The Blue Ghost Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

CHAPTER XVII
In Darkness

For one despairing instant the two peered at the fallen rock through the thick haze of dust, then Scotty snapped, "Back into clean air."

They retreated the way they had come. Rick clicked off his flashlight instinctively. They might need it.

When clean air was reached again they stopped and Scotty swept his flashlight beam over the rocky floor. "Pick a seat and get comfortable. We'll be here for a while."

"We won't get out of here by sitting down," Rick replied.

"No, and we won't do much until the dust settles, either. Relax and get cooled off. When the dust has settled a little, we can go back and see just how bad the block is."

Rick remembered the tons of rock above the timbers. The block had to be bad, he thought. There was plenty of rock there. Then, as he thought about it, he wasn't so sure. A pretty large area had shown cracks, but perhaps only a layer had fallen. They might be able to dig out. Nothing to do about it but wait and see.

Scotty switched off his light and the blackness closed in. Rick shifted uncomfortably. Once before he had been lost in complete blackness like this, in the Caves of Fear. But that had been different; he hadn't been exactly trapped in the same way then, and the caves had covered miles under a Tibetan mountain. At least he knew exactly where he was this time.

He said, "We should have brought a picnic lunch."

Scotty chuckled, but didn't reply.

Rick said, "Suppose we can't get out?"

"We will. Dr. Miller will be hunting for us sooner or later. He couldn't miss the mine, especially with the boards off the entrance."

"Then all we need is patience and a tight belt."

"That's it."

The boys fell silent. Rick was cheered by Scotty's estimate of the situation. He closed his eyes, and for perhaps the hundredth time started mulling over the chain of events, searching for a clue to the two things they needed to know: how and why the ghost was produced.

But as he thought about it he wondered if perhaps they didn't know why. The ghost was a means of keeping people out of the area. It had succeeded to a considerable degree. There were no more night family picnics and swimming parties. There were only occasional long-scheduled events.

He explored the idea. The mine area was private property. To keep people out one would need only to post "No Trespassing" signs. But in all probability that wouldn't be suitable, because it would raise too many questions, and Dr. Miller would have to be let in on the secret of the ghosts that walked the fields.

But why keep people out of the area? To be sure, privacy for the conduct of secret operations was an obvious reason, only what were the secret operations, and why did they have to be kept secret?

He gave up finally. There simply weren't enough data on which to hang a conclusion.

"Think the dust has settled?" he asked.

"Could be. Suppose we go take a look. I'll use my light. Save yours."

They followed the yellow beam of Scotty's flashlight through the dark tunnel to the rockfall. There was still plenty of dust in the air, but it was bearable.

Scotty flashed his light on the timbers, then on the rockslide. One pair of uprights arose from the sloping pile of rock to a sound crosspiece.

Both boys knew what that meant. Rick put it into words. "If that's the set of timbers nearest to the ones that were bad, it means at least ten feet of rock on this side, and probably the same or even more on the other. A total of twenty feet of rock."

Scotty grunted. "One thing is for sure. We won't dig our own way out for a few days. I'm not even sure we can. We might collapse from lack of water if we try working real hard."

"But we can't wait for help from the outside," Rick pointed out. "We can at least work while we still have our health."

"Can you work in the darkness?"

"I suppose we'll have to. The lights won't last long."

"Then let's get to it."

They retreated to an alcove and put their shirts in a safe place, then went to work in their T shirts. Lugging rocks would work up a sweat, and it was chilly underground. The shirts were for use during rest periods.

"Let's see how it goes," Scotty invited, and turned off his light.

Rick groped for a rock and found a good-sized one. He carried it back and promptly bumped into a wall and dropped it. Keeping a straight line was going to be a problem. He groped for the rock and found it again, but this time he tucked it under one arm, using the opposite hand to guide him along the wall.

"I'm on the right-hand wall," he told Scotty. "I'll return along the left-hand wall."

"Good system," Scotty approved.

It was, too. They passed each other in the dark and Rick was pleased, until he tripped on a rock and stumbled into the pile.

"We're going to have to count paces," he said ruefully as he nursed a bruised knee. "Say twenty paces up and twenty paces back."

"Better make it twice that," Scotty replied. "We can't pile all the rocks in one place. We'll have to spread them out."

"Forty it is," Rick agreed, and found another rock.

The work went on, gradually assuming the proportions of a dream – or a nightmare. Pick up a rock, tote it forty paces, drop it. Then thirty-five paces as the passageway got cluttered. Now and then they had to join forces to lug a particularly big piece.

Rick's watch showed him that two hours had gone by. "Let's take a break," he suggested.

"Okay."

Scotty turned on his light. They found their shirts, then went back to survey what they had accomplished.

One glance told them it wasn't much. They had cleaned out the passage up to the main slide, and that was all.

They looked at each other in the flashlight's glow.

"Got any earth-moving equipment in your pocket?" Rick asked wryly.

"Not a dragline or a clamshell," Scotty said. "We certainly didn't make much of a dent, did we?"

"At this rate we'll be here until Christmas," Rick said.

"Not that we'll need a Christmas tree."

"We could use the lights," Rick commented. "Let's keep plugging. I'm not so sure I need a rest after all."

"Might as well."

"Just sitting on the rocks will sap our strength, anyway," Rick pointed out. "We might as well work while we're still fresh. We can take five-minute breaks when we begin to tire."

"I'm with you. Tote those rocks."

"Let's use one light, too. No point in just clearing the tunnel. We want to break through in as short a time as possible. If we use the light we can pull rocks from nearer the top of the slide."

"Sensible as usual. I'll prop my light so it shines on the slide."

Scotty did so, then both boys shed their shirts once more.

The rock hauling went faster even with the rays of the single flashlight. They took turns climbing the slide and throwing rocks down. The boy taking a turn at the bottom moved them out of the way.

"Watch it!" Rick yelled suddenly, and jumped away from a slide of rock. Scotty, who was back in the tunnel disposing of a big rock, asked anxiously, "Are you hurt?"

"No. Hand me that light, will you?"

Scotty carried the light to where Rick waited. Rick took it and shone it upward to where the slide had come from. He whistled. There was solid ceiling, but it was a yard higher than the rest of the tunnel ceiling.

He calculated quickly. "If this is typical, we have rock three feet thick, ten feet wide, and twenty feet long piled up in front of us. That makes six hundred cubic feet of rock."

"But it can't be typical," Scotty disagreed. "If three feet had fallen uniformly, it wouldn't have filled the tunnel. It must be much thicker right over the broken timbers."

"Not a very cheerful prospect, is it?" Rick had a vision of yards of rock ahead.

"I've seen happier prospects. But what can we do? Keep plugging is all, and hope it doesn't take long for Dr. Miller to locate us."

Rick looked at his watch. "No chance of that yet. It isn't even suppertime. It may be morning before Dr. Miller gets really worried."

Scotty chuckled grimly. "Our own reputation for being able to take care of ourselves is not helping us, either."

"I'll never go into a place without two entrances again," Rick promised.

There was a moment's shocked silence while the boys stared at each other. They spoke simultaneously.

"How do you know this has only one entrance?"

"How do we know this hasn't two entrances?"

They had never reached the end of the mine. For all they knew, it might only be necessary to walk out!

"We'll go see," Rick stated. "Right now."

"Didn't we ever ask about another entrance?" Scotty demanded.

"No, now that I think of it, and no one ever said anything about it."

"Maybe they never said anything because there isn't anything to say."

"No more assumptions," Rick said. "We can find out for ourselves. Get your shirt on and let's go."

They quickly dressed and hiked down the long tunnel to the point they had reached when the cave-in occurred. Rick paid more attention to the formation than before, and found it was easy to trace the ore vein. Pockets in the walls showed where offshoots of the main ore vein had been located and dug out, but mostly the mine bored through the hill in one continuous tunnel.

"Funny they didn't take more ore out of the top," Scotty commented. "Looks like fairly decent stuff overhead and to the left."

"Not good enough, I guess. Refining was pretty primitive in those days. Techniques are better now, but there probably isn't enough good ore here to make new operations worth the expense of getting it out."

"Look ahead," Scotty said.

Rick had been examining the wall of the tunnel. He turned and looked to where Scotty pointed, and his heart sank. It was another rockslide.

"Funny," Scotty commented. "The tunnel goes uphill to the slide."

Rick saw that his pal was right. But the change in elevation of the tunnel didn't seem important compared to the prospect that now faced them. They simply had to go back and resume their rock hauling. There was no way of knowing whether the tunnel continued beyond the slide, or whether the slide itself was the reason the Civil War miners had gone no farther.

"I need a rest," Rick said, discouraged. "Let's sit down and take a breather before we start back."

"Okay. Douse the light?"

"Might as well. Your battery's getting low."

Scotty switched the light off and they sat down on the hard rock floor. Rick closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Plenty of hard work ahead. He might as well rest while he could.

Scotty spoke suddenly. "Plenty of good fresh air down here. Isn't that a little odd?"

Rick stirred. "Is it? I hadn't thought much about it. But I suppose the air ought to be stale and smelly."

"Wet your finger."

"Huh? Oh, okay." It was the ancient trick of using the cooling caused by evaporation of moisture from a damp finger to show the movement of air currents. Rick let out an exclamation. The air in the tunnel was in motion!

Scotty said with suppressed excitement, "Close your eyes. I'm going to light a match."

Rick did so, and saw the light even through closed eyelids because his pupils were fully dilated. He opened his eyes cautiously, squinting against the glare of the match. As the pupils contracted he saw that the paper match burned brightly, and that the flame flickered!

Scotty jumped to his feet, switching on the flashlight. "The breeze is coming from the slide!"

With one accord they rushed to the slide and began pulling rocks away. Clearly, the tunnel sloped upward at this point. The question was, did it emerge in a real opening, or only in a hole driven through for ventilation?

There was only one way to find out: move rock!

They sought for key rocks, those that would allow other rocks to tumble down and out of the way.

Rick thought it was at least to their credit that they learned from experience. Then, as he jumped frantically to escape a sliding boulder, he had to grin at his own thought. They had learned, but not enough.

There was no doubt about it, a current of air came through the slide. They could feel it, cool and fresh, and redoubled their efforts.

Finally they had to slow down from sheer exhaustion.

"Take a break," Rick said huskily. "We'd be foolish to wear ourselves out."

"You're right." Scotty slumped down where he was and wiped his face. "That air current is getting stronger. We're making progress."

"Wish I knew toward what," Rick said.

"Air, anyway. And where there's a source of air is also daylight."

"I'd feel better if I could see some."

They rested in silence for five minutes by Rick's watch, then resumed, working as close to the top of the pile as they could get.

Scotty suddenly let out a yell, and Rick dodged to escape another rock, then leaped down as the whole pile crumbled. The rocks didn't fall far.

"Look," Scotty said breathlessly.

Rick turned on his own light to supplement the dim beam of Scotty's. Blackness yawned at the top of the slide!

Scotty was first through the hole, but Rick was right behind him. They emerged in a continuation of the tunnel, but on a higher level. Their lights showed that the tunnel continued.

They followed it for perhaps fifty feet, and found themselves in a cross tunnel in which their tunnel ended.

Scotty looked at Rick in the beam of the flashlight.

"We're somewhere," he said. "But where?"

Rick grinned. There was a definite breeze blowing, and he knew the outside and safety were not far away. "We're in the mine, under the same old hill. Soon as we find the source of that breeze, I'll identify our position within two feet."

Scotty returned the grin. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

CHAPTER XVIII
The First Fact

Rick said, "Hold it a minute. Which way do we go? If we assume the tunnel we came out of was fairly constant in direction, we should turn right to come out on the side of the hill where we saw the Frostola man a while ago. If we turn left, we go deeper into the hill."

Both boys saw the implication the moment the words left Rick's lips. "Right it is," Rick added quickly. "First thing we have to do is see if there really is a way out."

They turned right into the cross tunnel, and met the breeze head on. So long as they followed the direction of the breeze, they were approaching the outside air.

Within a hundred feet they saw a glimmer of daylight and broke into a run. The glimmer became an opening, irregular in shape, but obviously big enough for an entrance.

"We made it!" Rick exulted. "Let's get a good look at that sunshine!"

"Careful," Scotty cautioned. "We'll have to let our eyes adjust fully or the glare will hurt. Besides, it may not be a good idea to go barging out into the open. Might be some ghosts hanging around."

"You're right. Anyway, let's take a brief look. What's blocking the opening?"

As they approached he saw that it was the trunk of a fallen tree, festooned with blackberry bushes. When they looked through the entrance, blinking in the light, they saw that the tree wasn't really a block, because there was plenty of room to crawl out of the tunnel.

"That trunk makes a mighty good shield," Scotty said thoughtfully. "Bet this entrance is invisible ten feet away, except from the air!"

"And I'll add my own bet, that the entrance is very close to where we met the Frostola man this morning, and that he wonders if we spotted it from the plane."

Scotty shook his head. "No betting on sure things. This explains the interest in the plane, all right. Stand by, old son. I'm going to make a quick recon and be sure the coast is clear."

"Okay. Eyes adjusted?"

"Enough." Scotty went through the entrance on hands and knees. Rick saw his legs as he stood up and surveyed the scene.

"Come on out," Scotty called. "We're alone."

Rick joined him. The fallen tree trunk came above their knees. As Scotty had said, it made an effective shield for the mine entrance.

Rick studied the entrance itself. Probably it had once been a regular timbered entrance, like the one on the other side of the hill, but it had fallen in, the rocks wedging to form a low passage into the tunnel inside. The whole hillside was overgrown with brambles, down to the two-rut road below them, almost at the place where they had met the peddler.

"We were within fifty feet of this entrance," Rick said, "and never suspected it."

"The Frostola man knew it. Do you think he thought we knew it?"

"Possible, I suppose. I'm not so interested in what he thinks as I am in what he was doing here. Where would we have ended if we had taken the left-hand turn, do you suppose?"

"Why suppose? Unless you've had enough of mines for one day, we can go back in and find out."

"I've had enough, but not enough to miss a chance like this. My flashlight is still strong and it shouldn't take more than a few minutes."

"Then let's go. No telling when a spook may visit the mine from this end. Of course there's no telling about Uncle Frostola, either. He may be inside."

That hadn't occurred to Rick. He thought it over, then shrugged. "We might as well take the chance. If he is inside, that proves something, and we're two to his one. Besides, it's late, and any sensible man is eating his supper. Come on."

He led the way back into the cave, but because of the peddler's possible presence, he wasn't as headlong in his traversing of the tunnel as he might otherwise have been.

They passed the side tunnel from which they had emerged a short time before and entered entirely new territory. It wasn't unlike the rest of the mine, consisting of a main bore with some alcoves indicating either deviations of the ore vein or niches cut to allow ore carts to pass.

Walking rapidly, but alert for either sound or light, they traveled through the tunnel at a good speed.

"We've been walking quite a while," Rick said finally. "How long do you suppose this shaft is?"

Scotty thought it over. "It can't be any longer than the hill is wide, because we're traveling through the hill. It must be about the same length as the lower tunnel."

"Why two tunnels?" Rick asked. "I doubt that there were two veins of ore."

Scotty reminded him of the good ore they had seen in the ceiling of the lower tunnel. "There might have been just one vein, about two tunnels high. They were limited to pick and shovel for tools in those days, remember, maybe with a little powder for blasting. It would have been more convenient to work within range of tools like shovel and pick. So the ceiling is as high as a man with a pick can reach, and as wide as the ore vein was wide. That's a little confused, but I'm sure you follow me."

"Sounds reasonable," Rick agreed. "Only this tunnel can't go on much farther, or we'll be in the middle of the picnic – Hey! Scotty, take a look!"

Ahead in the tunnel was a box, and on the box was metal that reflected the flashlight's beam. In a second the boys stood over it.

Rick's heart pounded rapidly. Here was the proof. Here was Missing Fact Number One. Here was verification of at least part of their speculation.

An eight-millimeter motion-picture projector!

Rick motioned to the front of the machine with a trembling hand. "Look, there's a film in place, and it's a continuous loop. Once it's threaded it will repeat over and over unless cut off."

Scotty was probing into the box. "Batteries. Two of them, twelve volts each. And I'll bet the motor in the projector is designed to operate on twelve volts. There's even a hydrometer for testing the batteries."

Rick took a look. As Scotty had said, there were two automobile batteries, their cables running up into the projector.

"Simple enough," he commented. "Let's see what's on the film."

He opened the film gate gingerly and removed the film from the sprockets. Then, without disengaging the spindles, he put the flashlight behind it and bent close. The eight-millimeter frames were pretty small, but not so small that he and Scotty couldn't make out the image.

The scene had been shot against a black background, that was clear. Only the central figure was illuminated, the figure of a Union cavalry officer.

"Meet the Blue Ghost," Rick said happily.

"Delighted," Scotty said emphatically. "I suppose I shouldn't admit it, but deep down, way back in the primitive part of my thick head, I was sometimes guilty of wondering about this creature."

Rick held out his hand. "Shake hands with another superstitious chucklehead. So was I. But let it be said to our credit that neither of us was so scared we were afraid to move."

He chuckled. "Of course there were times when I just had to keep my poor icy spine from freezing solid." He replaced the film on the sprockets and closed the gate with great care.

"The projector is aimed at the wall," Scotty pointed out, "right at the end of the tunnel. How does it get to where people can see it?"

"There has to be a way," Rick said. He swept the beam of his light around and it steadied on an iron pipe. "Hey, look!"

The pipe entered through the end of the tunnel, threaded into a right-angle pipe fitting, and disappeared into the tunnel floor!

"So that's how the water comes out of the hillside!" Rick exclaimed. "The well was originally driven straight down, as a well should be, and the horizontal pipe was added later. It misses the lower tunnel by about six feet."

"That's not the only interesting thing about this end of the tunnel," Scotty added. "This whole end is artificial, including part of the roof over the well. Take a look. It's mortarless stonework. No wonder the face was so seamed on the outside. Whoever did this was a terrific mason, because he selected rocks – probably from the mine itself – that duplicated the contour of the hill. But why go to all the trouble? That's what puzzles me."

"Maybe this is the reason," Rick said. He pointed to rusty iron projecting from the wall. The iron supported a block of stone, by means of an iron pin that ran from the bottom of the stone through a hole in the iron piece projecting from the wall. At the top of the stone was a similar arrangement. It was an elementary but effective hinge, long ago rusted to disuse.

Rick studied the wall, and directly in front of the projector lens he found another of the same arrangements, but with a difference. This one was modern, and it had been painted to prevent rusting. There were traces of graphite or graphite grease where the pins went through the iron supports.

Clearly, the block of stone supported by the iron pins formed a porthole, the pins allowing the stone to be swung inward. The old, rusted one had been unused for decades, but the port in front of the projector had been repaired and lubricated. The comparison between the two gave Rick his clue.

"This is a sniper nest built by the Confederates," he guessed. "Probably to protect the mine. The upper mine tunnel opened out here, too, and then war came and the people sealed the upper one to give protection to the troops working the lower level. That means the upper level was dug out first."

"It's speculation, but it sounds good," Scotty agreed. "These are gun ports, very likely. I don't know what other purpose they could have served."

Later they learned from Dr. Miller that the ports had also served as ventilation for slaves using the mine to hide on their way North to freedom, but that was after the North had the area partly in its grip. They also found that from these same ports the Lansdale brothers had fired the shots that killed Captain Seth Costin, for the legend was almost entirely true.

"We open this port in front of the machine and we'll be only inches above the pool," Rick said. "Look at the location of the pipe. So, to produce the ghost, the Frostola man slid open the port, dropped a piece of dry ice…"

"All properly sized to give the right amount of mist for the right time," Scotty added.

"… and turned on the machine. With only the small port for the sound to go through, it wouldn't be audible to anyone in the picnic grounds."

Scotty agreed. "And since the projector is so close to the mist we wouldn't see a beam. That lens must have a mighty wide angle, by the way. What's more, the projector must be slid closer to the opening when in use."

"True. You know, in a way we were unlucky. If we had chanced to climb a tree when the ghost was actually appearing, we would have seen the projection lens through the mist as a bright spot of light, and that would have given the show away before this. But because of the angle, only someone in a tree could see it."

Rick shook his head in admiration. "Rear-screen projection with a wide-angle lens. That's really using movie technique for all it's worth."

"Rear-screen projection?" Scotty queried.

"Sure. Movies and TV use it all the time. When the hero is supposed to be watching dinosaurs fighting it out, he's actually standing in front of a big screen of special plastic or ground glass, with the picture projected on it from behind. The mist acted as the screen, so we saw the image but not the projector beam. That's rear-screen projection."

"I know how it works," Scotty said. "You can tell in a movie when they use it, because the definition of the background isn't as sharp as real photography, but I didn't know the name of the process."

Scotty turned and studied the location of the port. "He must place the projector right on the tunnel floor, tilted upward to shine through the port. That's why the ghost was so tall. It hit the mist at an angle."

Rick bent over the port. "Not hard to smack us in the eyes with methyl chloride from here, either. There we were, on our knees, faces in good range. And I'll bet he chuckled while he was doing it. Simple weapon, too. A water pistol. Or any plastic squirt bottle."

He tugged on the port and it failed to move. Something wrong here. He studied it carefully and saw the reason. It had to be slid sideways for a quarter of an inch, a safety-lock feature. No wonder their examination of the rock face outside had shown nothing.

"Open it," Scotty said. "Let's look."

Rick did so, and instantly closed it partly shut again. "Get down here and look," he commanded. He had seen at once what had happened during their absence and his quick mind had caused him to react.

There were men outside, several of them, and they were watching a small power scoop move into position in front of the lower mine entrance. Among them were Dr. Miller and Belsely. Away from the group, sitting on his tricycle scooter, was the Frostola man!

"We forgot about Belsely," Rick said softly. "He saw us, and may even have seen us go into the mine. Anyway, that's the first place he'd look when we turned up missing."

Scotty drew back and closed the port gently. "That power scoop can go right into the tunnel, scoop up a yard of rock and back out and dump it. It will have the tunnel cleared in no time. We'd better get out there and let them know we're safe."

"If they were breaking their backs with hard manual labor to get us out I'd yell through the port," Rick said gleefully. "But they aren't. So we'll let the scoop operate. It will remove that stuff in an hour. And when they open up, they'll find us."

Scotty looked at him suspiciously. "The tone of voice tells me you're whomping up something that will make someone unhappy. What is it?"

"Well, if we rush out and tell the world about this, everyone will know the ghost is a fake. But that won't help us much, because we'll still need to know the answer to the biggest question of all. Why do this? So we go back, use the time covering up the break between the tunnels so no one will suspect we know, and let ourselves be rescued. The ghost continues to operate, and so do we! Then, when we have the answer, I have a great idea for unmasking the ghost."

Scotty saw the reasoning at once. "Besides," he added, "if the Frostola man doesn't see us come out, he'll know the jig is up right now. So let's go."

They checked carefully to be sure no trace of their presence remained, then hurried back to the lower tunnel. Working carefully, they fitted rocks into the opening until a casual survey by flashlight would not reveal that the block between the tunnels had been removed. Then they spent the remaining time clearing more rocks from the original rockfall that had sealed them in.

When the power scoop finally broke through, the glare of headlights, turned on when darkness fell, revealed two dirty, disheveled, exhausted young men who were too fatigued for anything but a quick bath, a meal, and bed.