CHAPTER III

TWO THOUSAND FEET UNDER GROUND

Jarvis sprang forward and with shovel in hand began throwing the dirt in all directions.

"If you don't mind, please don't pile any more of this red stuff on my head than you can help. I have plenty as it is," said Steve.

"That's so; I was throwing it your way, wasn't I?" chuckled Bob, laughing good-naturedly.

Steve found time to study the other boy while the latter was digging him out. In spite of Jarvis' meanness to him, Rush felt certain that the lad possessed a good heart, and it was a strong, resourceful face that Steve found himself studying as the digging progressed.

"Bob," he said finally, "have you ever been thrashed?"

"Thrashed? Licked, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Well, not since my dad gave me a walloping last," laughed the boy.

"Don't you think a good, sound thrashing would do you a whole lot of good?"

Bob grinned broadly. By this time he had dug down around Rush until the latter was able to clamber from the pile of ore.

"Well, I don't know about that."

"I do, and I know you've got to have one before very long," announced young Rush with strong emphasis.

"I will, eh?"

"You will," affirmed Steve, brushing the dirt from his clothes.

"And who's going to give me this licking, Little Miss Hurry-up?" demanded Jarvis threateningly.

"I am," replied Steve in a quiet tone.

Jarvis began to take off his coat.

"Not now, Bob," spoke up the other quickly. "This is the company's time. We should both be discharged if we were to be caught fighting here and now. We will settle our difficulty some other time."

"So you were only bluffing, eh? I knew you didn't have the spunk to fight anything."

Steve pointed off to the mine shaft.

"There comes the skip with a load of ore. You had better get your car back there or you will have trouble enough without a fight."

Jarvis, with an exclamation, began pushing the tram car back over the top of the dump, Steve picking up his shovel and beginning his work of clearing the end of the tracks.

All day long the lad toiled industriously. It was hard work and his back ached, yet he kept to his task. When night came Steve had the satisfaction of being told that he had done a man's work that day.

A truce had been declared between the two boys, so far as fighting was concerned, though Jarvis continued his nagging at every opportunity. Steve took the other's scoffing good-naturedly, turning Bob's jibes with soft answers. For a full week both lads had labored far up on the ore dump. They had been too busy to think of their personal grievances for any great length of time. Saturday night had arrived, and when Steve left the dump to start for his boarding house he was told that the general superintendent wished to see him.

"I guess he is going to discharge me," thought the boy. "Well, I have done the best I could."

His surprise was great, therefore, when the superintendent said, as the lad came to a halt in front of the official's desk:

"You have done very well, Rush."

"Thank you, sir."

"Do you still think you would like to work below ground?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you may begin on Monday."

"On what shift?"

"The day shift, going down at seven o'clock. The best I have for you now is a contract job run by a man named Spooner. You will find it pretty hard work. You see, these contracts are given out for so much per ton and the men who take the contracts propose to get as much out of their workmen as possible. You will be worked to your full capacity."

"I can stand it, sir."

"If you do, you should be able to endure anything we have to offer in this business. I have arranged for Spooner to take you on as a miner's helper. Your wages will be a dollar and a quarter a day. Be very careful and guard yourself from accident. Carelessness may cost you your life, for there is danger everywhere below ground."

"I will be very careful, sir."

Steve hurried away full of anticipation. He was to be a real miner; he was to start his career as a miner on a level two thousand feet below the surface. The lad had never been below ground before and he was full of anticipation of what awaited him on the following Monday morning.

Acting on the suggestion of the boarding-house boss, the lad had purchased a suit of yellow oilcloth, rubber boots, oilcloth hat and candle holder. This latter, as used by the ore miners, is a piece of steel, one end coming to a sharp point, the other having an opening for the candle itself. The whole fastens securely to the hat. When necessary the candle holder may be carried in the hand, or driven into a crevice of rock or ore.

This, with pick and shovel, comprises the miner's outfit and was the outfit of Steve Rush when he presented himself at the mouth of the shaft on the following Monday morning. There were about five hundred men to go down in the cage, the car that carries the miners and other passengers down to the various levels, and Steve found himself pushed aside, so that he was among the last to get aboard the steel cage.

"Will you tell me where the Spooner contract is located?" he asked of the cage-tender before getting aboard.

"Seventeenth level."

"Does the car stop there?"

"If it doesn't, you're a goner."

Rush leaped aboard, grasping the rod that he saw above his head to steady himself. The protecting bars in front of the cage fell in place with a noisy clang.

"All clear," announced a voice.

The support beneath the lad seemed to drop from under him. With a rush and a roar, a grinding and crunching the steel cage dropped from sight. Instantly everything was plunged in inky darkness.

"Do--do they always go like this?" asked the young miner of a man standing beside him.

"This isn't going much. He has slow speed on this morning because the cage has a bigger load than usual. Afraid, are you?"

"No, I am not afraid. I was wondering what would happen if the man forgot to shut off his power when we reached the bottom."

The miner laughed.

"We'd punch a hole in the bottom of the shaft," he said.

"How deep is the shaft, sir?"

"Two thousand feet to the bottom--fifty feet less than that to the last working level. The bottom level is used to drain off the water from the other levels. From there big steam pumps pump the water to the surface."

The two could scarcely hear for noise.

"The Spooner contract is on the seventeenth level, is it not?"

"Yes, on the sub-level above the seventeenth. Is that where you are going to work?"

"Yes, sir; for Mr. Spooner."

"Then I feel sorry for you."

"Why so, sir?"

"Because he is a slave driver. Every man in the mines knows him and none of them wants to work for him. I guess he hasn't a white man on the contract."

"I didn't know there were any colored men employed here."

"There are not. We call a white man one who is not a foreigner," laughed the miner.

"Oh!"

Now and then the car would halt with a jolt; two or three men would leap off and disappear in the darkness, after which the cage would drop down another level or so.

"Here is your level," announced the miner. "Jump off, or you will be carried by."

Steve jumped off.

"Thank you," he called, but the miner did not hear him, for the car had dropped quickly out of sight.

Water that had dripped down through the shaft from the surface and the upper levels was, by this time, running from the oilskins of the young miner in tiny rivulets. Dampness was everywhere. A blast of hot, damp air smote him in the face as he turned to look about him.

"I wonder where I am to go?" muttered Steve.

A heavy fog hung over everything, electric lights glowing dimly through the haze, so that one was able to see but a few feet ahead.

"Where is the Spooner contract?" called Steve to a passing miner.

The man jerked a hand over his shoulder, whereupon the lad made his way cautiously down the level or tunnel, which is the main avenue, and from which other tunnels, called drifts, run off into the ore beds.

By this time the mine was in full operation. Strange sounds smote the ears of the young miner. The roar of the electric tram cars as they dashed by him, now and then narrowly missing running him down, the thunder of the skips, huge black objects hurling themselves surfaceward loaded with iron ore, the bang, bang of the drills and the detonations of many dynamite explosions, filled the heart of Steve Rush with awe and wonder.

The lad was confused. He did not know which way to turn, nor what second he might step into an opening and plunge downward. Had he but known it there was little danger of such an accident so long as he kept to the main level. There were many dangerous holes--ore chutes--but these ordinarily were protected so that there was little chance of one's falling through them. Such accidents, however, had been known to occur.

At last Steve saw a man who looked as if he might be a person in authority, and to this one he appealed to direct him to the Spooner contract.

"Who are you?" demanded the man sharply.

"My name is Rush. May I ask who you are?"

"I am the mine captain. Do you work with Spooner?"

"I am going to do so if I can find the way to his place."

"Come this way. I will show you how to get there. You are late."

"Yes, sir; I was not able to find my way and I guess I was among the last ones to come down in the cage."

"This is your first experience below ground?"

"It is, sir."

"Then let me give you some advice; never get careless. There is danger everywhere about here."

"So I have already discovered, sir."

"There is no excuse for men getting hurt, however, if they do not get careless. That is why so many get hurt, and why some lose their lives. We do everything we can to look out for the safety of our people, but we cannot guard against everything."

"I shall try to follow your advice, sir."

The captain strode along rapidly through dark drifts, turning here and there with perfect confidence. Steve felt sure that he never should be able to find his way about in that labyrinth without getting lost, and he asked the captain how he should do so.

"Follow the crowd," was the brief answer. "There, do you see that ladder?"

"Yes, sir."

"Climb it. It is a forty-foot ladder. The top of it is the sub-level, where the Spooner contract is located."

"Thank you, sir," answered Rush, beginning his long, dark climb up the slender ladder to the unknown regions above him.