Down a Mine, Part 2

[If you missed Part 1 last week, you might want to go back and read that before reading this one.  Enjoy!]

Jack looked to his left and right.  There was no room on either side of the track for him and Kurt to wait while the ore car thundered past.  Only one option was available.

“Get ready to jump!” yelled Jack as the ore car came closer.  When it was almost upon them, the boys jumped. They just cleared the front of it and fell into it, Kurt on top of Jack.

“Phew,” said Jack.  “Kurt, could you get your elbow out of my eye?”

“Gladly,” said Kurt.  “Sorry, but they don’t design these things very well to be jumped into.”

Kurt squiggled around until he was off Jack, who sat up.  “This thing’s going pretty fast,” said Jack.

“Good thing Robbie warned us,” said Kurt.

“I wonder what happened,” said Jack.  “This car doesn’t look like it’s been used in a while.  Look at all the dirt covering it.  It couldn’t have started rolling by itself.”

“Then what caused it?” said Kurt.

“There’s only one explanation that I can think of,” said Jack.  “Someone must have pushed it.”

“But who?” said Kurt.  “And why?”

“We’ll have to wait to get to the top to find that out,” said Jack.

“That’ll be after this hits the bottom, I guess,” said Kurt.  “Oh-oh.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Jack.

“I just remembered something,” said Kurt.  “Often, these mines go so low, they have to employ pumps to keep water from collecting in them.  When they finish with the mine, they shut the pumps off.  That’s why a lot of abandoned mines are flooded.”

“This one isn’t,” said Jack.

“Not here,” said Kurt, “but we’re going down.”  He shined his flashlight ahead.  The track was pointed straight for quite a distance, at this point, and Kurt’s light traveled far down the tunnel.

Something glinted far ahead!

“Water!” exclaimed Kurt.  “And we’re rolling straight towards it!”

“We’ve got to stop this car!” yelled Jack.  He looked around for a break lever, recalling that several ore cars had those built in.  Well, that might have been the case, but this car had none.  “How do we stop this thing?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Kurt.

“Find out,” said Jack, “because who knows how deep that water is?”

“Wait a minute,” said Kurt.

“Are you joking?  We don’t have a minute—”

“We’re going to have to jump out of this car,” said Kurt.  “I’m going to try to grab a timber on the roof.  You do the same.”

“Got it,” said Jack.  Kurt hauled himself up, reached, and grabbed a timber.  He just had time to swing his legs up before the car passed under him.

Encouraged by his success, Jack stood up and jumped.  He grabbed for a timber, swinging up his legs.  However, he missed it!  Frantically, he twisted in midair as he began to fall.

Quite surprisingly, he landed feet-first behind the speeding car.  “Nice!” said Kurt.  “That was a perfect backflip!  Carl Edwards couldn’t have done it any better.”

Up ahead, the speeding car continued down the tracks until, with a splash, it headed into the water.  It didn’t stop but continued through the depths, down to wherever the end of the mine was.  Jack watched the eerie glow disappear into the water.

Oh yes, the eerie glow.  While grabbing the timbers, neither Jack nor Kurt had been able to hold onto their flashlights.  They were now stuck in total darkness deep in the mountain.

“Don’t worry,” said Kurt.  “I have an extra flashlight.”  Soon, light filled the chamber.

“That was a close call,” said Jack.  “We should get out of here.”

“You’re not kidding,” said Kurt.  “Let’s go.”

Despite the situation, going up was much easier than going down had been.  It was more demanding physically, but at least the boys were headed towards daylight and safety.  Thirty minutes later, their flashlights weren’t providing the only light that was visible.

“I wonder where Robbie is,” said Kurt.

“Ssh!” hissed Jack.  “I don’t know, but don’t make a sound until we can figure out what happened.”

Inching towards the front of the tunnel, the boys flattened themselves against the edges and peeped out.  Kurt, on the right side of the tunnel (facing out) couldn’t see anything, but Jack on the other hand…

“I don’t see Robbie,” he whispered, “but there’s a man walking around out there!”

“What does he look like?” Kurt whispered back.

“About average height,” said Jack, “wearing a work shirt, jeans, and a heavy jacket.  He’s walking towards the tunnel on your right. Wait, he just went in.”

“What do you think he’s up to?” asked Kurt.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like this,” said Jack.  “Was Robbie shouting to warn us, or was he shouting because he was in trouble?  I suggest we go get help.”

“I second the motion,” said Kurt, and the two boys sprinted out of the abandoned shaft.  They looked around for Robbie, but didn’t see him.  However, they continued to the path and kept running when they reached it.

Eventually, they were forced to slow down.  The mining path was deep into the hike, and it would take the boys a while to return to their starting destination.  However, they were determined to go back and get help.  They had been walking for about forty-five minutes when they ran into Robbie!  And two forest rangers!

“Robbie!” said Jack.  “What happened?”

“I was wandering around the clearing,” said Robbie, “and waiting for you guys to get done exploring.  I was near the path when, suddenly, I saw a man wander out from behind some trees, not far from the shafts.  He walked over to the one you all had entered and shoved the ore car down it.  I yelled to try to get your attention, then took off running for help.”

“We saw him on the way out,” said Kurt.  “I hope you all get him,” he told the rangers.

They did.  Forty-five minutes later, the rangers approached the mine and caught the man, who apparently thought Jack and Kurt were still stuck in the shaft.  Why had he shoved the ore car?  Searching the shaft on the left (facing inwards) revealed a sizeable load of stolen electronics equipment.  Apparently, the man had thought no one would explore the old mines.  The reason Jack had never noticed the path before was that there was a lot of underbrush the man normally put over it to hide it from the main trail.  He’d forgotten to replace it this time, though, and it had cost him.  Jack and Kurt were just glad the mistake hadn’t cost them anything, except a couple flashlights.

Down a Mine, Part 1

The wind softly ruffled the trees that arched over the mountainside path.  Birds chirped, insects buzzed, and an occasional hoot from a daytime owl sounded nearby.  Occasionally, the path neared a stream, and gurgling water could be heard.

Jack Barnes, Kurt Morris, and Robbie Ransom were all out on a hike.  The Cascade Mountains, not far from Tacoma, provided several nice hiking spots.  Each bearing backpacks, the three boys trooped up the winding mountain path.

“Good weather,” said Jack.  “A little chilly, but not bad.”

“Just don’t go swimming,” quipped Kurt.

“I don’t think we were planning to, Kurt.  Anyway, this path doesn’t have many bridges, so there are very few places for us to fall in.”

“Right,” said Kurt.  “I know that. We’ve hiked this route many times.  In fact, why do we have to stay on this path today?  Let’s try a new one.”

“What new one?” asked Robbie.

“The next one we—hey, there’s a path.  On the right!”

The path the boys were on was a fairly well-traveled path, wide enough for people to walk side-by-side if they wanted.  However, the path branching off from it also looked in good shape, albeit narrower.

“Why, so there is,” said Jack.  “I don’t remember noticing it before.”

“Well, it’s a real path,” said Kurt, “so let’s go.”

Shrugging, Jack consented, and he and Robbie followed Kurt down the path.  For one that had escaped their attention for so long, it was in good condition.  They didn’t have to push tree branches aside at all to get over it.  Since it was narrower, the trees grew even closer together, and less light came down from above.

“Neat,” said Kurt.  “I don’t think this would show up on a satellite map.”

“A lot of these don’t,” said Robbie.  “I’ve checked.  Even railroads can be hard to see, unless they’re labeled.”

“There are tracks somewhere in these mountains,” said Kurt.  “We should go find an abandoned tunnel sometime.”

The boys had walked for about thirty minutes down the windy path when suddenly they became aware of a clearing up ahead.  The path was leveling off, as well.  “Cool!” said Kurt.  “I’ll bet we’re about to emerge onto a nice scenic vista.”

What actually greeted the boys when they reached the clearing was a steep rock wall.  It was evident from the surface that lots of rock had been cut away to make the clearing, a gravelly area.  The rock wall was not solid, though.  There were three holes in it, each of which was shored up with timbers on the outside.  Rusty, narrow tracks led out of each of the holes, and a couple of old ore cars lay on them.

“A mine!” said Jack.  “Fascinating!  I’m glad we came this way!”

“There are a lot of mines around here,” said Robbie.  “I’ve never actually been to one, before.”

“Well, here we are,” said Kurt.  “What are we waiting for?  Let’s explore!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Jack.  “There’s such a thing as cave-ins, Kurt.  We don’t want to get trapped in an abandoned mine.”

Kurt laughed.  “For your information, Jack, I know what cave-ins are.  We’ll just have someone stay at the surface while we go down.  That’s what I was planning, anyway.  In fact, I volunteer to stay up here if you and Robbie want to look around.”

“No thanks,” said Robbie.  He had a slight fear of caves.  Actually, it wasn’t so slight.  You couldn’t pay him a million dollars to go in that cave, a fact which Kurt knew very well.

“Then I’ll go,” said Kurt.  “You can come too, Jack, if you want.”

Jack wasn’t quite sure.  At first, he thought of saying no.  Then, he realized that he hadn’t heard any news of mine accidents lately.  In other words, they didn’t happen every day.  There was a good chance, he decided, that he and Kurt would explore the mine without any issue whatsoever.  Robbie would be on guard, anyway.

“Alright,” he said.  “I’m game if you are.”

“Of course,” said Kurt.  “We’ll go down the center one, as long as you don’t mind being left alone, Robbie.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Robbie.

“Good, come on,” said Kurt.

“Wait!” said Jack.  “We’ll need flashlights!”

“Well, I hope you remembered to put one in your backpack,” said Kurt, temporarily removing his to extract the flashlight from it.”

“Oh, right!” said Jack.  He had brought one as well, along with lots of other survival material.  The boys weren’t as into hiking as some people, but they knew what they needed to do to take care of themselves.

“Now, let’s go,” said Kurt.  Flicking on his light, he led the way into the empty shaft, followed closely by Jack.

Once they got deeper into the shaft, the light from the outside began to vanish.  The flashlights cast weird shadows over the walls.  Timbers outlined the roof every few feet, and a couple of old picks lay next to the rusty tracks.

“I wonder when this place was abandoned,” whispered Kurt, his echo bouncing eerily off the walls.

“No clue,” said Jack.  “Do you think this was a gold mine?”

“It’s possible,” said Kurt, “but if there were still any gold in here, they wouldn’t have abandoned it.”

All at once, they heard a shout from somewhere above.  Jack whirled around.  “Robbie?” he said.

There was no answer, but there was a rumbling noise.  Not the rumbling of an avalanche, or a cave-in, but a rumbling, nonetheless.  Squeaks were mixed in, too.  Jack shined his light back up the tunnel.  “I wonder what that could be.”

Suddenly, one of the old ore cars rounded a corner.  It was headed straight towards the boys!

[Read part 2 next week!]

The Poetry Mystery

Brring!  Brring!

That telephone signals danger—your guide to adventure every week at this same hour!  Or so Jack Barnes liked to imagine.  In reality, most calls that came over it had nothing to do with mysteries.  Why would they?  Well, he was in charge of a Detective Club which had solved several puzzles around Tacoma.  Thus, it was not necessarily unusual when a case came over the phone.  It just wasn’t most of the time.

However, he could tell right when he picked up the receiver that this would be different.  “You’ve got to come over right away!” implored a woman’s voice on the other end.  “My husband’s disappeared!”

She sounded like she was about to hang up, so Jack said, “Hold it, hold it!  Where is here?”

Realizing her mistake, the woman gave Jack the address.  Jack was about to ask for more information about the case when she hung up.

“Hmmm,” thought Jack.  “Odd.  But a case.  This’ll be fun.”  Promptly, he dialed up the other members of the club, Kurt Morris and Robbie Ransom, and told them to get over to that place as soon as possible.

[Note: Some sources (one specifically) include Emma Barnes in the club.  However, she somehow did not hear about this case—ahem.]

Robbie was the first one to get to the address, though he was soon followed by Kurt.  Jack was hurrying over, but his residence wasn’t as close, which gave Robbie and Kurt time to size up the address.  It was a large mansion, only one story tall but a very long one story.  The sprawling residence just kept going and going.  To photograph the house, one needed a panoramic camera.

“Imagine if that were a hall of mirrors,” said Kurt.  “You’d never get out of the place.  Oh, here’s Jack.”

“Sorry I’m late,” said Jack.  “The chain on my bike broke, and I had to walk the rest of the way.”

“Ouch,” said Kurt.  “Did you get hurt?”

“No, I just slowed down.  This is the house, right?”

“Yes.  Let’s go in.”

The boys walked down the (long) driveway, marched down the (long) sidewalk, and knocked on the (normal) front door.  Before Jack could finish knocking, it swung open on smooth hinges, revealing a butler.

“Good afternoon,” he said.  “Whom shall I tell Mr.—er, Mrs. Lawrence—is here?”

“I’m Jack Barnes,” said Jack, “and these are—”

“Ah, yes,” said the butler.  “Good.  You must be the Detective Club.  Mrs. Lawrence is expecting you.  Follow me,” he said.

The butler led the boys down a long hallway, which led to another long hallway, which led to another—they finally made it to a large room.  “There you are!” cried a woman, whom Jack assumed had made the phone call.  “Thank goodness you’ve come,” she exclaimed.  She wore a large, green dress which looked a little out of place considering that this was not a formal occasion.  (Or is any occasion informal here, wondered Jack.)  Anyway, she was clearly agitated about something.

Jack introduced the group and asked for the details.  “Last night, I retired around 11,” said the woman.  “Johnny, my husband, was still awake.  He’s a literary critic, and he was writing a review of a new book that just came out.”

“What book was it?” asked Robbie.

“I don’t know,” said the woman.  “All he told me about it was that it was terrible and he was going to ensure that no one ever read it.”

“If I may volunteer, Mrs. Lawrence,” said the butler, “most of his reviews were like that.”

“That’s quite true,” she replied.  “Johnny could be a bit negative.”

The butler coughed on “a bit.”

“No doubt he has a few enemies.”

The butler coughed on “a few.”

“But I don’t know who would want to make him disappear!”

“Has there been a ransom note, or anything like that?” asked Jack, while the butler went into a fit of coughing.

“No, nothing!” said Mrs. Lawrence.  “I’m afraid—”

“Genevieve!” exclaimed a man entering the room.  “I flew over as soon as I heard the news.  What a terrible thing this is!”

“Oh, let me introduce Charles Custis,” said Mrs. Lawrence.  “He’s in charge of publishing Johnny’s magazine.”

“If Mr. Lawrence isn’t found,” said Custis, “I’m in trouble.  Big trouble.  Who else could scald an author like he could?  No one!  My readers would be so disappointed—and it would be terrible for me, as well.”

“There is a clue, though!” said Mrs. Lawrence.

“A clue?” said Jack. “Show us.”

“It’s in the library,” said Mrs. Lawrence, “where he disappeared.  It wasn’t there last night, I’m sure.  Right there on the table,” she said, pointing.

Sitting on the table was a piece of paper with a poem handwritten on it.  Jack went over and inspected it.  The poem read:

 

In the far North, in Labrador,

Dwelt Evangeline.

She lived with her old father,

In a land where she was queen.

 

She waited through the years,

For a lover that sought elsewhere.

‘Till one day he returned

And died miserably on her stair.

 

“Why that’s Evangeline,” said Jack.  “I had to memorize it.”

“What a lousy poem,” said Kurt.  “Who wrote it?”

“Longfellow,” said Jack.  “And yes, I agree, it was lousy.  I wonder what it could mean, though.”  He held the paper up to the light, but all he saw was a watermark.

“That watermark’s on all the paper Johnny uses,” said Mrs. Lawrence, watching.  “PFT Paper, Inc.”

“I was just seeing if there was a hidden message,” said Jack.

“Wait a minute,” said Robbie.  “Mrs. Lawrence, did your husband ever criticize poetry?”

“Yes, on many occasions,” said Mrs. Lawrence.  “Johnny loved poetry.”

“Unless the author was still alive,” said the butler.

“What poets did he criticize?” asked Robbie.

“Get ready,” said the butler.  “You have a long list coming!”

Actually, the list only consisted of five people.  Their names, along with their most famous works:

 

Luis Freehold: Author of Five Hundred Love Poems

Rufus P. Tinkley: Author of The Cat’s Tongue: Poetry for a Starlit Night

Doug Gates: Author of Maggots!

Arthur W. Hines: Author of Glasses Half Empty

Martin Gladsworth: Author of Tubes of Ethyl Acetylene

 

“Their works sound intriguing,” said Kurt.  “Remind me not to read them.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “but what’s the connection between the poem and those authors? Surely they didn’t all have to do with Lawrence’s disappearance.”

“We don’t even know if any of them did,” said Kurt.  “We’re just guessing.”

“I think we’re on the right track,” said Jack, “but there’s got to be something in that poem that points to one of them.  Only who?”

“Those are strange titles,” said Robbie.  “What are those poems all about?”

“Different things,” said Mrs. Lawrence.  “I haven’t read them myself.”

“Nor have I,” said Custis.  “I just focus on getting his stuff published, though I have to take his word for it that these aren’t any good.”

“In Mr. Lawrence’s eyes, nothing is any good,” said the butler.

“I think we get the general idea,” said Kurt.  “Hey!  I’ve got an idea.  Maybe one of these authors is married to someone named Evangeline!”

“Oh my goodness!” said Jack.  “That might be what Lawrence meant with this poem.”

Lawrence’s copies of the poets’ books were quickly procured and the boys scanned the author descriptions, but to no avail.  Four out of the five were married, but not to Evangeline.  They didn’t have any other relatives named Evangeline, either.

“It’s not a common name,” said Robbie.  “I doubt the clue’s in the name itself.”

“The region!” said Jack.  “Maybe one of these authors is from Canada!”

A good idea, but an incorrect one.  None of the authors had ever been to Canada (where Labrador is located), although they all lived on the West Coast.  Jack commented, “Hah!  They live over here.  I’ll bet one of them did it.”

“Perhaps not Tinkley, though,” said Kurt.  “He lives in Los Angeles.  I know you can get flights from there to Seattle, but that’s still a long ways away.”

“Wait,” said Jack.  “Maybe the Labrador clue is referring to a dog.  Check those bios again!”

They did, and yes, three of the poets owned dogs.  Unfortunately, none of them were Labradors.  One owned a Great Dane, one owned three beagles, and one owned “the world’s most delightful mutt named Ernest.  I was walking one night, and…” blah, blah, blah.  Robbie just sort of skimmed through that description, then looked back up the rest of the bio.  This was the book by Hines, Glasses Half Empty.

“Wonder why he picked the title,” thought Robbie to himself.  Then, his eyes widened.  “Hey!  Guys!  Take a look at this!”

“What?” asked Jack.

“Is it a clue?” asked Mrs. Lawrence, watching the boys in their search.

“A death threat, most likely,” the butler wryly observed.

“Read the first sentence of Tinkley’s biography,” said Robbie excitedly.

“Arthur Wadsworth Tinkley was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1962.”

“So?” said Kurt.

“Jack gets it, don’t you?” asked Robbie.

Jack snapped his fingers.  “Of course!  That’s what Lawrence meant by the poem?”

“What?” asked Mrs. Lawrence.

“Oh, I do hope this is a break!” said Mr. Custis.

“Don’t keep us waiting,” said the butler.  “There are other books waiting to be criticized.”

“The clue is not actually in the poem, but in the author,” said Jack.  “Longfellow’s full name was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”

Within an hour, Johnny Lawrence was safely returned to his house.  Arthur W. Tinkley’s writing career, meanwhile, was put on hold, though we all expect his next poem to involve jail.