Book 2. The Serfs Of King Coal - Section 1 To Section 5

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_ BOOK TWO
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." _

Read next: Book 2. The Serfs Of King Coal: Section 6 To Section 10

Read previous: Book 1. The Domain Of King Coal: Section 26 To Section 29

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