BOOK TWO — THE SERFS OF KING COAL (continued 2)

The poet goes on to add that “When thy sons to fetters are confined—” then “Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.” And just as it was in Chillon, so it seemed to be in North Valley. Dawn came, and Hal stood at the window of his cell, and heard the whistle blow and saw the workers going to their tasks, the toil-bent, pallid faced creatures of the underworld, like a file of baboons in the half-light. He waved his hand to them, and they stopped and stared, and then waved back; he realised that every one of those men must be thinking about his imprisonment, and the reason for it—and so the jail-psychology was being communicated to them. If any of them cherished distrust of unions, or doubt of the need of organisation in North Valley—that distrust and that doubt were being dissipated!

—There was only one thing discouraging about the matter, as Hal thought it over. Why should the bosses have left him here in plain sight, when they might so easily have put him into an automobile, and whisked him down to Pedro before daylight? Was it a sign of the contempt they felt for their slaves? Did they count upon the sight of the prisoner in the window to produce fear instead of resentment? And might it not be that they understood their workers better than the would-be check-weighman? He recalled Mary Burke's pessimism about them, and anxiety gnawed at his soul; and—such is the operation of the jail-psychology—he fought against this anxiety. He hated the company for its cynicism, he clenched his hands and set his teeth, desiring to teach the bosses a lesson, to prove to them that their workers were not slaves, but men!

SECTION 17.

Toward the middle of the morning, Hal heard footsteps in the corridor outside, and a man whom he did not know opened the barred door and set down a pitcher of water and a tin plate with a hunk of bread on it. When he started to leave, Hal spoke: “Just a minute, please.”

The other frowned at him.

“Can you give me any idea how long I am to stay in here?”

“I cannot,” said the man.

“If I'm to be locked up,” said Hal, “I've certainly a right to know what is the charge against me.”

“Go to blazes!” said the other, and slammed the door and went down the corridor.

Hal went to the window again, and passed the time watching the people who went by. Groups of ragged children gathered, looking up at him, grinning and making signs—until some one appeared below and ordered them away.

As time passed, Hal became hungry. The taste of bread, eaten alone, becomes speedily monotonous, and the taste of water does not relieve it; nevertheless, Hal munched the bread, and drank the water, and wished for more.

The day dragged by; and late in the afternoon the keeper came again, with another hunk of bread and another pitcher of water. “Listen a moment,” said Hal, as the man was turning away.

“I got nothin' to say to you,” said the other.

“I have something to say to you,” pleaded Hal. “I have read in a book—I forget where, but it was written by some doctor—that white bread does not contain the elements necessary to the sustaining of the human body.”

“Go on!” growled the jailer. “What yer givin' us?”

“I mean,” explained Hal, “a diet of bread and water is not what I'd choose to live on.”

“What would yer choose?”

The tone suggested that the question was a rhetorical one; but Hal took it in good faith. “If I could have some beefsteak and mashed potatoes—”

The door of the cell closed with a slam whose echoes drowned out the rest of that imaginary menu. And so once more Hal sat on the hard bench, and munched his hunk of bread, and thought jail-thoughts.

When the quitting-whistle blew, he stood at the window, and saw the groups of his friends once again, and got their covert signals of encouragement. Then darkness fell, and another long vigil began.

It was late; Hal had no means of telling how late, save that all the lights in the camps were out. He made up his mind that he was in for the night, and had settled himself on the floor with his arm for a pillow, and had dozed off to sleep, when suddenly there came a scraping sound against the bars of his window. He sat up with a start, and heard another sound, unmistakably the rustling of paper. He sprang to the window, where by the faint light of the stars he could make out something dangling. He caught at it; it seemed to be an ordinary note-book, such as stenographers use, tied on the end of a pole.

Hal looked out, but could see no one. He caught hold of the pole and jerked it, as a signal; and then he heard a whisper which he recognised instantly as Rovetta's. “Hello! Listen. Write your name hundred times in book. I come back. Understand?”

The command was a sufficiently puzzling one, but Hal realised that this was no time for explanations. He answered, “Yes,” and broke the string and took the notebook. There was a pencil attached, with a piece of cloth wrapped round the point to protect it.

The pole was withdrawn, and Hal sat on the bench, and began to write, three or four times on a page, “Joe Smith—Joe Smith—Joe Smith.” It is not hard to write “Joe Smith,” even in darkness, and so, while his hand moved, Hal's mind was busy with this mystery. It was fairly to be assumed that his committee did not want his autograph to distribute for a souvenir; they must want it for some vital purpose, to meet some new move of the bosses. The answer to this riddle was not slow in coming: having failed in their effort to find money on him, the bosses had framed up a letter, which they were exhibiting as having been written by the would-be check-weigh-man. His friends wanted his signature to disprove the authenticity of the letter.

Hal wrote a free and rapid hand, with a generous flourish; he felt sure it would be different from Alec Stone's idea of a working-boy's scrawl. His pencil flew on and on—“Joe Smith—Joe Smith—” page after page, until he was sure that he had written a signature for every miner in the camp, and was beginning on the buddies. Then, hearing a whistle outside, he stopped and sprang to the window.

“Throw it!” whispered a voice; and Hal threw it. He saw a form vanish up the street, after which all was quiet again. He listened for a while, to see if he had roused his jailer; then he lay down on the bench—and thought more jail-thoughts!

SECTION 18.

Morning came, and the mine-whistle blew, and Hal stood at the window again. This time he noticed that some of the miners on their way to work had little strips of paper in their hands, which strips they waved conspicuously for him to see. Old Mike Sikoria came along, having a whole bunch of strips in his hands, which he was distributing to all who would take them. Doubtless he had been warned to proceed secretly, but the excitement of the occasion had been too much for him; he capered about like a young spring lamb, and waved the strips at Hal in plain sight of all the world.

Such indiscreet behaviour met the return it invited. As Hal watched, he saw a stocky figure come striding round the corner, confronting the startled old Slovak. It was Bud Adams, the mine-guard, and his hard fists were clenched, and his whole body gathered for a blow. Mike saw him, and was as if suddenly struck with paralysis; his toil-bent shoulders sunk together, and his hands fell to his sides—his fingers opening, and his precious strips of paper fluttering to the ground. Mike stared at Bud like a fascinated rabbit, making no move to protect himself.

Hal clutched the bars, with an impulse to leap to his friend's defence. But the expected blow did not fall; the mine-guard contented himself with glaring ferociously, and giving an order to the old man. Mike stooped and picked up the papers—the process taking him some time, as he was unable or unwilling to take his eyes off the mine-guard's. When he got them all in his hands, there came another order, and he gave them up to Bud. After which he fell back a step, and the other followed, his fists still clenched, and a blow seeming about to leap from him every moment. Mike receded another step, and then another—so the two of them backed out of sight around the corner. Men who had been witnesses of this little drama turned and slunk off, and Hal was given no clue as to its outcome.

A couple of hours afterwards, Hal's jailer came up, this time without any bread and water. He opened the door and commanded the prisoner to “come along.” Hal went downstairs, and entered Jeff Cotton's office.

The camp-marshal sat at his desk with a cigar between his teeth. He was writing, and he went on writing until the jailer had gone out and closed the door. Then he turned his revolving chair and crossed his legs, leaning back and looking at the young miner in his dirty blue overalls, his hair tousled and his face pale from his period of confinement. The camp-marshal's aristocratic face wore a smile. “Well, young fellow,” said he, “you've been having a lot of fun in this camp.”

“Pretty fair, thank you,” answered Hal.

“Beat us out all along the line, hey?” Then, after a pause, “Now, tell me, what do you think you're going to get out of it?”

“That's what Alec Stone asked me,” replied Hal. “I don't think it would do much good to explain. I doubt if you believe in altruism any more than Stone does.”

The camp-marshal took his cigar from his mouth, and flicked off the ashes. His face became serious, and there was a silence, while he studied Hal. “You a union organiser?” he asked, at last.

“No,” said Hal.

“You're an educated man; you're no labourer, that I know. Who's paying you?”

“There you are! You don't believe in altruism.”

The other blew a ring of smoke across the room. “Just want to put the company in the hole, hey? Some kind of agitator?”

“I am a miner who wants to be a check-weighman.”

“Socialist?”

“That depends upon developments here.”

“Well,” said the marshal, “you're an intelligent chap, that I can see. So I'll lay my hand on the table and you can study it. You're not going to serve as check-weighman in North Valley, nor any other place that the 'G. F. C.' has anything to do with. Nor are you going to have the satisfaction of putting the company in a hole. We're not even going to beat you up and make a martyr of you. I was tempted to do that the other night, but I changed my mind.”

“You might change the bruises on my arm,” suggested Hal, in a pleasant voice.

“We're going to offer you the choice of two things,” continued the marshal, without heeding this mild sarcasm. “Either you will sign a paper admitting that you took the twenty-five dollars from Alec Stone, in which case we will fire you and call it square; or else we will prove that you took it, in which case we will send you to the pen for five or ten years. Do you get that?”

Now when Hal had applied for the job of check-weighman, he had been expecting to be thrown out of the camp, and had intended to go, counting his education complete. But here, as he sat and gazed into the marshal's menacing eyes, he decided suddenly that he did not want to leave North Valley. He wanted to stay and take the measure of this gigantic “burglar,” the General Fuel Company.

“That's a serious threat, Mr. Cotton,” he remarked. “Do you often do things like that?”

“We do them when we have to,” was the reply.

“Well, it's a novel proposition. Tell me more about it. What will the charge be?”

“I'm not sure about that—we'll put it up to our lawyers. Maybe they'll call it conspiracy, maybe blackmail. They'll make it whatever carries a long enough sentence.”

“And before I enter my plea, would you mind letting me see the letter I'm supposed to have written.”

“Oh, you've heard about the letter, have you?” said the camp-marshal, lifting his eyebrows in mild surprise. He took from his desk a sheet of paper and handed it to Hal, who read:

“Dere mister Stone, You don't need worry about the check-wayman. Pay me twenty five dollars, and I will fix it right. Yours try, Joe Smith.”

Having taken in the words of the letter, Hal examined the paper, and perceived that his enemies had taken the trouble, not merely to forge a letter in his name, but to have it photographed, to have a cut made of the photograph, and to have it printed. Beyond doubt they had distributed it broadcast in the camp. And all this in a few hours! It was as Olson had said—a regular system to keep the men bedevilled.

SECTION 19.

Hal took a minute or so to ponder the situation. “Mr. Cotton,” he said, at last. “I know how to spell better than that. Also my handwriting is a bit more fluent.”

There was a trace of a smile about the marshal's cruel lips. “I know,” he replied. “I've not failed to compare them.”

“You have a good secret-service department!” said Hal.

“Before you get through, young fellow, you'll discover that our legal department is equally efficient.”

“Well,” said Hal, “they'll need to be; for I don't see how you can get round the fact that I'm a check-weighman, chosen according to the law, and with a group of the men behind me.”

“If that's what you're counting on,” retorted Cotton, “you may as well forget it. You've got no group any more.”

“Oh! You've got rid of them?”

“We've got rid of the ring-leaders.”

“Of whom?”

“That old billy-goat, Sikoria, for one.”

“You've shipped him?”

“We have.”

“I saw the beginning of that. Where have you sent him?”

“That,” smiled the marshal, “is a job for your secret-service department!”

“And who else?”

“John Edstrom has gone down to bury his wife. It's not the first time that dough-faced old preacher has made trouble for us, but it'll be the last. You'll find him in Pedro—probably in the poor-house.”

“No,” responded Hal, quickly—and there came just a touch of elation in his voice—“he won't have to go to the poor-house at once. You see, I've just sent twenty-five dollars to him.”

The camp-marshal frowned. “Really!” Then, after a pause, “You did have that money on you! I thought that lousy Greek had got away with it!”

“No. Your knave was honest. But so was I. I knew Edstrom had been getting short weight for years, so he was the one person with any right to the money.”

This story was untrue, of course; the money was still buried in Edstrom's cabin. But Hal meant for the old miner to have it in the end, and meantime he wanted to throw Cotton off the track.

“A clever trick, young man!” said the marshal. “But you'll repent it before you're through. It only makes me more determined to put you where you can't do us any harm.”

“You mean in the pen? You understand, of course, it will mean a jury trial. You can get a jury to do what you want?”

“They tell me you've been taking an interest in politics in Pedro County. Haven't you looked into our jury-system?”

“No, I haven't got that far.”

The marshal began blowing rings of smoke again.

“Well, there are some three hundred men on our jury-list, and we know them all. You'll find yourself facing a box with Jake Predovich as foreman, three company-clerks, two of Alf Raymond's saloon-keepers, a ranchman with a mortgage held by the company-bank, and five Mexicans who have no idea what it's all about, but would stick a knife into your back for a drink of whiskey. The District Attorney is a politician who favours the miners in his speeches, and favours us in his acts; while Judge Denton, of the district court, is the law partner of Vagleman, our chief-counsel. Do you get all that?”

“Yes,” said Hal. “I've heard of the 'Empire of Raymond'; I'm interested to see the machinery. You're quite open about it!”

“Well,” replied the marshal, “I want you to know what you're up against. We didn't start this fight, and we're perfectly willing to end it without trouble. All we ask is that you make amends for the mischief you've done us.”

“By 'making amends,' you mean I'm to disgrace myself—to tell the men I'm a traitor?”

“Precisely,” said the marshal.

“I think I'll have a seat while I consider the matter,” said Hal; and he took a chair, and stretched out his legs, and made himself elaborately comfortable. “That bench upstairs is frightfully hard,” said he, and smiled mockingly upon the camp-marshal.

SECTION 20.

When this conversation was continued, it was upon a new and unexpected line. “Cotton,” remarked the prisoner, “I perceive that you are a man of education. It occurs to me that once upon a time you must have been what the world calls a gentleman.”

The blood started into the camp-marshal's face. “You go to hell!” said he.

“I did not intend to ask questions,” continued Hal. “I can well understand that you mightn't care to answer them. My point is that, being an ex-gentleman, you may appreciate certain aspects of this case which would be beyond the understanding of a nigger-driver like Stone, or an efficiency expert like Cartwright. One gentleman can recognise another, even in a miner's costume. Isn't that so?”

Hal paused for an answer, and the marshal gave him a wary look. “I suppose so,” he said.

“Well, to begin with, one gentleman does not smoke without inviting another to join him.”

The man gave another look. Hal thought he was going to consign him to hades once more; but instead he took a cigar from his vest-pocket and held it out.

“No, thank you,” said Hal, quietly. “I do not smoke. But I like to be invited.”

There was a pause, while the two men measured each other.

“Now, Cotton,” began the prisoner, “you pictured the scene at my trial. Let me carry on the story for you. You have your case all framed up, your hand-picked jury in the box, and your hand-picked judge on the bench, your hand-picked prosecuting-attorney putting through the job; you are ready to send your victim to prison, for an example to the rest of your employés. But suppose that, at the climax of the proceedings, you should make the discovery that your victim is a person who cannot be sent to prison?”

“Cannot be sent to prison?” repeated the other. His tone was thoughtful. “You'll have to explain.”

“Surely not to a man of your intelligence! Don't you know, Cotton, there are people who cannot be sent to prison?”

The camp-marshal smoked his cigar for a bit. “There are some in this county,” said he. “But I thought I knew them all.”

“Well,” said Hal, “has it never occurred to you that there might be some in this state?”

There followed a long silence. The two men were gazing into each other's eyes; and the more they gazed, the more plainly Hal read uncertainty in the face of the marshal.

“Think how embarrassing it would be!” he continued. “You have your drama all staged—as you did the night before last—only on a larger stage, before a more important audience; and at the dénouement you find that, instead of vindicating yourself before the workers in North Valley, you have convicted yourself before the public of the state. You have shown the whole community that you are law-breakers; worse than that—you have shown that you are jack-asses!”

This time the camp-marshal gazed so long that his cigar went out. And meantime Hal was lounging in his chair, smiling at him strangely. It was as if a transformation was taking place before the marshal's eyes; the miner's “jumpers” fell away from Hal's figure, and there was a suit of evening-clothes in their place!

“Who the devil are you?” cried the man.

“Well now!” laughed Hal. “You boast of the efficiency of your secret service department! Put them at work upon this problem. A young man, age twenty-one, height five feet ten inches, weight one hundred and fifty-two pounds, eyes brown, hair chestnut and rather wavy, manner genial, a favourite with the ladies—at least that's what the society notes say—missing since early in June, supposed to be hunting mountain-goats in Mexico. As you know, Cotton, there's only one city in the state that has any 'society,' and in that city there are only twenty-five or thirty families that count. For a secret service department like that of the 'G. F. C.', that is really too easy.”

Again there was a silence, until Hal broke it. “Your distress is a tribute to your insight. The company is lucky in the fact that one of its camp-marshals happens to be an ex-gentleman.”

Again the other flushed. “Well, by God!” he said, half to himself; and then, making a last effort to hold his bluff—“You're kidding me!”

“'Kidding,' as you call it, is one of the favourite occupations of society, Cotton. A good part of our intercourse consists of it—at least among the younger set.”

Suddenly the marshal rose. “Say,” he demanded, “would you mind going back upstairs for a few minutes?”

Hal could not restrain his laughter at this. “I should mind it very much,” he said. “I have been on a bread and water diet for thirty-six hours, and I should like very much to get out and have a breath of fresh air.”

“But,” said the other, lamely, “I've got to send you up there.”

“That's another matter,” replied Hal. “If you send me, I'll go, but it's your look-out. You've kept me here without legal authority, with no charge against me, and without giving me an opportunity to see counsel. Unless I'm very much mistaken, you are liable criminally for that, and the company is liable civilly. That is your own affair, of course. I only want to make clear my position—when you ask me would I mind stepping upstairs, I, answer that I would mind very much indeed.”

The camp-marshal stood for a bit, chewing nervously on his extinct cigar. Then he went to the door. “Hey, Gus!” he called. Hal's jailer appeared, and Cotton whispered to him, and he went away again. “I'm telling him to get you some food, and you can sit and eat it here. Will that suit you better?”

“It depends,” said Hal, making the most of the situation. “Are you inviting me as your prisoner, or as your guest?”

“Oh, come off!” said the other.

“But I have to know my legal status. It will be of importance to my lawyers.”

“Be my guest,” said the camp-marshal.

“But when a guest has eaten, he is free to go out, if he wishes to!”

“I will let you know about that before you get through.”

“Well, be quick. I'm a rapid eater.”

“You'll promise you won't go away before that?”

“If I do,” was Hal's laughing reply, “it will be only to my place of business. You can look for me at the tipple, Cotton!”

SECTION 21.

The marshal went out, and a few moments later the jailer came back, with a meal which presented a surprising contrast to the ones he had previously served. There was a tray containing cold ham, a couple of soft boiled eggs, some potato salad, and a cup of coffee with rolls and butter.

“Well, well!” said Hal, condescendingly. “That's even nicer than beefsteak and mashed potatoes!” He sat and watched, not offering to help, while the other made room for the tray on the table in front of him. Then the man stalked out, and Hal began to eat.

Before he had finished, the camp-marshal returned. He seated himself in his revolving chair, and appeared to be meditative. Between bites, Hal would look up and smile at him.

“Cotton,” said he, “you know there is no more certain test of breeding than table-manners. You will observe that I have not tucked my napkin in my neck, as Alec Stone would have done.”

“I'm getting you,” replied the marshal.

Hal set his knife and fork side by side on his plate. “Your man has overlooked the finger-bowl,” he remarked. “However, don't bother. You might ring for him now, and let him take the tray.”

The camp-marshal used his voice for a bell, and the jailer came. “Unfortunately,” said Hal, “when your people were searching me, night before last, they dropped my purse, so I have no tip for the waiter.”

The “waiter” glared at Hal as if he would like to bite him; but the camp-marshal grinned. “Clear out, Gus, and shut the door,” said he.

Then Hal stretched his legs and made himself comfortable again. “I must say I like being your guest better than being your prisoner!”

There was a pause.

“I've been talking it over with Mr. Cartwright,” began the marshal. “I've got no way of telling how much of this is bluff that you've been giving me, but it's evident enough that you're no miner. You may be some newfangled kind of agitator, but I'm damned if I ever saw an agitator that had tea-party manners. I suppose you've been brought up to money; but if that's so, why you want to do this kind of thing is more than I can imagine.”

“Tell me, Cotton,” said Hal, “did you never hear of ennui?”

“Yes,” replied the other, “but aren't you rather young to be troubled with that complaint?”

“Suppose I've seen others suffering from it, and wanted to try a different way of living from theirs?”

“If you're what you say, you ought to be still in college.”

“I go back for my senior year this fall.”

“What college?”

“You doubt me still, I see!” said Hal, and smiled. Then, unexpectedly, with a spirit which only moonlit campuses and privilege could beget, he chanted:

“Old King Coal was a merry old soul, And a merry old soul was he; He made him a college, all full of knowledge— Hurrah for you and me!”

“What college is that?” asked the marshal. And Hal sang again:

“Oh, Liza-Ann, come out with me, The moon is a-shinin' in the monkey-puzzle tree! Oh, Liza-Ann, I have began To sing you the song of Harrigan!”

“Well, well!” commented the marshal, when the concert was over. “Are there many more like you at Harrigan?”

“A little group—enough to leaven the lump.”

“And this is your idea of a vacation?”

“No, it isn't a vacation; it's a summer-course in practical sociology.”

“Oh, I see!” said the marshal; and he smiled in spite of himself.

“All last year we let the professors of political economy hand out their theories to us. But somehow the theories didn't seem to correspond with the facts. I said to myself, 'I've got to check them up.' You know the phrases, perhaps—individualism, laissez faire, freedom of contract, the right of every man to work for whom he pleases. And here you see how the theories work out—a camp-marshal with a cruel smile on his face and a gun on his hip, breaking the laws faster than a governor can sign them.”

The camp-marshal decided suddenly that he had had enough of this “tea-party.” He rose to his feet to cut matters short. “If you don't mind, young man,” said he, “we'll get down to business!”

SECTION 22.

He took a turn about the room, then he came and stopped in front of Hal. He stood with his hands thrust into his pockets, with a certain jaunty grace that was out of keeping with his occupation. He was a handsome devil, Hal thought—in spite of his dangerous mouth, and the marks of dissipation on him.

“Young man,” he began, with another effort at geniality. “I don't know who you are, but you're wide awake; you've got your nerve with you, and I admire you. So I'm willing to call the thing off, and let you go back and finish that course at college.”

Hal had been studying the other's careful smile. “Cotton,” he said, at last, “let me get the proposition clear. I don't have to say I took that money?”

“No, we'll let you off from that.”

“And you won't send me to the pen?”

“No. I never meant to do that, of course. I was only trying to bluff you. All I ask is that you clear out, and give our people a chance to forget.”

“But what's there in that for me, Cotton? If I had wanted to run away, I could have done it any time during the last eight or ten weeks.”

“Yes, of course, but now it's different. Now it's a matter of my consideration.”

“Cut out the consideration!” exclaimed Hal. “You want to get rid of me, and you'd like to do it without trouble. But you can't—so forget it.”

The other was staring, puzzled. “You mean you expect to stay here?”

“I mean just that.”

“Young man, I've had enough of this! I've got no more time to play. I don't care who you are, I don't care about your threats. I'm the marshal of this camp, and I have the job of keeping order in it. I say you're going to get out!”

“But, Cotton,” said Hal, “this is an incorporated town! I have a right to walk on the streets—exactly as much right as you.”

“I'm not going to waste time arguing. I'm going to put you into an automobile and take you down to Pedro!”

“And suppose I go to the District Attorney and demand that he prosecute you?”

“He'll laugh at you.”

“And suppose I go to the Governor of the state?”

“He'll laugh still louder.”

“All right, Cotton; maybe you know what you're doing; but I wonder—I wonder just how sure you feel. Has it never occurred to you that your superiors might not care to have you take these high-handed steps?”

“My superiors? Who do you mean?”

“There's one man in the state you must respect—even though you despise the District Attorney and the Governor. That is Peter Harrigan.”

“Peter Harrigan?” echoed the other; and then he burst into a laugh. “Well, you are a merry lad!”

Hal continued to study him, unmoved. “I wonder if you're sure! He'll stand for everything you've done.”

“He will!” said the other.

“For the way you treat the workers? He knows you are giving short weights.”

“Oh hell!” said the other. “Where do you suppose he got the money for your college?”

There was a pause; at last the marshal asked, defiantly, “Have you got what you want?”

“Yes,” replied Hal. “Of course, I thought it all along, but it's hard to convince other people. Old Peter's not like most of these Western wolves, you know; he's a pious high-church man.”

The marshal smiled grimly. “So long as there are sheep,” said he, “there'll be wolves in sheep's clothing.”

“I see,” said Hal. “And you leave them to feed on the lambs!”

“If any lamb is silly enough to be fooled by that old worn-out skin,” remarked the marshal, “it deserves to be eaten.”

Hal was studying the cynical face in front of him. “Cotton,” he said, “the shepherds are asleep; but the watch-dogs are barking. Haven't you heard them?”

“I hadn't noticed.”

“They are barking, barking! They are going to wake the shepherds! They are going to save the sheep!”

“Religion don't interest me,” said the other, looking bored; “your kind any more than Old Peter's.”

And suddenly Hal rose to his feet. “Cotton,” said he, “my place is with the flock! I'm going back to my job at the tipple!” And he started towards the door.

SECTION 23.

Jeff Cotton sprang forward. “Stop!” he cried.

But Hal did not stop.

“See here, young man!” cried the marshal. “Don't carry this joke too far!” And he sprang to the door, just ahead of his prisoner. His hand moved toward his hip.

“Draw your gun, Cotton,” said Hal; and, as the marshal obeyed, “Now I will stop. If I obey you in future, it will be at the point of your revolver.”

The marshal's mouth was dangerous-looking. “You may find that in this country there's not so much between the drawing of a gun and the firing of it!”

“I've explained my attitude,” replied Hal. “What are your orders?”

“Come back and sit in this chair.”

So Hal sat, and the marshal went to his desk, and took up the telephone. “Number seven,” he said, and waited a moment. “That you, Tom? Bring the car right away.”

He hung up the receiver, and there followed a silence; finally Hal inquired, “I'm going to Pedro?”

There was no reply.

“I see I've got on your nerves,” said Hal. “But I don't suppose it's occurred to you that you deprived me of my money last night. Also, I've an account with the company, some money coming to me for my work? What about that?”

The marshal took up the receiver and gave another number. “Hello, Simpson. This is Cotton. Will you figure out the time of Joe Smith, buddy in Number Two, and send over the cash. Get his account at the store; and be quick, we're waiting for it. He's going out in a hurry.” Again he hung up the receiver.

“Tell me,” said Hal, “did you take that trouble for Mike Sikoria?”

There was silence.

“Let me suggest that when you get my time, you give me part of it in scrip. I want it for a souvenir.”

Still there was silence.

“You know,” persisted the prisoner, tormentingly, “there's a law against paying wages in scrip.”

The marshal was goaded to speech. “We don't pay in scrip.”

“But you do, man! You know you do!”

“We give it when they ask their money ahead.”

“The law requires you to pay them twice a month, and you don't do it. You pay them once a month, and meantime, if they need money, you give them this imitation money!”

“Well, if it satisfies them, where's your kick?”

“If it doesn't satisfy them, you put them on the train and ship them out?”

The marshal sat in silence, tapping impatiently with his fingers on the desk.

“Cotton,” Hal began, again, “I'm out for education, and there's something I'd like you to explain to me—a problem in human psychology. When a man puts through a deal like this, what does he tell himself about it?”

“Young man,” said the marshal, “if you'll pardon me, you are getting to be a bore.”

“Oh, but we've got an automobile ride before us! Surely we can't sit in silence all the way!” After a moment he added, in a coaxing tone, “I really want to learn, you know. You might be able to win me over.”

“No!” said Cotton, promptly. “I'll not go in for anything like that!”

“But why not?”

“Because, I'm no match for you in long-windedness. I've heard you agitators before, you're all alike: you think the world is run by talk—but it isn't.”

Hal had come to realise that he was not getting anywhere in his duel with the camp-marshal. He had made every effort to get somewhere; he had argued, threatened, bluffed, he had even sung songs for the marshal! But the marshal was going to ship him out, that was all there was to it.

Hal had gone on with the quarrel, simply because he had to wait for the automobile, and because he had endured indignities and had to vent his anger and disappointment. But now he stopped quarrelling suddenly. His attention was caught by the marshal's words, “You think the world is run by talk!” Those were the words Hal's brother always used! And also, the marshal had said, “You agitators!” For years it had been one of the taunts Hal had heard from his brother, “You will turn into one of these agitators!” Hal had answered, with boyish obstinacy, “I don't care if I do!” And now, here the marshal was calling him an agitator, seriously, without an apology, without the license of blood relationship. He repeated the words, “That's what gets me about you agitators—you come in here trying to stir these people up—”

So that was the way Hal seemed to the “G. F. C.”! He had come here intending to be a spectator, to stand on the deck of the steamer and look down into the ocean of social misery. He had considered every step so carefully before he took it! He had merely tried to be a check-weighman, nothing more! He had told Tom Olson he would not go in for unionism; he had had a distrust of union organisers, of agitators of all sorts—blind, irresponsible persons who went about stirring up dangerous passions. He had come to admire Tom Olson—but that had only partly removed his prejudices; Olson was only one agitator, not the whole lot of them!

But all his consideration for the company had counted for nothing; likewise all his efforts to convince the marshal that he was a leisure-class person. In spite of all Hal's “tea-party manners,” the marshal had said, “You agitators!” What was he judging by, Hal wondered. Had he, Hal Warner, come to look like one of these blind, irresponsible persons? It was time that he took stock of himself!

Had two months of “dirty work” in the bowels of the earth changed him so? The idea was bound to be disconcerting to one who had been a favourite of the ladies! Did he talk like it?—he who had been “kissing the Blarney-stone!” The marshal had said he was “long-winded!” Well, to be sure, he had talked a lot; but what could the man expect—having shut him up in jail for two nights and a day, with only his grievances to brood over! Was that the way real agitators were made—being shut up with grievances to brood over?

Hal recalled his broodings in the jail. He had been embittered; he had not cared whether North Valley was dominated by labour unions. But that had all been a mood, the same as his answer to his brother; that was jail psychology, a part of his summer course in practical sociology. He had put it aside; but apparently it had made a deeper impression upon him than he had realised. It had changed his physical aspect! It had made him look and talk like an agitator! It had made him “irresponsible,” “blind!”

Yes, that was it! All this dirt, ignorance, disease, this knavery and oppression, this maiming of men in body and soul in the coal-camps of America—all this did not exist—it was the hallucination of an “irresponsible” brain! There was the evidence of Hal's brother and the camp-marshal to prove it; there was the evidence of the whole world to prove it! The camp-marshal and his brother and the whole world could not be “blind!” And if you talked to them about these conditions, they shrugged their shoulders, they called you a “dreamer,” a “crank,” they said you were “off your trolley”; or else they became angry and bitter, they called you names; they said, “You agitators!”

SECTION 24.

The camp-marshal of North Valley had been “agitated” to such an extent that he could not stay in his chair. All the harassments of his troubled career had come pouring into his mind. He had begun pacing the floor, and was talking away, regardless of whether Hal listened or not.

“A campful of lousy wops! They can't understand any civilised language, they've only one idea in the world—to shirk every lick of work they can, to fill up their cars with slate and rock and blame it on some other fellow, and go off to fill themselves with booze. They won't work fair, they won't fight fair—they fight with a knife in the back! And you agitators with your sympathy for them—why the hell do they come to this country, unless they like it better than their own?”

Hal had heard this question before; but they had to wait for the automobile—and being sure that he was an agitator now, he would make all the trouble he could! “The reason is obvious enough,” he said. “Isn't it true that the 'G. F. C.' employs agents abroad to tell them of the wonderful pay they get in America?”

“Well, they get it, don't they? Three times what they ever got at home!”

“Yes, but it doesn't do them any good. There's another fact which the 'G. F. C.' doesn't mention—that the cost of living is even higher than the wages. Then, too, they're led to think of America as a land of liberty; they come, hoping for a better chance for themselves and their children; but they find a camp-marshal who's off in his geography—who thinks the Rocky Mountains are somewhere in Russia!”

“I know that line of talk!” exclaimed the other. “I learned to wave the starry flag when I was a kid. But I tell you, you've got to get coal mined, and it isn't the same thing as running a Fourth of July celebration. Some church people make a law they shan't work on Sunday—and what comes of that? They have thirty-six hours to get soused in, and so they can't work on Monday!”

“Surely there's a remedy, Cotton! Suppose the company refused to rent buildings to saloon-keepers?”

“Good God! You think we haven't tried it? They go down to Pedro for the stuff, and bring back all they can carry—inside them and out. And if we stop that—then our hands move to some other camps, where they can spend their money as they please. No, young man, when you have such cattle, you have to drive them! And it takes a strong hand to do it—a man like Peter Harrigan. If there's to be any coal, if industry's to go on, if there's to be any progress—”

“We have that in our song!” laughed Hal, breaking into the camp-marshal's discourse—

“He keeps them a-roll, that merry old soul— The wheels of industree; A-roll and a-roll, for his pipe and his bowl And his college facultee!”

“Yes,” growled the marshal. “It's easy enough for you smart young chaps to make verses, while you're living at ease on the old man's bounty. But that don't answer any argument. Are you college boys ready to take over his job? Or these Democrat politicians that come in here, talking fool-talk about liberty, making labour laws for these wops—”

“I begin to understand,” said Hal. “You object to the politicians who pass the laws, you doubt their motives—and so you refuse to obey. But why didn't you tell me sooner you were an anarchist?”

“Anarchist?” cried the marshal. “Me an anarchist?”

“That's what an anarchist is, isn't it?”

“Good God! If that isn't the limit! You come here, stirring up the men—a union agitator, or whatever you are—and you know that the first idea of these people, when they do break loose, is to put dynamite in the shafts and set fire to the buildings!”

“Do they do that?” There was surprise in Hal's tone.

“Haven't you read what they did in the last big strike? That dough-faced old preacher, John Edstrom, could tell you. He was one of the bunch.”

“No,” said Hal, “you're mistaken. Edstrom has a different philosophy. But others did, I've no doubt. And since I've been here, I can understand their point of view entirely. When they set fire to the buildings, it was because they thought you and Alec Stone might be inside.”

The marshal did not smile.

“They want to destroy the properties,” continued Hal, “because that's the only way they can think of to punish the tyranny and greed of the owners. But, Cotton, suppose some one were to put a new idea into their heads; suppose some one were to say to them, 'Don't destroy the properties—take them!'”

The other stared. “Take them! So that's your idea of morality!”

“It would be more moral than the method by which Peter got them in the beginning.”

“What method is that?” demanded the marshal, with some appearance of indignation. “He paid the market-price for them, didn't he?”

“He paid the market-price for politicians. Up in Western City I happen to know a lady who was a school-commissioner when he was buying school-lands from the state—lands that were known to contain coal. He was paying three dollars an acre, and everybody knew they were worth three thousand.”

“Well,” said Cotton, “if you don't buy the politicians, you wake up some fine morning and find that somebody else has bought them. If you have property, you have to protect it.”

“Cotton,” said Hal, “you sell Old Peter your time—but surely you might keep part of your brains! Enough to look at your monthly pay-check and realise that you too are a wage-slave, not much better than the miners you despise.”

The other smiled. “My check might be bigger, I admit; but I've figured over it, and I think I have an easier time than you agitators. I'm top-dog, and I expect to stay on top.”

“Well, Cotton, on that view of life, I don't wonder you get drunk now and then. A dog-fight, with no faith or humanity anywhere! Don't think I'm sneering at you—I'm talking out of my heart to you. I'm not so young, nor such a fool, that I haven't had the dog-fight aspect of things brought to my attention. But there's something in a fellow that insists he isn't all dog; he has at least a possibility of something better. Take these poor under-dogs sweating inside the mountain, risking their lives every hour of the day and night to provide you and me with coal to keep us warm—to 'keep the wheels of industry a-roll'—”

SECTION 25.

These were the last words Hal spoke. They were obvious enough words, yet when he looked back upon the coincidence, it seemed to him a singular one. For while he was sitting there chatting, it happened that the poor under-dogs inside the mountain were in the midst of one of those experiences which make the romance and terror of coal-mining. One of the boys who were employed underground, in violation of the child labour law, was in the act of bungling his task. He was a “spragger,” whose duty it was to thrust a stick into the wheel of a loaded car to hold it; and he was a little chap, and the car was in motion when he made the attempt. It knocked him against the wall—and so there was a load of coal rolling down grade, pursued too late by half a dozen men. Gathering momentum, it whirled round a curve and flew from the track, crashing into timbers and knocking them loose. With the timbers came a shower of coal-dust, accumulated for decades in these old workings; and at the same time came an electric light wire, which, as it touched the car, produced a spark.

And so it was that Hal, chatting with the marshal, suddenly felt, rather than heard, a deafening roar; he felt the air about him turn into a living thing which struck him a mighty blow, hurling him flat upon the floor. The windows of the room crashed inward upon him in a shower of glass, and the plaster of the ceiling came down on his head in another shower.

When he raised himself, half stunned, he saw the marshal, also on the floor; these two conversationalists stared at each other with horrified eyes. Even as they crouched, there came a crash above their heads, and half the ceiling of the room came toward them, with a great piece of timber sticking through. All about them were other crashes, as if the end of the world had come.

They struggled to their feet, and rushing to the door, flung it open, just as a jagged piece of timber shattered the side-walk in front of them. They sprang back again, “Into the cellar!” cried the marshal, leading the way to the back-stairs.

But before they had started down these stairs, they realised that the crashing had ceased. “What is it?” gasped Hal, as they stood.

“Mine-explosion,” said the other; and after a few seconds they ran to the door again.

The first thing they saw was a vast pillar of dust and smoke, rising into the sky above them. It spread before their dazed eyes, until it made night of everything about them. There was still a rain of lighter debris pattering down over the village; as they stared, and got their wits about them, remembering how things had looked before this, they realised that the shaft-house of Number One had disappeared.

“Blown up, by God!” cried the marshal; and the two ran out into the street, and looking up, saw that a portion of the wrecked building had fallen through the roof of the jail above their heads.

The rain of debris had now ceased, but there were clouds of dust which covered the two men black; the clouds grew worse, until they could hardly see their way at all. And with the darkness there fell silence, which, after the sound of the explosion and the crashing of debris, seemed the silence of death.

For a few moments Hal stood dazed. He saw a stream of men and boys pouring from the breaker; while from every street there appeared a stream of women; women old, women young—leaving their cooking on the stove, their babies in the crib, with their older children screaming at their skirts, they gathered in swarms about the pit-mouth, which was like the steaming crater of a volcano.

Cartwright, the superintendent, appeared, running toward the fan-house. Cotton joined him, and Hal followed. The fan-house was a wreck, the giant fan lying on the ground a hundred feet away, its blades smashed. Hal was too inexperienced in mine-matters to get the full significance of this; but he saw the marshal and the superintendent stare blankly at each other, and heard the former's exclamation, “That does for us!” Cartwright said not a word; but his thin lips were pressed together, and there was fear in his eyes.

Back to the smoking pit-mouth the two men hurried, with Hal following. Here were a hundred, two hundred women crowded, clamouring questions all at once. They swarmed about the marshal, the superintendent, the other bosses—even about Hal, crying hysterically in Polish and Bohemian and Greek. When Hal shook his head, indicating that he did not understand them, they moaned in anguish, or shrieked aloud. Some continued to stare into the smoking pit-mouth; others covered the sight from their eyes, or sank down upon their knees, sobbing, praying with uplifted hands.

Little by little Hal began to realise the full horror of a mine-disaster. It was not noise and smoke and darkness, nor frantic, wailing women; it was not anything above ground, but what was below in the smoking black pit! It was men! Men whom Hal knew, whom he had worked with and joked with, whose smiles he had shared; whose daily life he had come to know! Scores, possibly hundreds of them, they were down here under his feet—some dead, others injured, maimed. What would they do? What would those on the surface do for them? Hal tried to get to Cotton, to ask him questions; but the camp-marshal was surrounded, besieged. He was pushing the women back, exclaiming, “Go away! Go home!”

What? Go home? they cried. When their men were in the mine? They crowded about him closer, imploring, shrieking.

“Get out!” he kept exclaiming. “There's nothing you can do! There's nothing anybody can do yet! Go home! Go home!” He had to beat them back by force, to keep them from pushing one another into the pit-mouth.

Everywhere Hal looked were women in attitudes of grief: standing rigid, staring ahead of them as if in a trance; sitting down, rocking to and fro; on their knees with faces uplifted in prayer; clutching their terrified children about their skirts. He saw an Austrian woman, a pitiful, pale young thing with a ragged grey shawl about her head, stretching out her hands and crying: “Mein Mann! Mein Mann!” Presently she covered her face, and her voice died into a wail of despair: “O, mein Mann! O, mein Mann!” She turned away, staggering about like some creature that has received a death wound. Hal's eyes followed her; her cry, repeated over and over incessantly, became the leit-motif of this symphony of horror.

He had read about mine-disasters in his morning newspaper; but here a mine-disaster became a thing of human flesh and blood. The unendurable part of it was the utter impotence of himself and of all the world. This impotence became clearer to him each moment—from the exclamations of Cotton and of the men he questioned. It was monstrous, incredible—but it was so! They must send for a new fan, they must wait for it to be brought in, they must set it up and get it into operation; they must wait for hours after that while smoke and gas were cleared out of the main passages of the mine; and until this had been done, there was nothing they could do—absolutely nothing! The men inside the mine would stay. Those who had not been killed outright would make their way into the remoter chambers, and barricade themselves against the deadly “after damp.” They would wait, without food or water, with air of doubtful quality—they would wait and wait, until the rescue-crew could get to them!

SECTION 26.

At moments in the midst of this confusion, Hal found himself trying to recall who had worked in Number One, among the people he knew. He himself had been employed in Number Two, so he had naturally come to know more men in that mine. But he had known some from the other mine—Old Rafferty for one, and Mary Burke's father for another, and at least one of the members of his check-weighman group—Zamierowski. Hal saw in a sudden vision the face of this patient little man, who smiled so good-naturedly while Americans were trying to say his name. And Old Rafferty, with all his little Rafferties, and his piteous efforts to keep the favour of his employers! And poor Patrick Burke, whom Hal had never seen sober; doubtless he was sober now, if he was still alive!

Then in the crowd Hal encountered Jerry Minetti, and learned that another man who had been down was Farenzena, the Italian whose “fanciulla” had played with him; and yet another was Judas Apostolikas—having taken his thirty pieces of silver with him into the deathtrap!

People were making up lists, just as Hal was doing, by asking questions of others. These lists were subject to revision—sometimes under dramatic circumstances. You saw a woman weeping, with her apron to her eyes; suddenly she would look up, give a piercing cry, and fling her arms about the neck of some man. As for Hal, he felt as if he were encountering a ghost when suddenly he recognised Patrick Burke, standing in the midst of a group of people. He went over and heard the old man's story—how there was a Dago fellow who had stolen his timbers, and he had come up to the surface for more; so his life had been saved, while the timber-thief was down there still—a judgment of Providence upon mine-miscreants!

Presently Hal asked if Burke had been to tell his family. He had run home, he said, but there was nobody there. So Hal began pushing his way through the throngs, looking for Mary, or her sister Jennie, or her brother Tommie. He persisted in this search, although it occurred to him to wonder whether the family of a hopeless drunkard would appreciate the interposition of Providence in his behalf.

He encountered Olson, who had had a narrow escape, being employed as a surface-man near the hoist. All this was an old story to the organiser, who had worked in mines since he was eight years old, and had seen many kinds of disaster. He began to explain things to Hal, in a matter of fact way. The law required a certain number of openings to every mine, also an escape-way with ladders by which men could come out; but it cost good money to dig holes in the ground.

At this time the immediate cause of the explosion was unknown, but they could tell it was a “dust explosion” by the clouds of coke-dust, and no one who had been into the mine and seen its dry condition would doubt what they would find when they went down and traced out the “force” and its effects. They were supposed to do regular sprinkling, but in such matters the bosses used their own judgment.

Hal was only half listening to these explanations. The thing was too raw and too horrible to him. What difference did it make whose fault it was? The accident had happened, and the question was now how to meet the emergency! Underneath Olson's sentences he heard the cry of men and boys being asphyxiated in dark dungeons—he heard the wailing of women, like a surf beating on a distant shore, or the faint, persistent accompaniment of muted strings: “O, mein Mann! O, mein Mann!”

They came upon Jeff Cotton again. With half a dozen men to help him, he was pushing back the crowd from the pit-mouth, and stretching barbed wired to hold them back. He was none too gentle about it, Hal thought; but doubtless women are provoking when they are hysterical. He was answering their frenzied questions, “Yes, yes! We're getting a new fan. We're doing everything we can, I tell you. We'll get them out. Go home and wait.”

But of course no one would go home. How could a woman sit in her house, or go about her ordinary tasks of cooking or washing, while her man might be suffering asphyxiation under the ground? The least she could do was to stand at the pit-mouth—as near to him as she could get! Some of them stood motionless, hour after hour, while others wandered through the village streets, asking the same people, over and over again, if they had seen their loved ones. Several had turned up, like Patrick Burke; there seemed always a chance for one more.

SECTION 27.

In the course of the afternoon Hal came upon Mary Burke on the street. She had long ago found her father, and seen him off to O'Callahan's to celebrate the favours of Providence. Now Mary was concerned with a graver matter. Number Two Mine was in danger! The explosion in Number One had been so violent that the gearing of the fan of the other mine, nearly a mile up the canyon, had been thrown out of order. So the fan had stopped; and when some one had gone to Alec Stone, asking that he bring out the men, Stone had refused. “What do ye think he said?” cried Mary. “What do ye think? 'Damn the men! Save the mules!'”

Hal had all but lost sight of the fact that there was a second mine in the village, in which hundreds of men and boys were still at work. “Wouldn't they know about the explosion?” he asked.

“They might have heard the noise,” said Mary. “But they'd not know what it was; and the bosses won't tell them till they've got out the mules.”

For all that he had seen in North Valley, Hal could hardly credit that story. “How do you know it, Mary?”

“Young Rovetta just told me. He was there, and heard it with his own ears.”

He was staring at her. “Let's go and make sure,” he said, and they started up the main street of the village. On the way they were joined by others—for already the news of this fresh trouble had begun to spread. Jeff Cotton went past them in an automobile, and Mary exclaimed, “I told ye so! When ye see him goin', ye know there's dirty work to be done!”

They came to the shaft-house of Number Two, and found a swarm of people, almost a riot. Women and children were shrieking and gesticulating, threatening to break into the office and use the mine-telephone to warn the men themselves. And here was the camp-marshal driving them back. Hal and Mary arrived in time to see Mrs. David, whose husband was at work in Number Two, shaking her fist in the marshal's face and screaming at him like a wild-cat. He drew his revolver upon her; and at this Hal started forward. A blind fury seized him—he would have thrown himself upon the marshal.

But Mary Burke stopped him, flinging her arms about him, and pinning him by main force. “No, no!” she cried. “Stay back, man! D'ye want to get killed?”

He was amazed at her strength. He was amazed also at the vehemence of her emotion. She was calling him a crazy fool, and names even more harsh. “Have ye no more sense than a woman? Running into the mouth of a revolver like that!”

The crisis passed in a moment, for Mrs. David fell back, and then the marshal put up his weapon. But Mary continued scolding Hal, trying to drag him away. “Come on now! Come out of here!”

“But, Mary! We must do something!”

“Ye can do nothin', I tell ye! Ye'd ought to have sense enough to know it. I'll not let ye get yeself murdered! Come away now!” And half by force and half by cajoling, she got him farther down the street.

He was trying to think out the situation. Were the men in Number Two really in danger? Could it be possible that the bosses would take such a chance in cold blood? And right at this moment, with the disaster in the other mine before their eyes! He could not believe it; and meantime Mary, at his side, was declaring that the men were in no real danger—it was only Alec Stone's brutal words that had set her crazy.

“Don't ye remember the time when the air-course was blocked before, and ye helped to get up the mules yeself? Ye thought nothin' of it then, and 'tis the same now. They'll get everybody out in time!”

She was concealing her real feelings in order to keep him safe; he let her lead him on, while he tried to think of something else to do. He would think of the men in Number Two; they were his best friends, Jack David, Tim Rafferty, Wresmak, Androkulos, Klowoski. He would think of them, in their remote dungeons—breathing bad air, becoming sick and faint—in order that mules might be saved! He would stop in his tracks, and Mary would drag him on, repeating over and over, “Ye can do nothin'! Nothin'!” And then he would think, What could he do? He had put up his best bluff to Jeff Cotton a few hours earlier, and the answer had been the muzzle of the marshal's revolver in his face. All he could accomplish now would be to bring himself to Cotton's attention, and be thrust out of camp forthwith.

SECTION 28.

They came to Mary's home; and next door was the home of the Slav woman, Mrs. Zamboni, about whom in the past she had told him so many funny stories. Mrs. Zamboni had had a new baby every year for sixteen years, and eleven of these babies were still alive. Now her husband was trapped in Number One, and she was distracted, wandering about the streets with the greater part of her brood at her heels. At intervals she would emit a howl like a tortured animal, and her brood would take it up in various timbres. Hal stopped to listen to the sounds, but Mary put her fingers into her ears and fled into the house. Hal followed her, and saw her fling herself into a chair and burst into hysterical weeping. And suddenly Hal realised what a strain this terrible affair had been upon Mary. It had been bad enough to him—but he was a man, and more able to contemplate sights of horror. Men went to their deaths in industry and war, and other men saw them go and inured themselves to the spectacle. But women were the mothers of these men; it was women who bore them in pain, nursed them and reared them with endless patience—women could never become inured to the spectacle! Then too, the women's fate was worse. If the men were dead, that was the end of them; but the women must face the future, with its bitter memories, its lonely and desolate struggle for existence. The women must see the children suffering, dying by slow stages of deprivation.

Hal's pity for all suffering women became concentrated upon the girl beside him. He knew how tenderhearted she was. She had no man in the mine, but some day she would have, and she was suffering the pangs of that inexorable future. He looked at her, huddled in her chair, wiping away her tears with the hem of her old blue calico. She seemed unspeakably pathetic—like a child that has been hurt. She was sobbing out sentences now and then, as if to herself: “Oh, the poor women, the poor women! Did ye see the face of Mrs. Jonotch? She'd jumped into the smoking pit-mouth if they'd let her!”

“Don't suffer so, Mary!” pleaded Hal—as if he thought she could stop.

“Let me alone!” she cried. “Let me have it out!” And Hal, who had had no experience with hysteria, stood helplessly by.

“There's more misery than I ever knew there was!” she went on. “'Tis everywhere ye turn, a woman with her eyes burnin' with suffering wondering if she'll ever see her man again! Or some mother whose lad may be dying and she can do nothin' for him!”

“And neither can you do anything, Mary,” Hal pleaded again. “You're only sorrowing yourself to death.”

“Ye say that to me?” she cried. “And when ye were ready to let Jeff Cotton shoot ye, because you were so sorry for Mrs. David! No, the sights here nobody can stand.”

He could think of nothing to answer. He drew up a chair and sat by her in silence, and after a while she began to grow calmer, and wiped away her tears, and sat gazing dully through the doorway into the dirty little street.

Hal's eyes followed hers. There were the ash-heaps and tomato-cans, there were two of Mrs. Zamboni's bedraggled brood, poking with sticks into a dump-heap—looking for something to eat, perhaps, or for something to play with. There was the dry, waste grass of the road-side, grimy with coal-dust, as was everything else in the village. What a scene!—And this girl's eyes had never a sight of anything more inspiring than this. Day in and day out, all her life long, she looked at this scene! Had he ever for a moment reproached her for her “black moods”? With such an environment could men or women be cheerful—could they dream of beauty, aspire to heights of nobility and courage, to happy service of their fellows? There was a miasma of despair over this place; it was not a real place—it was a dream-place—a horrible, distorted nightmare! It was like the black hole in the ground which haunted Hal's imagination, with men and boys at the bottom of it, dying of asphyxiation!

Suddenly it came to Hal—he wanted to get away from North Valley! To get away at all costs! The place had worn down his courage; slowly, day after day, the sight of misery and want, of dirt and disease, of hunger, oppression, despair, had eaten the soul out of him, had undermined his fine structure of altruistic theories. Yes, he wanted to escape—to a place where the sun shone, where the grass grew green, where human beings stood erect and laughed and were free. He wanted to shut from his eyes the dust and smoke of this nasty little village; to stop his ears to that tormenting sound of women wailing: “O, mein Mann! O, mein Mann!”

He looked at the girl, who sat staring before her, bent forward, her arms hanging limply over her knees.

“Mary,” he said, “you must go away from here! It's no place for a tenderhearted girl to be. It's no place for any one!”

She gazed at him dully for a moment. “It was me that was tellin' you to go away,” she said, at last. “Ever since ye came here I been sayin' it! Now I guess ye know what I mean.”

“Yes,” he said, “I do, and I want to go. But I want you to go too.”

“D'ye think 'twould do me any good, Joe?” she asked. “D'ye think 'twould do me any good to get away? Could I ever forget the sights I've seen this day? Could I ever have any real, honest happiness anywhere after this?”

He tried to reassure her, but he was far from reassured himself. How would it be with him? Would he ever feel that he had a right to happiness after this? Could he take any satisfaction in a pleasant and comfortable world, knowing that it was based upon such hideous misery? His thoughts went to that world, where careless, pleasure-loving people sought gratification of their desires. It came to him suddenly that what he wanted more than to get away was to bring those people here, if only for a day, for an hour, that they might hear this chorus of wailing women!

SECTION 29.

Mary made Hal swear that he would not get into a fight with Cotton; then they went to Number Two. They found the mules coming up, and the bosses promising that in a short while the men would be coming. Everything was all right—there was not a bit of danger! But Mary was afraid to trust Hal, in spite of his promise, so she lured him back to Number One.

They found that a rescue-car had just arrived from Pedro, bringing doctors and nurses, also several “helmets.” These “helmets” were strange looking contrivances, fastened over the head and shoulders, air-tight, and provided with oxygen sufficient to last for an hour or more. The men who wore them sat in a big bucket which was let down the shaft with a windlass, and every now and then they pulled on a signal-cord to let those on the surface know they were alive. When the first of them came back, he reported that there were bodies near the foot of the shaft, but apparently all dead. There was heavy black smoke, indicating a fire somewhere in the mine; so nothing more could be done until the fan had been set up. By reversing the fan, they could draw out the smoke and gases and clear the shaft.

The state mine-inspector had been notified, but was ill at home, and was sending one of his deputies. Under the law this official would have charge of all the rescue work, but Hal found that the miners took no interest in his presence. It had been his duty to prevent the accident, and he had not done so. When he came, he would do what the company wanted.

Some time after dark the workers began to come out of Number Two, and their women, waiting at the pit-mouth, fell upon their necks with cries of thankfulness. Hal observed other women, whose men were in Number One, and would perhaps never come out again, standing and watching these greetings with wistful, tear-filled eyes. Among those who came out was Jack David, and Hal walked home with him and his wife, listening to the latter abuse Jeff Cotton and Alec Stone, which was an education in the vocabulary of class-consciousness. The little Welsh woman repeated the pit-boss's saying, “Damn the men, save the mules!” She said it again and again—it seemed to delight her like a work of art, it summed up so perfectly the attitude of the bosses to their men! There were many other people repeating that saying, Hal found; it went all over the village, in a few days it went all over the district. It summed up what the district believed to be the attitude of the coal-operators to the workers!

Having got over the first shock of the disaster, Hal wanted information, and he questioned Big Jack, a solid and well-read man who had given thought to every aspect of the industry. In his quiet, slow way, he explained to Hal that the frequency of accidents in this district was not due to any special difficulty in operating these mines, the explosiveness of the gases or the dryness of the atmosphere. It was merely the carelessness of those in charge, their disregard of the laws for the protection of the men. There ought to be a law with “teeth” in it—for example, one providing that for every man killed in a coal-mine his heirs should receive a thousand dollars, regardless of who had been to blame for the accident. Then you would see how quickly the operators would get busy and find remedies for the “unusual” dangers!

As it was, they knew that no matter how great their culpability, they could get off with slight loss. Already, no doubt, their lawyers were on the spot, and by the time the first bodies were brought out, they would be fixing things up with the families. They would offer a widow a ticket back to the old country; they would offer a whole family of orphaned children, maybe fifty dollars, maybe a hundred dollars—and it would be a case of take it or leave it. You could get nothing from the courts; the case was so hopeless that you could not even find a lawyer to make the attempt. That was one reform in which the companies believed, said “Big Jack,” with sarcasm; they had put the “shyster lawyer” out of business!

SECTION 30.

There followed a night and then another day of torturing suspense. The fan came, but it had to be set up before anything could be done. As volumes of black smoke continued to pour from the shaft, the opening was made tight with a board and canvas cover; it was necessary, the bosses said, but to Hal it seemed the climax of horror. To seal up men and boys in a place of deadly gases!

There was something peculiarly torturing in the idea of men caught in a mine; they were directly under one's feet, yet it was impossible to get to them, to communicate with them in any way! The people on top yearned to them, and they, down below, yearned back. It was impossible to forget them for even a few minutes. People would become abstracted while they talked, and would stand staring into space; suddenly, in the midst of a crowd, a woman would bury her face in her hands and burst into tears, and then all the others would follow suit.

Few people slept in North Valley during those two nights. They held mourning parties in their homes or on the streets. Some house-work had to be done, of course, but no one did anything that could be left undone. The children would not play; they stood about, silent, pale, like wizened-up grown people, over-mature in knowledge of trouble. The nerves of every one were on edge, the self-control of every one balanced upon a fine point.

It was a situation bound to be fruitful in imaginings and rumours, stimulated to those inclined to signs and omens—the seers of ghosts, or those who went into trances, or possessed second sight or other mysterious gifts. There were some living in a remote part of the village who declared they had heard explosions under the ground, several blasts in quick succession. The men underground were setting off dynamite by way of signalling!

In the course of the second day Hal sat with Mary Burke upon the steps of her home. Old Patrick lay within, having found the secret of oblivion at O'Callahan's. Now and then came the moaning of Mrs. Zamboni, who was in her cabin with her brood of children. Mary had been in to feed them, because the distracted mother let them starve and cry. Mary was worn out, herself; the wonderful Irish complexion had faded, and there were no curves to the vivid lips. They had been sitting in silence, for there was nothing to talk of but the disaster—and they had said all there was to say about that. But Hal had been thinking while he watched Mary.

“Listen, Mary,” he said, at last; “when this thing is over, you must really come away from here. I've thought it all out—I have friends in Western City who will give you work, so you can take care of yourself, and of your brother and sister too. Will you go?”

But she did not answer. She continued to gaze indifferently into the dirty little street.

“Truly, Mary,” he went on. “Life isn't so terrible everywhere as it is here. Come away! Hard as it is to believe, you'll forget all this. People suffer, but then they stop suffering; it's nature's way—to make them forget.”

“Nature's way has been to beat me dead,” said she.

“Yes, Mary. Despair can become a disease, but it hasn't with you. You're just tired out. If you'll try to rouse yourself—” And he reached over and caught her hand with an attempt at playfulness. “Cheer up, Mary! You're coming away from North Valley.”

She turned and looked at him. “Am I?” she asked, impassively; and she went on studying his face. “Who are ye, Joe Smith? What are ye doin' here?”

“Working in a coal-mine,” he laughed, still trying to divert her.

But she went on, as gravely as before. “Ye're no working man, that I know. And ye're always offering me help! Ye're always sayin' what ye can do for me!” She paused and there came some of the old defiance into her face. “Joe, ye can have no idea of the feelin's that have got hold of me just now. I'm ready to do something desperate; ye'd best be leavin' me alone, Joe!”

“I think I understand, Mary. I would hardly blame you for anything you did.”

She took up his words eagerly. “Wouldn't ye, Joe? Ye're sure? Then what I want is to get the truth from ye. I want ye to talk it out fair!”

“All right, Mary. What is it?”

But her defiance had vanished suddenly. Her eyes dropped, and he saw her fingers picking nervously at a fold of her dress. “About us, Joe,” she said. “I've thought sometimes ye cared for me. I've thought ye liked to be with me—not just because ye were sorry for me, but because of me. I've not been sure, but I can't help thinkin' it's so. Is it?”

“Yes, it is,” he said, a little uncertainly. “I do care for you.”

“Then is it that ye don't care for that other girl all the time?”

“No,” he said, “it's not that.”

“Ye can care for two girls at the same time?”

He did not know what to say. “It would seem that I can, Mary.”

She raised her eyes again and studied his face. “Ye told me about that other girl, and I been wonderin', was it only to put me off? Maybe it's me own fault, but I can't make meself believe in that other girl, Joe!”

“You're mistaken, Mary,” he answered, quickly. “What I told you was true.”

“Well, maybe so,” she said, but there was no conviction in her tone. “Ye come away from her, and ye never go where she is or see her—it's hard to believe ye'd do that way if ye were very close to her. I just don't think ye love her as much as ye might. And ye say you do care some for me. So I've thought—I've wondered—”

She stopped, forcing herself to meet his gaze: “I been tryin' to work it out! I know ye're too good a man for me, Joe. Ye come from a better place in life, ye've a right to expect more in a woman—”

“It's not that, Mary!”

But she cut him short. “I know that's true! Ye're only tryin' to save my feelin's. I know ye're better than me! I've tried hard to hold me head up, I've tried a long time not to let meself go to pieces. I've even tried to keep cheerful, telling meself I'd not want to be like Mrs. Zamboni, forever complainin'. But 'tis no use tellin' yourself lies! I been up to the church, and heard the Reverend Spragg tell the people that the rich and poor are the same in the sight of the Lord. And maybe 'tis so, but I'm not the Lord, and I'll never pretend I'm not ashamed to be livin' in a place like this.”

“I'm sure the Lord has no interest in keeping you here—” he began.

But she broke in, “What makes it so hard to bear is knowin' there's so many wonderful things in the world, and ye can never have them! 'Tis as if ye had to see them through a pane of glass, like in the window of a store. Just think, Joe Smith—once, in a church in Sheridan, I heard a lady sing beautiful music; once in my whole lifetime! Can ye guess what it meant to me?”

“Yes, Mary, I can.”

“But I had that all out with meself—years ago. I knew the price a workin' girl has to pay for such things, and I said, I'll not let meself think about them. I've hated this place, I've wanted to get away—but there's only one way to go, to let some man take ye! So I've stayed; I've kept straight, Joe. I want ye to believe that.”

“Of course, Mary!”

“No! It's not been 'of course'! It means ye have to fight with temptations. It's many a time I've looked at Jeff Cotton, and thought about the things I need! And I've done without! But now comes the thing a woman wants more than all the other things in the world!”

She paused, but only for a moment. “They tell ye to love a man of your own class. Me old mother said that to me, before she died. But suppose ye didn't happen to? Suppose ye'd stopped and thought what it meant, havin' one baby after another, till ye're worn out and drop—like me old mother did? Suppose ye knew good manners when ye see them—ye knew interestin' talk when ye heard it!” She clasped her hands suddenly before her, exclaiming, “Ah, 'tis something different ye are, Joe—so different from anything around here! The way ye talk, the way ye move, the gay look in your eyes! No miner ever had that happy look, Joe; me heart stops beatin' almost when ye look at me!” She stopped with a sharp catching of her breath, and he saw that she was struggling for self-control. After a moment she exclaimed, defiantly: “But they'd tell ye, be careful, ye daren't love that kind of man; ye'd only have your heart broken!”

There was silence. For this problem the amateur sociologist had no solution at hand—whether for the abstract question, or for its concrete application!

SECTION 31.

Mary forced herself to go on. “This is how I've worked it out, Joe! I said to meself, 'Ye love this man; and it's his love ye want—nothin' else! If he's got a place in the world, ye'd only hold him back—and ye'd not want to do that. Ye don't want his name, or his friends, or any of those things—ye want him!' Have ye ever heard of such a thing as that?”

Her cheeks were flaming, but she continued to meet his gaze. “Yes, I've heard of it,” he answered, in a low voice.

“What would ye say to it? Is it honest? The Reverend Spragg would say 'twas the devil, no doubt; Father O'Gorman, down in Pedro, would call it mortal sin; and maybe they know—but I don't! I only know I can't stand it any more!”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she cried out suddenly, “Oh, take me away from here! Take me away and give me a chance, Joe! I'll ask nothing, I'll never stand in your way; I'll work for ye, I'll cook and wash and do everything for ye, I'll wear my fingers to the bone! Or I'll go out and work at some job, and earn my share. And I'll make ye this promise—if ever ye get tired and want to leave me, ye'll not hear a word of complaint!”

She made no conscious appeal to his senses; she sat gazing at him honestly through her tears, and that made it all the harder to answer her.

What could he say? He felt the old dangerous impulse—to take the girl in his arms and comfort her. When finally he spoke it was with an effort to keep his voice calm. “I'd say yes, Mary, if I thought it would work.”

“It would work! It would, Joe! Ye can quit when ye want to. I mean it!”

“There's no woman lives who can be happy on such terms, Mary. She wants her man, and she wants him to herself, and she wants him always; she's only deluding herself if she believes anything else. You're over-wrought now, what you've seen in the last few days has made you wild—”

“No!” she exclaimed. “'Tis not only that! I been thinkin' about it for weeks.”

“I know. You've been thinking, but you wouldn't have spoken if it hadn't been for this horror.” He paused for a moment, to renew his own self-possession. “It won't do, Mary,” he declared. “I've seen it tried more than once, and I'm not so old either. My own brother tried it once, and ruined himself.”

“Ah, ye're afraid to trust me, Joe!”

“No, it's not that; what I mean is—he ruined his own heart, he made himself selfish. He took everything, and gave nothing. He's much older than I, so I've had a chance to see its effect on him. He's cold, he has no faith, even in his own nature; when you talk to him about making the world better he tells you you're a fool.”

“It's another way of bein' afraid of me,” she insisted. “Afraid you'd ought to marry me!”

“But, Mary—there's the other girl. I really love her, and I'm promised to her. What can I do?”

“'Tis that I've never believed you loved her,” she said, in a whisper. Her eyes fell and she began picking nervously again at the faded blue dress, which was smutted and grease-stained, perhaps from her recent effort with Mrs. Zamboni's brood. Several times Hal thought she was going to speak, but she shut her lips tightly again; he watched her, his heart aching.

When finally she spoke, it was still in a whisper, and there was a note of humility he had never heard from her before. “Ye'll not be wantin' to speak to me, Joe, after what I've said.”

“Oh, Mary!” he exclaimed, and caught her hand, “don't say I've made you more unhappy! I want to help you! Won't you let me be your friend—your real, true friend? Let me help you to get out of this trap; you'll have a chance to look about, you'll find a way to be happy—the whole world will seem different to you then, and you'll laugh at the idea that you ever wanted me!”

SECTION 32.

The two of them went back to the pit-mouth. It had been two days since the disaster, and still the fan had not been started, and there was no sign of its being started. The hysteria of the women was growing, and there was a tension in the crowds. Jeff Cotton had brought in a force of men to assist him in keeping order. They had built a fence of barbed wire about the pit-mouth and its approaches, and behind this wire they walked—hard-looking citizens with policemen's “billies,” and the bulge of revolvers plainly visible on their hips.

During this long period of waiting, Hal had talks with members of his check-weighman group. They told what had happened while he was in jail, and this reminded him of something which had been driven from his mind by the explosion. Poor old John Edstrom was down in Pedro, perhaps in dire need. Hal went to the old Swede's cabin that night, climbed through a window, and dug up the buried money. There were five five-dollar bills, and he put them in an envelope, addressed them in care of General Delivery, Pedro, and had Mary Burke take them to the post office and register them.

The hours dragged on, and still there was no sign of the pit-mouth being opened. There began to be secret gatherings of the miners and their wives to complain at the conduct of the company; and it was natural that Hal's friends who had started the check-weighman movement, should take the lead in these. They were among the most intelligent of the workers, and saw farther into the meaning of events. They thought, not merely of the men who were trapped under ground at this moment, but of thousands of others who would be trapped through years to come. Hal, especially, was pondering how he could accomplish something definite before he left the camp; for of course he would have to leave soon—Jeff Cotton would remember him, and carry out his threat to get rid of him.

Newspapers had come in, with accounts of the disaster, and Hal and his friends read these. It was evident that the company had been at pains to have the accounts written from its own point of view. There existed some public sensitiveness on the subject of mine-disasters in this state. The death-rate from accidents was seen to be mounting steadily; the reports of the state mine inspector showed six per thousand in one year, eight and a half in the next, and twenty-one and a half in the next. When fifty or a hundred men were killed in a single accident, and when such accidents kept happening, one on the heels of another, even the most callous public could not help asking questions. So in this case the “G. F. C.” had been careful to minimise the loss of life, and to make excuses. The accident had been owing to no fault of the company's; the mine had been regularly sprinkled, both with water and adobe dust, and so the cause of the explosion must have been the carelessness of the men in handling powder.

In Jack David's cabin one night there arose a discussion as to the number of men entombed in the mine. The company's estimate of the number was forty, but Minetti and Olson and David agreed that this was absurd. Any man who went about in the crowds could satisfy himself that there were two or three times as many unaccounted for. And this falsification was deliberate, for the company had a checking system, whereby it knew the name of every man in the mine. But most of these names were unpronounceable Slavish, and the owners of the names had no friends to mention them—at least not in any language understood by American newspaper editors.

It was all a part of the system, declared Jack David: its purpose and effect being to enable the company to go on killing men without paying for them, either in money or in prestige. It occurred to Hal that it might be worth while to contradict these false statements—almost as worth while as to save the men who were at this moment entombed. Any one who came forward to make such a contradiction would of course be giving himself up to the black-list; but then, Hal regarded himself as a man already condemned to that penalty.

Tom Olson spoke up. “What would you do with your contradiction?”

“Give it to the papers,” Hal answered.

“But what papers would print it?”

“There are two rival papers in Pedro, aren't there?”

“One owned by Alf Raymond, the sheriff-emperor, and the other by Vagleman, counsel for the 'G. F. C.' Which one would you try?”

“Well then, the outside papers—those in Western City. There are reporters here now, and some one of them would surely take it.”

Olson answered, declaring that they would not get any but labour and Socialist papers to print such news. But even that was well worth doing. And Jack David, who was strong for unions and all their activities, put in, “The thing to do is to take a regular census, so as to know exactly how many are in the mine.”

The suggestion struck fire, and they agreed to set to work that same evening. It would be a relief to do something, to have something in their minds but despair. They passed the word to Mary Burke, to Rovetta, Klowoski, and others; and at eleven o'clock the next morning they met again, and the lists were put together, and it was found that no less than a hundred and seven men and boys were positively known to be inside Number One.

SECTION 33.

As it happened, however, discussion of this list and the method of giving it to the world was cut short by a more urgent matter. Jack David came in with news of fresh trouble at the pit-mouth. The new fan was being put in place; but they were slow about it, so slow that some people had become convinced that they did not mean to start the fan at all, but were keeping the mine sealed to prevent the fire from spreading. A group of such malcontents had presumed to go to Mr. Carmichael, the deputy state mine-inspector, to urge him to take some action; and the leader of these protestants, Huszar, the Austrian, who had been one of Hal's check-weighman group, had been taken into custody and marched at double-quick to the gate of the stockade!

Jack David declared furthermore that he knew a carpenter who was working in the fan-house, and who said that no haste whatever was being made. All the men at the fan-house shared that opinion; the mine was sealed, and would stay sealed until the company was sure the fire was out.

“But,” argued Hal, “if they were to open it, the fire would spread; and wouldn't that prevent rescue work?”