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. Tomorrow 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.”
VI
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 halfway 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
