jump a fence, or happen to find a gate open.

  “More than one gate, Ted,” Nelson pointed out. “She’d have to find her way through a regular network, and I’m sure Alice would be too smart to come all this way just on the slight chance of finding so many gates open.”

  They walked beside the tracks until they reached the river. The bridge crossing the river had large openings between the ties, which would probably have scared off any mule.

  “They even scare me,” Nelson observed.

  “Well, then, I think we can consider it settled. Alice never came this way. I rather thought she might have, since Mr. Stevens mentioned this way as being shorter.”

  “Wouldn’t that depend on just where Alice wanted to go on the other side of the river?”

  “I suppose so, but she was found near West Walton. I’m glad Alice didn’t try this bridge. There aren’t as many trains, as there are cars, but even one would be too many.”

  They took a circuitous route back to the Llewellyn farm, by-passing East Walton but getting a good view of the countryside. The Llewellyn children were very glad to see them, and Nelson took a few pictures of them riding on the mule. Ted learned that there was a nearby pond at which Alice occasionally drank, but she was careful never to so much as wet a hoof. It was clear that she would never have voluntarily swum across the river. Even rain bothered her, and she would probably try to seek out some shelter.

  “We can’t be sure that Alice didn’t take shelter in the mine,” Nelson pointed out, after they had said goodbye to the Llewellyns and were heading back toward East Walton.

  “No, except that if she waited out the storm in the mine, there would have been no time for her to get across the river after the storm was over.”

  Not wanting to waste what was left of the afternoon, Ted interviewed some more people on the list Mr. Allen had given him, while Nelson made preparations for their excursion to the mine, planned for late evening. Then about seven o’clock their telephone rang.

  “This Ted Wilford?” asked a strange voice.

  “Speaking.”

  “Do you want to know more about the coal pirates?”

  “I’m certainly ready to listen.”

  “You can do more than listen. Be waiting for me in your cabin at ten o’clock—and wear some old clothes.”

  The caller hung up.

  CHAPTER 9.

  PIRATES AT WORK

  WHEN Ted had relayed this conversation to Nelson, they stared at each other for a moment. Then Nelson threw down the knapsack he was packing. “This ends our own expedition, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess it does. It’s a better lead than we could get by ourselves.”

  “What kind of lead, Ted? Just what good does it do us?”

  “Well, we’re anxious to find out everything we can about what’s going on in the mine, right? And this is our chance to find out a little something.”

  “What are the pirates going to say if they catch us?”

  “Let’s hope they won’t catch us. I doubt that the pirates will like the idea of anybody’s spying on them.”

  “Except that everybody knows the pirating is going on,” Nelson pointed out, “even Mr. Winslow. So what do the pirates care?”

  “They might prefer not to be identified.”

  “That’s easy, Ted. We don’t know any of them well enough to identify them.”

  They spent a restless evening, waiting for the anonymous caller to show up. What if it were only something intended to interfere with their own plans? Or what if it had some sinister motive?

  “Ted, suppose you did get a story, including the names of all the pirates and an exact description of what they were doing. What would you do with it? Print it, or do you happen to like the way you’re put together?”

  “I’m pretty well satisfied. But it wouldn’t be up to me. Mr. Dobson would have to decide whether to use the story.”

  “And Mr. Dobson might have some qualms about getting you involved.”

  Ten o’clock came and passed, and they had about decided to give up on their visitor, when there came a discreet knock on their door. Nelson was closest, and opened it. There appeared to be no one there at first. Their visitor was standing off to the side.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  Nelson looked at Ted. “I guess we’re ready. Will we take my car?”

  “No, I’ve got mine a little way down the road. We’ll go in that.”

  Ted left a note on his desk saying where they had gone—as far as they knew. Chances were it would do little good, but it was the only preca
ution he could think of that would not actually interfere with the story they were after.

  The visitor walked on ahead of them. The car was parked in a dark spot, and they were unable to read the license plate. He motioned them into the front seat, then took his own place from the driver’s side. He started the engine as quietly as he could, and the car moved slowly forward.

  They could not tell much about their guide. Though he was not hiding his face, his hat was pulled low, and shadowed it. They got the impression that he was no older than they were. While it could not have been anyone they knew well, they were unable to eliminate the possibility it might be someone they had met briefly, perhaps at the Canteen.

  “Where are we going?” asked Nelson, as much in the hope of drawing the young man into conversation as an attempt to pick up information.

  The driver only shook his head, and refused to answer. Whether he was trying to hide his voice or whether he was simply worried they could not tell.

  One thing seemed certain to the passengers: although they had expected right along that they were being taken to the mine, they could tell that they weren’t going by the most direct route. Unfamiliar though they were with the roads around East Walton, it did not seem that they could circle around quite this much without getting anywhere. Apparently the idea was to confuse them, or to throw off anyone who might be following.

  The driver’s frequent glances in the mirror bore this out. After all, he couldn’t be sure they hadn’t told anyone about their excursion, and had arranged to have themselves followed.

  They turned up some obscure side road, and after making several turns drew up to what was obviously an entrance to the mine. A truck was parked there—not a very large truck—and it was partly filled with coal. Their driver got out of the car, and motioned them ahead of him.

  “How much coal do you think that truck would hold?” Ted asked Nelson in a whisper.

  “About four tons, I’d say at a guess. If that’s all they’re able to haul away in a night, it’s no wonder Mr. Winslow isn’t interested.”

  Their guide had put a miner’s light on his head, which helped to illuminate the path ahead of them. At the mine entrance he took the lead, while they followed close behind. They were following a set of tracks on which carts had once hauled coal.