KING COAL

_A NOVEL_

BY

UPTON SINCLAIR



TO

MARY CRAIG KIMBROUGH

To whose persistence in the perilous task of tearing her husband's
manuscript to pieces, the reader is indebted for the absence of most of
the faults from this book.



CONTENTS


BOOK ONE

THE DOMAIN OF KING COAL


BOOK TWO

THE SERFS OF KING COAL


BOOK THREE

THE HENCHMEN OF KING COAL


BOOK FOUR

THE WILL OF KING COAL




INTRODUCTION


Upton Sinclair is one of the not too many writers who have consecrated
their lives to the agitation for social justice, and who have also
enrolled their art in the service of a set purpose. A great and
non-temporizing enthusiast, he never flinched from making sacrifices.
Now and then he attained great material successes as a writer, but
invariably he invested and lost his earnings in enterprises by which he
had hoped to ward off injustice and to further human happiness. Though
disappointed time after time, he never lost faith nor courage to start
again.

As a convinced socialist and eager advocate of unpopular doctrines, as
an exposer of social conditions that would otherwise be screened away
from the public eye, the most influential journals of his country were
as a rule arraigned against him. Though always a poor man, though never
willing to grant to publishers the concessions essential for many
editions and general popularity, he was maliciously represented to be a
carpet knight of radicalism and a socialist millionaire. He has several
times been obliged to change his publisher, which goes to prove that he
is no seeker of material gain.

Upton Sinclair is one of the writers of the present time most deserving
of a sympathetic interest. He shows his patriotism as an American, not
by joining in hymns to the very conditional kind of liberty peculiar to
the United States, but by agitating for infusing it with the elixir of
real liberty, the liberty of humanity. He does not limit himself to a
dispassionate and entertaining description of things as they are. But in
his appeals to the honour and good-fellowship of his compatriots, he
opens their eyes to the appalling conditions under which wage-earning
slaves are living by the hundreds of thousands. His object is to better
these unnatural conditions, to obtain for the very poorest a glimpse of
light and happiness, to make even them realise the sensation of cosy
well-being and the comfort of knowing that justice is to be found also
for them.

This time Upton Sinclair has absorbed himself in the study of the
miner's life in the lonesome pits of the Rocky Mountains, and his
sensitive and enthusiastic mind has brought to the world an American
parallel to GERMINAL, Emile Zola's technical masterpiece.

The conditions described in the two books are, however, essentially
different. While Zola's working-men are all natives of France, one meets
in Sinclair's book a motley variety of European emigrants, speaking a
Babel of languages and therefore debarred from forming some sort of
association to protect themselves against being exploited by the
anonymous limited Company. Notwithstanding this natural bar against
united action on the part of the wage-earning slaves, the Company feels
far from at ease and jealously guards its interests against any attempt
of organising the men.

A young American of the upper class, with great sympathy for the
downtrodden and an honest desire to get a first-hand knowledge of their
conditions in order to help them, decides to take employment in a mine
under a fictitious name and dressed like a working-man. His unusual way
of trying to obtain work arouses suspicion. He is believed to be a
professional strike-leader sent out to organise the miners against their
exploiters, and he is not only refused work, but thrashed mercilessly.
When finally he succeeds in getting inside, he discovers with growing
indignation the shameless and inhuman way in which those who unearth the
black coal are being exploited.

These are the fundamental ideas of the book, but they give but a faint
notion of the author's poetic attitude. Most beautifully is this shown
in Hal's relation to a young Irish girl, Red Mary. She is poor, and her
daily life harsh and joyless, but nevertheless her wonderful grace is
one of the outstanding features of the book. The first impression of
Mary is that of a Celtic Madonna with a tender heart for little
children. She develops into a ValkГјre of the working-class, always ready
to fight for the worker's right.

The last chapters of the book give a description of the miners' revolt
against the Company. They insist upon their right to choose a deputy to
control the weighing-in of the coal, and upon having the mines sprinkled
regularly to prevent explosion. They will also be free to buy their food
and utensils wherever they like, even in shops not belonging to the
Company.

In a postscript Sinclair explains the fundamental facts on which his
work of art has been built up. Even without the postscript one could not
help feeling convinced that the social conditions he describes are true
to life. The main point is that Sinclair has not allowed himself to
become inspired by hackneyed phrases that bondage and injustice and the
other evils and crimes of Kingdoms have been banished from Republics,
but that he is earnestly pointing to the honeycombed ground on which the
greatest modern money-power has been built. The fundament of this power
is not granite, but mines. It lives and breathes in the light, because
it has thousands of unfortunates toiling in the darkness. It lives and
has its being in proud liberty because thousands are slaving for it,
whose thraldom is the price of this liberty.

This is the impression given to the reader of this exciting novel.

GEORG BRANDES.




BOOK ONE

THE DOMAIN OF KING COAL



SECTION 1.

The town of Pedro stood on the edge of the mountain country; a
straggling assemblage of stores and saloons from which a number of
branch railroads ran up into the canyons, feeding the coal-camps.
Through the week it slept peacefully; but on Saturday nights, when the
miners came trooping down, and the ranchmen came in on horseback and in
automobiles, it wakened to a seething life.

At the railroad station, one day late in June, a young man alighted from
a train. He was about twenty-one years of age, with sensitive features,
and brown hair having a tendency to waviness. He wore a frayed and faded
suit of clothes, purchased in a quarter of his home city where the
Hebrew merchants stand on the sidewalks to offer their wares; also a
soiled blue shirt without a tie, and a pair of heavy boots which had
seen much service. Strapped on his back was a change of clothing and a
blanket, and in his pockets a comb, a toothbrush, and a small pocket
mirror.

Sitting in the smoking-car of the train, the young man had listened to
the talk of the coal-camps, seeking to correct his accent. When he got
off the train he proceeded down the track and washed his hands with
cinders, and lightly powdered some over his face. After studying the
effect of this in his mirror, he strolled down the main street of Pedro,
and, selecting a little tobacco-shop, went in. In as surly a voice as he
could muster, he inquired of the proprietress, "Can you tell me how to
get to the Pine Creek mine?"

The woman looked at him with no suspicion in her glance. She gave the
desired information, and he took a trolley and got off at the foot of
the Pine Creek canyon, up which he had a thirteen-mile trudge. It was
a sunshiny day, with the sky crystal clear, and the mountain air
invigourating. The young man seemed to be happy, and as he strode on
his way, he sang a song with many verses:

  "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!

  "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!

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

  "Oh, Mary-Jane, come out in the lane,
    The moon is a-shinin' in the old pecan;
  Oh, Mary-Jane, don't you hear me a-sayin'
    I'll sing you the song of Harrigan!

  "So hurrah for King Coal, and his fat pay-roll,
    And his wheels of industree!
  Hurrah for his pipe, and hurrah for his bowl--
    And hurrah for you and me!

  "Oh, Liza-Ann, come out with me,
    The moon is a-shinin'--"

And so on and on--as long as the moon was a-shinin' on a college campus.
It was a mixture of happy nonsense and that questioning with which
modern youth has begun to trouble its elders. As a marching tune, the
song was a trifle swift for the grades of a mountain canyon; Warner
could stop and shout to the canyon-walls, and listen to their answer,
and then march on again. He had youth in his heart, and love and
curiosity; also he had some change in his trousers' pocket, and a ten
dollar bill, for extreme emergencies, sewed up in his belt. If a
photographer for Peter Harrigan's General Fuel Company could have got a
snap-shot of him that morning, it might have served as a "portrait of a
coal-miner" in any "prosperity" publication.

But the climb was a stiff one, and before the end the traveller became
aware of the weight of his boots, and sang no more. Just as the sun was
sinking up the canyon, he came upon his destination--a gate across the
road, with a sign upon it:

PINE CREEK COAL CO.

PRIVATE PROPERTY

TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN

Hal approached the gate, which was of iron bars, and padlocked. After
standing for a moment to get ready his surly voice, he kicked upon the
gate and a man came out of a shack inside.

"What do you want?" said he.

"I want to get in. I'm looking for a job."

"Where do you come from?"

"From Pedro."

"Where you been working?"

"I never worked in a mine before."

"Where did you work?"

"In a grocery-store."

"What grocery-store?"

"Peterson & Co., in Western City."

The guard came closer to the gate and studied him through the bars.

"Hey, Bill!" he called, and another man came out from the cabin. "Here's
a guy says he worked in a grocery, and he's lookin' for a job."

"Where's your papers?" demanded Bill.

Every one had told Hal that labour was scarce in the mines, and that the
companies were ravenous for men; he had supposed that a workingman would
only have to knock, and it would be opened unto him. "They didn't give
me no papers," he said, and added, hastily, "I got drunk and they fired
me." He felt quite sure that getting drunk would not bar one from a coal
camp.

But the two made no move to open the gate. The second man studied him
deliberately from top to toe, and Hal was uneasily aware of possible
sources of suspicion. "I'm all right," he declared. "Let me in, and I'll
show you."

Still the two made no move. They looked at each other, and then Bill
answered, "We don't need no hands."

"But," exclaimed Hal, "I saw a sign down the canyon--"

"That's an old sign," said Bill.

"But I walked all the way up here!"

"You'll find it easier walkin' back."

"But--it's night!"

"Scared of the dark, kid?" inquired Bill, facetiously.

"Oh, say!" replied Hal. "Give a fellow a chance! Ain't there some way I
can pay for my keep--or at least for a bunk to-night?"

"There's nothin' for you," said Bill, and turned and went into the
cabin.

The other man waited and watched, with a decidedly hostile look. Hal
strove to plead with him, but thrice he repeated, "Down the canyon with
you." So at last Hal gave up, and moved down the road a piece and sat
down to reflect.

It really seemed an absurdly illogical proceeding, to post a notice,
"Hands Wanted," in conspicuous places on the roadside, causing a man to
climb thirteen miles up a mountain canyon, only to be turned off without
explanation. Hal was convinced that there must be jobs inside the
stockade, and that if only he could get at the bosses he could persuade
them. He got up and walked down the road a quarter of a mile, to where
the railroad-track crossed it, winding up the canyon. A train of
"empties" was passing, bound into the camp, the cars rattling and
bumping as the engine toiled up the grade. This suggested a solution of
the difficulty.

It was already growing dark. Crouching slightly, Hal approached the
cars, and when he was in the shadows, made a leap and swung onto one of
them. It took but a second to clamber in, and he lay flat and waited,
his heart thumping.

Before a minute had passed he heard a shout, and looking over, he saw
the Cerberus of the gate running down a path to the track, his
companion, Bill, just behind him. "Hey! come out of there!" they yelled;
and Bill leaped, and caught the car in which Hal was riding.

The latter saw that the game was up, and sprang to the ground on the
other side of the track and started out of the camp. Bill followed him,
and as the train passed, the other man ran down the track to join him.
Hal was walking rapidly, without a word; but the Cerberus of the gate
had many words, most of them unprintable, and he seized Hal by the
collar, and shoving him violently, planted a kick upon that portion of
his anatomy which nature has constructed for the reception of kicks. Hal
recovered his balance, and, as the man was still pursuing him, he turned
and aimed a blow, striking him on the chest and making him reel.

Hal's big brother had seen to it that he knew how to use his fists; he
now squared off, prepared to receive the second of his assailants. But
in coal-camps matters are not settled in that primitive way, it
appeared. The man halted, and the muzzle of a revolver came suddenly
under Hal's nose. "Stick 'em up!" said the man.

This was a slang which Hal had never heard, but the meaning was
inescapable; he "stuck 'em up." At the same moment his first assailant
rushed at him, and dealt him a blow over the eye which sent him
sprawling backward upon the stones.



SECTION 2.

When Hal came to himself again he was in darkness, and was conscious of
agony from head to toe. He was lying on a stone floor, and he rolled
over, but soon rolled back again, because there was no part of his back
which was not sore. Later on, when he was able to study himself, he
counted over a score of marks of the heavy boots of his assailants.

He lay for an hour or two, making up his mind that he was in a lock-up,
because he could see the starlight through iron bars. He could hear
somebody snoring, and he called half a dozen times, in a louder and
louder voice, until at last, hearing a growl, he inquired, "Can you give
me a drink of water?"

"I'll give you hell if you wake me up again," said the voice; after
which Hal lay in silence until morning.

A couple of hours after daylight, a man entered his cell. "Get up," said
he, and added a prod with his foot. Hal had thought he could not do it,
but he got up.

"No funny business now," said his jailer, and grasping him by the sleeve
of his coat, marched him out of the cell and down a little corridor into
a sort of office, where sat a red-faced personage with a silver shield
upon the lapel of his coat. Hal's two assailants of the night before
stood nearby.

"Well, kid?" said the personage in the chair. "Had a little time to
think it over?" "Yes," said Hal, briefly.

"What's the charge?" inquired the personage, of the two watchmen.

"Trespassing and resisting arrest."

"How much money you got, young fellow?" was, the next question.

Hal hesitated.

"Speak up there!" said the man.

"Two dollars and sixty-seven cents," said Hal--"as well as I can
remember."

"Go on!" said the other. "What you givin' us?" And then, to the two
watchmen, "Search him."

"Take off your coat and pants," said Bill, promptly, "and your boots."

"Oh, I say!" protested Hal.

"Take 'em off!" said the man, and clenched his fists. Hal took 'em off,
and they proceeded to go through the pockets, producing a purse with the
amount stated, also a cheap watch, a strong pocket knife, the
tooth-brush, comb and mirror, and two white handkerchiefs, which they
looked at contemptuously and tossed to the spittle-drenched floor.

They unrolled the pack, and threw the clean clothing about. Then,
opening the pocket-knife, they proceeded to pry about the soles and
heels of the boots, and to cut open the lining of the clothing. So they
found the ten dollars in the belt, which they tossed onto the table with
the other belongings. Then the personage with the shield announced, "I
fine you twelve dollars and sixty-seven cents, and your watch and
knife." He added, with a grin, "You can keep your snot-rags."

"Now see here!" said Hal, angrily. "This is pretty raw!"

"You get your duds on, young fellow, and get out of here as quick as you
can, or you'll go in your shirt-tail."

But Hal was angry enough to have been willing to go in his skin. "You
tell me who you are, and your authority for this procedure?"

"I'm marshal of the camp," said the man.

"You mean you're an employГ© of the General Fuel Company? And you propose
to rob me--"

"Put him out, Bill," said the marshal. And Hal saw Bill's fists clench.

"All right," he said, swallowing his indignation. "Wait till I get my
clothes on." And he proceeded to dress as quickly as possible; he rolled
up his blanket and spare clothing, and started for the door.

"Remember," said the marshal, "straight down the canyon with you, and if
you show your face round here again, you'll get a bullet through you."

So Hal went out into the sunshine, with a guard on each side of him as
an escort. He was on the same mountain road, but in the midst of the
company-village. In the distance he saw the great building of the
breaker, and heard the incessant roar of machinery and falling coal. He
marched past a double lane of company houses and shanties, where
slattern women in doorways and dirty children digging in the dust of the
roadside paused and grinned at him--for he limped as he walked, and it
was evident enough what had happened to him.

Hal had come with love and curiosity. The love was greatly
diminished--evidently this was not the force which kept the wheels of
industry a-roll. But the curiosity was greater than ever. What was there
so carefully hidden inside this coal-camp stockade?

Hal turned and looked at Bill, who had showed signs of humour the day
before. "See here," said he, "you fellows have got my money, and you've
blacked my eye and kicked me blue, so you ought to be satisfied. Before
I go, tell me about it, won't you?"

"Tell you what?" growled Bill.

"Why did I get this?"

"Because you're too gay, kid. Didn't you know you had no business trying
to sneak in here?"

"Yes," said Hal; "but that's not what I mean. Why didn't you let me in
at first?"

"If you wanted a job in a mine," demanded the man, "why didn't you go at
it in the regular way?"

"I didn't know the regular way."

"That's just it. And we wasn't takin' chances with you. You didn't look
straight."

"But what did you think I was? What are you afraid of?"

"Go on!" said the man. "You can't work me!"

Hal walked a few steps in silence, pondering how to break through. "I
see you're suspicious of me," he said. "I'll tell you the truth, if
you'll let me." Then, as the other did not forbid him, "I'm a college
boy, and I wanted to see life and shift for myself a while. I thought it
would be a lark to come here."

"Well," said Bill, "this ain't no foot-ball field. It's a coal-mine."

Hal saw that his story had been accepted. "Tell me straight," he said,
"what did you think I was?"

"Well, I don't mind telling," growled Bill. "There's union agitators
trying to organise these here camps, and we ain't taking no chances with
'em. This company gets its men through agencies, and if you'd went and
satisfied them, you'd 'a been passed in the regular way. Or if you'd
went to the office down in Pedro and got a pass, you'd 'a been all
right. But when a guy turns up at the gate, and looks like a dude and
talks like a college perfessor, he don't get by, see?"

"I see," said Hal. And then, "If you'll give me the price of a breakfast
out of my money, I'll be obliged."

"Breakfast is over," said Bill. "You sit round till the pinyons gets
ripe." He laughed; but then, mellowed by his own joke, he took a quarter
from his pocket and passed it to Hal. He opened the padlock on the gate
and saw him out with a grin; and so ended Hal's first turn on the wheels
of industry.



SECTION 3.

Hal Warner started to drag himself down the road, but was unable to make
it. He got as far as a brooklet that came down the mountain-side, from
which he might drink without fear of typhoid; there he lay the whole
day, fasting. Towards evening a thunder-storm came up, and he crawled
under the shelter of a rock, which was no shelter at all. His single
blanket was soon soaked through, and he passed a night almost as
miserable as the previous one. He could not sleep, but he could think,
and he thought about what had happened to him. "Bill" had said that a
coal mine was not a foot-ball field, but it seemed to Hal that the net
impress of the two was very much the same. He congratulated himself that
his profession was not that of a union organiser.

At dawn he dragged himself up, and continued his journey, weak from cold
and unaccustomed lack of food. In the course of the day he reached a
power-station near the foot of the canyon. He did not have the price of
a meal, and was afraid to beg; but in one of the group of buildings by
the roadside was a store, and he entered and inquired concerning prunes,
which were twenty-five cents a pound. The price was high, but so was the
altitude, and as Hal found in the course of time, they explained the one
by the other--not explaining, however, why the altitude of the price was
always greater than the altitude of the store. Over the counter he saw a
sign: "We buy scrip at ten per cent discount." He had heard rumours of a
state law forbidding payment of wages in "scrip"; but he asked no
questions, and carried off his very light pound of prunes, and sat down
by the roadside and munched them.

Just beyond the power-house, down on the railroad track, stood a little
cabin with a garden behind it. He made his way there, and found a
one-legged old watchman. He asked permission to spend the night on the
floor of the cabin; and seeing the old fellow look at his black eye, he
explained, "I tried to get a job at the mine, and they thought I was a
union organiser."

"Well," said the man, "I don't want no union organisers round here."

"But I'm not one," pleaded Hal.

"How do I know what you are? Maybe you're a company spy."

"All I want is a dry place to sleep," said Hal. "Surely it won't be any
harm for you to give me that."

"I'm not so sure," the other answered. "However, you can spread your
blanket in the corner. But don't you talk no union business to me."

Hal had no desire to talk. He rolled himself in his blanket and slept
like a man untroubled by either love or curiosity. In the morning the
old fellow gave him a slice of corn bread and some young onions out of
his garden, which had a more delicious taste than any breakfast that had
ever been served him. When Hal thanked his host in parting, the latter
remarked: "All right, young fellow, there's one thing you can do to pay
me, and that is, say nothing about it. When a man has grey hair on his
head and only one leg, he might as well be drowned in the creek as lose
his job."

Hal promised, and went his way. His bruises pained him less, and he was
able to walk. There were ranch-houses in sight--it was like coming back
suddenly to America!



SECTION 4.

Hal had now before him a week's adventures as a hobo: a genuine hobo,
with no ten dollar bill inside his belt to take the reality out of his
experiences. He took stock of his worldly goods and wondered if he still
looked like a dude. He recalled that he had a smile which had fascinated
the ladies; would it work in combination with a black eye? Having no
other means of support, he tried it on susceptible looking housewives,
and found it so successful that he was tempted to doubt the wisdom of
honest labour. He sang the Harrigan song no more, but instead the words
of a hobo-song he had once heard:

"Oh, what's the use of workin' when there's women in the land?"

The second day he made the acquaintance of two other gentlemen of the
road, who sat by the railroad-track toasting some bacon over a fire.
They welcomed him, and after they had heard his story, adopted him into
the fraternity and instructed him in its ways of life. Pretty soon he
made the acquaintance of one who had been a miner, and was able to give
him the information he needed before climbing another canyon.

"Dutch Mike" was the name this person bore, for reasons he did not
explain. He was a black-eyed and dangerous-looking rascal, and when the
subject of mines and mining was broached, he opened up the flood-gates
of an amazing reservoir of profanity. He was through with that game--Hal
or any other God-damned fool might have his job for the asking. It was
only because there were so many natural-born God-damned fools in the
world that the game could be kept going. "Dutch Mike" went on to relate
dreadful tales of mine-life, and to summon before him the ghosts of one
pit-boss after another, consigning them to the fires of eternal
perdition.

"I wanted to work while I was young," said he, "but now I'm cured, an'
fer good." The world had come to seem to him a place especially
constructed for the purpose of making him work, and every faculty he
possessed was devoted to foiling this plot. Sitting by a camp-fire near
the stream which ran down the valley, Hal had a merry time pointing out
to "Dutch Mike" how he worked harder at dodging work than other men
worked at working. The hobo did not seem to mind that, however--it was a
matter of principle with him, and he was willing to make sacrifices for
his convictions. Even when they had sent him to the work-house, he had
refused to work; he had been shut in a dungeon, and had nearly died on a
diet of bread and water, rather than work. If everybody would do the
same, he said, they would soon "bust things."

Hal took a fancy to this spontaneous revolutionist, and travelled with
him for a couple of days, in the course of which he pumped him as to
details of the life of a miner. Most of the companies used regular
employment agencies, as the guard had mentioned; but the trouble was,
these agencies got something from your pay for a long time--the bosses
were "in cahoots" with them. When Hal wondered if this were not against
the law, "Cut it out, Bo!" said his companion. "When you've had a job
for a while, you'll know that the law in a coal-camp is what your boss
tells you." The hobo went on to register his conviction that when one
man has the giving of jobs, and other men have to scramble for them, the
law would never have much to say in the deal. Hal judged this a profound
observation, and wished that it might be communicated to the professor
of political economy at Harrigan.

On the second night of his acquaintance with "Dutch Mike," their
"jungle" was raided by a constable with half a dozen deputies; for a
determined effort was being made just then to drive vagrants from the
neighbourhood--or to get them to work in the mines. Hal's friend, who
slept with one eye open, made a break in the darkness, and Hal followed
him, getting under the guard of the raiders by a foot-ball trick. They
left their food and blankets behind them, but "Dutch Mike" made light of
this, and lifted a chicken from a roost to keep them cheerful through
the night hours, and stole a change of underclothing off a clothes-line
the next day. Hal ate the chicken, and wore the underclothing, thus
beginning his career in crime.

Parting from "Dutch Mike," he went back to Pedro. The hobo had told him
that saloon-keepers nearly always had friends in the coal-camps, and
could help a fellow to a job. So Hal began enquiring, and the second one
replied, Yes, he would give him a letter to a man at North Valley, and
if he got the job, the friend would deduct a dollar a month from his
pay. Hal agreed, and set out upon another tramp up another canyon, upon
the strength of a sandwich "bummed" from a ranch-house at the entrance
to the valley. At another stockaded gate of the General Fuel Company he
presented his letter, addressed to a person named O'Callahan, who turned
out also to be a saloon-keeper.

The guard did not even open the letter, but passed Hal in at sight of
it, and he sought out his man and applied for work. The man said he
would help him, but would have to deduct a dollar a month for himself,
as well as a dollar for his friend in Pedro. Hal kicked at this, and
they bartered back and forth; finally, when Hal turned away and
threatened to appeal directly to the "super," the saloon-keeper
compromised on a dollar and a half.

"You know mine-work?" he asked.

"Brought up at it," said Hal, made wise, now, in the ways of the world.

"Where did you work?"

Hal named several mines, concerning which he had learned something from
the hoboes. He was going by the name of "Joe Smith," which he judged
likely to be found on the payroll of any mine. He had more than a week's
growth of beard to disguise him, and had picked up some profanity as
well.

The saloon-keeper took him to interview Mr. Alec Stone, pit-boss in
Number Two mine, who inquired promptly: "You know anything about mules?"

"I worked in a stable," said Hal, "I know about horses."

"Well, mules is different," said the man. "One of my stable-men got the
colic the other day, and I don't know if he'll ever be any good again."

"Give me a chance," said Hal. "I'll manage them."

The boss looked him over. "You look like a bright chap," said he. "I'll
pay you forty-five a month, and if you make good I'll make it fifty."

"All right, sir. When do I start in?"

"You can't start too quick to suit me. Where's your duds?"

"This is all I've got," said Hal, pointing to the bundle of stolen
underwear in his hand.

"Well, chuck it there in the corner," said the man; then suddenly he
stopped, and looked at Hal, frowning. "You belong to any union?"

"Lord, no!"

"Did you _ever_ belong to any union?"

"No, sir. Never."

The man's gaze seemed to imply that Hal was lying, and that his secret
soul was about to be read. "You have to swear to that, you know, before
you can work here."

"All right," said Hal, "I'm willing."

"I'll see you about it to-morrow," said the other. "I ain't got the
paper with me. By the way, what's your religion?"

"Seventh Day Adventist."

"Holy Christ! What's that?"

"It don't hurt," said Hal. "I ain't supposed to work on Saturdays, but I
do."

"Well, don't you go preachin' it round here. We got our own
preacher--you chip in fifty cents a month for him out of your wages.
Come ahead now, and I'll take you down." And so it was that Hal got his
start in life.



SECTION 5.

The mule is notoriously a profane and godless creature; a blind alley of
Nature, so to speak, a mistake of which she is ashamed, and which she
does not permit to reproduce itself. The thirty mules under Hal's charge
had been brought up in an environment calculated to foster the worst
tendencies of their natures. He soon made the discovery that the "colic"
of his predecessor had been caused by a mule's hind foot in the stomach;
and he realised that he must not let his mind wander for an instant, if
he were to avoid this dangerous disease.

These mules lived their lives in the darkness of the earth's interior;
only when they fell sick were they taken up to see the sunlight and to
roll about in green pastures. There was one of them called "Dago
Charlie," who had learned to chew tobacco, and to rummage in the pockets
of the miners and their "buddies." Not knowing how to spit out the
juice, he would make himself ill, and then he would swear off from
indulgence. But the drivers and the pit-boys knew his failing, and would
tempt "Dago Charlie" until he fell from grace. Hal soon discovered this
moral tragedy, and carried the pain of it in his soul as he went about
his all-day drudgery.

He went down the shaft with the first cage, which was very early in the
morning. He fed and watered his charges, and helped to harness them.
Then, when the last four hoofs had clattered away, he cleaned out the
stalls, and mended harness, and obeyed the orders of any person older
than himself who happened to be about.

Next to the mules, his torment was the "trapper-boys," and other
youngsters with whom he came into contact. He was a newcomer, and so
they hazed him; moreover, he had an inferior job--there seemed to their
minds to be something humiliating and comic about the task of tending
mules. These urchins came from a score of nations of Southern Europe and
Asia; there were flat-faced Tartars and swarthy Greeks and shrewd-eyed
little Japanese. They spoke a compromise language, consisting mainly of
English curse words and obscenities; the filthiness which their minds
had spawned was incredible to one born and raised in the sunlight. They
alleged obscenities of their mothers and their grandmothers; also of the
Virgin Mary, the one mythological character they had heard of. Poor
little creatures of the dark, their souls grimed and smutted even more
quickly and irrevocably than their faces!

Hal had been advised by his boss to inquire for board at "Reminitsky's."
He came up in the last car, at twilight, and was directed to a dimly
lighted building of corrugated iron, where upon inquiry he was met by a
stout Russian, who told him he could be taken care of for twenty-seven
dollars a month, this including a cot in a room with eight other single
men. After deducting a dollar and a half a month for his saloon-keepers,
fifty cents for the company clergyman and a dollar for the company
doctor, fifty cents a month for wash-house privileges and fifty cents
for a sick and accident benefit fund, he had fourteen dollars a month
with which to clothe himself, to found a family, to provide himself with
beer and tobacco, and to patronise the libraries and colleges endowed by
the philanthropic owners of coal mines.

Supper was nearly over at Reminitsky's when he arrived; the floor looked
like the scene of a cannibal picnic, and what food was left was cold. It
was always to be this way with him, he found, and he had to make the
best of it. The dining-room of this boarding-house, owned and managed by
the G. F. C., brought to his mind the state prison, which he had once
visited--with its rows of men sitting in silence, eating starch and
grease out of tin-plates. The plates here were of crockery half an inch
thick, but the starch and grease never failed; the formula of
Reminitsky's cook seemed to be, When in doubt add grease, and boil it
in. Even ravenous as Hal was after his long tramp and his labour below
ground, he could hardly swallow this food. On Sundays, the only time he
ate by daylight, the flies swarmed over everything, and he remembered
having heard a physician say that an enlightened man should be more
afraid of a fly than of a Bengal tiger. The boarding-house provided him
with a cot and a supply of vermin, but with no blanket, which was a
necessity in the mountain regions. So after supper he had to seek out
his boss, and arrange to get credit at the company-store. They were
willing to give a certain amount of credit, he found, as this would
enable the camp-marshal to keep him from straying. There was no law to
hold a man for debt--but Hal knew by this time how much a camp-marshal
cared for law.



SECTION 6.

For three days Hal toiled in the bowels of the mine, and ate and pursued
vermin at Reminitsky's. Then came a blessed Sunday, and he had a couple
of free hours to see the sunlight and to get a look at the North Valley
camp. It was a village straggling along more than a mile of the mountain
canyon. In the centre were the great breaker-buildings, the shaft-house,
and the power-house with its tall chimneys; nearby were the
company-store and a couple of saloons. There were several
boarding-houses like Reminitsky's, and long rows of board cabins
containing from two to four rooms each, some of them occupied by several
families. A little way up a slope stood a school-house, and another
small one-room building which served as a church; the clergyman
belonging to the General Fuel Company denomination. He was given the use
of the building, by way of start over the saloons, which had to pay a
heavy rental to the company; it seemed a proof of the innate perversity
of human nature that even in spite of this advantage, heaven was losing
out in the struggle against hell in the coal-camp.

As one walked through this village, the first impression was of
desolation. The mountains towered, barren and lonely, scarred with the
wounds of geologic ages. In these canyons the sun set early in the
afternoon, the snow came early in the fall; everywhere Nature's hand
seemed against man, and man had succumbed to her power. Inside the camps
one felt a still more cruel desolation--that of sordidness and
animalism. There were a few pitiful attempts at vegetable-gardens, but
the cinders and smoke killed everything, and the prevailing colour was
of grime. The landscape was strewn with ash-heaps, old wire and
tomato-cans, and smudged and smutty children playing.

There was a part of the camp called "shanty-town," where, amid miniature
mountains of slag, some of the lowest of the newly-arrived foreigners
had been permitted to build themselves shacks out of old boards, tin,
and sheets of tar-paper. These homes were beneath the dignity of
chicken-houses, yet in some of them a dozen people were crowded, men and
women sleeping on old rags and blankets on a cinder floor. Here the
babies swarmed like maggots. They wore for the most part a single ragged
smock, and their bare buttocks were shamelessly upturned to the heavens.
It was so the children of the cave-men must have played, thought Hal;
and waves of repulsion swept over him. He had come with love and
curiosity, but both motives failed here. How could a man of sensitive
nerves, aware of the refinements and graces of life, learn to love these
people, who were an affront to his every sense--a stench to his
nostrils, a jabbering to his ear, a procession of deformities to his
eye? What had civilisation done for them? What could it do? After all,
what were they fit for, but the dirty work they were penned up to do? So
spoke the haughty race-consciousness of the Anglo-Saxon, contemplating
these Mediterranean hordes, the very shape of whose heads was
objectionable.

But Hal stuck it out; and little by little new vision came to him. First
of all, it was the fascination of the mines. They were old mines--veritable
cities tunnelled out beneath the mountains, the main passages running
for miles. One day Hal stole off from his job, and took a trip with a
"rope-rider," and got through his physical senses a realisation of the
vastness and strangeness and loneliness of this labyrinth of night. In
Number Two mine the vein ran up at a slope of perhaps five degrees; in
part of it the empty cars were hauled in long trains by an endless rope,
but coming back loaded, they came of their own gravity. This involved
much work for the "spraggers," or boys who did the braking; it sometimes
meant run-away cars, and fresh perils added to the everyday perils of
coal-mining.

The vein varied from four to five feet in thickness; a cruelty of nature
which made it necessary that the men at the "working face"--the place
where new coal was being cut--should learn to shorten their stature.
After Hal had squatted for a while and watched them at their tasks, he
understood why they walked with head and shoulders bent over and arms
hanging down, so that, seeing them coming out of the shaft in the
gloaming, one thought of a file of baboons. The method of getting out
the coal was to "undercut" it with a pick, and then blow it loose with a
charge of powder. This meant that the miner had to lie on his side while
working, and accounted for other physical peculiarities.

Thus, as always, when one understood the lives of men, one came to pity
instead of despising. Here was a separate race of creatures,
subterranean, gnomes, pent up by society for purposes of its own.
Outside in the sunshine-flooded canyon, long lines of cars rolled down
with their freight of soft-coal; coal which would go to the ends of the
earth, to places the miner never heard of, turning the wheels of
industry whose products the miner would never see. It would make
precious silks for fine ladies, it would cut precious jewels for their
adornment; it would carry long trains of softly upholstered cars across
deserts and over mountains; it would drive palatial steamships out of
wintry tempests into gleaming tropic seas. And the fine ladies in their
precious silks and jewels would eat and sleep and laugh and lie at
ease--and would know no more of the stunted creatures of the dark than
the stunted creatures knew of them. Hal reflected upon this, and subdued
his Anglo-Saxon pride, finding forgiveness for what was repulsive in
these people--their barbarous, jabbering speech, their vermin-ridden
homes, their bare-bottomed babies.



SECTION 7.

It chanced before many days that Hal got a holiday, relieving the
monotony of his labours as stableman: an accidental holiday, not
provided for in his bargain with the pit-boss. Something went wrong with
the ventilating-course in Number Two, and he began to notice a headache,
and heard the men grumbling that their lamps were burning low. Then, as
matters began to get serious, orders came to get the mules to the
surface.

Which meant an amusing adventure. The delight of Hal's pets at seeing
the sunlight was irresistibly comic. They could not be kept from lying
down and rolling on their backs in the cinder-strewn street; and when
they were corralled in a distant part of the camp where actual grass
grew, they abandoned themselves to rapture like a horde of school
children at a picnic.

So Hal had a few free hours; and being still young and not cured of idle
curiosities, he climbed the canyon wall to see the mountains. As he was
sliding down again, toward evening, a vivid spot of colour was painted
into his picture of mine-life; he found himself in somebody's back yard,
and being observed by somebody's daughter, who was taking in the family
wash. It was a splendid figure of a lass, tall and vigorous, with the
sort of hair that in polite circles is called auburn, and that flaming
colour in the cheeks which is Nature's recompense to people who live
where it rains all the time. She was the first beautiful sight Hal had
seen since he had come up the canyon, and it was only natural that he
should be interested. It seemed to him that, so long as the girl stared,
he had a right to stare back. It did not occur to him that he too was a
pleasing sight--that the mountain air had given colour to his cheeks and
a shine to his gay brown eyes, while the mountain winds had blown his
wavy brown hair.

"Hello," said she, at last, in a warm voice, unmistakably Irish.

"Hello yourself," said Hal, in the accepted dialect; then he added, with
more elegance, "Pardon me for trespassing on your wash."

Her grey eyes opened wider. "Go on!" she said.

"I'd rather stay," said Hal. "It's a beautiful sunset."

"I'll move, so ye can see it better." She carried her armful of clothes
over and dropped them into the basket.

"No," said Hal, "it's not so fine now. The colours have faded."

She turned and gazed at him again. "Go on wid ye! I been teased about my
hair since before I could talk."

"'Tis envy," said Hal, dropping into her way of speech; and he came a
few steps nearer, so that he could inspect the hair more closely. It lay
above her brow in undulations which were agreeable to the decorative
instinct, and a tight heavy braid of it fell over her shoulders and
swung to her waist-line. He observed the shoulders, which were sturdy,
obviously accustomed to hard labour; not conforming to accepted romantic
standards of femininity, yet having an athletic grace of their own. They
were covered with a faded blue calico dress, unfortunately not entirely
clean; also, the young man noticed, there was a rent in one shoulder
through which a patch of skin was visible. The girl's eyes, which had
been following his, became defiant; she tossed a piece of her washing
over the shoulder, where it stayed through the balance of the interview.

"Who are ye?" she demanded, suddenly.

"My name's Joe Smith. I'm a stableman in Number Two."

"And what were ye doin' up there, if a body might ask?" She lifted her
grey eyes to the bare mountainside, down which he had come sliding in a
shower of loose stones and dirt.

"I've been surveying my empire," said he.

"Your what?"

"My empire. The land belongs to the company, but the landscape belongs
to him who cares for it."

She tossed her head a little. "Where did ye learn to talk like ye do?"

"In another life," said he--"before I became a stableman. Not in entire
forgetfulness, but trailing clouds of glory did I come."

For a moment she wrestled with this. Then a smile broke upon her face.
"Sure, 'tis like a poetry-book! Say some more!"

"_O, singe fort, so suess und fein_!" quoted Hal--and saw her look
puzzled.

"Aren't you American?" she inquired; and he laughed. To speak a foreign
language in North Valley was not a mark of culture!

"I've been listening to the crowd at Reminitsky's," he said,
apologetically.

"Oh! You eat there?"

"I go there three times a day. I can't say I eat very much. Could you
live on greasy beans?"

"Sure," laughed the girl, "the good old pertaties is good enough for
me."

"I should have said you lived on rose leaves!" he observed.

"Go on wid ye! 'Tis the blarney-stone ye been kissin'!"

"'Tis no stone I'd be wastin' my kisses on."

"Ye're gettin' bold, Mister Smith. I'll not listen to ye." And she
turned away, and began industriously taking her clothes from the line.
But Hal did not want to be dismissed. He came a step closer.

"Coming down the mountain-side," he said, "I found something wonderful.
It's bare and grim up there, but I came on a sheltered corner where the
sun shone, and there was a wild rose. Only one! I thought to myself, 'So
roses grow, even in the loneliest parts of the world!'"

"Sure, 'tis a poetry-book again!" she cried. "Why didn't ye bring the
rose?"

"There is a poetry-book that tells us to 'leave the wild-rose on its
stalk.' It will go on blooming there; but if one were to pluck it, it
would wither in a few hours."

He had meant nothing more by this than to keep the conversation going.
But her answer turned the tide of their acquaintance.

"Ye can never be sure, lad. Perhaps to-night a storm may come and blow
it to pieces. Perhaps if ye'd pulled it and been happy, 'twould 'a been
what the rose was for."

Whatever of unconscious patronage there had been in the poet's attitude
was lost now in the eternal mystery. Whether the girl knew it--or
cared--she had won the woman's first victory. She had caught the man's
mind and pinned it with curiosity. What did this wild rose of the mining
camps mean?

The wild rose, apparently unconscious that she had said anything
epoch-making, was busy with the wash; and meantime Hal Warner studied
her features and pondered her words. From a lady of sophistication they
would have meant only one thing, an invitation; but in this girl's clear
grey eyes was nothing of wantonness, only pain. But what was this pain
in the face and words of one so young, so eager and alive? Was it the
melancholy of her race, the thing one got in old folk-songs? Or was it a
new and special kind of melancholy, engendered in mining-camps in the
far West of America?

The girl's countenance was as intriguing as her words. Her grey eyes
were set under sharply defined dark brows, which did not match her hair.
Her lips also were sharply defined, and straight, almost without curves,
so that it seemed as if her mouth had been painted in carmine upon her
face. These features gave her, when she stared at you, an aspect vivid
and startling, bold, with a touch of defiance. But when she smiled, the
red lips would curve into gentler lines, and the grey eyes would become
wistful, and seemingly darker in colour. Winsome indeed, but not simple,
was this Irish lass!



SECTION 8.

Hal asked the name of his new acquaintance, and she told him it was Mary
Burke. "Ye've not been here long, I take it," she said, "or ye'd have
heard of 'Red Mary.' 'Tis along of this hair."

"I've not been here long," he answered, "but I shall hope to stay
now--along of this hair! May I come to see you some time, Miss Burke?"

She did not reply, but glanced at the house where she lived. It was an
unpainted, three room cabin, more dilapidated than the average, with
bare dirt and cinders about it, and what had once been a picket-fence,
now falling apart and being used for stove-wood. The windows were
cracked and broken, and upon the roof were signs of leaks that had been
crudely patched.

"May I come?" he made haste to ask again--so that he would not seem to
look too critically at her home.

"Perhaps ye may," said the girl, as she picked up the clothes basket. He
stepped forward, offering to carry it, but she did not give it up.
Holding it tight, and looking him defiantly in the face, she said, "Ye
may come, but ye'll not find it a happy place to visit, Mr. Smith. Ye'll
hear soon enough from the neighbours."

"I don't think I know any of your neighbours," said he.

There was sympathy in his voice; but her look was no less defiant.
"Ye'll hear about it, Mr. Smith; but ye'll hear also that I hold me head
up. And 'tis not so easy to do that in North Valley."

"You don't like the place?" he asked; and he was amazed by the effect of
this question, which was merely polite. It was as if a storm cloud had
swept over the girl's face. "I hate it! 'Tis a place of fear and
devils!"