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

The pole was withdrawn, and Hal sat on the bench, and began to write,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

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

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



SECTION 18.

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

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

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

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

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

"Pretty fair, thank you," answered Hal.

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

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

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

"No," said Hal.

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

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

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

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

"Socialist?"

"That depends upon developments here."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



SECTION 19.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh! You've got rid of them?"

"We've got rid of the ring-leaders."

"Of whom?"

"That old billy-goat, Sikoria, for one."

"You've shipped him?"

"We have."

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

"That," smiled the marshal, "is a job for _your_ secret-service
department!"

"And who else?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, I haven't got that far."

The marshal began blowing rings of smoke again.

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

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

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

"By 'making amends,' you mean I'm to disgrace myself--to tell the men
I'm a traitor?"

"Precisely," said the marshal.

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



SECTION 20.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well," said Hal, "has it never occurred to you that there might be some
in this _state_?"

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

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

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

"Who the devil are you?" cried the man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh, come off!" said the other.

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

"Be my guest," said the camp-marshal.

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

"I will let you know about that before you get through."

"Well, be quick. I'm a rapid eater."

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

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



SECTION 21.

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

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

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

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

"I'm getting you," replied the marshal.

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

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

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

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

There was a pause.

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

"Tell me, Cotton," said Hal, "did you never hear of _ennui_?"

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

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

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

"I go back for my senior year this fall."

"What college?"

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

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

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

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

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

"A little group--enough to leaven the lump."

"And this is your idea of a vacation?"

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

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

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

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



SECTION 22.

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

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

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

"No, we'll let you off from that."

"And you won't send me to the pen?"

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

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

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

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

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

"I mean just that."

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

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

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

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

"He'll laugh at you."

"And suppose I go to the Governor of the state?"

"He'll laugh still louder."

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

"My superiors? Who do you mean?"

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

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

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

"He will!" said the other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I hadn't noticed."

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

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

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



SECTION 23.

Jeff Cotton sprang forward. "Stop!" he cried.

But Hal did not stop.

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

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

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

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

"Come back and sit in this chair."

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

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

There was no reply.

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

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

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

There was silence.

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

Still there was silence.

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

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

"But you do, man! You know you do!"

"We give it when they ask their money ahead."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But why not?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



SECTION 24.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Anarchist?" cried the marshal. "_Me_ an anarchist?"

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

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

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

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

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

The marshal did not smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



SECTION 25.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



SECTION 26.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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