Argosy All-Story Weekly, 4 February 1922 — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| el | ay Sie ; MW Oe Win ~ $i ee OT OO yeh Aah SV bed HAS DIE FZ. ay PASS PU ey, 8 Ya a ‘ tare f A hy ” P| ‘iy ahi tr oe “i a t Ts TG ~~) ~ f - Ta } y : { My ne ! thy of _ - — ~~ — i ye 4a, ° “Od ‘ | a el 886 7R Se AY a EK Lp A, ‘ : wy ) : : _ The single story shaft-house of the Cop- per Butte, black as the iron roofs over the Smelter-furnaces, crouched on a little space of level ground. Below there was a steep ‘ talus slope of “muck” and _tailings— worthless rock brought up from the mine. Above, the eroded, broken surfaces of Seco Mountain showed in daylight like great ted and yellow wounds between gray patches of dusty scrub oak and buck-brush that ran up to a fringe of ragged cedars at the peak. Over the shaft-house a towering steel * gallows frame ” reared a hundred feet into the air crowned by the sheave, a grooved pulley over which the hoist-rope ran at lightning speed. From inside the loosely constructed shaft- house came a glare of light. The cough and bark of the hoist engines, starting or stop- ping, alternated with a steady put-put-put of exhausting steam, when, with the cage im motion, the wire hoist-rope hissed like a monstrous snake, winding upon or un- winding from the giant drums. About the wide-open doors the groups of the night shift were gathering, black Silhouettes against the light; from the door the tracks of tramways, a far-flung spider- __ web, branched in all directions. The second day gang began pouring from the mine. In the shaft-house near the en- -gines of the hoist there was a gaping black hole cut into the floor where the swaying hoist-rope shot up endlessly. Suddenly, with a roar, the hole was filled, and a great steel cage stopped trembling, level with the floor. Men crowded from the cage, spat- tered and muddy, blinking in the light, plucking their lamps, a pale spark in the greater brightness, from their foreheads, dashing out the tiny flame with a sweeping, downward gesture of the arm. Silently, or with raucous cries and coarser jests, they trooped to the washrooms, where presently, seen through a mist of steam, showers fell on deep-chested, naked bodies, streams of muddy water flowing from their feet. The cage was quickly filled again; engines barked; like a stone falling into space, the cage was gone, dropped with its - living burden deep into the caverns of the mine. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY “WEEKLY, - William, crowded into the cage with Hugh, subconsciously aware of all the ele- vators he had known, was not prepared for that swift descent. For an instant he felt that the floor of the cage had fallen away beneath his feet; he had the positive sensation that his interior had been dis- placed; was partially aware of instantane- ous alternation of light and darkness as the cage dropped past the various levels of the mine. Sickened, he closed his eyes, clutching at Hugh, certain that in an instant more the cage would crash—somewhere—when, with scarcely a jar that was perceptible, the flight was arrested. There was a mighty roaring in his ears, the beat of cyclonic ventilator fans, that William took to be the surge of blood, the beating of his heart. “Eighteen hundred level,” observed the voice of McGregor in his ear. “ Fast; drops in thirty seconds, running smooth.”’ William opened his eyes. After all, then, he was not destroyed. The men pushed from the cage, their lamps glowing like dancing fireflies as they followed the tram- tracks along the level floor, or suddenly ex- tinguished as they passed into the cross- cuts intersecting the level at various dis- tances. Hugh gave William a moment to catch his breath, then: “ Stick close,” he said. “ Keep on the plank—drain under- ‘neath. Copper water eats sores on your feet.” They proceeded about a hundred yards, following the line of planking between the tramway tracks. Once they stepped aside into an embrasure of the timbered passage to permit a car to pass that was loaded with chunks of ore, behind it a man who pushed against it with bowed head. Then they turned into across cut. “ Careful,” said Hugh, pausing before an opening that sloped steeply down, a ‘““winze”’ where descent was made by a ‘shaky ladder to a “ stope,” or working, that lay between the eighteen hundred and nine- teen hundred foot levels of the mine. On the level there had been a constant wind, cool and fresh, especially strong near each cross-cut entry-way. Groping down the ladder, William noticed a growing sul- triness; a choking in his throat; the pun- comicboo (E(0) aa) <S