BOOK TWO — THE SERFS OF KING COAL

SECTION 1.

Hal was now started upon a new career, more full of excitements than that of stableman or buddy, with perils greater than those of falling rock or the hind feet of mules in the stomach. The inertia which overwork produces had not had time to become a disease with him; youth was on his side, with its zest for more and yet more experience. He found it thrilling to be a conspirator, to carry about with him secrets as dark and mysterious as the passages of the mine in which he worked.

But Jerry Minetti, the first person he told of Tom Olson's purpose in North Valley, was older in such thrills. The care-free look which Jerry was accustomed to wear vanished abruptly, and fear came into his eyes. “I know it come some day,” he exclaimed—“trouble for me and Rosa!”

“How do you mean?”

“We get into it—get in sure. I say Rosa, 'Call yourself Socialist—what good that do? No help any. No use to vote here—they don't count no Socialist vote, only for joke!' I say, 'Got to have union. Got to strike!' But Rosa say, 'Wait little bit. Save little bit money, let children grow up. Then we help, no care if we no got any home.'”

“But we're not going to start a union now!” objected Hal. “I have another plan for the present.”

Jerry, however, was not to be put at ease. “No can wait!” he declared. “Men no stand it! I say, 'It come some day quick—like blow-up in mine! Somebody start fight, everybody fight.'” And Jerry looked at Rosa, who sat with her black eyes fixed anxiously upon her husband. “We get into it,” he said; and Hal saw their eyes turn to the room where Little Jerry and the baby were sleeping.

Hal said nothing—he was beginning to understand the meaning of rebellion to such people. He watched with curiosity and pity the struggle that went on; a struggle as old as the soul of man—between the voice of self-interest, of comfort and prudence, and the call of duty, of the ideal. No trumpet sounded for this conflict, only the still small voice within.

After a while Jerry asked what it was Hal and Olson had planned; and Hal explained that he wanted to make a test of the company's attitude toward the check-weighman law. Hal thought it a fine scheme; what did Jerry think?

Jerry smiled sadly. “Yes, fine scheme for young feller—no got family!”

“That's all right,” said Hal, “I'll take the job—I'll be the check-weighman.”

“Got to have committee,” said Jerry—“committee go see boss.”

“All right, but we'll get young fellows for that too—men who have no families. Some of the fellows who live in the chicken-coops in shanty-town. They won't care what happens to them.”

But Jerry would not share Hal's smile. “No got sense 'nough, them fellers. Take sense to stick together.” He explained that they would need a group of men to stand back of the committee; such a group would have to be organised, to hold meetings in secret—it would be practically the same thing as a union, would be so regarded by the bosses and their spotters. And no organisation of any sort was permitted in the camps. There had been some Serbians who had wanted to belong to a fraternal order back in their home country, but even that had been forbidden. If you wanted to insure your life or your health, the company would attend to it—and get the profit from it. For that matter, you could not even buy a post-office money-order, to send funds back to the old country; the post-office clerk, who was at the same time a clerk in the company-store, would sell you some sort of a store-draft.

So Hal was facing the very difficulties about which Olson had warned him. The first of them was Jerry's fear. Yet Hal knew that Jerry was no “coward”; if any man had a contempt for Jerry's attitude, it was because he had never been in Jerry's place!

“All I'll ask of you now is advice,” said Hal. “Give me the names of some young fellows who are trustworthy, and I'll get their help without anybody suspecting you.”

“You my boarder!” was Jerry's reply to this.

So again Hal was “up against it.” “You mean that would get you into trouble?”

“Sure! They know we talk. They know I talk Socialism, anyhow. They fire me sure!”

“But how about your cousin, the pit-boss in Number One?”

“He no help. May be get fired himself. Say damn fool—board check-weighman!”

“All right,” said Hal. “Then I'll move away now, before it's too late. You can say I was a trouble-maker, and you turned me off.”

The Minettis sat gazing at each other—a mournful pair. They hated to lose their boarder, who was such good company, and paid them such good money. As for Hal, he felt nearly as bad, for he liked Jerry and his girl-wife, and Little Jerry—even the black-eyed baby, who made so much noise and interrupted conversation!

“No!” said Jerry. “I no run, away! I do my share!”

“That's all right,” replied Hal. “You do your share—but not just yet. You stay on in the camp and help Olson after I'm fired. We don't want the best men put out at once.”

So, after further argument, it was decided, and Hal saw little Rosa sink back in her chair and draw a deep breath of relief. The time for martyrdom was put off; her little three-roomed cabin, her furniture and her shining pans and her pretty white lace curtains, might be hers for a few weeks longer!

SECTION 2.

Hal went back to Reminitsky's boarding-house; a heavy sacrifice, but not without its compensations, because it gave him more chance to talk with the men.

He and Jerry made up a list of those who could be trusted with the secret: the list beginning with the name of Mike Sikoria. To be put on a committee, and sent to interview a boss, would appeal to Old Mike as the purpose for which he had been put upon earth! But they would not tell him about it until the last minute, for fear lest in his excitement he might shout out the announcement the next time he lost one of his cars.

There was a young Bulgarian miner named Wresmak who worked near Hal. The road into this man's room ran up an incline, and he had hardly been able to push his “empties” up the grade. While he was sweating and straining at the task, Alec Stone had come along, and having a giant's contempt for physical weakness, began to cuff him. The man raised his arm—whether in offence or to ward off the blow, no one could be sure; but Stone fell upon him and kicked him all the way down the passage, pouring out upon him furious curses. Now the man was in another room, where he had taken out over forty car-loads of rock, and been allowed only three dollars for it. No one who watched his face when the pit-boss passed would doubt that this man would be ready to take his chances in a movement of protest.

Then there was a man whom Jerry knew, who had just come out of the hospital, after contact with the butt-end of the camp-marshal's revolver. This was a Pole, who unfortunately did not know a word of English; but Olson, the organiser, had got into touch with another Pole, who spoke a little English, and would pass the word on to his fellow-countryman. Also there was a young Italian, Rovetta, whom Jerry knew and whose loyalty he could vouch for.

There was another person Hal thought of—Mary Burke. He had been deliberately avoiding her of late; it seemed the one safe thing to do—although it seemed also a cruel thing, and left his mind ill at ease. He went over and over what had happened. How had the trouble got started? It is a man's duty in such cases to take the blame upon himself; but a man does not like to take blame upon himself, and he tries to make it as light as possible. Should Hal say that it was because he had been too officious that night in helping Mary where the path was rough? She had not actually needed such help, she was quite as capable on her feet as he! But he had really gone farther than that—he had had a definite sentimental impulse; and he had been a cad—he should have known all along that all this girl's discontent, all the longing of her starved soul, would become centred upon him, who was so “different,” who had had opportunity, who made her think of the “poetry-books”!

But here suddenly seemed a solution of the difficulty; here was a new interest for Mary, a safe channel in which her emotions could run. A woman could not serve on a miners' committee, but she would be a good adviser, and her sharp tongue would be a weapon to drive others into line. Being aflame with this enterprise, Hal became impersonal, man-fashion—and so fell into another sentimental trap! He did not stop to think that Mary's interest in the check-weighman movement might be conditioned in part by a desire to see more of him; still less did it occur to him that he might be glad for a pretext to see Mary.

No, he was picturing her in a new role, an activity more inspiriting than cooking and nursing. His “poetry-book” imagination took fire; he gave her a hope and a purpose, a pathway with a goal at the end. Had there not been women leaders in every great proletarian movement?

He went to call on her, and met her at the door of her cabin. “'Tis a cheerin' sight to see ye, Joe Smith!” she said. And she looked him in the eye and smiled.

“The same to you, Mary Burke!” he answered.

She was game, he saw; she was going to be a “good sport.” But he noticed that she was paler than when he had seen her last. Could it be that these gorgeous Irish complexions ever faded? He thought that she was thinner too; the old blue calico seemed less tight upon her.

Hal plunged into his theme. “Mary, I had a vision of you to-day!”

“Of me, lad? What's that?”

He laughed. “I saw you with a glory in your face, and your hair shining like a crown of gold. You were mounted on a snow-white horse, and wore a robe of white, soft and lustrous—like Joan of Arc, or a leader in a suffrage parade. You were riding at the head of a host—I've still got the music in my ears, Mary!”

“Go on with ye, lad—what's all this about?”

“Come in and I'll tell you,” he said.

So they went into the bare kitchen, and sat in bare wooden chairs—Mary folding her hands in her lap like a child who has been promised a fairy-story. “Now hurry,” said she. “I want to know about this new dress ye're givin' me. Are ye tired of me old calico?”

He joined in her smile. “This is a dress you will weave for yourself, Mary, out of the finest threads of your own nature—out of courage and devotion and self-sacrifice.”

“Sure, 'tis the poetry-book again! But what is it ye're really meanin'?”

He looked about him. “Is anybody here?”

“Nobody.”

But instinctively he lowered his voice as he told his story. There was an organiser of the “big union” in the camp, and he was going to rouse the slaves to protest.

The laughter went out of Mary's face. “Oh! It's that!” she said, in a flat tone. The vision of the snow-white horse and the soft and lustrous robe was gone. “Ye can never do anything of that sort here!”

“Why not?”

“'Tis the men in this place. Don't ye remember what I told ye at Mr. Rafferty's? They're cowards!”

“Ah, Mary, it's easy to say that. But it's not so pleasant being turned out of your home—”

“Do ye have to tell me that?” she cried, with sudden passion. “Haven't I seen that?”

“Yes, Mary; but I want to do something—”

“Yes, and haven't I wanted to do something? Sure, I've wanted to bite off the noses of the bosses!”

“Well,” he laughed, “we'll make that a part of our programme.” But Mary was not to be lured into cheerfulness; her mood was so full of pain and bewilderment that he had an impulse to reach out and take her hand again. But he checked that; he had come to divert her energies into a safe channel!

“We must waken these men to resistance, Mary!”

“Ye can't do it, Joe—not the English-speakin' men. The Greeks and the Bulgars, maybe—they're fightin' at home, and they might fight here. But the Irish never—never! Them that had any backbone went out long ago. Them that stayed has been made into boot-licks. I know them, every man of them. They grumble, and curse the boss, but then they think of the blacklist, and they go back and cringe at his feet.”

“What such men want—”

“'Tis booze they want, and carousin' with the rotten women in the coal-towns, and sittin' up all night winnin' each other's money with a greasy pack of cards! They take their pleasure where they find it, and 'tis nothin' better they want.”

“Then, Mary, if that's so, don't you see it's all the more reason for trying to teach them? If not for their own sakes, for the sake of their children! The children, mustn't grow up like that! They are learning English, at least—”

Mary gave a scornful laugh. “Have ye been up to that school?”

He answered no; and she told him there were a hundred and twenty children packed in one room, three in a seat, and solid all round the wall. She went on, with swift anger—the school was supposed to be paid for out of taxes, but as nobody owned any property but the company, it was all in the company's hands. The school-board consisted of Mr. Cartwright, the mine-superintendent, and Jake Predovich, a clerk in the store, and the preacher, the Reverend Spraggs. Old Spraggs would bump his nose on the floor if the “super” told him to.

“Now, now!” said Hal, laughing. “You're down on him because his grandfather was an Orangeman!”

SECTION 3.

Mary Burke had been suckled upon despair, and the poison of it was deep in her blood. Hal began to realise that it would be as hard to give her a hope as to rouse the workers whom she despised. She was brave enough, no doubt, but how could he persuade her to be brave for men who had no courage for themselves?

“Mary,” he said, “in your heart you don't really hate these people. You know how they suffer, you pity them for it. You give their children your last cent when they need it—”

“Ah, lad!” she cried, and he saw tears suddenly spring into her eyes. “'Tis because I love them so that I hate them! Sometimes 'tis the bosses I would murder, sometimes 'tis the men. What is it ye're wantin' me to do?”

And then, even before he could answer, she began to run over the list of her acquaintances in the camp. Yes, there was one man Hal ought to talk to; he would be too old to join them, but his advice would be invaluable, and they could be sure he would never betray them. That was old John Edstrom, a Swede from Minnesota, who had worked in this district from the time the mines had first started up. He had been active in the great strike eight years ago, and had been black-listed, his four sons with him. The sons were scattered now to the four parts of the world, but the father had stayed nearby, working as a ranch-hand and railroad labourer, until a couple of years ago, during a rush season, he had got a chance to come back into the mines.

He was old, old, declared Mary—must be sixty. And when Hal remarked that that did not sound so frightfully aged, she answered that one seldom heard of a man being able to work in a coal-mine at that age; in fact, there were not many who managed to live to that age. Edstrom's wife was dying now, and he was having a hard time.

“'Twould not be fair to let such an old gentleman lose his job,” said Mary. “But at least he could give ye good advice.”

So that evening the two of them went to call on John Edstrom, in a tiny unpainted cabin in “shanty-town,” with a bare earth floor, and a half partition of rough boards to hide his dying wife from his callers. The woman's trouble was cancer, and this made calling a trying matter, for there was a fearful odour in the place. For some time it was impossible for Hal to force himself to think about anything else; but finally he overcame this weakness, telling himself that this was a war, and that a man must be ready for the hospital as well as for the parade-ground.

He looked about, and saw that the cracks of Edstrom's cabin were stopped with rags, and the broken windowpanes mended with brown paper. The old man had evidently made an effort to keep the place neat, and Hal noticed a row of books on a shelf. Because it was cold in these mountain regions at night, even in September, the old man had a fire in the little cast-iron stove, and sat huddled by it. There were only a few hairs left on his head, and his scrubby beard was as white as anything could be in a coal-camp. The first impression of his face was of its pallor, and then of the benevolence in the faded dark eyes; also his voice was gentle, like a caress. He rose to greet his visitors, and put out to Hal a trembling hand, which resembled the paw of some animal, horny and misshapen. He made a move to draw up a bench, and apologised for his unskillful house-keeping. It occurred to Hal that a man might be able to work in a coal-mine at sixty, and not be able to work in it at sixty-one.

Hal had requested Mary to say nothing about his purpose, until after he had a chance to judge for himself. So now the girl inquired about Mrs. Edstrom. There was no news, the man answered; she was lying in a stupor, as usual. Dr. Barrett had come again, but all he could do was to give her morphine. No one could do any more, the doctor declared.

“Sure, he'd not know it if they could!” sniffed Mary.

“He's not such a bad one, when he's sober,” said Edstrom, patiently.

“And how often is that?” sniffed Mary again. She added, by way of explanation to Hal, “He's a cousin of the super.”

Things were better here than in some places, said Edstrom. At Harvey's Run, where he had worked, a man had got his eye hurt, and had lost it through the doctor's instrument slipping; broken arms and legs had been set wrong, and either the men had to go through life as cripples, or go elsewhere and have the bones re-broken and reset, It was like everything else—the doctor was a part of the company machine, and if you had too much to say about him, it was down the canyon with you. You not only had a dollar a month taken out of your pay, but if you were injured, and he came to attend you, he would charge whatever extra he pleased.

“And you have to pay?” asked Hal.

“They take it off your account,” said the old man.

“Sometimes they take it when he's done nothin' at all,” added Mary. “They charged Mrs. Zamboni twenty-five dollars for her last baby—and Dr. Barrett never set foot across her door till three hours after the baby was in my arms!”

SECTION 4.

The talk went on. Wishing to draw the old man out, Hal spoke of various troubles of the miners, and at last he suggested that the remedy might be found in a union. Edstrom's dark eyes studied him, and then turned to Mary. “Joe's all right,” said the girl, quickly. “You can trust him.”

Edstrom made no direct answer to this, but remarked that he had once been in a strike. He was a marked man, now, and could only stay in the camp so long as he attended strictly to his own affairs. The part he had played in the big strike had never been forgotten; the bosses had let him work again, partly because they had needed him at a rush time, and partly because the pit-boss happened to be a personal friend.

“Tell him about the big strike,” said Mary. “He's new in this district.”

The old man had apparently accepted Mary's word for Hal's good faith, for he began to narrate those terrible events which were a whispered tradition of the camps. There had been a mighty effort of ten thousand slaves for freedom; and it had been crushed with utter ruthlessness. Ever since these mines had been started, the operators had controlled the local powers of government, and now, in the emergency, they had brought in the state militia as well, and used it frankly to drive the strikers back to work. They had seized the leaders and active men, and thrown them into jail without trial or charges; when the jails would hold no more, they kept some two hundred in an open stockade, called a “bull-pen,” and finally they loaded them into freight-cars, took them at night out of the state, and dumped them off in the midst of the desert without food or water.

John Edstrom had been one of these men. He told how one of his sons had been beaten and severely injured in jail, and how another had been kept for weeks in a damp cellar, so that he had come out crippled with rheumatism for life. The officers of the state militia had done these things; and when some of the local authorities were moved to protest, the militia had arrested them—even the judges of the civil courts had been forbidden to sit, under threat of imprisonment. “To hell with the constitution!” had been the word of the general in command; his subordinate had made famous the saying, “No habeas corpus; we'll give them post-mortems!”

Tom Olson had impressed Hal with his self-control, but this old man made an even deeper impression upon him. As he listened, he became humble, touched with awe. Incredible as it might seem, when John Edstrom talked about his cruel experiences, it was without bitterness in his voice, and apparently without any in his heart. Here, in the midst of want and desolation, with his family broken and scattered, and the wolf of starvation at his door, he could look back upon the past without hatred of those who had ruined him. Nor was this because he was old and feeble, and had lost the spirit of revolt; it was because he had studied economics, and convinced himself that it was an evil system which blinded men's eyes and poisoned their souls. A better day was coming, he said, when this evil system would be changed, and it would be possible for men to be merciful to one another.

At this point in the conversation, Mary Burke gave voice once more to her corroding despair. How could things ever be changed? The bosses were mean-hearted, and the men were cowards and traitors. That left nobody but God to do the changing—and God had left things as they were for such a long time!

Hal was interested to hear how Edstrom dealt with this attitude. “Mary,” he said, “did you ever read about ants in Africa?”

“No,” said she.

“They travel in long columns, millions and millions of them. And when they come to a ditch, the front ones fall in, and more and more of them on top, till they fill up the ditch, and the rest cross over. We are ants, Mary.”

“No matter how many go in,” cried the girl, “none will ever get across. There's no bottom to the ditch!”

He answered: “That's more than any ant can know. Mary. All they know is to go in. They cling to each other's bodies, even in death; they make a bridge, and the rest go over.”

“I'll step one side!” she declared, fiercely. “I'll not throw meself away.”

“You may step one side,” answered the other—“but you'll step back into line again. I know you better than you know yourself, Mary.”

There was silence in the little cabin. The winds of an early fall shrilled outside, and life suddenly seemed to Hal a stern and merciless thing. He had thought in his youthful fervour it would be thrilling to be a revolutionist; but to be an ant, one of millions and millions, to perish in a bottomless ditch—that was something a man could hardly bring himself to face! He looked at the bowed figure of this white haired toiler, vague in the feeble lamplight, and found himself thinking of Rembrandt's painting, the Visit of Emmaus: the ill-lighted room in the dirty tavern, and the two ragged men, struck dumb by the glow of light about the forehead of their table-companion. It was not fantastic to imagine a glow of light about the forehead of this soft-voiced old man!

“I never had any hope it would come in my time,” the old man was saying gently. “I did use to hope my boys might see it—but now I'm not sure even of that. But in all my life I never doubted that some day the working-people will cross over to the promised land. They'll no longer be slaves, and what they make won't be wasted by idlers. And take it from one who knows, Mary—for a workingman or woman not to have that faith, is to have lost the reason for living.”

Hal decided that it would be safe to trust this man, and told him of his check-weighman plan. “We only want your advice,” he explained, remembering Mary's warning. “Your sick wife—”

But the old man answered, sadly, “She's almost gone, and I'll soon be following. What little strength I have left might as well be used for the cause.”

SECTION 5.

This business of conspiracy was grimly real to men whose living came out of coal; but Hal, even at the most serious moments, continued to find in it the thrill of romance. He had read stories of revolutionists, and of the police who hunted them. That such excitements were to be had in Russia, he knew; but if any one had told him they could be had in his own free America, within a few hours' journey of his home city and his college-town, he could not have credited the statement.

The evening after his visit to Edstrom, Hal was stopped on the street by his boss. Encountering him suddenly, Hal started, like a pick-pocket who runs into a policeman.

“Hello, kid,” said the pit-boss.

“Hello, Mr. Stone,” was the reply.

“I want to talk to you,” said the boss.

“All right, sir.” And then, under his breath, “He's got me!”

“Come up to my house,” said Stone; and Hal followed, feeling as if hand-cuffs were already on his wrists.

“Say,” said the man, as they walked, “I thought you were going to tell me if you'd heard any talk.”

“I haven't heard any, sir.”

“Well,” continued Stone, “you want to get busy; there's sure to be kickers in every coal-camp.” And deep within, Hal drew a sigh of relief. It was a false alarm!

They came to the boss's house, and he took a chair on the piazza and motioned Hal to take another. They sat in semi-darkness, and Stone dropped his voice as he began. “What I want to talk to you about now is something else—this election.”

“Election, sir?”

“Didn't you know there was one? The Congressman in this district died, and there's a special election three weeks from next Tuesday.”

“I see, sir.” And Hal chuckled inwardly. He would get the information which Tom Olson had recommended to him!

“You ain't heard any talk about it?” inquired the pit-boss.

“Nothing at all, sir. I never pay much attention to politics—it ain't in my line.”

“Well, that's the way I like to hear a miner talk!” said the pit-boss, with heartiness. “If they all had sense enough to leave politics to the politicians, they'd be a sight better off. What they need is to tend to their own jobs.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Hal, meekly—“like I had to tend to them mules, if I didn't want to get the colic.”

The boss smiled appreciatively. “You've got more sense than most of 'em. If you'll stand by me, there'll be a chance for you to move up in the world.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stone,” said Hal. “Give me a chance.”

“Well now, here's this election. Every year they send us a bunch of campaign money to handle. A bit of it might come your way.”

“I could use it, I reckon,” said Hal, brightening visibly. “What is it you want?”

There was a pause, while Stone puffed on his pipe. He went on, in a business-like manner. “What I want is somebody to feel things out a bit, and let me know the situation. I thought it better not to use the men that generally work for me, but somebody that wouldn't be suspected. Down in Sheridan and Pedro they say the Democrats are making a big stir, and the company's worried. I suppose you know the 'G. F. C.' is Republican.”

“I've heard so.”

“You might think a congressman don't have much to do with us, way off in Washington; but it has a bad effect to have him campaigning, telling the men the company's abusing them. So I'd like you just to kind o' circulate a bit, and start the men on politics, and see if any of them have been listening to this MacDougall talk. (MacDougall's this here Democrat, you know.) And I want to find out whether they've been sending in literature to this camp, or have any agents here. You see, they claim the right to come in and make speeches, and all that sort of thing. North Valley's an incorporated town, so they've got the law on their side, in a way, and if we shut 'em out, they make a howl in the papers, and it looks bad. So we have to get ahead of them in quiet ways. Fortunately there ain't any hall in the camp for them to meet in, and we've made a local ordinance against meetings on the street. If they try to bring in circulars, something has to happen to them before they get distributed. See?”

“I see,” said Hal; he thought of Tom Olson's propaganda literature!

“We'll pass the word out,—it's the Republican the company wants elected; and you be on the lookout and see how they take it in the camp.”

“That sounds easy enough,” said Hal. “But tell me, Mr. Stone, why do you bother? Do so many of these wops have votes?”

“It ain't the wops so much. We get them naturalised on purpose—they vote our way for a glass of beer. But the English-speaking men, or the foreigners that's been here too long, and got too big for their breeches—they're the ones we got to watch. If they get to talking politics, they don't stop there; the first thing you know, they're listening to union agitators, and wanting to run the camp.”

“Oh yes, I see!” said Hal, and wondered if his voice sounded right.

But the pit-boss was concerned with his own troubles. “As I told Si Adams the other day, what I'm looking for is fellows that talk some new lingo—one that nobody will ever understand! But I suppose that would be too easy. There's no way to keep them from learning some English!”

Hal decided to make use of this opportunity to perfect his education. “Surely, Mr. Stone,” he remarked, “you don't have to count any votes if you don't want to!”

“Well, I'll tell you,” replied Stone; “it's a question of the easiest way to manage things. When I was superintendent over to Happy Gulch, we didn't waste no time on politics. The company was Democratic at that time, and when election night come, we wrote down four hundred votes for the Democratic candidates. But the first thing we knew, a bunch of fellers was taken into town and got to swear they'd voted the Republican ticket in our camp. The Republican papers were full of it, and some fool judge ordered a recount, and we had to get busy over night and mark up a new lot of ballots. It gave us a lot of bother!”

The pit-boss laughed, and Hal joined him discreetly.

“So you see, you have to learn to manage. If there's votes for the wrong candidate in your camp, the fact gets out, and if the returns is too one-sided, there's a lot of grumbling. There's plenty of bosses that don't care, but I learned my lesson that time, and I got my own method—that is not to let any opposition start. See?”

“Yes, I see.”

“Maybe a mine-boss has got no right to meddle in politics—but there's one thing he's got the say about, and that is who works in his mine. It's the easiest thing to weed out—weed out—” Hal never forgot the motion of beefy hands with which Alec Stone illustrated these words. As he went on, the tones of his voice did not seem so good-natured as usual. “The fellows that don't want to vote my way can go somewhere else to do their voting. That's all I got to say on politics!”

There was a brief pause, while Stone puffed on his pipe. Then it may have occurred to him that it was not necessary to go into so much detail in breaking in a political recruit. When he resumed, it was in a good-natured tone of dismissal. “That's what you do, kid. To-morrow you get a sprained wrist, so you can't work for a few days, and that'll give you a chance to bum round and hear what the men are saying. Meantime, I'll see you get your wages.”

“That sounds all right,” said Hal; but showing only a small part of his satisfaction!

The pit-boss rose from his chair and knocked the ashes from his pipe. “Mind you—I want the goods. I've got other fellows working, and I'm comparing 'em. For all you know, I may have somebody watching you.”

“Yes,” said Hal, and grinned cheerfully. “I'll not fail to bear that in mind.”

SECTION 6.

The first thing Hal did was to seek out Tom Olson and narrate this experience. The two of them had a merry time over it. “I'm the favourite of a boss now!” laughed Hal.

But the organiser became suddenly serious. “Be careful what you do for that fellow.”

“Why?”

“He might use it on you later on. One of the things they try to do if you make any trouble for them, is to prove that you took money from them, or tried to.”

“But he won't have any proofs.”

“That's my point—don't give him any. If Stone says you've been playing the political game for him, then some fellow might remember that you did ask him about politics. So don't have any marked money on you.”

Hal laughed. “Money doesn't stay on me very long these days. But what shall I say if he asks me for a report?”

“You'd better put your job right through, Joe—so that he won't have time to ask for any report.”

“All right,” was the reply. “But just the same, I'm going to get all the fun there is, being the favourite of a boss!”

And so, early the next morning when Hal went to his work he proceeded to “sprain his wrist.” He walked about in pain, to the great concern of Old Mike; and when finally he decided that he would have to lay off, Mike followed him half way to the shaft, giving him advice about hot and cold cloths. Leaving the old Slovak to struggle along as best he could alone, Hal went out to bask in the wonderful sunshine of the upper world, and the still more wonderful sunshine of a boss's favour.

First he went to his room at Reminitsky's, and tied a strip of old shirt about his wrist, and a clean handkerchief on top of that; by this symbol he was entitled to the freedom of the camp and the sympathy of all men, and so he sallied forth.

Strolling towards the tipple of Number One, he encountered a wiry, quick-moving little man, with restless black eyes and a lean, intelligent face. He wore a pair of common miner's “jumpers,” but even so, he was not to be taken for a workingman. Everything about him spoke of authority.

“Morning, Mr. Cartwright,” said Hal.

“Good morning,” replied the superintendent; then, with a glance at Hal's bandage, “You hurt?”

“Yes, sir. Just a bit of sprain, but I thought I'd better lay off.”

“Been to the doctor?”

“No, sir. I don't think it's that bad.”

“You'd better go. You never know how bad a sprain is.”

“Right, sir,” said Hal. Then, as the superintendent was passing, “Do you think, Mr. Cartwright, that MacDougall stands any chance of being elected?”

“I don't know,” replied the other, surprised. “I hope not. You aren't going to vote for him, are you?”

“Oh, no. I'm a Republican—born that way. But I wondered if you'd heard any MacDougall talk.”

“Well, I'm hardly the one that would hear it. You take an interest in politics?”

“Yes, sir—in a way. In fact, that's how I came to get this wrist.”

“How's that? In a fight?”

“No, sir; but you see, Mr. Stone wanted me to feel out sentiment in the camp, and he told me I'd better sprain my wrist and lay off.”

The “super,” after staring at Hal, could not keep from laughing. Then he looked about him. “You want to be careful, talking about such things.”

“I thought I could surely trust the superintendent,” said Hal, drily.

The other measured him with his keen eyes; and Hal, who was getting the spirit of political democracy, took the liberty of returning the gaze. “You're a wide-awake young fellow,” said Cartwright, at last. “Learn the ropes here, and make yourself useful, and I'll see you're not passed over.”

“All right, sir—thank you.”

“Maybe you'll be made an election-clerk this time. That's worth three dollars a day, you know.”

“Very good, sir.” And Hal put on his smile again. “They tell me you're the mayor of North Valley.”

“I am.”

“And the justice of the peace is a clerk in your store. Well, Mr. Cartwright, if you need a president of the board of health or a dog catcher, I'm your man—as soon, that is, as my wrist gets well.”

And so Hal went on his way. Such “joshing” on the part of a “buddy” was of course absurdly presumptuous; the superintendent stood looking after him with a puzzled frown upon his face.

SECTION 7.

Hal did not look back, but turned into the company-store. “North Valley Trading Company” read the sign over the door; within was a Serbian woman pointing out what she wanted to buy, and two little Lithuanian girls watching the weighing of a pound of sugar. Hal strolled up to the person who was doing the weighing, a middle-aged man with a yellow moustache stained with tobacco-juice. “Morning, Judge.”

“Huh!” was the reply from Silas Adams, justice of the peace in the town of North Valley.

“Judge,” said Hal, “what do you think about the election?”

“I don't think about it,” said the other. “Busy weighin' sugar.”

“Anybody round here going to vote for MacDougall?”

“They better not tell me if they are!”

“What?” smiled Hal. “In this free American republic?”

“In this part of the free American republic a man is free to dig coal, but not to vote for a skunk like MacDougall.” Then, having tied up the sugar, the “J. P.” whittled off a fresh chew from his plug, and turned to Hal. “What'll you have?”

Hal purchased half a pound of dried peaches, so that he might have an excuse to loiter, and be able to keep time with the jaws of the Judge. While the order was being filled, he seated himself upon the counter. “You know,” said he, “I used to work in a grocery.”

“That so? Where at?”

“Peterson & Co., in American City.” Hal had told this so often that he had begun to believe it.

“Pay pretty good up there?”

“Yes, pretty fair.” Then, realising that he had no idea what would constitute good pay in a grocery, Hal added, quickly, “Got a bad wrist here!”

“That so?” said the other.

He did not show much sociability; but Hal persisted, refusing to believe that any one in a country store would miss an opening to discuss politics, even with a miner's helper. “Tell me,” said he, “just what is the matter with MacDougall?”

“The matter with him,” said the Judge, “is that the company's against him.” He looked hard at the young miner. “You meddlin' in politics?” he growled. But the young miner's gay brown eyes showed only appreciation of the earlier response; so the “J. P.” was tempted into specifying the would-be congressman's vices. Thus conversation started; and pretty soon the others in the store joined in—“Bob” Johnson, bookkeeper and post-master, and “Jake” Predovich, the Galician Jew who was a member of the local school-board, and knew the words for staple groceries in fifteen languages.

Hal listened to an exposition of the crimes of the political opposition in Pedro County. Their candidate, MacDougall, had come to the state as a “tin-horn gambler,” yet now he was going around making speeches in churches, and talking about the moral sentiment of the community. “And him with a district chairman keeping three families in Pedro!” declared Si Adams.

“Well,” ventured Hal, “if what I hear is true, the Republican chairman isn't a plaster saint. They say he was drunk at the convention—”

“Maybe so,” said the “J. P.” “But we ain't playin' for the prohibition vote; and we ain't playin' for the labour vote—tryin' to stir up the riff-raff in these coal-camps, promisin' 'em high wages an' short hours. Don't he know he can't get it for 'em? But he figgers he'll go off to Washington and leave us here to deal with the mess he's stirred up!”

“Don't you fret,” put in Bob Johnson—“he ain't goin' to no Washin'ton.”

The other two agreed, and Hal ventured again, “He says you stuff the ballot-boxes.”

“What do you suppose his crowd is doin' in the cities? We got to meet 'em some way, ain't we?”

“Oh, I see,” said Hal, naïvely. “You stuff them worse!”

“Sometimes we stuff the boxes, and sometimes we stuff the voters.” There was an appreciative titter from the others, and the “J. P.” was moved to reminiscence. “Two years ago I was election clerk, over to Sheridan, and we found we'd let 'em get ahead of us—they had carried the whole state. 'By God,' said Alf. Raymond, 'we'll show 'em a trick from the coal-counties! And there won't be no recount business either!' So we held back our returns till the rest had come in, and when we seen how many votes we needed, we wrote 'em down. And that settled it.”

“That seems a simple method,” remarked Hal. “They'll have to get up early to beat Alf.”

“You bet you!” said Si, with the complacency of one of the gang. “They call this county the 'Empire of Raymond.'”

“It must be a cinch,” said Hal—“being the sheriff, and having the naming of so many deputies as they need in these coal-camps!”

“Yes,” agreed the other. “And there's his wholesale liquor business, too. If you want a license in Pedro county, you not only vote for Alf, but you pay your bills on time!”

“Must be a fortune in that!” remarked Hal; and the Judge, the Post-master and the School-commissioner appeared like children listening to a story of a feast. “You bet you!”

“I suppose it takes money to run politics in this county,” Hal added.

“Well, Alf don't put none of it up, you can bet! That's the company's job.”

This from the Judge; and the School-commissioner added, “De coin in dese camps is beer.”

“Oh, I see!” laughed Hal. “The companies buy Alf's beer, and use it to get him votes!”

“Sure thing!” said the Post-master.

At this moment he happened to reach into his pocket for a cigar, and Hal observed a silver shield on the breast of his waistcoat. “That a deputy's badge?” he inquired, and then turned to examine the School-commissioner's costume. “Where's yours?”

“I git mine ven election comes,” said Jake, with a grin.

“And yours, Judge?”

“I'm a justice of the peace, young feller,” said Silas, with dignity.

Leaning round, and observing a bulge on the right hip of the School-commissioner, Hal put out his hand towards it. Instinctively the other moved his hand to the spot.

Hal turned to the Post-master. “Yours?” he asked.

“Mine's under the counter,” grinned Bob.

“And yours, Judge?”

“Mine's in the desk,” said the Judge.

Hal drew a breath. “Gee!” said he. “It's like a steel trap!” He managed to keep the laugh on his face, but within he was conscious of other feelings than those of amusement. He was losing that “first fine careless rapture” with which he had set out to run with the hare and the hounds in North Valley!

SECTION 8.

Two days after this beginning of Hal's political career, it was arranged that the workers who were to make a demand for a check-weighman should meet in the home of Mrs. David. When Mike Sikoria came up from the pit that day, Hal took him aside and told him of the gathering. A look of delight came upon the old Slovak's face as he listened; he grabbed his buddy by the shoulders, crying, “You mean it?”

“Sure meant it,” said Hal. “You want to be on the committee to go and see the boss?”

“Pluha biedna!” cried Mike—which is something dreadful in his own language. “By Judas, I pack up my old box again!”

Hal felt a guilty pang. Should he let this old man into the thing? “You think you'll have to move out of camp?” he asked.

“Move out of state this time! Move back to old country, maybe!” And Hal realised that he could not stop him now, even if he wanted to. The old fellow was so much excited that he hardly ate any supper, and his buddy was afraid to leave him alone, for fear he might blurt out the news.

It had been agreed that those who attended the meeting should come one by one, and by different routes. Hal was one of the first to arrive, and he saw that the shades of the house had been drawn, and the lamps turned low. He entered by the back door, where “Big Jack” David stood on guard. “Big Jack,” who had been a member of the South Wales Federation at home, made sure of Hal's identity, and then passed him in without a word.

Inside was Mike—the first on hand. Mrs. David, a little black-eyed woman with a never-ceasing tongue, was bustling about, putting things in order; she was so nervous that she could not sit still. This couple had come from their birth-place only a year or so ago, and had brought all their wedding presents to their new home—pictures and bric-a-brac and linen. It was the prettiest home Hal had so far been in, and Mrs. David was risking it deliberately, because of her indignation that her husband had had to foreswear his union in order to get work in America.

The young Italian, Rovetta, came, then old John Edstrom. There being not chairs enough in the house, Mrs. David had set some boxes against the wall, covering them with cloth; and Hal noticed that each person took one of these boxes, leaving the chairs for the later comers. Each one as he came in would nod to the others, and then silence would fall again.

When Mary Burke entered, Hal divined from her aspect and manner that she had sunk back into her old mood of pessimism. He felt a momentary resentment. He was so thrilled with this adventure; he wanted everybody else to be thrilled—especially Mary! Like every one who has not suffered much, he was repelled by a condition of perpetual suffering in another. Of course Mary had good reasons for her black moods—but she herself considered it necessary to apologise for what she called her “complainin'”! She knew that he wanted her to help encourage the others; but here she was, putting herself in a corner and watching this wonderful proceeding, as if she had said: “I'm an ant, and I stay in line—but I'll not pretend I have any hope in it!”

Rosa and Jerry had insisted on coming, in spite of Hal's offer to spare them. After them came the Bulgarian, Wresmak; then the Polacks, Klowoski and Zamierowski. Hal found these difficult names to remember, but the Polacks were not at all sensitive about this; they would grin good-naturedly while he practised, nor would they mind if he gave it up and called them Tony and Pete. They were humble men, accustomed all their lives to being driven about. Hal looked from one to another of their bowed forms and toil-worn faces, appearing more than ever sombre and mournful in the dim light; he wondered if the cruel persecution which had driven them to protest would suffice to hold them in line.

Once a newcomer, having misunderstood the orders, came to the front door and knocked; and Hal noted that every one started, and some rose to their feet in alarm. Again he recognised the atmosphere of novels of Russian revolutionary life. He had to remind himself that these men and women, gathered here like criminals, were merely planning to ask for a right guaranteed them by the law!

The last to come was an Austrian miner named Huszar, with whom Olson had got into touch. Then, it being time to begin, everybody looked uneasily at everybody else. Few of them had conspired before, and they did not know quite how to set about it. Olson, the one who would naturally have been their leader, had deliberately stayed away. They must run this check-weighman affair for themselves!

“Somebody talk,” said Mrs. David at last; and then, as the silence continued, she turned to Hal. “You're going to be the check-weighman. You talk.”

“I'm the youngest man here,” said Hal, with a smile. “Some older fellow talk.”

But nobody else smiled. “Go on!” exclaimed old Mike; and so at last Hal stood up. It was something he was to experience many times in the future; because he was an American, and educated, he was forced into a position of leadership.

“As I understand it, you people want a check-weighman. Now, they tell me the pay for a check-weighman should be three dollars a day, but we've got only seven miners among us, and that's not enough. I will offer to take the job for twenty-five cents a day from each man, which will make a dollar-seventy-five, less than what I'm getting now as a buddy. If we get thirty men to come in, then I'll take ten cents a day from each, and make the full three dollars. Does that seem fair?”

“Sure!” said Mike; and the others added their assent by word or nod.

“All right. Now, there's nobody that works in this mine but knows the men don't get their weight. It would cost the company several hundred dollars a day to give us our weight, and nobody should be so foolish as to imagine they'll do it without a struggle. We've got to make up our minds to stand together.”

“Sure, stand together!” cried Mike.

“No get check-weighman!” exclaimed Jerry, pessimistically.

“Not unless we try, Jerry,” said Hal.

And Mike thumped his knee. “Sure try! And get him too!”

“Right!” cried “Big Jack.” But his little wife was not satisfied with the response of the others. She gave Hal his first lesson in the drilling of these polyglot masses.

“Talk to them. Make them understand you!” And she pointed them out one by one with her finger: “You! You! Wresmak, here, and you, Klowoski, and you, Zam—you other Polish fellow. Want check-weighman. Want to get all weight. Get all our money. Understand?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Get committee, go see super! Want check-weighman. Understand? Got to have check-weighman! No back down, no scare.”

“No—no scare!” Klowoski, who understood some English, explained rapidly to Zamierowski; and Zamierowski, whose head was still plastered where Jeff Cotton's revolver had hit it, nodded eagerly in assent. In spite of his bruises, he would stand by the others, and face the boss.

This suggested another question. “Who's going to do the talking to the boss?”

“You do that,” said Mrs. David, to Hal.

“But I'm the one that's to be paid. It's not for me to talk.”

“No one else can do it right,” declared the woman.

“Sure—got to be American feller!” said Mike.

But Hal insisted. If he did the talking, it would look as if the check-weighman had been the source of the movement, and was engaged in making a good paying job for himself.

There was discussion back and forth, until finally John Edstrom spoke up. “Put me on the committee.”

“You?” said Hal. “But you'll be thrown out! And what will your wife do?”

“I think my wife is going to die to-night,” said Edstrom, simply.

He sat with his lips set tightly, looking straight before him. After a pause he went on: “If it isn't to-night, it will be to-morrow, the doctor says; and after that, nothing will matter. I shall have to go down to Pedro to bury her, and if I have to stay, it will make little difference to me, so I might as well do what I can for the rest of you. I've been a miner all my life, and Mr. Cartwright knows it; that might have some weight with him. Let Joe Smith and Sikoria and myself be the ones to go and see him, and the rest of you wait, and don't give up your jobs unless you have to.”

SECTION 9.

Having settled the matter of the committee, Hal told the assembly how Alec Stone had asked him to spy upon the men. He thought they should know about it; the bosses might try to use it against him, as Olson had warned. “They may tell you I'm a traitor,” he said. “You must trust me.”

“We trust you!” exclaimed Mike, with fervour; and the others nodded their agreement.

“All right,” Hal answered. “You can rest sure of this one thing—if I get onto that tipple, you're going to get your weights!”

“Hear, hear!” cried “Big Jack,” in English fashion. And a murmur ran about the room. They did not dare make much noise, but they made clear that that was what they wanted.

Hal sat down, and began to unroll the bandage from his wrist. “I guess I'm through with this,” he said, and explained how he had come to wear it.

“What?” cried Old Mike. “You fool me like that?” And he caught the wrist, and when he had made sure there was no sign of swelling upon it, he shook it so that he almost sprained it really, laughing until the tears ran down his cheeks. “You old son-of-a-gun!” he exclaimed. Meantime Klowoski was telling the story to Zamierowski, and Jerry Minetti was explaining it to Wresmak, in the sort of pidgin-English which does duty in the camps. Hal had never seen such real laughter since coming to North Valley.

But conspirators cannot lend themselves long to merriment. They came back to business again. It was agreed that the hour for the committee's visit to the superintendent should be quitting-time on the morrow. And then John Edstrom spoke, suggesting that they should agree upon their course of action in case they were offered violence.

“You think there's much chance of that?” said some one.

“Sure there be!” cried Mike Sikoria. “One time in Cedar Mountain we go see boss, say air-course blocked. What you think he do them fellers? He hit them one lick in nose, he kick them three times in behind, he run them out!”

“Well,” said Hal, “if there's going to be anything like that, we must be ready.”

“What you do?” demanded Jerry.

It was time for Hal's leadership. “If he hits me one lick in the nose,” he declared, “I'll hit him one lick in the nose, that's all.”

There was a bit of applause at this. That was the way to talk! Hal tasted the joys of his leadership. But then his fine self-confidence met with a sudden check—a “lick in the nose” of his pride, so to speak. There came a woman's voice from the corner, low and grim: “Yes! And get ye'self killed for all your trouble!”

He looked towards Mary Burke, and saw her vivid face, flushed and frowning. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Would you have us turn and run away?”

“I would that!” said she. “Rather than have ye killed, I would! What'll ye do if he pulls his gun on ye?”

“Would he pull his gun on a committee?”

Old Mike broke in again. “One time in Barela—ain't I told you how I lose my cars? I tell weigh-boss somebody steal my cars, and he pull gun on me, and he say, 'Get the hell off that tipple, you old billy-goat, I shoot you full of holes!'”

Among his class-mates at college, Hal had been wont to argue that the proper way to handle a burglar was to call out to him, saying, “Go ahead, old chap, and help yourself; there's nothing here I'm willing to get shot for.” What was the value of anything a burglar could steal, in comparison with a man's own life? And surely, one would have thought, this was a good time to apply the plausible theory. But for some reason Hal failed even to remember it. He was going ahead, precisely as if a ton of coal per day was the one thing of consequence in life!

“What shall we do?” he asked. “We don't want to back out.”

But even while he asked the question, Hal was realising that Mary was right. His was the attitude of the leisure-class person, used to having his own way; but Mary, though she had a temper too, was pointing the lesson of self-control. It was the second time to-night that she had injured his pride. But now he forgave her in his admiration; he had always known that Mary had a mind and could help him! His admiration was increased by what John Edstrom was saying—they must do nothing that would injure the cause of the “big union,” and so they must resolve to offer no physical resistance, no matter what might be done to them.

There was vehement argument on the other side. “We fight! We fight!” declared Old Mike, and cried out suddenly, as if in anticipation of the pain in his injured nose. “You say me stand that?”

“If you fight back,” said Edstrom, “we'll all get the worst of it. The company will say we started the trouble, and put us in the wrong. We've got to make up our mind to rely on moral force.”

So, after more discussion, it was agreed; every man would keep his temper—that is, if he could! So they shook hands all round, pledging themselves to stand firm. But, when the meeting was declared adjourned, and they stole out one by one into the night, they were a very sober and anxious lot of conspirators.

SECTION 10.

Hal slept but little that night. Amid the sounds of the snoring of eight of Reminitsky's other boarders, he lay going over in his mind various things which might happen on the morrow. Some of them were far from pleasant things; he tried to picture himself with a broken nose, or with tar and feathers on him. He recalled his theory as to the handling of burglars. The “G. F. C.” was a burglar of gigantic and terrible proportions; surely this was a time to call out, “Help yourself!” But instead of doing it, Hal thought about Edstrom's ants, and wondered at the power which made them stay in line.

When morning came, he went up into the mountains, where a man may wander and renew his moral force. When the sun had descended behind the mountain-tops, he descended also, and met Edstrom and Sikoria in front of the company office.

They nodded a greeting, and Edstrom told Hal that his wife had died during the day. There being no undertaker in North Valley, he had arranged for a woman friend to take the body down to Pedro, so that he might be free for the interview with Cartwright. Hal put his hand on the old man's shoulder, but attempted no word of condolence; he saw that Edstrom had faced the trouble and was ready for duty.

“Come ahead,” said the old man, and the three went into the office. While a clerk took their message to the inner office, they stood for a couple of minutes, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, and turning their caps in their hands in the familiar manner of the lowly.

At last Mr. Cartwright appeared in the doorway, his small sparely-built figure eloquent of sharp authority. “Well, what's this?” he inquired.

“If you please,” said Edstrom, “we'd like to speak to you. We've decided, sir, that we want to have a check-weighman.”

“What?” The word came like the snap of a whip.

“We'd like to have a check-weighman, sir.”

There was a moment's silence. “Come in here.” They filed into the inner office, and he shut the door.

“Now. What's this?”

Edstrom repeated his words again.

“What put that notion into your heads?”

“Nothing, sir; only we thought we'd be better satisfied.”

“You think you're not getting your weight?”

“Well, sir, you see—some of the men—we think it would be better if we had the check-weighman. We're willing to pay for him.”

“Who's this check-weighman to be?”

“Joe Smith, here.”

Hal braced himself to meet the other's stare. “Oh! So it's you!” Then, after a moment, “So that's why you were feeling so gay!”

Hal was not feeling in the least gay at the moment; but he forebore to say so. There was a silence.

“Now, why do you fellows want to throw away your money?” The superintendent started to argue with them, showing the absurdity of the notion that they could gain anything by such a course. The mine had been running for years on its present system, and there had never been any complaint. The idea that a company as big and as responsible as the “G. F. C.” would stoop to cheat its workers out of a few tons of coal! And so on, for several minutes.

“Mr. Cartwright,” said Edstrom, when the other had finished, “you know I've worked all my life in mines, and most of it in this district. I am telling you something I know when I say there is general dissatisfaction throughout these camps because the men feel they are not getting their weight. You say there has been no public complaint; you understand the reason for this—”

“What is the reason?”

“Well,” said Edstrom, gently, “maybe you don't know the reason—but anyway we've decided that we want a check-weighman.”

It was evident that the superintendent had been taken by surprise, and was uncertain how to meet the issue. “You can imagine,” he said, at last, “the company doesn't relish hearing that its men believe it's cheating them—”

“We don't say the company knows anything about it, Mr. Cartwright. It's possible that some people may be taking advantage of us, without either the company or yourself having anything to do with it. It's for your protection as well as ours that a check-weighman is needed.”

“Thank you,” said the other, drily. His tone revealed that he was holding himself in by an effort. “Very well,” he added, at last. “That's enough about the matter, if your minds are made up. I'll give you my decision later.”

This was a dismissal, and Mike Sikoria turned humbly, and started to the door. But Edstrom was one of the ants that did not readily “step one side”; and Mike took a glance at him, and then stepped back into line in a hurry, as if hoping his delinquency had not been noted.

“If you please, Mr. Cartwright,” said Edstrom, “we'd like your decision, so as to have the check-weighman start in the morning.”

“What? You're in such a hurry?”

“There's no reason for delay, sir. We've selected our man, and we're ready to pay him.”

“Who are the men who are ready to pay him? Just you two”

“I am not at liberty to name the other men, sir.”

“Oh! So it's a secret movement!”

“In a way—yes, sir.”

“Indeed!” said the superintendent, ominously. “And you don't care what the company thinks about it!”

“It's not that, Mr. Cartwright, but we don't see anything for the company to object to. It's a simple business arrangement—”

“Well, if it seems simple to you, it doesn't to me,” snapped the other. And then, getting himself in hand, “Understand me, the company would not have the least objection to the men making sure of their weights, if they really think it's necessary. The company has always been willing to do the right thing. But it's not a matter that can be settled off hand. I will let you know later.”

Again they were dismissed, and again Old Mike turned, and Edstrom also. But now another ant sprang into the ditch. “Just when will you be prepared to let the check-weighman begin work, Mr. Cartwright?” asked Hal.

The superintendent gave him a sharp look, and again it could be seen that he made a strong effort to keep his temper. “I'm not prepared to say,” he replied. “I will let you know, as soon as convenient to me. That's all now.” And as he spoke he opened the door, putting something into the action that was a command.

“Mr. Cartwright,” said Hal, “there's no law against our having a check-weighman, is there?”

The look which these words drew from the superintendent showed that he knew full well what the law was. Hal accepted this look as an answer, and continued, “I have been selected by a committee of the men to act as their check-weighman, and this committee has duly notified the company. That makes me a check-weighman, I believe, Mr. Cartwright, and so all I have to do is to assume my duties.” Without waiting for the superintendent's answer, he walked to the door, followed by his somewhat shocked companions.

SECTION 11.

At the meeting on the night before it had been agreed to spread the news of the check-weighman movement, for the sake of its propaganda value. So now when the three men came out from the office, there was a crowd waiting to know what had happened; men clamoured questions, and each one who got the story would be surrounded by others eager to hear. Hal made his way to the boarding-house, and when he had finished his supper, he set out from place to place in the camp, telling the men about the check-weighman plan and explaining that it was a legal right they were demanding. All this while Old Mike stayed on one side of him, and Edstrom on the other; for Tom Olson had insisted strenuously that Hal should not be left alone for a moment. Evidently the bosses had given the same order; for when Hal came out from Reminitsky's, there was “Jake” Predovich, the store-clerk, on the fringe of the crowd, and he followed wherever Hal went, doubtless making note of every one he spoke to.

They consulted as to where they were to spend the night. Old Mike was nervous, taking the activities of the spy to mean that they were to be thugged in the darkness. He told horrible stories of that sort of thing. What could be an easier way for the company to settle the matter? They would fix up some story; the world outside would believe they had been killed in a drunken row, perhaps over some woman. This last suggestion especially troubled Hal; he thought of the people at home. No, he must not sleep in the village! And on the other hand he could not go down the canyon, for if he once passed the gate, he might not be allowed to repass it.

An idea occurred to him. Why not go up the canyon? There was no stockade at the upper end of the village—nothing but wilderness and rocks, without even a road.

“But where we sleep?” demanded Old Mike, aghast.

“Outdoors,” said Hal.

“Pluha biedna! And get the night air into my bones?”

“You think you keep the day air in your bones when you sleep inside?” laughed Hal.

“Why don't I, when I shut them windows tight, and cover up my bones?”

“Well, risk the night air once,” said Hal. “It's better than having somebody let it into you with a knife.”

“But that fellow Predovich—he follow us up canyon too!”

“Yes, but he's only one man, and we don't have to fear him. If he went back for others, he'd never be able to find us in the darkness.”

Edstrom, whose notions of anatomy were not so crude as Mike's, gave his support to this suggestion; so they got their blankets and stumbled up the canyon in the still, star-lit night. For a while they heard the spy behind them, but finally his footsteps died away, and after they had moved on for some distance, they believed they were safe till daylight. Hal had slept out many a night as a hunter, but it was a new adventure to sleep out as the game!

At dawn they rose, and shook the dew from their blankets, and wiped it from their eyes. Hal was young, and saw the glory of the morning, while poor Mike Sikoria groaned and grumbled over his stiff and aged joints. He thought he had ruined himself forever, but he took courage at Edstrom's mention of coffee, and they hurried down to breakfast at their boarding-house.

Now came a critical time, when Hal had to be left by himself. Edstrom was obliged to go down to see to his wife's funeral; and it was obvious that if Mike Sikoria were to lay off work, he would be providing the boss with an excuse for firing him. The law which provided for a check-weighman had failed to provide for a check-weighman's body-guard!

Hal had announced his programme in that flash of defiance in Cartwright's office. As soon as work started up, he went to the tipple. “Mr. Peters,” he said, to the tipple-boss, “I've come to act as check-weighman.”

The tipple-boss was a man with a big black moustache, which made him look like the pictures of Nietzsche. He stared at Hal, frankly dumbfounded. “What the devil?” said he.

“Some of the men have chosen me check-weighman,” explained Hal, in a business-like manner. “When their cars come up, I'll see to their weights.”

“You keep off this tipple, young fellow!” said Peters. His manner was equally business-like.

So the would-be check-weighman came out and sat on the steps to wait. The tipple was a fairly public place, and he judged he was as safe there as anywhere. Some of the men grinned and winked at him as they went about their work; several found a chance to whisper words of encouragement. And all morning he sat, like a protestant at the palace-gates of a mandarin in China, It was tedious work, but he believed that he would be able to stand it longer than the company.

SECTION 12.

In the middle of the morning a man came up to him—“Bud” Adams, a younger brother of the “J. P.,” and Jeff Cotton's assistant. Bud was stocky, red-faced, and reputed to be handy with his fists. So Hal rose up warily when he saw him.

“Hey, you,” said Bud. “There's a telegram at the office for you.”

“For me?”

“Your name's Joe Smith, ain't it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that's what it says.”

Hal considered for a moment. There was no one to be telegraphing Joe Smith. It was only a ruse to get him away.

“What's in the telegram?” he asked.

“How do I know?” said Bud.

“Where is it from?”

“I dunno that.”

“Well,” said Hal, “you might bring it to me here.”

The other's eyes flew open. This was not a revolt, it was a revolution! “Who the hell's messenger boy do you think I am?” he demanded.

“Don't the company deliver telegrams?” countered Hal, politely. And Bud stood struggling with his human impulses, while Hal watched him cautiously. But apparently those who had sent the messenger had given him precise instructions; for he controlled his wrath, and turned and strode away.

Hal continued his vigil. He had his lunch with him; and was prepared to eat alone—understanding the risk that a man would be running who showed sympathy with him. He was surprised, therefore, when Johannson, the giant Swede, came and sat down by his side. There also came a young Mexican labourer, and a Greek miner. The revolution was spreading!

Hal felt sure the company would not let this go on. And sure enough, towards the middle of the afternoon, the tipple-boss came out and beckoned to him. “Come here, you!” And Hal went in.

The “weigh-room” was a fairly open place; but at one side was a door into an office. “This way,” said the man.

But Hal stopped where he was.

“This is where the check-weighman belongs, Mr. Peters.”

“But I want to talk to you.”

“I can hear you, sir.” Hal was in sight of the men, and he knew that was his only protection.

The tipple-boss went back into the office; and a minute later Hal saw what had been intended. The door opened and Alec Stone came out.

He stood for a moment looking at his political henchman. Then he came up. “Kid,” he said, in a low voice, “you're overdoing this. I didn't intend you to go so far.”

“This is not what you intended, Mr. Stone,” answered Hal.

The pit-boss came closer yet. “What you looking for, kid? What you expect to get out of this?”

Hal's gaze was unwavering. “Experience,” he replied.

“You're feeling smart, sonny. But you'd better stop and realise what you're up against. You ain't going to get away with it, you know; get that through your head—you ain't going to get away with it. You'd better come in and have a talk with me.”

There was a silence.

“Don't you know how it'll be, Smith? These little fires start up—but we put 'em out. We know how to do it, we've got the machinery. It'll all be forgotten in a week or two, and then where'll you be at? Can't you see?”

As Hal still made no reply, the other's voice dropped lower. “I understand your position. Just give me a nod, and it'll be all right. You tell the men that you've watched the weights, and that they're all right. They'll be satisfied, and you and me can fix it up later.”

“Mr. Stone,” said Hal, with intense gravity, “am I correct in the impression that you are offering me a bribe?”

In a flash, the man's self-control vanished. He thrust his huge fist within an inch of Hal's nose, and uttered a foul oath. But Hal did not remove his nose from the danger-zone, and over the fist a pair of angry brown eyes gazed at the pit-boss. “Mr. Stone, you had better realise this situation. I am in dead earnest about this matter, and I don't think it will be safe for you to offer me violence.”

For a moment or two the man continued to glare at Hal; but it appeared that he, like Bud Adams, had been given instructions. He turned abruptly and strode back into the office.

Hal stood for a bit, until he had made sure of his composure. After which he strolled over towards the scales. A difficulty had occurred to him for the first time—that he did not know anything about the working of coal-scales.

But he was given no time to learn. The tipple-boss reappeared. “Get out of here, fellow!” said he.

“But you invited me in,” remarked Hal, mildly.

“Well, now I invite you out again.”

And so the protestant resumed his vigil at the mandarin's palace-gates.

SECTION 13.

When the quitting-whistle blew, Mike Sikoria came quickly to join Hal and hear what had happened. Mike was exultant, for several new men had come up to him and offered to join the check-weighman movement. The old fellow was not sure whether this was owing to his own eloquence as a propagandist, or to the fine young American buddy he had; but in either case he was equally proud. He gave Hal a note which had been slipped into his hand, and which Hal recognised as coming from Tom Olson. The organiser reported that every one in the camp was talking check-weighman, and so from a propaganda standpoint they could count their move a success, no matter what the bosses might do. He added that Hal should have a number of men stay with him that night, so as to have witnesses if the company tried to “pull off anything.” “And be careful of the new men,” he added; “one or two of them are sure to be spies.”

Hal and Mike discussed their programme for the second night. Neither of them were keen for sleeping out again—the old Slovak because of his bones, and Hal because he saw there were now several spies following them about. At Reminitsky's, he spoke to some of those who had offered their support, and asked them if they would be willing to spend the night with him in Edstrom's cabin. Not one shrank from this test of sincerity; they all got their blankets, and repaired to the place, where Hal lighted the lamp and held an impromptu check-weighman meeting—and incidentally entertained himself with a spy-hunt!

One of the new-comers was a Pole named Wojecicowski; this, on top of Zamierowski, caused Hal to give up all effort to call the Poles by their names. “Woji” was an earnest little man, with a pathetic, tired face. He explained his presence by the statement that he was sick of being robbed; he would pay his share for a check-weighman, and if they fired him, all right, he would move on, and to hell with them. After which declaration he rolled up in a blanket and went to snoring on the floor of the cabin. That did not seem to be exactly the conduct of a spy.

Another was an Italian, named Farenzena; a dark-browed and sinister-looking fellow, who might have served as a villain in any melodrama. He sat against the wall and talked in guttural tones, and Hal regarded him with deep suspicion. It was not easy to understand his English, but finally Hal managed to make out the story he was telling—that he was in love with a “fanciulla,” and that the “fanciulla” was playing with him. He had about made up his mind that she was a coquette, and not worth bothering with, so he did not care any curses if they sent him down the canyon. “Don't fight for fanciulla, fight for check-weighman!” he concluded, with a growl.

Another volunteer was a Greek labourer, a talkative young chap who had sat with Hal at lunch-time, and had given his name as Apostolikas. He entered into fluent conversation with Hal, explaining how much interested he was in the check-weighman plan; he wanted to know just what they were going to do, what chance of success they thought they had, who had started the movement and who was in it. Hal's replies took the form of little sermons on working-class solidarity. Each time the man would start to “pump” him, Hal would explain the importance of the present issue to the miners, how they must stand by one another and make sacrifices for the good of all. After he had talked abstract theories for half an hour, Apostolikas gave up and moved on to Mike Sikoria, who, having been given a wink by Hal, talked about “scabs,” and the dreadful things that honest workingmen would do to them. When finally the Greek grew tired again, and lay down on the floor, Hal moved over to Old Mike and whispered that the first name of Apostolikas must be Judas!

SECTION 14.

Old Mike went to sleep quickly; but Hal had not worked for several days, and had exciting thoughts to keep him awake. He had been lying quiet for a couple of hours, when he became aware that some one was moving in the room. There was a lamp burning dimly, and through half-closed eyes he made out one of the men lifting himself to a sitting position. At first he could not be sure which one it was, but finally he recognised the Greek.

Hal lay motionless, and after a minute or so he stole another look and saw the man crouching and listening, his hands still on the floor. Through half opened eye-lids Hal continued to steal glimpses, while the other rose and tip-toed towards him, stepping carefully over the sleeping forms.

Hal did his best to simulate the breathing of sleep: no easy matter, with the man stooping over him, and a knife-thrust as one of the possibilities of the situation. He took the chance, however; and after what seemed an age, he felt the man's fingers lightly touch his side. They moved down to his coat-pocket.

“Going to search me!” thought Hal; and waited, expecting the hand to travel to other pockets. But after what seemed an interminable period, he realised that Apostolikas had risen again, and was stepping back to his place. In a minute more he had lain down, and all was still in the cabin.

Hal's hand moved to the pocket, and his fingers slid inside. They touched something, which he recognised instantly as a roll of bills.

“I see!” thought he. “A frame-up!” And he laughed to himself, his mind going back to early boyhood—to a dilapidated trunk in the attic of his home, containing story-books that his father had owned. He could see them now, with their worn brown covers and crude pictures: “The Luck and Pluck Series,” by Horatio Alger; “Live or Die,” “Rough and Ready,” etc. How he had thrilled over the story of the country-boy who comes to the city, and meets the villain who robs his employer's cash-drawer and drops the key of it into the hero's pocket! Evidently some one connected with the General Fuel Company had read Horatio Alger!

Hal realised that he could not be too quick about getting those bills out of his pocket. He thought of returning them to “Judas,” but decided that he would save them for Edstrom, who was likely to need money before long. He gave the Greek half an hour to go to sleep, then with his pocket-knife he gently picked out a hole in the cinders of the floor and buried the money as best he could. After which he wormed his way to another place, and lay thinking.

SECTION 15.

Would they wait until morning, or would they come soon? He was inclined to the latter guess, so he was only slightly startled when, an hour or two later, he heard the knob of the cabin-door turned. A moment later came a crash and the door was burst open, with the shoulder of a heavy man behind it.

The room was in confusion in a second. Men sprang to their feet, crying out; others sat up bewildered, still half asleep. The room was bright from an electric torch in the hands of one of the invaders. “There's the fellow!” cried a voice, which Hal instantly recognised as belonging to Jeff Cotton, the camp-marshal. “Stick 'em up, there! You, Joe Smith!” Hal did not wait to see the glint of the marshal's revolver.

There followed a silence. As this drama was being staged for the benefit of the other men, it was necessary to give them time to get thoroughly awake, and to get their eyes used to the light. Meantime Hal stood, his hands in the air. Behind the torch he could make out the faces of the marshal, Bud Adams, Alec Stone, Jake Predovich, and two or three others.

“Now, men,” said Cotton, at last, “you are some of the fellows that want a check-weighman. And this is the man you chose. Is that right?”

There was no answer.

“I'm going to show you the kind of fellow he is. He came to Mr. Stone here and offered to sell you out.”

“It's a lie, men,” said Hal, quietly.

“He took some money from Mr. Stone to sell you out!” insisted the marshal.

“It's a lie,” said Hal, again.

“He's got that money now!” cried the other.

And Hal cried, in turn, “They are trying to frame something on me, boys! Don't let them fool you!”

“Shut up,” commanded the marshal; then, to the men, “I'll show you. I think he's got that money on him now. Jake, search him.”

The store-clerk advanced.

“Watch out, boys!” exclaimed Hal. “They will put something in my pockets.” And then to Old Mike, who had started angrily forward, “It's all right, Mike! Let them alone!”

“Jake, take off your coat,” ordered Cotton. “Roll up your sleeves. Show your hands.”

It was for all the world like the performance of a prestidigitator. The little Jew took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves above his elbows. He exhibited his hands to the audience, turning them this way and that; then, keeping them out in front of him, he came slowly towards Hal, like a hypnotist about to put him to sleep.

“Watch him!” said Cotton. “He's got that money on him, I know.”

“Look sharp!” cried Hal. “If it isn't there, they'll put it there.”

“Keep your hands up, young fellow,” commanded the marshal. “Keep back from him there!” This last to Mike Sikoria and the other spectators, who were pressing nearer, peering over one another's shoulders.

It was all very serious at the time, but afterwards, when Hal recalled the scene, he laughed over the grotesque figure of Predovich searching his pockets while keeping as far away from him as possible, so that every one might know that the money had actually come out of Hal's pocket. The searcher put his hands first in the inside pockets, then in the pockets of Hal's shirt. Time was needed to build up this climax!

“Turn around,” commanded Cotton; and Hal turned, and the Jew went through his trouser-pockets. He took out in turn Hal's watch, his comb and mirror, his handkerchief; after examining them and holding them up, he dropped them onto the floor. There was a breathless hush when he came to Hal's purse, and proceeded to open it. Thanks to the greed of the company, there was nothing in the purse but some small change. Predovich closed it and dropped it to the floor.

“Wait now! He's not through!” cried the master of ceremonies. “He's got that money somewhere, boys! Did you look in his side-pockets, Jake?”

“Not yet,” said Jake.

“Look sharp!” cried the marshal; and every one craned forward eagerly, while Predovich stooped down on one knee, and put his hand into one coat pocket and then into the other.

He took his hand out again, and the look of dismay upon his face was so obvious that Hal could hardly keep from laughing. “It ain't dere!” he declared.

“What?” cried Cotton, and they stared at each other. “By God, he's got rid of it!”

“There's no money on me, boys!” proclaimed Hal. “It's a job they are trying to put over on us.”

“He's hid it!” shouted the marshal. “Find it, Jake!”

Then Predovich began to search again, swiftly, and with less circumstance. He was not thinking so much about the spectators now, as about all that good money gone for nothing! He made Hal take off his coat, and ripped open the lining; he unbuttoned the trousers and felt inside; he thrust his fingers down inside Hal's shoes.

But there was no money, and the searchers were at a standstill. “He took twenty-five dollars from Mr. Stone to sell you out!” declared the marshal. “He's managed to get rid of it somehow.”

“Boys,” cried Hal, “they sent a spy in here, and told him to put money on me.” He was looking at Apostolikas as he spoke; he saw the man start and shrink back.

“That's him! He's a scab!” cried Old Mike. “He's got the money on him, I bet!” And he made a move towards the Greek.

So the camp-marshal realised suddenly that it was time to ring down the curtain on this drama. “That's enough of this foolishness,” he declared. “Bring that fellow along here!” And in a flash a couple of the party had seized Hal's wrists, and a third had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. Before the miners had time to realise what was happening, they had rushed their prisoner out of the cabin.

The quarter of an hour which followed was an uncomfortable one for the would-be check-weighman. Outside, in the darkness, the camp-marshal was free to give vent to his rage, and so was Alec Stone. They poured out curses upon him, and kicked him and cuffed him as they went along. One of the men who held his wrists twisted his arm, until he cried out with pain; then they cursed him harder, and bade him hold his mouth. Down the dark and silent street they went swiftly, and into the camp-marshal's office, and upstairs to the room which served as the North Valley jail. Hal was glad enough when they left him here, slamming the iron door behind them.

SECTION 16.

It had been a crude and stupid plot, yet Hal realised that it was adapted to the intelligence of the men for whom it was intended. But for the accident that he had stayed awake, they would have found the money on him, and next morning the whole camp would have heard that he had sold out. Of course his immediate friends, the members of the committee, would not have believed it; but the mass of the workers would have believed it, and so the purpose of Tom Olson's visit to North Valley would have been balked. Throughout the experiences which were to come to him, Hal retained his vivid impression of that adventure; it served to him as a symbol of many things. Just as the bosses had tried to bedevil him, to destroy his influence with his followers, so later on he saw them trying to bedevil the labour-movement, to confuse the intelligence of the whole country.

Now Hal was in jail. He went to the window and tried the bars—but found that they had been made for such trials. Then he groped his way about in the darkness, examining his prison, which proved to be a steel cage built inside the walls of an ordinary room. In one corner was a bench, and in another corner another bench, somewhat broader, with a mattress upon it. Hal had read a little about jails—enough to cause him to avoid this mattress. He sat upon the bare bench, and began to think.

It is a fact that there is a peculiar psychology incidental to being in jail; just as there is a peculiar psychology incidental to straining your back and breaking your hands loading coal-cars in a five foot vein; and another, and quite different psychology, produced by living at ease off the labours of coal-miners. In a jail, you have first of all the sense of being an animal; the animal side of your being is emphasised, the animal passions of hatred and fear are called into prominence, and if you are to escape being dominated by them, it can only be by intense and concentrated effort of the mind. So, if you are a thinking man, you do a great deal of thinking in a jail; the days are long, and the nights still longer—you have time for all the thoughts you can have.

The bench was hard, and seemed to grow harder. There was no position in which it could be made to grow soft. Hal got up and paced about, then he lay down for a while, then got up and walked again; and all the while he thought, and all the while the jail-psychology was being impressed upon his mind.

First, he thought about his immediate problem. What were they going to do to him? The obvious thing would be to put him out of camp, and so be done with him; but would they rest content with that, in their irritation at the trick he had played? Hal had heard vaguely of that native American institution, the “third degree,” but had never had occasion to think of it as a possibility in his own life. What a difference it made, to think of it in that way!

Hal had told Tom Olson that he would not pledge himself to organise a union, but that he would pledge himself to get a check-weighman; and Olson had laughed, and seemed quite content—apparently assuming that it would come to the same thing. And now, it rather seemed that Olson had known what he was talking about. For Hal found his thoughts no longer troubled with fears of labour union domination and walking delegate tyranny; on the contrary, he became suddenly willing for the people of North Valley to have a union, and to be as tyrannical as they knew how! And in this change, though Hal had no idea of it, he was repeating an experience common among reformers; many of whom begin as mild and benevolent advocates of some obvious bit of justice, and under the operation of the jail-psychology are made into blazing and determined revolutionists. “Eternal spirit of the chainless mind,” says Byron. “Greatest in dungeons Liberty thou art!”