CHAPTER XLV.

GHOST-HAUNTED SHAFTS.

Thus far we have seen only such levels, drifts, and cross-cuts as were well-timbered and in perfect order. We will now take a trip through an old upper level, where the ore has all been extracted, and where no trouble is taken to keep the ground up—one of the old upper levels of the Belcher mine, for instance. Here we find about ten acres of worked-out ground which is a regular wilderness.

In this place one sees something of the tremendous weight and pressure of the superincumbent earth. It is a place to make the hair rise erect on the head of any clothes-wearing man who has not been scalped by nature or by art. The large, square timbers are crushed down to half their original height, and are splintered and twisted; chambers originally square are squeezed into a diamond shape, and their roofs almost touch the floor in the centre; solid piles of timber that have been packed into the ground as long as there was room for another stick, are pressed into pancakes; winzes and chutes are “telescoped;” ladder-ways, once spacious, are crushed out of all shape, and now can hardly accommodate a cat—all is confused and shapeless.

This region somewhat resembles the track of a tornado in a timbered country—what is called a “windfall.” In places we enter immense caverns where the timbers are gone, and where huge flakes of clay lean far out from the walls, and composedly look down upon us as we tremblingly glide along underneath. One is afraid to sneeze lest he bring these down upon his head. A smell of mustiness and decay pervades the whole place. The whole level is gradually settling down and squeezing together. There is no danger of the sudden caving of any considerable area of ground, but eventually all the timbers will be pressed into a pancake, and the place will be forever closed.

In these deserted levels the paths are circuitous and uncertain, and in threading the labyrinth of fast-disappearing drifts, galleries, and cross-cuts, one must have a guide who passes through them almost daily.

To those not familiar with mines it may appear strange, but the lower levels—indeed, all of the levels—are alive with rats. The miners never kill or molest them, therefore they become quite tame and saucy. As the miners all carry a lunch with them into the mine, the rats live well on the fragments. These rats are really of service, as they devour the scraps of meat and bones thrown upon the ground, which would in a short time create a bad odor in the mine. The decay of the smallest thing in a mine cannot be endured. Should a rat be killed by any accident it must be sent up out of the mine. Should a small piece of cotton cloth be burned in a drift, the miners would smell it throughout the level, and to burn a small splinter of pine would probably cause serious alarm, if not a grand stampede among them, as they would think there was a fire in the timbers of the mine.

In the old upper levels we find as many rats as in any other place. If we sit down upon a fallen timber and converse for a few minutes they will come about us. They think we are miners sitting down to lunch. They come and sit near us on the ends of the timbers, and cock their heads this way and that, as they look inquiringly about. Evidently they do not at all understand it. Why we should be sitting there talking, with no dinner-pails in sight, seems to puzzle them not a little.

There are frequently rats that are the pets of the men working in a particular part of the mine—a rat known to them by some mark, as his having lost a piece of his tail. To this rat they give some such name as “Bobby,” or “Tommy,” and feed and pet him until he becomes so saucy that he can hardly be kept out of the dinner-pails.

When there is about to be a great cave in a mine, the rats give the miners their first warning. They become very uneasy, and are seen scampering about at unwonted times and in unusual places. The rats first discover that the mine is settling, and they start out in search of a place of safety. It is supposed that in settling, the waste rock and timbers pinch them in their usual holes and haunts, and they are obliged to go forth in search of new quarters, in order to escape being crushed to death. A fire in a mine kills them by thousands. The poisonous gases penetrate to every part of the level, and not a rat is left alive. Sometimes after a fire in a mine they are gathered up on the floors by bushels. In trying to jump across the main shaft, a rat occasionally miscalculates the distance, and falls to the bottom. A rat falling a thousand feet and striking a miner on the head is sure to knock him down. The rat is killed, of course, as he generally explodes wherever he strikes. Dogs are dangerous about a shaft. Some years since, at Gold Hill, a dog fell into a shaft across which he attempted to jump, and killed two men who were at work at its bottom, three hundred feet below the surface.

So many men have been killed in all of the principal mines that there is hardly a mine on the lead that does not contain ghosts, if we are to believe what the miners say.

Some of the miners are very superstitious, while others are afraid of nothing living or dead, and lay plans for frightening those known to be timid. At times, the miner who is passing through unfrequented drifts in the old upper levels is almost paralyzed by the sudden breaking forth of most fearful groans and shrieks, all ending, perhaps, in a burst of fiendish laughter. These sounds sometimes follow him to a considerable distance, coming from various directions. When a timid man hears these ghostly salutations, he loses no time in making his way to the settled portions of the mine.

The last troublesome ghost was one that haunted the 700-foot level of the Ophir mine, where a miner was killed some years ago. The bells of the engineers and all the signal-bells in the Ophir are worked by electricity. Although there was no one at work on the 700-foot level, troublesome signals often came from there. When the cage arrived at that point the engineer would be signalled to stop. Although confident that there was no one at the level, he could not do otherwise than obey the signal; not to heed it might cost a life.

Next would come a signal to lower to the level below; then a signal to hoist to the top, and the cage which had thus been travelling about would come to the surface with nothing upon it but the car-load of ore with which it started from the bottom of the shaft.

Sometimes there would come from the haunted level a perfect storm of signals, such as no man could understand; then for a day or two there would be no trouble. A man who was set to watch at the level was frightened nearly out of his wits by groans and shrieks, flashing lights, and all manner of fearful things, and swore he would not go there again for the whole Ophir mine. He even went so far as to declare that a ghost crept up behind him and threw its arms about him. All this perplexed the electrician of the mine not a little. One day, therefore, when signals were coming from the haunted level, he took a dark lantern and went down to that point. He had hardly stepped off the cage before he was saluted with an awful groan. Advancing into the drift a blinding light flashed into his eyes, and he heard a low, gurgling laugh that almost froze the blood in his veins.

He had gone down to the level, however, to clear up the mystery of the disturbances at that point, and he determined that no ghost should frighten him away.

He advanced towards where he had heard the laugh, and was again blinded by a flash of light. He then threw the light of his dark lantern before him along the drift, but it was empty. Far away, however, he heard groans, and then a fearful shriek.

Pushing on and flashing his light this way and that, he pursued the ghost. Time and again the light was flashed in his eyes, and the low, mocking laugh was heard, but however quickly he might turn his own light in the direction whence came the sound, he could see nothing. A moment after, the whole mine would seem to be lighted up in the distance, and the laugh would be heard far away.

[Illustration: MERRIMAC MILL, CARSON RIVER.]

Did he attempt to advance, the light flashed in his face from some nook near at hand, and a shriek was uttered almost at his side. Becoming desperate, the electrician charged about at random through the level, flashing his lantern in all directions. At length his light fell upon a man just as he was making into the mouth of an old drift. Keeping his light upon the spot, our electrician rushed forward, and pushing into the drift saw his man crouched behind some timbers at the further end. He was cornered at last.

Finding that he was caught, the fellow rose up and coolly said: “Well, _you_ don’t scare worth a cent!” In his hand the man held the bulls-eye lantern which he had been flashing in the face of the electrician, and he owned to having a confederate somewhere on the level who was similarly equipped, but refused to give his name.

The mysterious signals from the level were now accounted for. This man and two or three other mischievous fellows, who were the only men employed in that part of the mine, had been ringing themselves up and down between the almost deserted levels, and had been frightening out of their wits all who ventured near the haunted 700-foot level. Since the day of the electrician’s adventure nothing more has been heard of the Ophir ghost.

[Illustration]