BOOK THREE — THE HENCHMEN OF KING COAL (continued 2)

It was not that he had regrets for the course he had taken with Percy. No other course had been thinkable. But while Hal had known these North Valley people for ten weeks, he had known the occupants of Percy's car for as many years. So these latter personalities loomed large in his consciousness, and here in the darkness their thoughts about him, whether actively hostile or passively astonished, laid siege to the defences of his mind.

Particularly he found himself wrestling with Jessie Arthur. Her face rose up before him, appealing, yearning. She had one of those perfect faces, which irresistibly compel the soul of a man. Her brown eyes, soft and shining, full of tenderness; her lips, quick to tremble with emotion; her skin like apple-blossoms, her hair with star-dust in it! Hal was cynical enough about coal-operators and mine-guards, but it never occurred to him that Jessie's soul might be anything but what these bodily charms implied. He was in love with her; and he was too young, too inexperienced in love to realise that underneath the sweetness of girlhood, so genuine and so lovable, might lie deep, unconscious cruelty, inherited and instinctive—the cruelty of caste, the hardness of worldly prejudice. A man has to come to middle age, and to suffer much, before he understands that the charms of women, those rare and magical perfections of eyes and teeth and hair, that softness of skin and delicacy of feature, have cost labour and care of many generations, and imply inevitably that life has been feral, that customs and conventions have been murderous and inhuman.

Jessie had failed Hal in his desperate emergency. But now he went over the scene, and told himself that the test had been an unfair one. He had known her since childhood, and loved her, and never before had he seen an act or heard a word that was not gracious and kind. But—so he told himself—she gave her sympathy to those she knew; and what chance had she ever had to know working-people? He must give her the chance; he must compel her, even against her will, to broaden her understanding of life! The process might hurt her, it might mar the unlined softness of her face, but nevertheless, it would be good for her—it would be a “growing pain”!

So, lying there in the darkness and silence, Hal found himself absorbed in long conversation with his sweetheart. He escorted her about the camp, explaining things to her, introducing her to this one and that. He took others of his private-car friends and introduced them to his North Valley friends. There were individuals who had qualities in common, and would surely hit it off! Bob Creston, for example, who was good at a “song and dance”—he would surely be interested in “Blinky,” the vaudeville specialist of the camp! Mrs. Curtis, who liked cats, would find a bond of sisterhood with old Mrs. Nagle, who lived next door to the Minettis, and kept five! And even Vivie Cass, who hated men who ate with their knives—she would be driven to murder by the table-manners of Reminitsky's boarders, but she would take delight in “Dago Charlie,” the tobacco-chewing mule which had once been Hal's pet! Hal could hardly wait for daylight to come, so that he might begin these efforts at social amalgamation!

SECTION 17.

Towards dawn Hal fell asleep; he was awakened by Billy Keating, who sat up yawning, at the same time grumbling and bewailing. Hal realised that Billy also had discovered troubles during the night. Never in all his career as a journalist had he had such a story; never had any man had such a story—and it must be killed!

Cartwright had got the reporters together late the night before and told them the news—that the company had at last succeeded in getting the mine ready to be opened; also that young Mr. Harrigan was there in his private train, prompted by his concern for the entombed miners. The reporters would mention his coming, of course, but were requested not to “play it up,” nor to mention the names of Mr. Harrigan's guests. Needless to say they were not told that the “buddy” who had been thrown out of camp for insubordination had turned out to be the son of Edward S. Warner, the “coal magnate.”

A fine, cold rain was falling, and Hal borrowed an old coat of Jerry's and slipped it on. Little Jerry clamoured to go with him, and after some controversy Hal wrapped him in a shawl and slung him onto his shoulder. It was barely daylight, but already the whole population of the village was on hand at the pit-mouth. The helmet-men had gone down to make tests, so the hour of final revelation was at hand. Women stood with wet shawls about their hunched shoulders, their faces white and strained, their suspense too great for any sort of utterance. A ghastly thought it was, that while they were shuddering in the wet, their men below might be expiring for lack of a few drops of water!

The helmet-men, coming up, reported that lights would burn at the bottom of the shaft; so it was safe for men to go down without helmets, and the volunteers of the first rescue party made ready. All night there had been a clattering of hammers, where the carpenters were working on a new cage. Now it was swung from the hoist, and the men took their places in it. When at last the hoist began to move, and the group disappeared below the surface of the ground, you could hear a sigh from a thousand throats, like the moaning of wind in a pine-tree. They were leaving women and children above, yet not one of these women would have asked them to stay—such was the deep unconscious bond of solidarity which made these toilers of twenty nations one!

It was a slow process, letting down the cage; on account of the danger of gas, and the newness of the cage, it was necessary to proceed a few feet at a time, waiting for a pull upon the signal-cord to tell that the men were all right. After they had reached the bottom, there would be more time, no one could say how long, before they came upon survivors with signs of life in them. There were bodies near the foot of the shaft, according to the reports of the helmet-men, but there was no use delaying to bring these up, for they must have been dead for days. Hal saw a crowd of women clamouring about the helmet-men, trying to find out if these bodies had been recognised. Also he saw Jeff Cotton and Bud Adams at their old duty of driving the women back.

The cage returned for a second load of men. There was less need of caution now; the hoist worked quickly, and group after group of men with silent, set faces, and pickaxes and crow-bars and shovels in their hands, went down into the pit of terror. They would scatter through the workings, testing everywhere ahead of them with safety-lamps, and looking for barriers erected by the imprisoned men for defence against the gases. As they hammered on these barriers, perhaps they would hear the signals of living men on the other side; or they would break through in silence, and find men too far gone to make a sound, yet possibly with the spark of life still in them.

One by one, Hal's friends went down—“Big Jack” David, and Wresmak, the Bohemian, Klowoski, the Pole, and finally Jerry Minetti. Little Jerry waved his hand from his perch on Hal's shoulder; while Rosa, who had come out and joined them, was clinging to Hal's arm, silent, as if her soul were going down in the cage. There went blue-eyed Tim Rafferty to look for his father, and black-eyed “Andy,” the Greek boy, whose father had perished in a similar disaster years ago; there went Rovetta, and Carmino, the pit-boss, Jerry's cousin. One by one their names ran through the crowd, as of heroes marching out to battle.

SECTION 18.

Looking about, Hal saw some of the guests of the Harrigan party. There was Vivie Cass, standing under an umbrella with Bert Atkins; and there was Bob Creston with Dicky Everson. These two had on mackintoshes and water-proof hats, and were talking to Cartwright; tall, immaculate men, who seemed like creatures of another world beside the stunted and coal-smutted miners.

Seeing Hal, they moved over to him. “Where did you get the kid?” inquired Bob, his rosy, smooth-shaven face breaking into a smile.

“I picked him up,” said Hal, giving Little Jerry a toss and sliding him off his shoulder.

“Hello, kid!” said Bob.

And the answer came promptly, “Hello, yourself!” Little Jerry knew how to talk American; he was a match for any society man! “My father's went down in that cage,” said he, looking up at the tall stranger, his bright black eyes sparkling.

“Is that so!” replied the other. “Why don't you go?”

“My father'll get 'em out. He ain't afraid o' nothin', my father!”

“What's your father's name?”

“Big Jerry.”

“Oho! And what'll you be when you grow up?”

“I'm goin' to be a shot-firer.”

“In this mine?”

“You bet not!”

“Why not?”

Little Jerry looked mysterious. “I ain't tellin' all I know,” said he.

The two young fellows laughed. Here was education for them! “Maybe you'll go back to the old country?” put in Dicky Everson.

“No, sir-ee!” said Little Jerry. “I'm American.”

“Maybe you'll be president some day.”

“That's what my father says,” replied the little chap—“president of a miners' union.”

Again they laughed; but Rosa gave a nervous whisper and caught at the child's sleeve. That was not the sort of thing to say to mysterious and rich-looking strangers! “This is Little Jerry's mother, Mrs. Minetti,” put in Hal, by way of reassuring her.

“Glad to meet you, Mrs. Minetti,” said the two young men, taking off their hats with elaborate bows; they stared, for Rosa was a pretty object as she blushed and made her shy response. She was much embarrassed, having never before in her life been bowed to by men like these.

And here they were greeting Joe Smith as an old friend, and calling him by a strange name! She turned her black Italian eyes upon Hal in inquiry, and he felt a flush creeping over him. It was almost as uncomfortable to be found out by North Valley as to be found out by Western City!

The men talked about the rescue-work, and what Cartwright had been telling of its progress. The fire was in one of the main passages, and was burning out the timbering, spreading rapidly under the draft from the reversed fan. There could be little hope of rescue in this part of the mine, but the helmet-men would defy the heat and smoke in the burned out passages. They knew how likely was the collapse of such portions of the mine; but also they knew that men had been working here before the explosion. “I must say they're a game lot!” remarked Dicky.

A group of women and children were gathered about to listen, their shyness overcome by their torturing anxiety for news. They made one think of women in war-time, listening to the roar of distant guns and waiting for the bringing in of the wounded. Hal saw Bob and Dicky glance now and then at the ring of faces about them; they were getting something of this mood, and that was a part of what he had desired for them.

“Are the others coming out?” he asked.

“I don't know,” said Bob. “I suppose they're having breakfast. It's time we went in.”

“Won't you come with us?” added Dicky.

“No, thanks,” replied Hal, “I've an engagement with the kid here.” And he gave Little Jerry's hand a squeeze. “But tell some of the other fellows to come. They'll be interested in these things.”

“All right,” said the two, as they moved away.

SECTION 19.

After allowing a sufficient time for the party in the dining-car to finish breakfast, Hal went down to the tracks, and induced the porter to take in his name to Percy Harrigan. He was hoping to persuade Percy to see the village under other than company chaperonage; he heard with dismay the announcement that the party had arranged to depart in the course of a couple of hours.

“But you haven't seen anything at all!” Hal protested.

“They won't let us into the mine,” replied the other. “What else is there we can do?”

“I wanted you to talk to the people and learn something about conditions here. You ought not to lose this chance, Percy!”

“That's all right, Hal, but you might understand this isn't a convenient time. I've got a lot of people with me, and I've no right to ask them to wait.”

“But can't they learn something also, Percy?”

“It's raining,” was the reply; “and ladies would hardly care to stand round in a crowd and see dead bodies brought out of a mine.”

Hal got the rebuke. Yes, he had grown callous since coming to North Valley; he had lost that delicacy of feeling, that intuitive understanding of the sentiments of ladies, which he would surely have exhibited a short time earlier in his life. He was excited about this disaster; it was a personal thing to him, and he lost sight of the fact that to the ladies of the Harrigan party it was, in its details, merely sordid and repelling. If they went out in the mud and rain of a mining-village and stood about staring, they would feel that they were exhibiting, not human compassion, but idle curiosity. The sights they would see would harrow them to no purpose; and incidentally they would be exposing themselves to distressing publicity. As for offering sympathy to widows and orphans—well, these were foreigners mostly, who could not understand what was said to them, and who might be more embarrassed than helped by the intrusion into their grief of persons from an alien world.

The business of offering sympathy had been reduced to a system by the civilisation which these ladies helped to maintain; and, as it happened, there was one present who was familiar with this system. Mrs. Curtis had already acted, so Percy informed Hal; she had passed about a subscription-paper, and in a couple of minutes over a thousand dollars had been pledged. This would be paid by check to the “Red Cross,” whose agents would understand how to distribute relief among such sufferers. So the members of Percy's party felt that they had done the proper and delicate thing, and might go their ways with a quiet conscience.

“The world can't stop moving just because there's been a mine-disaster,” said the Coal King's son. “People have engagements they must keep.”

And he went on to explain what these engagements were. He himself had to go to a dinner that evening, and would barely be able to make it. Bert Atkins was to play a challenge match at billiards, and Mrs. Curtis was to attend a committee meeting of a woman's club. Also it was the last Friday of the month; had Hal forgotten what that meant?

After a moment Hal remembered—the “Young People's Night” at the country club! He had a sudden vision of the white colonial mansion on the mountain-side, with its doors and windows thrown wide, and the strains of an orchestra floating out. In the ball-room the young ladies of Percy's party would appear—Jessie, his sweetheart, among them—gowned in filmy chiffons and laces, floating in a mist of perfume and colour and music. They would laugh and chatter, they would flirt and scheme against one another for the sovereignty of the ball-room—while here in North Valley the sobbing widows would be clutching their mangled dead in their arms! How strange, how ghastly it seemed! How like the scenes one read of on the eve of the French Revolution!

SECTION 20.

Percy wanted Hal to come away with the party. He suggested this tactfully at first, and then, as Hal did not take the hint, he began to press the matter, showing signs of irritation. The mine was open now—what more did Hal want? When Hal suggested that Cartwright might order it closed again, Percy revealed the fact that the matter was in his father's hands. The superintendent had sent a long telegram the night before, and an answer was due at any moment. Whatever the answer ordered would have to be done.

There was a grim look upon Hal's face, but he forced himself to speak politely. “If your father orders anything that interferes with the rescuing of the men—don't you see, Percy, that I have to fight him?”

“But how can you fight him?”

“With the one weapon I have—publicity.”

“You mean—” Percy stopped, and stared.

“I mean what I said before—I'd turn Billy Keating loose and blow this whole story wide open.”

“Well, by God!” cried young Harrigan. “I must say I'd call it damned dirty of you! You said you'd not do it, if I'd come here and open the mine!”

“But what good does it do to open it, if you close it again before the men are out?” Hal paused, and when he went on it was in a sincere attempt at apology. “Percy, don't imagine I fail to appreciate the embarrassments of this situation. I know I must seem a cad to you—more than you've cared to tell me. I called you my friend in spite of all our quarrels. All I can do is to assure you that I never intended to get into such a position as this.”

“Well, what the hell did you want to come here for? You knew it was the property of a friend—”

“That's the question at issue between us, Percy. Have you forgotten our arguments? I tried to convince you what it meant that you and I should own the things by which other people have to live. I said we were ignorant of the conditions under which our properties were worked, we were a bunch of parasites and idlers. But you laughed at me, called me a crank, an anarchist, said I swallowed what any muck-raker fed me. So I said: 'I'll go to one of Percy's mines! Then, when he tries to argue with me, I'll have him!' That was the way the thing started—as a joke. But then I got drawn into things. I don't want to be nasty, but no man with a drop of red blood in his veins could stay in this place a week without wanting to fight! That's why I want you to stay—you ought to stay, to meet some of the people and see for yourself.”

“Well, I can't stay,” said the other, coldly. “And all I can tell you is that I wish you'd go somewhere else to do your sociology.”

“But where could I go, Percy? Somebody owns everything. If it's a big thing, it's almost certain to be somebody we know.”

Said Percy, “If I might make a suggestion, you could have begun with the coal-mines of the Warner Company.”

Hal laughed. “You may be sure I thought of that, Percy. But see the situation! If I was to accomplish my purpose, it was essential that I shouldn't be known. And I had met some of my father's superintendents in his office, and I knew they'd recognise me. So I had to go to some other mines.”

“Most fortunate for the Warner Company,” replied Percy, in an ugly tone.

Hal answered, gravely, “Let me tell you, I don't intend to leave the Warner Company permanently out of my sociology.”

“Well,” replied the other, “all I can say is that we pass one of their properties on our way back, and nothing would please me better than to stop the train and let you off!”

SECTION 21.

Hal went into the drawing-room car. There were Mrs. Curtis and Reggie Porter, playing bridge with Genevieve Halsey and young Everson. Bob Creston was chatting with Betty Gunnison, telling her what he had seen outside, no doubt. Bert Atkins was looking over the morning paper, yawning. Hal went on, seeking Jessie Arthur, and found her in one of the compartments of the car, looking out of the rain-drenched window—learning about a mining-camp in the manner permitted to young ladies of her class.

He expected to find her in a disturbed state of mind, and was prepared to apologise. But when he met the look of distress she turned upon him, he did not know just where to begin. He tried to speak casually—he had heard she was going away. But she caught him by the hand, exclaiming: “Hal, you are coming with us!”

He did not answer for a moment, but sat down by her. “Have I made you suffer so much, Jessie?”

He saw tears start into her eyes. “Haven't you known you were making me suffer? Here I was as Percy's guest; and to have you put such questions to me! What could I say? What do I know about the way Mr. Harrigan should run his business?”

“Yes, dear,” he said, humbly. “Perhaps I shouldn't have drawn you into it. But the matter was so complicated and so sudden. Can't you understand that, and forgive me? Everything has turned out so well!”

But she did not think that everything had turned out well. “In the first place, for you to be here, in such a plight! And when I thought you were hunting mountain-goats in Mexico!”

He could not help laughing; but Jessie had not even a smile. “And then—to have you drag our love into the thing, there before every one!”

“Was that really so terrible, Jessie?”

She looked at him with amazement. That he, Hal Warner, could have done such a thing, and not realise how terrible it was! To put her in a position where she had to break either the laws of love or the laws of good-breeding! Why, it had amounted to a public quarrel. It would be the talk of the town—there was no end to the embarrassment of it!

“But, sweetheart!” argued Hal. “Try to see the reality of this thing—think about those people in the mine. You really must do that!”

She looked at him, and noticed the new, grim lines that had come upon his youthful face. Also, she caught the note of suppressed passion in his voice. He was pale and weary looking, in dirty clothes, his hair unkempt and his face only half washed. It was terrifying—as if he had gone to war.

“Listen to me, Jessie,” he insisted. “I want you to know about these things. If you and I are ever to make each other happy, you must try to grow up with me. That was why I was glad to have you here—you would have a chance to see for yourself. Now I ask you not to go without seeing.”

“But I have to go, Hal. I can't ask Percy Harrigan to stay and inconvenience everybody!”

“You can stay without him. You can ask one of the ladies to chaperon you.”

She gazed at him in dismay. “Why, Hal! What a thing to suggest!”

“Why so?”

“Think how it would look!”

“I can't think so much about looks, dear—”

She broke in: “Think what Mamma would say!”

“She wouldn't like it, I know—”

“She would be wild! She would never forgive either of us. She would never forgive any one who stayed with me. And what would Percy say, if I came here as his guest, and stayed to spy on him and his father? Don't you see how preposterous it would be?”

Yes, he saw. He was defying all the conventions of her world, and it seemed to her a course of madness. She clutched his hands in hers, and the tears ran down her cheeks.

“Hal,” she cried, “I can't leave you in this dreadful place! You look like a ghost, and a scarecrow, too! I want you to go and get some decent clothes and come home on this train.”

But he shook his head. “It's not possible, Jessie.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have a duty to do here. Can't you understand, dear? All my life, I've been living on the labour of coal-miners, and I've never taken the trouble to go near them, to see how my money was got!”

“But, Hal! These aren't your people! They are Mr. Harrigan's people!”

“Yes,” he said, “but it's all the same. They toil, and we live on their toil, and take it as a matter of course.”

“But what can one do about it, Hal?”

“One can understand it, if nothing else. And you see what I was able to do in this case—to get the mine open.”

“Hal,” she exclaimed, “I can't understand you! You've become so cynical, you don't believe in any one! You're quite convinced that these officials meant to murder their working people! As if Mr. Harrigan would let his mines be run that way!”

“Mr. Harrigan, Jessie? He passes the collection plate at St. George's! That's the only place you've ever seen him, and that's all you know about him.”

“I know what everybody says, Hal! Papa knows him, and my brothers—yes, your own brother, too! Isn't it true that Edward would disapprove what you're doing?”

“Yes, dear, I fear so.”

“And you set yourself up against them—against everybody you know! Is it reasonable to think the older people are all wrong, and only you are right? Isn't it at least possible you're making a mistake? Think about it—honestly, Hal, for my sake!”

She was looking at him pleadingly; and he leaned forward and took her hand. “Jessie,” he said, his voice trembling, “I know that these working people are oppressed; I know it, because I have been one of them! And I know that such men as Peter Harrigan, and even my own brother, are to blame! And they've got to be faced by some one—they've got to be made to see! I've come to see it clearly this summer—that's the job I have to do!”

She was gazing at him with her wide-open, beautiful eyes; underneath her protests and her terror, she was thrilling with awe at this amazing madman she loved. “They will kill you!” she cried.

“No, dearest—you don't need to worry about that—I don't think they'll kill me.”

“But they shot at you!”

“No, they shot at Joe Smith, a miner's buddy. They won't shoot at the son of a millionaire—not in America, Jessie.”

“But some dark night—”

“Set your mind at rest,” he said, “I've got Percy tied up in this, and everybody knows it. There's no way they could kill me without the whole story's coming out—and so I'm as safe as I would be in my bed at home!”

SECTION 22.

Hal was still possessed by his idea that Jessie must be taught—she must have knowledge forced upon her, whether she would or no. The train would not start for a couple of hours, and he tried to think of some use he could make of that precious interval. He recalled that Rosa Minetti had returned to her cabin to attend to her baby. A sudden vision came to him of Jessie in that little home. Rosa was sweet and good, and assuredly Little Jerry was a “winner.”

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I wish you'd come for a walk with me.”

“But it's raining, Hal!”

“It won't hurt you to spoil one dress; you have plenty.”

“I'm not thinking of that—”

“I wish you'd come.”

“I don't feel comfortable about it, Hal. I'm here as Percy's guest, and he mightn't like—”

“I'll ask him if he objects to your taking a stroll,” he suggested, with pretended gravity.

“No, no! That would make it worse!” Jessie had no humour whatever about these matters.

“Well, Vivie Cass was out, and some of the others are going. He hasn't objected to that.”

“I know, Hal. But he knows they're all right.”

Hal laughed. “Come on, Jessie. Percy won't hold you for my sins! You have a long train journey before you, and some fresh air will be good for you.”

She saw that she must make some concession to him, if she was to keep any of her influence over him.

“All right,” she said, with resignation, and disappeared and returned with a heavy veil over her face, to conceal her from prying reportorial eyes; also an equipment of mackintosh, umbrella and overshoes, against the rain. The two stole out of the car, feeling like a couple of criminals.

Skirting the edge of the throng about the pit-mouth, they came to the muddy, unpaved quarter in which the Italians had their homes; he held her arm, steering her through the miniature sloughs and creeks. It was thrilling to him to have her with him thus, to see her sweet face and hear her voice full of love. Many a time he had thought of her here, and told her in his imagination of his experiences!

He told her now—about the Minetti family, and how he had met Big and Little Jerry on the street, and how they had taken him in, and then been driven by fear to let him go again. He told his check-weighman story, and was telling how Jeff Cotton had arrested him; but they came to the Minetti cabin, and the terrifying narrative was cut short.

It was Little Jerry who came to the door, with the remains of breakfast distributed upon his cheeks; he stared in wonder at the mysteriously veiled figure. Entering, they saw Rosa sitting in a chair nursing her baby. She rose in confusion; but she did not quite like to turn her back upon her guests, so she stood trying to hide her breast as best she could, blushing and looking very girlish and pretty.

Hal introduced Jessie, as an old friend who was interested to meet his new friends, and Jessie threw back her veil and sat down. Little Jerry wiped off his face at his mother's command, and then came where he could stare at this incredibly lovely vision.

“I've been telling Miss Arthur what good care you took of me,” said Hal to Rosa. “She wanted to come and thank you for it.”

“Yes,” added Jessie, graciously. “Anybody who is good to Hal earns my gratitude.”

Rosa started to murmur something; but Little Jerry broke in, with his cheerful voice, “Why you call him Hal? His name's Joe!”

“Ssh!” cried Rosa. But Hal and Jessie laughed—and so the process of Americanising Little Jerry was continued.

“I've got lots of names,” said Hal. “They called me Hal when I was a kid like you.”

“Did she know you then?” inquired Little Jerry.

“Yes, indeed.”

“Is she your girl?”

Rosa laughed shyly, and Jessie blushed, and looked charming. She realised vaguely a difference in manners. These people accepted the existence of “girls,” not concealing their interest in the phenomenon.

“It's a secret,” warned Hal. “Don't you tell on us!”

“I can keep a secret,” said Little Jerry. After a moment's pause he added, dropping his voice, “You gotta keep secrets if you work in North Valley.”

“You bet your life,” said Hal.

“My father's a Socialist,” continued the other, addressing Jessie; then, since one thing leads on to another, “My father's a shot-firer.”

“What's a shot-firer?” asked Jessie, by way of being sociable.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Little Jerry. “Don't you know nothin' about minin'?”

“No,” said Jessie. “You tell me.”

“You couldn't get no coal without a shot-firer,” declared Little Jerry. “You gotta get a good one, too, or maybe you bust up the mine. My father's the best they got.”

“What does he do?”

“Well, they got a drill—long, long, like this, all the way across the room; and they turn it and bore holes in the coal. Sometimes they got machines to drill, only we don't like them machines, 'cause it takes the men's jobs. When they got the holes, then the shot-firer comes and sets off the powder. You gotta have—” and here Little Jerry slowed up, pronouncing each syllable very carefully—“per-miss-i-ble powder—what don't make no flame. And you gotta know just how much to put in. If you put in too much, you smash the coal, and the miner raises hell; if you don't put in enough, you make too much work for him, an' he raises hell again. So you gotta get a good shot-firer.”

Jessie looked at Hal, and he saw that her dismay was mingled with genuine amusement. He judged this a good way for her to get her education, so he proceeded to draw out Little Jerry on other aspects of coal-mining: on short weights and long hours, grafting bosses and camp-marshals, company-stores and boarding-houses, Socialist agitators and union organisers. Little Jerry talked freely of the secrets of the camp. “It's all right for you to know,” he remarked gravely. “You're Joe's girl!”

“You little cherub!” exclaimed Jessie.

“What's a cherub?” was Little Jerry's reply.

SECTION 23.

So the time passed in a way that was pleasant. Jessie was completely won by this little Dago mine-urchin, in spite of all his frightful curse-words; and Hal saw that she was won, and was delighted by the success of this experiment in social amalgamation. He could not read Jessie's mind, and realise that underneath her genuine delight were reservations born of her prejudices, the instinctive cruelty of caste. Yes, this little mine chap was a cherub, now; but how about when he grew big? He would grow ugly and coarse-looking, in ten years one would not know him from any other of the rough and dirty men of the village. Jessie took the fact that common people grow ugly as they mature as a proof that they are, in some deep and permanent way, the inferiors of those above them. Hal was throwing away his time and strength, trying to make them into something which Nature had obviously not intended them to be! She decided to make that point to Hal on their way back to the train. She realised that he had brought her here to educate her; like all the rest of the world, she resented forcible education, and she was not without hope that she might turn the tables and educate Hal.

Pretty soon Rosa finished nursing the baby, and Jessie remarked the little one's black eyes. This topic broke down the mother's shyness, and they were chatting pleasantly, when suddenly they heard sounds outside which caused them to start up. It was a clamour of women's voices; and Hal and Rosa sprang to the door. Just now was a critical time, when every one was on edge for news.

Hal threw open the door and called to those outside “What is it?” There came a response, in a woman's voice, “They've found Rafferty!”

“Alive?”

“Nobody knows yet.”

“Where?”

“In Room Seventeen. Eleven of them—Rafferty, and young Flanagan, and Johannson, the Swede. They're near dead—can't speak, they say. They won't let anybody near them.”

Other voices broke in; but the one which answered Hal had a different quality; it was a warm, rich voice, unmistakably Irish, and it held Jessie's attention. “They've got them in the tipple-room, and the women want to know about their men, and they won't tell them. They're beatin' them back like dogs!”

There was a tumult of weeping, and Hal stepped out of the cabin, and in a minute or so he entered again, supporting on his arm a girl, clad in a faded blue calico dress, and having a head of very conspicuous red hair. She seemed half fainting, and kept moaning that it was horrible, horrible. Hal led her to a chair, and she sank into it and hid her face in her hands, sobbing, talking incoherently between her sobs.

Jessie stood looking at this girl. She felt the intensity of her excitement, and shared it; yet at the same time there was something in Jessie that resented it. She did not wish to be upset about things like this, which she could not help. Of course these unfortunate people were suffering; but—what a shocking lot of noise the poor thing was making! A part of the poor thing's excitement was rage, and Jessie realised that, and resented it still more. It was as if it were a personal challenge to her; the same as Hal's fierce social passions, which so bewildered and shocked her.

“They're beatin' the women back like dogs!” the girl repeated.

“Mary,” said Hal, trying to soothe her, “the doctors will be doing their best. The women couldn't expect to crowd about them!”

“Maybe they couldn't; but that's not it, Joe, and ye know it! They been bringin' up dead bodies, some they found where the explosion was—blown all to pieces. And they won't let anybody see them. Is that because of the doctors? No, it ain't! It's because they want to tell lies about the number killed! They want to count four or five legs to a man! And that's what's drivin' the women crazy! I saw Mrs. Zamboni, tryin' to get into the shed, and Pete Hanun caught her by the breasts and shoved her back. 'I want my man!' she screamed. 'Well, what do you want him for? He's all in pieces!' 'I want the pieces!' 'What good'll they do you? Are you goin' to eat him?'”

There were cries of horror now, even from Jessie; and the strange girl hid her face in her hands and began to sob again. Hal put his hand gently on her arm.

“Mary,” he pleaded, “it's not so bad—at least they're getting the people out.”

“How do ye know what they're doin'? They might be sealin' up parts of the mine down below! That's what makes it so horrible—nobody knows what's happenin'! Ye should have heard poor Mrs. Rafferty screamin'. Joe, it went through me like a knife. Just think, it's been half an hour since they brought him up, and the poor lady can't be told if her man is alive.”

SECTION 24.

Hal stood for a few moments in thought. He was surprised that such things should be happening while Percy Harrigan's train was in the village. He was considering whether he should go to Percy, or whether a hint to Cotton or Cartwright would not be sufficient.

“Mary,” he said, in a quiet voice, “you needn't distress yourself so. We can get better treatment for the women, I'm sure.”

But her sobbing went on. “What can ye do? They're bound to have their way!”

“No,” said Hal. “There's a difference now. Believe me—something can be done. I'll step over and have a word with Jeff Cotton.”

He started towards the door; but there came a cry: “Hal!” It was Jessie, whom he had almost forgotten in his sudden anger at the bosses.

At her protest he turned and looked at her; then he looked at Mary. He saw the latter's hands fall from her tear-stained face, and her expression of grief give way to one of wonder. “Hal!”

“Excuse me,” he said, quickly. “Miss Burke, this is my friend, Miss Arthur.” Then, not quite sure if this was a satisfactory introduction, he added, “Jessie, this is my friend, Mary.”

Jessie's training could not fail in any emergency. “Miss Burke,” she said, and smiled with perfect politeness. But Mary said nothing, and the strained look did not leave her face.

In the first excitement she had almost failed to notice this stranger; but now she stared, and realisation grew upon her. Here was a girl, beautiful with a kind of beauty hardly to be conceived of in a mining-camp; reserved, yet obviously expensive—even in a mackintosh and rubber-shoes. Mary was used to the expensiveness of Mrs. O'Callahan, but here was a new kind of expensiveness, subtle and compelling, strangely unconscious. And she laid claim to Joe Smith, the miner's buddy! She called him by a name hitherto unknown to his North Valley associates! It needed no word from Little Jerry to guide Mary's instinct; she knew in a flash that here was the “other girl.”

Mary was seized with sudden acute consciousness of the blue calico dress, patched at the shoulder and stained with grease-spots; of her hands, big and rough with hard labour; of her feet, clad in shoes worn sideways at the heel, and threatening to break out at the toes. And as for Jessie, she too had the woman's instinct; she too saw a girl who was beautiful, with a kind of beauty of which she did not approve, but which she could not deny—the beauty of robust health, of abounding animal energy. Jessie was not unaware of the nature of her own charms, having been carefully educated to conserve them; nor did she fail to make note of the other girl's handicaps—the patched and greasy dress, the big rough hands, the shoes worn sideways. But even so, she realised that “Red Mary” had a quality which she lacked—that beside this wild rose of a mining-camp, she, Jessie Arthur, might possibly seem a garden flower, fragile and insipid.

She had seen Hal lay his hand upon Mary's arm, and heard her speak to him. She called him Joe! And a sudden fear had leaped into Jessie's heart.

Like many girls who have been delicately reared, Jessie Arthur knew more than she admitted, even to herself. She knew enough to realise that young men with ample means and leisure are not always saints and ascetics. Also, she had heard the remark many times made that these women of the lower orders had “no morals.” Just what did such a remark mean? What would be the attitude of such a girl as Mary Burke—full-blooded and intense, dissatisfied with her lot in life—to a man of culture and charm like Hal? She would covet him, of course; no woman who knew him could fail to covet him. And she would try to steal him away from his friends, from the world to which he belonged, the future of happiness and ease to which he was entitled. She would have powers—dark and terrible powers, all the more appalling to Jessie because they were mysterious. Might they possibly be able to overcome even the handicap of a dirty calico dress, of big rough hands and shoes worn sideways?

These reflections, which have taken many words to explain, came to Jessie in one flash of intuition. She understood now, all at once, the incomprehensible phenomenon—that Hal should leave friends and home and career, to come and live amid this squalor and suffering! She saw the old drama of the soul of man, heaven and hell contending for mastery of it; and she knew that she was heaven, and that this “Red Mary” was hell.

She looked at Hal. He seemed to her so fine and true; his face was frank, he was the soul of honourableness. No, it was impossible to believe that he had yielded to such a lure! If that had been the case, he would never have brought her to this cabin, he would never have taken a chance of her meeting the girl. No; but he might be struggling against temptation, he might be in the toils of it, and only half aware of it. He was a man, and therefore blind; he was a dreamer, and it would be like him to idealise this girl, calling her naïve and primitive, thinking that she had no wiles! Jessie had come just in time to save him! And she would fight to save him—using wiles more subtle than those at the command of any mining-camp hussy!

SECTION 25.

It was the surging up in Jessie Arthur of that instinctive self, the creature of hereditary cruelty, of the existence of which Hal had no idea. She drew back, and there was a quiet hauteur in her tone as she spoke. “Hal, come here, please.”

He came; and she waited until he was close enough for intimacy, and then said, “Have you forgotten you have to take me back to the train?”

“Can't you come with me for a few minutes?” he pleaded. “It would have such a good effect if you did.”

“I can't go into that crowd,” she answered; and suddenly her voice trembled, and the tears came into her sweet brown eyes. “Don't you know, Hal, that I couldn't stand such terrible sights? This poor girl—she is used to them—she is hardened! But I—I—oh, take me away, take me away, dear Hal!” This cry of a woman for protection came with a familiar echo to Hal's mind. He did not stop to think—he was moved by it instinctively. Yes, he had exposed the girl he loved to suffering! He had meant it for her own good, but even so, it was cruel!

He stood close to her, and saw the love-light in her eyes; he saw the tears, the trembling of her sensitive chin. She swayed to him, and he caught her in his arms—and there, before these witnesses, she let him press her to him, while she sobbed and whispered her distress. She had been shy of caresses hitherto, watched and admonished by an experienced mother; certainly she had never before made what could by the remotest stretch of the imagination be considered an advance towards him. But now she made it, and there was a cry of triumph in her soul as she saw that he responded to it. He was still hers—and these low people should know it, this “other girl” should know it!

Yet, in the midst of this very exultation, Jessie Arthur really felt the grief she expressed for the women of North Valley; she really felt horror at the story of Mrs. Zamboni's “man”: so intricate is the soul of woman, so puzzling that faculty, older than the ages, which enables her to be hysterical, and at the same time to be guided in the use of that hysteria by deep and infallible calculation.

But she made Hal realise that it was necessary for him to take her away. He turned to Mary Burke and said, “Miss Arthur's train is leaving in a short time. I'll have to take her hack, and then I'll go to the pit-mouth with you and see what I can do.”

“Very well,” Mary answered; and her voice was hard and cold. But Hal did not notice this. He was a man, and not able to keep up with the emotions of one woman—to say nothing of two women at the same time.

He took Jessie out, and all the way back to the train she fought a desperate fight to get him away from here. She no longer even suggested that he get decent clothing; she was willing for him to come as he was, in his coal-stained mining-jumpers, in the private train of the Coal King's son. She besought him in the name of their affection. She threatened him that if he did not come, this might be the last time they would meet. She even broke down in the middle of the street, and let him stand there in plain sight of miners' wives and children, and of possible newspaper reporters, holding her in his arms and comforting her.

Hal was much puzzled; but he would not give way. The idea of going off in Percy Harrigan's train had come to seem morally repulsive to him; he hated Percy Harrigan's train, and Percy Harrigan also, he declared. And Jessie saw that she was only making him unreasonable—that before long he might be hating her. With her instinctive savoir faire, she brought up his suggestion that she might find some one to chaperon her, and stay with him at North Valley until he was ready to come away.

Hal's heart leaped at that; he had no idea what was in her mind—the certainty that no one of the ladies of the Harrigan party would run the risk of offending her host by staying under such circumstances.

“You mean it, sweetheart?” he cried, happily.

She answered, “I mean that I love you, Hal.”

“All right, dear!” he said. “We'll see if we can arrange it.”

But as they walked on, she managed, without his realising it, to cause him to reflect upon the effect of her staying. She was willing to do it, if it was what he wanted; but it would injure, perhaps irrevocably, his standing with her parents. They would telegraph her to come at once; and if she did not obey, they would come by the next train. So on, until at last Hal was moved to withdraw his own suggestion. After all, what was the use of her staying, if her mind was on the people at home, if she would simply keep him in hot water? Before the conversation was over Hal had become clear in his mind that North Valley was no place for Jessie Arthur, and that he had been a fool to think he could bring the two together.

She tried to get him to promise to leave as soon as the last man had been brought out of the mine. He answered that he intended to leave then, unless some new emergency should arise. She tried to get an unqualified promise; and failing in that, when they had nearly got to the train she suddenly made a complete surrender. Let him do what he pleased—but let him remember that she loved him, that she needed him, that she could not do without him. No matter what he might do, no matter what people might say about him, she believed in him, she would stand by him. Hal was deeply touched, and took her in his arms again and kissed her tenderly under the umbrella, in the presence of the wondering stares of several urchins with coal-smutted faces. He pledged anew his love for her, assuring her that no amount of interest in mining-camps should ever steal him from her.

Then he put her on the train, and shook hands with the departing guests. He was so very sombre and harassed-looking that the young men forbore to “kid” him as they would otherwise have done. He stood on the station-platform and saw the train roll away—and felt, to his own desperate bewilderment, that he hated these friends of his boyhood and youth. His reason protested against it; he told himself there was nothing they could do, no reason on earth for them to stay—and yet he hated them. They were hurrying off to dance and flirt at the country club—while he was going back to the pit-mouth, to try to get Mrs. Zamboni the right to inspect the pieces of her “man”!