The La Chance Mine Mystery

"I guess Miss Valenka knows the reason all right," Collins spoke as coolly as if she were not there, which may have been the wisest thing to do, for though she flushed sharply she said nothing. He went on with exactly what she had said herself. "But after Hutton came here to get her, he saw he'd be a fool not to grab the La Chance mine, too; and unless we can stop him you bet he and his gang have grabbed it! They've disposed of Thompson, of all our own men who might have stood by us, of Wilbraham," categorically; "they think they've disposed of Dunn and me and buried you alive, and – except for having lost Miss Valenka – Macartney's made his game! Nobody'll know there's anything wrong at the mine till the spring, because there's no one interested enough to ask questions till Wilbraham's bank payments have stopped long enough to look queer. And by that time Macartney and his gang will be gone, and the cream of Wilbraham's gold with them. As for us, we can't fight him by sitting in this burrow with Miss Paulette, and without any guns, even if he doesn't end by nosing out Dunn's and my gold as well as Wilbraham's. Why, we depend on Charliet for our food, let alone anything else; and for all we know, Charliet may have squeaked on us by this time. I say again, let's get a sheriff and posse at Caraquet, and come back here and get Macartney! We could do it, if we took Miss Paulette and hit the trail to-night."

"And Macartney'd get us, if we tried it!" I had thrashed all that out in my head before, while I was tying up Macartney with Charliet's clothesline. "We'd be stopped by his picket at the Halfway, if ever we got to the Halfway, for the Caraquet road's likely drifted solid and you don't make time digging out smothering horses. No; we'll fight Macartney where we are! And the way to do it is with Charliet and guns."

"If you'll tell me how we're to connect with either!" Collins was grim. "It's a mighty dangerous thing calling up Charliet on number one Wolf, with the whole of La Chance crawling with Macartney and his gang, hunting for Miss Paulette. But we can go up to the back door and try it!"

"Oh, no," Paulette burst out wildly, "I'm afraid! I mean I know we must find out first if Charliet's all right, but you mayn't get him – and you'll give yourselves away!"

It was almost the first time she had spoken, and it was more to Collins than to me, but I answered. "We'll get Charliet all right," I began – and Collins gripped me.

"I dunno," he drawled. "Strikes me some one's going to get us – first!"

He snapped out our candle, which was senseless, since Dunn's red-hot fire showed us up as plain as day, and all four of us stood paralyzed. Somebody – running, slipping, with a hideous clatter of stones – was coming down the long passage Collins called his back door.

"Macartney," said I, "and Charliet's given us away!" And with the words in my mouth I had Paulette around the waist and shoved out of sight behind the boulder that separated Collins's cave from his tunnel and the pierced wall of Thompson's stope. Macartney might be a devil, but there was no doubt the man was brave to come like that for a girl, through the dark bowels of the earth where Charliet must have warned him Dunn and Collins would be lurking. Only he had not got Paulette yet, and he would find three men to face before he even saw her. I stooped over her in the dark of Collins's tunnel, where just a knife-edge of the cave firelight cut over the boulder's top. "Keep still, Paulette – and for any sake don't move and kick Collins's devilish explosive he's got stuck in here somewhere," I said, exactly as if I were steady. Which I was not, because it was my unlooked for, heaven-sent chance to get square with Macartney. I sprang around the boulder to do it and saw Collins strike up the barrel of Marcia's rifle in Dunn's stretched left arm.

"Don't shoot," he yelled. "You fool, it's Charliet!"

I stood dead still. It was Charliet, but a Charliet I had never seen. His French-Canadian face was tallow white, as he tore into the cave, grinning like a dog with rage and excitement. He brushed Dunn and Collins aside like flies and grabbed my arm. "Come out," he panted. "Sacré damn, bring Mademoiselle Paulette and come out! It is that Marcia! She sees you in the shack last night; sees you – alive and out of Thompson's stope where they buried you – carrying Mademoiselle away! She tells Macartney so this morning, when he and I get in after hunting for Mademoiselle all night – praying, me, that I might not make a mistake and find her, and that you might. Oh, I tell you I was crazy – dog crazy! I cannot get away from Macartney, I think she may be dead in the snow, looking for me who was not there, till first thing this morning we come in – and that she-devil tells Macartney Stretton takes Mademoiselle away! Not till now, till all are out of the house, do I have the chance to come and warn you what is coming! They – that Marcia, Macartney, all of the men – start now to dig you out of Thompson's stope they put you in. They think they left some hole you crawl out of in the snow and dark, that you come for Mademoiselle and take her back into. I could not get you even one small cartridge to hold this place, and – Macartney is clever! He will be in here, with all his guns, all his men. And then, quoi faire? Come now, all of you, while there is the one chance to come unseen, and get on horses and go away. Ah," the man's fierce voice broke, ran up imploringly, "I beg you, Mademoiselle, like I would beg the Blessed Virgin, to make them come! Before Macartney, or that Marcia, finds – you!"

I jumped around and saw Paulette, in the cave. I had left her safe in Collins's tunnel; and there she stood, come out into plain view at the sound of Charliet's voice. But she was not looking at him, or me, or any of us. Her eyes stared, sword-blue, at the hole where Charliet had rushed in from Collins's secret passage: I think all I realized of her face was her eyes. I turned, galvanized, to what she stared at, – and saw. Marcia Wilbraham was standing in the entrance from the long passage, behind us all, except Paulette; meeting Paulette's eyes with her small, bright brown ones, her lips wide in her ugly, gum-showing smile. I knew, of course, that she had picked up Charliet's track in the snow from his kitchen door to Collins's juniper-covered back door, had followed fair on his heels down the dark passage, instead of going with Macartney to dig me out of Thompson's stope; that in one second she would turn and run back again, to show Macartney Collins's back door.

My jump was late. It was Dunn who saved us. He sprang matter-of-factly, like a blood-hound, and pulled Marcia down. She was as strong as a man, pretty nearly; she fought fiercely, till she heard the boy laugh. That cowed her, in some queer way. I heard Dunn say: "You'd better stay here a while, Miss Wilbraham. It's safer – than with Macartney;" saw Charliet run to help him, and the two of them placidly tie and gag Marcia Wilbraham with anything they could take off themselves. It was with a vivid impression of Charliet's none too clean neck-handkerchief playing a large part in Marcia's toilette that Collins and I jumped, with one accord, to Paulette. I don't know what he said to her. I saw her nod.

I said, "We're done for if Macartney gets in on us through Thompson's stope and finds this place. He'll just send half his men to scout for the other entrance; they'll find it from Charliet's and Marcia's tracks and get at us both ways. You stay here with Charliet, while Collins and I meet Macartney in Thompson's stope. When – if – you hear we can't best him, run – with Charliet! Dunn'll look after Marcia."

She gave me a stunned sort of look, as if I were deserting her, as if I didn't – care! I would have snatched her in my arms and kissed her, Dudley or no Dudley lying dead in the bush, but I had no time. Collins had me by the elbow, his fierce drawl close to my half-comprehending ear. We'd no guns but Marcia's popgun and her rifle; two of us, even on the shelf in Thompson's stope, would do little good with those against all Macartney's men crowding into the stope and giving us a volley the second our fire from the shelf drew theirs. We might pick off half a dozen of them before our cartridges gave out. But there was no sense in that business. We would have to try – But here I came alive to what Collins was really talking about.

"That high explosive," he was saying. "It's a filthy trick, but God knows they deserve it! If we blow them back far enough at the very entrance of the tunnel, they may never come on again to get in."

I daresay I'd have recoiled in cold blood. But my blood ran hot that morning. I did think, though; hard. I said, "Can't do it! No fuse."

"Heaps. Dunn's and mine!" I heard Collins grabbling for it, somewhere in the dark of the tunnel.

Behind me somebody lit a candle; who, I never looked to see. In the light of it I saw Collins pick up his bundle of blasting powder and warned him sharply.

"Look out with that stuff! We don't know it; it may work anyway. If it bursts up in the air the stope roof'll be down on us. It may fire back, too – and we'd be hit behind the point of burst!"

"We won't be," said Collins, between his teeth. "I'll burst it out the tunnel, and blow Macartney's gang to rags!"

But that lighted candle at my back had shown me other than explosives: the silly, pointless snowshoes I had lugged from my own room in the shack. My conscious mind knew now what my subconscious mind had wanted them for, like a mill where some one had turned on the current. I swore out loud. "By gad, Collins, listen! If we don't smash Macartney, and he gets in on us, he'll get Paulette! I've got to stop that, somehow. Macartney doesn't know she's here yet; Marcia only guessed it. Supposing he were to see only me, alone in Thompson's stope, he might never know she was here too!"

"Dunno what you mean," Collins snapped. And I snapped back:

"I mean that if we blow a clean hole at the tunnel entrance, and I burst out of it and run, I can get the whole gang after me – and make time for you and Charliet to get Paulette away somewhere, by the back door."

"But" – Collins halted where he swarmed up into Thompson's stope – "where'll you go? You can't, Stretton. It's death!"

"It's sense," said I. "As for where I'll go, Lac Tremblant'll do for me; and I bet it will finish any man of Macartney's who tries to come after me! Get through into that stope with your fuse, man; I'll hand you the blasting stuff. Got it? All right. Here you, gimme that candle!" I turned and took it – out of Paulette's hand!

I gasped, taken aback all standing, before I lied, "It's all right, Paulette. I'll be back in a minute." And though I knew she must have heard what I was going to do, I had no better sense than to stoop before the girl's blank eyes and snatch up my two pairs of snowshoes, that had been lying beside the explosive I had just passed up to Collins, before I clambered up through the hole into Thompson's stope, on to the shelf from whence I had first dropped into Collins's cave.

Collins was down in Thompson's tunnel already, laying his fuse with deadly skill. Already, too, we could hear Macartney's men outside, leveraging away the boulders that had plugged up the tunnel entrance where I was to starve and die. Collins placed the stuff I carried down to him. I said, "My God, you can't use all that; the whole stope'll be down on us!" And he answered, "No; I've done it right." That was every word we uttered till we were back on our high shelf, with a lit fuse left behind us in the stope. The fuse burned smooth as a dream, and Collins nudged me with fierce satisfaction. But I was suddenly sick with horror. Not at the thing we were doing – if it were devil's work we had been driven to be devils – but at the knowledge that Paulette was standing within reach of my feet, that were through the stope wall and were hanging down into Collins's tunnel, – that tunnel every bone in me knew was amateur, unsafe, a death trap. The shock of a big explosion in Thompson's stope might well bring its roof down on Paulette, standing alone in it, waiting, – trusting to me for safety. I turned my head and yelled at her as a man yells at a dog – or his dearest – when he is sick with fear for her: "Get back out of that into the cave! Run!"

I heard her jump. Heard her – But thought stopped in me, with one unwritable, life-checking shock. The whole earth, the very globe, seemed to have blown to pieces around me. The flash and roar were like a thousand howitzers in my very face; the solid rock shelf I was on leapt under me; and behind me the whole of Collins's tunnel collapsed, with a grinding roar. I heard Collins gasp, "Good glory"; heard the rocks and gravel in the stope before me settling, with an indescribable, threatening noise, between thunder and breaking china – and all I thought of was that I'd warned my dream girl in time, that she'd answered me, that she was back in Collins's cave, and safe. Till, suddenly to eyes that had been too dazzled and seared to see it clearing, the smoke before me cleared, the choking fumes lessened, and I saw. Saw, straight in front of me, where a tunnel had been and was no longer, a clean hole like a barn door where Thompson's tunnel entrance had been but two-men wide; saw out, into furious, crimson color that turned slowly, as my sight grew normal, into the golden, dazzling glory of winter sun on snow.

There was silence outside in the sun, all but some yells and moaning. How much damage we'd done I couldn't see; or where Macartney's men were, dead or alive. But now, while they were paralyzed with shock and surprise, now was my time to get through them. I lowered myself gingerly to the rubbish heap that had been the smooth floor of Thompson's stope; edged to the tunnel entrance; slipped my feet into the toe and heel straps of the snowshoes I had held tightly against me through all the unspeakable, hellish uproar of rending rock, and sprang, – sprang out into the sunlight, out on the clear snow, past wounded men, reeling men, dying men, and raced as I never put foot to ground before or since, for Lac Tremblant, glittering clear and free in front of me, – that Lac Tremblant I had thought of subconsciously when I carried snowshoes into Collins's cave.

In the beginning of this story I said what Lac Tremblant was like. It was a lake that was no lake; that should have been our water-way out of the bush instead of miles of expensive road; and was no more practicable than a rope ladder to the stars. For the depth of Lac Tremblant, or its fairway, were two things no man might count on. It would fall in a night to shallows a child might wade through, among bristling rocks no one had ever guessed at; and rise in a morning to the tops of the spruce scrub on its banks, – a sweet spread of water, with never a rock to be seen. What hidden spring fed it was a mystery. But in the bitterest winter it was never frozen further than to form surging masses of frazil ice that would neither let a canoe push through them, nor yet support the weight of a man. It was on that frazil ice, that some people called lolly, that I meant to run for my life now, trusting to the resistance of the two feet of snow that lay on the lake in the mysterious way snow does lie on lolly, and to the snowshoes on my feet. And as I slithered on to the soft snow of the lake, from the crackling, breaking shell ice on the La Chance shore, I knew I had done well. Some – a good many – of Macartney's men were killed or half-killed by our deadly blast, but not all. He had been more cautious than I guessed. I saw the rest of his men bunched some hundred feet from the smashed-out tunnel; saw Macartney, too, standing with them. But all I cared for was that he should see me and come out after me on the crust of snow and lolly over Lac Tremblant, – that would never carry him without the snowshoes he did not have – and give Paulette her chance to get away. I yelled at him and skimmed out over the trembling ice like a bird.

Neither Macartney nor his men had stirred in that one flying glance I had dared take at them. But sheer tumult came out of them now. Then shots – shots that missed me, and a sudden howled order from Macartney I dared not turn my head or break my stride to understand. The giving surface under me was bearing, but a quarter-second's pause would have let me through. There was no sense in zigzagging. Once I was clear, I ran as straight as I dared for the other shore, five miles away; but – suddenly I realized I was not clear! I was followed.

Somebody else on snowshoes had shot out of Thompson's tunnel, over the crackling shore ice on to the snow and frazil; was up to me, close behind me.

"Run, Nicky," shrieked Paulette's voice. "Run!"

I slewed my head around and saw her, running behind me!