第30章

Frightened Indians

"There must be some mistake," said Tom, wondering if the Irish foreman were given to joking.Yet he did not seem that kind of man.

"Mistake? How can there be a mistake, sor? I wint in there to tell th' black imps t' come out, but they're not there to tell!""What's the trouble?" asked Job Titus, coming out of the office near the tunnel mouth."What's wrong, Tom?""Why, I sent Tim in to tell the men to come out, as I was going to set off a blast, but he says the men aren't in there.And I'm sure the last shift hasn't come out."By this time Koku, Mr.Damon and Walter Titus had come up to find out what the trouble was.

"The min have disappeared--that's all there is to it!" Tim said.

"Perhaps they have missed their way--the lights may have gone out, and they might have wandered into some abandoned cutting," suggested Tom.

"There aren't any abandoned cuttin's," declared Tim."It's a straight bore, not a shaft of any kind.I've looked everywhere, and th' min aren't there I tell ye!""Are the lights going?" asked Job."You might have missed them in the dark, Tim.""The lights are going all right, Mr.Titus," said the young man in charge of the electrical arrangements."The dynamo hasn't been stopped to-day.""Come on, we'll have a look," proposed Walter Titus."There must be some mistake.Hold back the blast, Tom.""All right," and the young inventor disconnected the electrical detonating switch."I'll come along and have a look too," he added."Don't let anybody meddle with the wires, Jack," he said to the young Englishman who was in charge of the dynamo.

Into the dimly-lit tunnel advanced the party of investigators, with Tim Sullivan in the lead.

"Not a man could I find!" he said, murmuring to himself."Not a man! An' I mind th' time in Oireland whin th' little people made vanish a whole village like this, jist bekase ould Mike Maguire uprooted a bed of shamrocks.""That's enough of your superstitions, Tim," warned Job Titus."If some of the other Indians hear you go on this way they'll desert as they did once before.""Did they do that?" asked Tom.

"Yes, we had trouble that way when we first began the work.The place here was a howling wilderness then, and there were lots of pumas around.

"A puma is a small sized lion, you know, not specially dangerous unless cornered.Well, some of the men had their families here with them, and a couple of children disappeared.The story got started that there was a big puma--the king of them all--carrying off the little ones, and my brother and I awoke one morning to find every laborer missing.They departed bag and baggage.Afraid of the pumas.""What did you do?"

"Well, we organized ourselves and our white helpers into a hunting party and killed a lot of the beasts.There wasn't any big one though.""And what had become of the children?"