King Coal

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

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

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

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

"No," said she.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SECTION 5.

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

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

"Hello, kid," said the pit-boss.

"Hello, Mr. Stone," was the reply.

"I want to talk to you," said the boss.

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

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

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

"I haven't heard any, sir."

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

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

"Election, sir?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I've heard so."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, I see."

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

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

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

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

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

SECTION 6.

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

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

"Why?"

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

"But he won't have any proofs."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Morning, Mr. Cartwright," said Hal.

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

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

"Been to the doctor?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, sir--in a way. In fact, that's how I came to get this wrist."

"How's that? In a fight?"

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

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

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

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

"All right, sir--thank you."

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

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

"I am."

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

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

SECTION 7.

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

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

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

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

"Anybody round here going to vote for MacDougall?"

"They better not tell me if they are!"

"What?" smiled Hal. "In this free American republic?"

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

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

"That so? Where at?"

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

"Pay pretty good up there?"

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

"That so?" said the other.

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

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

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

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

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

"Don't you fret," put in Bob Johnson--"he ain't goin' to no Washin'ton."

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

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

"Oh, I see," said Hal, naively. "You stuff them worse!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sure thing!" said the Post-master.

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

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

"And yours, Judge?"

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

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

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

"Mine's under the counter," grinned Bob.

"And yours, Judge?"

"Mine's in the desk," said the Judge.

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

SECTION 8.

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

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

"_Pluha biedna_!" cried Mike--which is something dreadful in his own
language. "By Judas, I pack up my old box again!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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