Edward FitzGerald - "Letters of Edward FitzGerald"

Edward Elmer Smith - "Spacehounds of IPC"

Alexandre Dumas - "La dame de Monsoreau v.1"

Bracebridge Hemyng - "Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Call of the Beaver Patrol

V >> V. T. Sherman >> The Call of the Beaver Patrol



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THE CALL OF THE BEAVER PATROL

Or

A Break in the Glacier

by

CAPT. V. T. SHERMAN

Author of

The War Zone of the Kaiser;
Boy Scouts with Joffre;
The Perils of an Airship;
The Boy Scout Signal, Etc.







[Frontispiece]


[Illustration]



1913
M. A. Donohue & Co.
Chicago




CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I--Camping in the Breaker 7

II--The Call of the Pack 15

III--Who Cut the String? 21

IV--A Sensational Discovery 28

V--The Flooded Mine 35

VI--The Beaver Call 41

VII--A Treacherous Foe 47

VIII--They Went Up in the Air 54

IX--Who Discovered the Leak? 60

X--The Boy in the Empty 67

XI--A Knock at the Door 73

XII--A Midnight Robber 79

XIII--One More Hungry Boy 86

XIV--Mine Rats Ready for War 92

XV--A Stick of Dynamite 99

XVI--Caused by a Fall 106

XVII--The Signs in Stones 113

XVIII--Two Hold-Up Men 120

XIX--The Money in Sight 127

XX--Sandy Is Discharged 134

XXI--"I Told You So" 141

XXII--Conclusion 148




Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns

Or, The Light in Tunnel Six




CHAPTER I

CAMPING IN THE BREAKER


"And so I says to myself, says I, give me a good husky band of Boy
Scouts! They'll do the job if it can be done!"

Case Canfield, caretaker, sat back in a patched chair in the dusky,
unoccupied office of the Labyrinth mine and addressed himself to four
lads of seventeen who were clad in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts
of America.

Those of our readers who have read the previous books of this series
will have good cause to remember George Benton, Charley ("Sandy") Green,
Tommy Gregory and Will Smith. The adventures of these lads among the
Pictured Rocks of Old Superior, among the wreckers and reptiles of the
Florida Everglades, in the caverns of the Great Continental Divide, and
among the snows of the Hudson Bay wilderness have been recorded under
appropriate titles in previous works.

The four boys were members of the Beaver Patrol, Chicago. Will Smith was
Scoutmaster, while George Benton was Patrol Leader. They wore upon the
sleeves of their coats medals showing that they had passed the
examination as Ambulance Aids, Stalkers, Pioneers and Seamen.

Instructed by Mr. Horton, a well-known criminal lawyer of Chicago, the
boys had reached the almost deserted mine at dusk of a November day.
There they had found Canfield, the caretaker, waiting for them in a
dimly-lighted office. The mine had not been operated for a number of
months, not because the veins had given out, but because of some
misunderstanding between the owners of mines in that section.

The large, bare room in which the caretaker and the Boy Scouts met was
in the breaker. There was no fire in the great heater, and the tables
and chairs were black with dust. A single electric light shone down from
the ceiling, creating long, ghostlike shadows as it swayed about in a
gentle wind blowing through a broken window.

"Well," Tommy Gregory said, as the caretaker paused, "you've got the Boy
Scouts, and it remains for you to set us to work."

"And a sturdy looking lot, too!" grinned the caretaker.

"Oh, Mr. Horton wouldn't be apt to send a lot of cripples!" laughed
Sandy Green. "He's next to his job, that man is!"

"I presume he told you all about the case?" suggested Canfield.

"Indeed he did not," replied Will Smith.

"Not a thing about it?" asked the caretaker.

"He only said that you would give us full instructions."

"That's strange!" Canfield observed thoughtfully.

"Perhaps he thought we wouldn't want to undertake the job if we knew
exactly what it was!" suggested Sandy.

"It is a queer kind of a job," Canfield admitted, "but I don't think you
boys would be apt to back out because of a little danger."

"I have wanted to back out several times," laughed Tommy, "but, somehow,
these others boys wouldn't permit me to."

"Go on and tell us about it," urged Sandy. "Tell us just what you want
us to do, and then we'll tell you whether we think we can do it or not."

"You've got to find two boys!" replied Canfield.

"Mother of Moses!" exclaimed Tommy. "I hope we haven't got to go and dig
up blond-haired little Algernon, or discover pretty little Clarence, and
turn a bunch of money over to him!"

"I think these two boys may have money coming to them," the caretaker
replied. "There must be money back of it or the friends of the lads
wouldn't be giving me cash to spend in their interest."

"Where are these boys?" asked Will.

"I've heard the opinion expressed that the boys are somewhere in the
mine!" answered Canfield. "I can hardly believe that they are, but it
has been suggested that we may as well begin the search under ground."

"Where do these boys belong?" asked George.

"Anywhere and everywhere," was the reply. "Jimmie Maynard and Dick
Thompson came here as breaker boys six months ago. They were ragged and
dirty, and appeared to be as tough as two young bears. They worked
steadily until the day before the mine closed down and then they
disappeared."

"That's easy!" declared Tommy. "They got tired of work!"

"That may be," answered the caretaker, "but they certainly didn't get
tired of drawing their pay. They went away leaving about eight dollars,
the two of them, in the care of the company."

"Then something must have happened to them!" Will suggested.

"Who's looking for these boys?" asked George.

"A New York lawyer," was the reply. "I know nothing whatever about the
man. In fact, I don't know why he wants to find out where the boys are.
He sends me money and tells me to continue my quest until the boys are
found, and then to send them to New York."

"So you have entire charge of the search," said Sandy, tentatively.

"Yes," was the reply, "except for Joe Ventner. He's a detective sent on
from New York by this Burlingame person, the lawyer to whom I referred a
short time ago."

"What part of the world is he searching?" asked Will.

"He seems to think that the boys ran away because of some childish prank
put on by them the night before. They broke some windows in a couple of
shanties down by the tracks, or, at least, the other boys say they did,
and Joe thinks they ran away because of that. He accounts in that way
for their not calling after their pay envelopes."

"So he thinks they've gone out of the country, does he."

"Yes," was the reply. "He comes back here every few days to ask if I
have heard anything regarding the youngsters, and then goes away again.
If you leave it to me, I don't think the fellow is working very hard in
the case. There's a half a dozen saloons in a little dump of a place
about ten miles away, and my idea is that he puts in a good deal of his
time there."

"You don't seem to take to this detective?" asked George.

"Oh, I don't know as he's so much worse than the average private
detective," replied the caretaker. "He's out for his day's wages, and
the easier he can get them, the better it suits him.

"So you don't know who wants these boys, or what they're wanted for?"
asked Will. "Lawyer Burlingame never took you into his confidence so far
as to post you on the details of the case."

"He never did!" answered the caretaker.

"Is he liberal with his money?" asked George.

"He pays all the bills I send in," was the answer. "And seems to keep
this bum detective pretty well supplied with ten-dollar bills."

"We may have to investigate this investigator!" laughed Sandy.

"Did Mr. Horton say anything to you about your lodgings while here?"
asked the caretaker. "It's getting too cold here for me, and we may as
well be shifting to warmer quarters."

"You said a short time ago," Will began, "that you rather thought we
ought to begin this search in the mine itself."

"That's my idea!" answered the caretaker.

"Do you think the boys are hiding in the mine?"

"Well, there are some things connected with the case which point in that
direction," replied Canfield. "For instance, there's a lot of queer
things going on under ground."

"Ghosts?" demanded Tommy.

"You're not steering us up against a haunted mine, are you?" asked
George with a wink at his chum. "That would be too good to be true!"

"I haven't said anything about ghosts or haunted mines," chuckled the
caretaker. "I'm only saying that there are queer things taking place in
the mine. Now there's Tunnel Six," he went on, "I have seen lights there
with my own eyes, when I know there wasn't a person within two miles of
the spot except myself. And I've heard noises, too! These unaccountable
noises which make a man think of graveyards and ghosts."

"But why should two healthy, active boys want to seek such a hiding
place?" asked Will. "It certainly can't be very pleasant in the dark and
damp tunnels! Besides, where would they get their provisions?"

"I'm not arguing the case, lads," the caretaker replied, "I'm placing
the case in your hands without instructions. I only suggest that you
look in the mine first, but you don't have to do that unless you want
to!"

"I don't see how we can find fault with that arrangement!" laughed Will.
"And now," he went on, "let's arrange about our lodgings. In the first
place, who knows that we are here on this job?"

"Not a soul, unless some one saw you coming into the breaker!"

"That's just as it should be," Will went on. "Now I propose that we camp
out in the breaker. There must be a cosy corner somewhere, under the
chutes, or in back of a staircase, or away up under the roof, where we
can camp out while we are going through the mine."

"You won't find the old breaker a very comfortable place to live in,"
suggested Canfield.

"Oh, we can line the walls of some little cubby-hole with canvas if
necessary, and you can string a wire in so as to give us electricity for
heating and lighting, and we can live as comfortable as four bugs in a
rug. If we keep out of sight during the day time, no one will ever
suspect that we are here."

"Have it your own way!" replied Canfield. "I'll see that you get plenty
to eat and plenty of bed clothing."

"That'll help some!" laughed Tommy. "During the night we can travel
through the mine with our lights, and during the daytime we can crawl
into our little beds and sleep our heads off!"

"When do you want your first load of provisions?" asked Canfield.

"Right now, tonight!" replied Sandy.

"Well, come along then," Canfield said, rising from his chair, "and I'll
let you pick out a spot for your camp, as you call it."

After quite an extended search through the breaker the boys selected a
small room on the ground floor, from which one window looked out on the
half-deserted yard where the weigh-house stood. The room was perhaps
twenty feet in size each way, and the walls were of heavy planking. The
whole apartment was sadly in need of a scrubbing, but the lads concluded
to postpone that until some future date.

"I can bring in cot beds and bedding," the caretaker announced, "and
string the electric wire for heating, lighting, and cooking before I go
to bed. That will leave you all shipshape in the morning, and you can
then begin your cleaning up as soon as you please."

The caretaker was as good as his word, and before ten o'clock the cots
and bedding were in place, also an electric heater and an electric plate
for cooking had been moved into the apartment.

Not considering it advisable to go out for supper, Canfield had also
brought in provisions in the shape of bacon, potatoes, eggs, bread,
butter, coffee, and various grades of canned goods, so the boys had made
a hearty meal and had plenty left for breakfast. While cooking they had
covered the one window with a heavy piece of canvas.

"Now you're all tight and snug for the night," the caretaker smiled, as
he turned back from the door and glanced over the rather cozy-looking
room. "If I'm about here during the night, I'll look in upon you again."

Canfield stepped out and closed the door behind him. Then he came back
and looked in again with a half-smile on his face.

"Do you boys know anything about mines?" he asked.

"Not a thing!" replied Tommy.

"Then don't you go climbing down the ladders and wandering around in the
gangways tonight!" the caretaker warned.

"Say, there's an idea!" Tommy said to Sandy, with a wink, as Canfield
went out. "How do you think one of these mammoth coal mines looks,
anyway?"

"Cut that out, boys!" exclaimed Will. "If I catch one of you attempting
the ladders tonight, I'll tie you up!"

"Who said anything about going down the ladders tonight?" demanded
Tommy.




CHAPTER II

THE CALL OF THE PACK


It was somewhere near midnight when the boys sought their beds. Will and
George were soon asleep, but Tommy and Sandy had no notion of passing
their first night in the mine in slumber. Ten minutes after the regular
breathing of the two sleepers became audible, Tommy sat up in his bed
and deftly threw a pillow so as to strike Sandy in the face.

"Cut it out!" whispered Sandy. "You don't have to do anything to wake me
up! I've been wondering for a long time whether you hadn't gone to
sleep! You looked sleepy when the light went out."

"Never was so wide awake in my life!" declared Tommy.

"Well, get up and dress," advised Sandy. "If we get into the mine
tonight, we'll have to hurry!"

"Have you figured out how we're going to get into the mine?" asked
Tommy. "It will be the ladders for us, I guess."

"Of course it'll be the ladders!" replied Sandy. "Do you suppose
Canfield is coming here in the middle of the night to turn on the
power?"

"I wonder how deep the shaft is?" asked Tommy.

"I guess this one must be about five hundred feet."

"Is that a guess, or a piece of positive information?"

"It's a guess," laughed Sandy, drawing on his shoes and walking softly
across the bare floor in the direction of the shaft.

The boys passed out of the sleeping chamber into a passage which led
directly to the shaft of the mine. This shaft was perhaps twenty feet in
width. It included the air shaft, the division where the pumps were
operated, and two divisions for the cages which lifted the coal from the
bottom of the mine. The pumps were not working, of course, and no air
was being forced down.

One of the cages lay at the top so the other must have been at the
bottom of the shaft. As the boys looked down into the shaft, Tommy
seized his chum by the arm and whispered:

"Did you see that light down there?"

"Light nothing!" declared Sandy.

"But I did see a light!" insisted the other.

"Perhaps you did," replied Sandy, "but if there's any light there it's
merely a reflection from our electrics. There may be a metallic surface
down there which throws back the light rays."

"Have it your own way!" grunted Tommy. "You know yourself that the
caretaker said there were lights in the mine which no one could account
for, and he especially mentioned the light in Tunnel Six."

"All right!" Sandy grinned. "We'll sneak down so quietly that any person
who happens to be at the bottom of the shaft with the light will never
suspect that we are within a hundred miles of the place. We may be able
to geezle the fellow that's making the ghost walk around here nights."

The boys took to the ladders and moved down as silently as possible. Now
and then a rung creaked softly under their feet, but they got to the
bottom without any special mishap.

Tommy drew a long breath when at last they landed at the bottom of the
shaft. He threw his light upward, then, and declared that in his opinion
they were at least ten thousand feet nearer the center of the earth than
they were when they started down.

"I remember now," Sandy said with a grin, "that the Labyrinth mine is
only about five hundred feet deep. If I remember correctly, there are
three levels; one at three hundred feet; one at four, and one at five."

"And which level is this?" asked Tommy.

"Why, we're on the bottom, ain't we?"

"Of course," laughed Tommy. "I ought to have known that!"

"Well come along if you want to see the mine!" urged Sandy. "All we have
to do is to push our searchlights ahead and walk down the gangway. We'll
come to something worth seeing after a while."

As the boys advanced they found the gangway considerably cluttered with
"gob," or refuse, and the air was none of the best.

"I wish we could set the air shaft working," suggested Sandy.

"Well, we can't!" Tommy answered with a scornful shrug of his shoulders.
"We can't set the whole works going in order to give us a midnight view
of the Labyrinth mine. What gets me is, how are we going to find our way
back? There seem to be a good many passages here."

"I've got that fixed all right!" Sandy exclaimed.

As the lad spoke he took a ball of strong string from his pocket and
tied one end to the cage which lay at the bottom of the shaft.

"Now we can go anywhere we please," he chuckled "and when we want to
return, all we've got to do is to follow the string."

"Quite an idea!" laughed Tommy.

The boys proceeded along the gangway, walking between the rails of the
tramway by means of which the coal was delivered at the bottom of the
shaft. The experience was a novel one to them. The dark walls of the
passage, the echoes which came from the counter gangways, the monotonous
dripping of water as it seeped through seams and crevices in the rock,
all gave a weird and uncanny expression to the place.

After walking for some distance the boys came to a level which showed
several inches of water.

"We can't wade through that!" Tommy declared.

"Well," Sandy suggested, "if we go back a little ways, we can follow a
cross heading and get into the mine by another way."

The boys followed this plan, and, after winding about several
half-loaded cars which had been left on the tramway, found themselves in
a large chamber from which numerous benches were cut.

"Where does all this gas come from?" asked Tommy stopping short and
putting a hand to his nose.

"There must be a blower somewhere," Sandy explained.

"What's a blower?" demanded Tommy. "What does it look like, and does it
always smell like this?"

"It doesn't look like anything!" replied Sandy. "It's composed of
natural gas, and they call it a blower because it blows up out of
crevices in the coal and in the rocks."

"If I should light a match, would it set it on fire?" asked Tommy.

"I wouldn't like to have you try it!"

The boys continued on their way for some moments, and then Tommy stopped
and extinguished his light, whispering to Sandy to do the same.

"What's that for?" demanded the latter.

"Didn't you hear that noise behind the cribbing?" asked Tommy.

"Rats, probably!"

"Rats nothing!" replied Tommy. "Rats don't make sounds like people
whispering, do they? Keep still a minute, and we'll find out what it
is!"

"You'll be seeing a light next!" Sandy suggested.

"I see it now!" answered Tommy.

Sandy saw it, too, in a moment. It seemed at first to be floating in the
air at the very top of the gangway. It moved from side to side, and
finally dropped down nearer to the floor. There seemed to be no one near
it or under it. Its small circle of illumination showed only the empty
air.

"What do you make of it?" asked Tommy.

"Is this Tunnel Six?" asked his chum.

"I don't know! If it is, we've seen the light the caretaker referred to.
We'll have a great story to tell in the morning!"

The boys stood in the darkness of the gangway watching the light for
what seemed to them to be a long time. Now the light advanced toward
them, now it receded. Now it lifted to the roof of the gangway, now it
dropped almost to the floor.

At intervals, the noises behind the cribbing to which Tommy had referred
were repeated, and the boys at last moved over so as to stand with their
ears almost against the wooden walls.

"There is some one behind the cribbing, all right!" Tommy declared. "I
hear some one breathing."

"Aw, keep still!" whispered Sandy. "If there is anyone there, you'll
frighten them away! I thought I heard some one myself!"

"I'll tell you what I think," Tommy suggested in a moment, "and that is
that either Will and George, or both of them, beat us to this gangway.
They are hiding behind there on purpose to give us a scare."

"That's a dream!" replied Sandy. "We left them both asleep."

"Dream, is it?" repeated Tommy scornfully. "You just listen to the sound
that comes from behind this cribbing, and tell me what you make of it!"

Both boys listened intently for a moment, and then Sandy switched on his
light and moved swiftly along the cribbing as if in search of an
opening. Tommy gazed at him in astonishment.

"You've gone and done it now!" he said.

"There's some one in here all right!" Sandy explained. "Did you hear the
call of the pack a minute ago? There are Boy Scouts in there, and what
we hear are the signals of the Wolf Patrol."

"That's right!" cried Tommy excitedly. "That's right!"




CHAPTER III

WHO CUT THE STRING?


"Do you suppose he would understand the call of the Beaver Patrol?"
asked Sandy. "I'm going to try him, anyway!"

The boy brought his hands together in imitation of the slap of a
beaver's tail on the water, and listened for some reply.

"He'll understand that if he's up on Boy Scout literature," suggested
Sandy. "He ought to be wise to the signs of the different patrols if
he's a good Boy Scout."

There was a short silence, broken only by the constant drip of the water
in an adjoining chamber, and then the call of the pack came again,
clearly, sharply and apparently only a short distance away.

"What did Mr. Canfield call those two boys we are looking after?" asked
Sandy, after waiting a short time for the repetition of the sound.

"Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson," replied Tommy.

Sandy threw out his chest and cried out at the top of his lungs:

"Hello, Jimmie! Hello, Dick!"

The lad's voice echoed dismally throughout the labyrinth of passages,
but there was no other reply. Tommy and Sandy gave the call of the
Beaver Patrol repeatedly, but the call of the Wolf pack was heard no
more.

"I'll bet it's some trick!" exclaimed Sandy after waiting in the chamber
for a long time in the hope of hearing another call from the boys who
were hidden somewhere behind the cribbing.

"What do you mean by trick?" demanded Tommy.

"Why, I mean that some of the breaker boys, out of work because of the
stoppage of operations, may have sneaked into the mine on purpose to
produce the impression that there are ghosts here."

"But ghosts wouldn't be giving signals of the Wolf Pack, would they?"
asked Tommy.

"Not unless they were Scouts," replied the other.

"Oh well, of course the kids would want to test us, wouldn't they,
seeing that we were only boys?"

"Well, we've discovered one thing by coming down," said Tommy, "and that
is that there really are people in the mine who have no business here."

"Then we may as well go back to bed," advised Sandy.

"Do you know how many corners we've turned since we came in here?" asked
Tommy.

"About a thousand, I guess," replied Sandy.

"Yes, and we'd have a fine old time getting out if you hadn't brought
that ball of twine!"

"Tell you what we'll do," Sandy said, as the boys turned their faces
down the gangway, "we'll pass around the next shoulder of rock and then
shut off our lights. Perhaps the kids who gave the cry of the pack in
there will then show their light again."

"That's a good idea, too!"

The boys came at length to a brattice, which is a screen, of either wood
or heavy cloth, set up in a passage to divert the current of air to a
bench where workmen are engaged, and dodged down behind it, first
shutting off their lights, of course.

"Now, come on with your old light," whispered Tommy.

As if in answer to the boy's challenge, the light showed again,
apparently but a few yards away from their hiding place.

A moment later the call of the pack, sounding louder than before, rang
through the passage. The boys sprang to their feet and switched on their
lights.

"Why don't you come out and show yourselves?" shouted Tommy.

"I don't believe you're Scouts at all!" declared Sandy.

There was no answer. The boys could hear the drip of water and the
purring of the current as it crept into a lower gangway, but that was
all.

"That settles it for tonight!" exclaimed Tommy. "I'm not going to hang
around here waiting for Boy Scouts who don't respond to signals!"

"That's me!" agreed Sandy. "We'll go to bed and think the matter over.
There may be some way of trapping those fellows."

"Suppose it should be Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked Tommy.

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