Chapter XV
Frightened Indians
"There must be some mistake," said Tom, wondering if the Irish foremanwere 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 nearthe tunnel mouth. "What's wrong, Tom?"
"Why, I sent Tim in to tell the men to come out, as I was going to setoff a blast, but he says the men aren't in there. And I'm sure the lastshift hasn't come out."
By this time Koku, Mr. Damon and Walter Titus had come up to find outwhat 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, andthey might have wandered into some abandoned cutting," suggested Tom.
"There aren't any abandoned cuttin's," declared Tim. "It's a straightbore, not a shaft of any kind. I've looked everywhere, and th' minaren't there I tell ye!"
"Are the lights going?" asked Job. "You might have missed them in thedark, Tim."
"The lights are going all right, Mr. Titus," said the young man incharge of the electrical arrangements. "The dynamo hasn't been stoppedto-day."
"Come on, we'll have a look," proposed Walter Titus. "There must besome mistake. Hold back the blast, Tom."
"All right," and the young inventor disconnected the electricaldetonating 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 youngEnglishman who was in charge of the dynamo.
Into the dimly-lit tunnel advanced the party of investigators, with TimSullivan 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 awhole village like this, jist bekase ould Mike Maguire uprooted a bedof shamrocks."
"That's enough of your superstitions, Tim," warned Job Titus. "If someof the other Indians hear you go on this way they'll desert as they didonce before."
"Did they do that?" asked Tom.
"Yes, we had trouble that way when we first began the work. The placehere was a howling wilderness then, and there were lots of pumas around.
"A puma is a small sized lion, you know, not specially dangerous unlesscornered. Well, some of the men had their families here with them, anda couple of children disappeared. The story got started that there wasa big puma--the king of them all--carrying off the little ones, and mybrother and I awoke one morning to find every laborer missing. Theydeparted bag and baggage. Afraid of the pumas."
"What did you do?"
"Well, we organized ourselves and our white helpers into a huntingparty and killed a lot of the beasts. There wasn't any big one though."
"And what had become of the children?"
"They weren't eaten at all. They had wandered off into the woods, andsome natives found them and took care of them. Eventually, they gotback home. But it was a long while before we could persuade the Indiansto come back. Since then we haven't had any trouble, and I don't wantTim, with his superstitious fancies, to start any."
"But the min are gone!" insisted the Irish foreman, who had listened tothis story as he and the others walked along.
"We'll find them," declared Mr. Titus.
But though they looked all along the big shaft, and though the placewas well lighted by extra lamps that were turned on when theinvestigation started, no trace could be found of the workmen, who hadbeen left in the tunnel to finish tamping the blast charges. The partyreached the rocky heading, in the face of which the powerful explosivehad been placed, and not an Indian was in sight. Nor, as far as couldbe told, was there any side niche, or blind shaft, in which they couldbe hiding.
Sometimes, when small blasts were set off, the men would go behind aprojecting shoulder of rock to wait until the charge had been fired,but now none was in such a refuge.
"It is queer," admitted Walter Titus. "Where can the men have gone?"
"That's what I want to know!" exclaimed Tim.
"Are you sure they didn't come out the mouth of the tunnel?" asked JobTitus.
"Positive," asserted Tom. I was there all the while, rigging up thefires."
"We'll call the roll, and check up," decided Job Titus. "Get Serato tohelp."
The Indian foreman had not been in the tunnel with the last shift ofmen, having left them to Tim Sullivan to get out in time. The Indianforeman was called from his supper in the shack where he had hisheadquarters, and the roll of workmen was called.
Ten men were missing, and when this fact became known there were uneasylooks among the others.
"Well," said Mr. Titus, after a pause. "The men are either in thetunnel or out of it. If they're in we don't dare set off the blast, andif they're out they'll show up, sooner or later, for supper. I neverknew any of 'em to miss a meal."
"If such a thing were possible," said Walter Titus, "I would say thatour rivals had a hand in this, and had induced our men to bolt in orderto cripple our force. But we haven't seen any of Blakeson & Grinder'semissaries about, and, if they were, how could they get the ten men outof the tunnel without our seeing them? It's impossible!"
"Well, what did happen then?" asked Tom.
"I'm inclined to think that the men came out and neither you, nor anyone else, saw them. They ran away for reasons of their own. We'll takeanother look in the morning, and then set off the blast."
And this was done. There being no trace of the men in the tunnel it wasdeemed safe to explode the charges. This was done, a great amount ofrock being loosened.
The laborers hung back when the orders were given to go in and cleanup. There were mutterings among them.
"What's the matter?" asked Job Titus.
"Them afraid," answered Serato. "Them say devil in tunnel eat um up! Nogo in."
"They won't go in, eh?" cried Tim Sullivan. "Well, they will thot! Ifthere's a divil inside there's a worse one outside, an' thot's me! Gitin there now, ye black-livered spalapeens!" and catching up a big clubthe Irishman made a rush for the hesitating laborers. With a howl theyrushed into the tunnel, and were soon loading rock into the dump cars.
Tom Swift and His Big Tunnel; Or, The Hidden City of the Andes Page 15
