“How long will they keep the mine sealed?” cried Hal, in consternation.
“Nobody can say. In a big mine like that, a fire might smoulder for a week.”
“Everybody be dead!” cried Rosa Minetti, wringing her hands in a sudden access of grief.
Hal turned to Olson. “Would they possibly do such a thing?”
“It’s been done—more than once,” was the organiser’s reply.
“Did you never hear about Cherry, Illinois?” asked David. “They did it there, and more than three hundred people lost their lives.” He went on to tell that dreadful story, known to every coal-miner. They had sealed the mine, while women fainted and men tore their clothes in frenzy—some going insane. They had kept it sealed for two weeks, and when they opened it, there were twenty-one men still alive!
“They did the same thing in Diamondville, Wyoming,” added Olson. “They built up a barrier, and when they took it away they found a heap of dead men, who had crawled to it and torn their fingers to the bone trying to break through.”
“My God!” cried Hal, springing to his feet. “And this man Carmichael—would he stand for that?”
“He’d tell you they were doing their best,” said “Big Jack.” “And maybe he thinks they are. But you’ll see—something’ll keep happening; they’ll drag on from day to day, and they’ll not start the fan till they’re ready.”
“Why, it’s murder!” cried Hal.
“It’s business,” said Tom Olson, quietly.
Hal looked from one to another of the faces of these working people. Not one but had friends in that trap; not one but might be in the same trap tomorrow!
“You have to stand it!” he exclaimed, half to himself.
“Don’t you see the guards at the pit-mouth?” answered David. “Don’t you see the guns sticking out of their pockets?”
“They bring in more guards this morning,” put in Jerry Minetti. “Rosa, she see them get off.”
“They know what they doin’!” said Rosa. “They only fraid we find it out! They told Mrs. Zamboni she keep away or they send her out of camp. And old Mrs. Jonotch—her husband and three sons inside!”
“They’re getting rougher and rougher,” declared Mrs. David. “That big fellow they call Pete, that came up from Pedro—the way he’s handling the women is a shame!”
“I know him,” put in Olson; “Pete Hanun. They had him in Sheridan when the union first opened headquarters. He smashed one of our organisers in the mouth and broke four of his teeth. They say he has a jail-record.”
All through the previous year at college Hal had listened to lectures upon political economy, filled with the praises of a thing called “Private Ownership.” This Private Ownership developed initiative and economy; it kept the wheels of industry a-roll, it kept fat the payrolls of college faculties; it accorded itself with the sacred laws of supply and demand, it was the basis of the progress and prosperity wherewith America had been blessed. And here suddenly Hal found himself face to face with the reality of it; he saw its wolfish eyes glaring into his own, he felt its smoking hot breath in his face, he saw its gleaming fangs and claw-like fingers, dripping with the blood of men and women and children. Private Ownership of coal-mines! Private Ownership of sealed-up entrances and nonexistent escape-ways! Private Ownership of fans which did not start, of sprinklers which did not sprinkle. Private Ownership of clubs and revolvers, and of thugs and ex-convicts to use them, driving away rescuers and shutting up agonised widows and orphans in their homes! Oh, the serene and well-fed priests of Private Ownership, chanting in academic halls the praises of the bloody Demon!
Suddenly Hal stopped still. Something had risen in him, the existence of which he had never suspected. There was a new look upon his face, his voice was deep as a strong man’s when he spoke: “I am going to make them open that mine!”
They looked at him. They were all of them close to the border of hysteria, but they caught the strange note in his utterance. “I am going to make them open that mine!”
“How?” asked Olson.
“The public doesn’t know about this thing. If the story got out, there’d be such a clamour, it couldn’t go on!”
“But how will you get it out?”
“I’ll give it to the newspapers! They can’t suppress such a thing—I don’t care how prejudiced they are!”
“But do you think they’d believe what a miner’s buddy tells them?” asked Mrs. David.
“I’ll find a way to make them believe me,” said Hal. “I’m going to make them open that mine!”
XXXIV
In the course of his wanderings about the camp, Hal had observed several wide-awake looking young men with notebooks in their hands. He could see that these young men were being made guests of the company, chatting with the bosses upon friendly terms; nevertheless, he believed that among them he might find one who had a conscience—or at any rate who would yield to the temptation of a “scoop.” So, leaving the gathering at Mrs. David’s, Hal went to the pit-mouth, watching out for one of these reporters; when he found him, he followed him for a while, desiring to get him where no company “spotter” might interfere. At the first chance, he stepped up, and politely asked the reporter to come into a side street, where they might converse undisturbed.
The reporter obeyed the request; and Hal, concealing the intensity of his feelings, so as not to repel the other, let it be known that he had worked in North Valley for some months, and could tell much about conditions in the camp. There was the matter of adobe-dust, for example. Explosions in dry mines could be prevented by spraying the walls with this material. Did the reporter happen to know that the company’s claim to have used it was entirely
