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.”
V
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 anyone 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 pickpocket 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 handcuffs 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 semidarkness, 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 businesslike 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
