SECTION 19.
After allowing a sufficient time for the party in the dining-car to finish breakfast, Hal went down to the tracks, and induced the porter to take in his name to Percy Harrigan. He was hoping to persuade Percy to see the village under other than company chaperonage; he heard with dismay the announcement that the party had arranged to depart in the course of a couple of hours.
“But you haven't seen anything at all!” Hal protested.
“They won't let us into the mine,” replied the other. “What else is there we can do?”
“I wanted you to talk to the people and learn something about conditions here. You ought not to lose this chance, Percy!”
“That's all right, Hal, but you might understand this isn't a convenient time. I've got a lot of people with me, and I've no right to ask them to wait.”
“But can't they learn something also, Percy?”
“It's raining,” was the reply; “and ladies would hardly care to stand round in a crowd and see dead bodies brought out of a mine.”
Hal got the rebuke. Yes, he had grown callous since coming to North Valley; he had lost that delicacy of feeling, that intuitive understanding of the sentiments of ladies, which he would surely have exhibited a short time earlier in his life. He was excited about this disaster; it was a personal thing to him, and he lost sight of the fact that to the ladies of the Harrigan party it was, in its details, merely sordid and repelling. If they went out in the mud and rain of a mining-village and stood about staring, they would feel that they were exhibiting, not human compassion, but idle curiosity. The sights they would see would harrow them to no purpose; and incidentally they would be exposing themselves to distressing publicity. As for offering sympathy to widows and orphans—well, these were foreigners mostly, who could not understand what was said to them, and who might be more embarrassed than helped by the intrusion into their grief of persons from an alien world.
The business of offering sympathy had been reduced to a system by the civilisation which these ladies helped to maintain; and, as it happened, there was one present who was familiar with this system. Mrs. Curtis had already acted, so Percy informed Hal; she had passed about a subscription-paper, and in a couple of minutes over a thousand dollars had been pledged. This would be paid by check to the “Red Cross,” whose agents would understand how to distribute relief among such sufferers. So the members of Percy's party felt that they had done the proper and delicate thing, and might go their ways with a quiet conscience.
“The world can't stop moving just because there's been a mine-disaster,” said the Coal King's son. “People have engagements they must keep.”
And he went on to explain what these engagements were. He himself had to go to a dinner that evening, and would barely be able to make it. Bert Atkins was to play a challenge match at billiards, and Mrs. Curtis was to attend a committee meeting of a woman's club. Also it was the last Friday of the month; had Hal forgotten what that meant?
After a moment Hal remembered—the “Young People's Night” at the country club! He had a sudden vision of the white colonial mansion on the mountain-side, with its doors and windows thrown wide, and the strains of an orchestra floating out. In the ball-room the young ladies of Percy's party would appear—Jessie, his sweetheart, among them—gowned in filmy chiffons and laces, floating in a mist of perfume and colour and music. They would laugh and chatter, they would flirt and scheme against one another for the sovereignty of the ball-room—while here in North Valley the sobbing widows would be clutching their mangled dead in their arms! How strange, how ghastly it seemed! How like the scenes one read of on the eve of the French Revolution!
SECTION 20.
Percy wanted Hal to come away with the party. He suggested this tactfully at first, and then, as Hal did not take the hint, he began to press the matter, showing signs of irritation. The mine was open now—what more did Hal want? When Hal suggested that Cartwright might order it closed again, Percy revealed the fact that the matter was in his father's hands. The superintendent had sent a long telegram the night before, and an answer was due at any moment. Whatever the answer ordered would have to be done.
There was a grim look upon Hal's face, but he forced himself to speak politely. “If your father orders anything that interferes with the rescuing of the men—don't you see, Percy, that I have to fight him?”
“But how can you fight him?”
“With the one weapon I have—publicity.”
“You mean—” Percy stopped, and stared.
“I mean what I said before—I'd turn Billy Keating loose and blow this whole story wide open.”
“Well, by God!” cried young Harrigan. “I must say I'd call it damned dirty of you! You said you'd not do it, if I'd come here and open the mine!”
“But what good does it do to open it, if you close it again before the men are out?” Hal paused, and when he went on it was in a sincere attempt at apology. “Percy, don't imagine I fail to appreciate the embarrassments of this situation. I know I must seem a cad to you—more than you've cared to tell me. I called you my friend in spite of all our quarrels. All I can do is to assure you that I never intended to get into such a position as this.”
“Well, what the hell did you want to come here for? You knew it was the property of a friend—”
“That's the question at issue between us, Percy. Have you forgotten our arguments? I tried to convince you what it meant that you and I should own the things by which other people have to live. I said we were ignorant of the conditions under which our properties were worked, we were a bunch of parasites and idlers. But you laughed at me, called me a crank, an anarchist, said I swallowed what any muck-raker fed me. So I said: 'I'll go to one of Percy's mines! Then, when he tries to argue with me, I'll have him!' That was the way the thing started—as a joke. But then I got drawn into things. I don't want to be nasty, but no man with a drop of red blood in his veins could stay in this place a week without wanting to fight! That's why I want you to stay—you ought to stay, to meet some of the people and see for yourself.”
“Well, I can't stay,” said the other, coldly. “And all I can tell you is that I wish you'd go somewhere else to do your sociology.”
“But where could I go, Percy? Somebody owns everything. If it's a big thing, it's almost certain to be somebody we know.”
Said Percy, “If I might make a suggestion, you could have begun with the coal-mines of the Warner Company.”
Hal laughed. “You may be sure I thought of that, Percy. But see the situation! If I was to accomplish my purpose, it was essential that I shouldn't be known. And I had met some of my father's superintendents in his office, and I knew they'd recognise me. So I had to go to some other mines.”
“Most fortunate for the Warner Company,” replied Percy, in an ugly tone.
Hal answered, gravely, “Let me tell you, I don't intend to leave the Warner Company permanently out of my sociology.”
“Well,” replied the other, “all I can say is that we pass one of their properties on our way back, and nothing would please me better than to stop the train and let you off!”
SECTION 21.
Hal went into the drawing-room car. There were Mrs. Curtis and Reggie Porter, playing bridge with Genevieve Halsey and young Everson. Bob Creston was chatting with Betty Gunnison, telling her what he had seen outside, no doubt. Bert Atkins was looking over the morning paper, yawning. Hal went on, seeking Jessie Arthur, and found her in one of the compartments of the car, looking out of the rain-drenched window—learning about a mining-camp in the manner permitted to young ladies of her class.
He expected to find her in a disturbed state of mind, and was prepared to apologise. But when he met the look of distress she turned upon him, he did not know just where to begin. He tried to speak casually—he had heard she was going away. But she caught him by the hand, exclaiming: “Hal, you are coming with us!”
He did not answer for a moment, but sat down by her. “Have I made you suffer so much, Jessie?”
He saw tears start into her eyes. “Haven't you known you were making me suffer? Here I was as Percy's guest; and to have you put such questions to me! What could I say? What do I know about the way Mr. Harrigan should run his business?”
“Yes, dear,” he said, humbly. “Perhaps I shouldn't have drawn you into it. But the matter was so complicated and so sudden. Can't you understand that, and forgive me? Everything has turned out so well!”
But she did not think that everything had turned out well. “In the first place, for you to be here, in such a plight! And when I thought you were hunting mountain-goats in Mexico!”
He could not help laughing; but Jessie had not even a smile. “And then—to have you drag our love into the thing, there before every one!”
“Was that really so terrible, Jessie?”
She looked at him with amazement. That he, Hal Warner, could have done such a thing, and not realise how terrible it was! To put her in a position where she had to break either the laws of love or the laws of good-breeding! Why, it had amounted to a public quarrel. It would be the talk of the town—there was no end to the embarrassment of it!
“But, sweetheart!” argued Hal. “Try to see the reality of this thing—think about those people in the mine. You really must do that!”
She looked at him, and noticed the new, grim lines that had come upon his youthful face. Also, she caught the note of suppressed passion in his voice. He was pale and weary looking, in dirty clothes, his hair unkempt and his face only half washed. It was terrifying—as if he had gone to war.
“Listen to me, Jessie,” he insisted. “I want you to know about these things. If you and I are ever to make each other happy, you must try to grow up with me. That was why I was glad to have you here—you would have a chance to see for yourself. Now I ask you not to go without seeing.”
“But I have to go, Hal. I can't ask Percy Harrigan to stay and inconvenience everybody!”
“You can stay without him. You can ask one of the ladies to chaperon you.”
She gazed at him in dismay. “Why, Hal! What a thing to suggest!”
“Why so?”
“Think how it would look!”
“I can't think so much about looks, dear—”
She broke in: “Think what Mamma would say!”
“She wouldn't like it, I know—”
“She would be wild! She would never forgive either of us. She would never forgive any one who stayed with me. And what would Percy say, if I came here as his guest, and stayed to spy on him and his father? Don't you see how preposterous it would be?”
Yes, he saw. He was defying all the conventions of her world, and it seemed to her a course of madness. She clutched his hands in hers, and the tears ran down her cheeks.
“Hal,” she cried, “I can't leave you in this dreadful place! You look like a ghost, and a scarecrow, too! I want you to go and get some decent clothes and come home on this train.”
But he shook his head. “It's not possible, Jessie.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have a duty to do here. Can't you understand, dear? All my life, I've been living on the labour of coal-miners, and I've never taken the trouble to go near them, to see how my money was got!”
“But, Hal! These aren't your people! They are Mr. Harrigan's people!”
“Yes,” he said, “but it's all the same. They toil, and we live on their toil, and take it as a matter of course.”
“But what can one do about it, Hal?”
“One can understand it, if nothing else. And you see what I was able to do in this case—to get the mine open.”
“Hal,” she exclaimed, “I can't understand you! You've become so cynical, you don't believe in any one! You're quite convinced that these officials meant to murder their working people! As if Mr. Harrigan would let his mines be run that way!”
“Mr. Harrigan, Jessie? He passes the collection plate at St. George's! That's the only place you've ever seen him, and that's all you know about him.”
“I know what everybody says, Hal! Papa knows him, and my brothers—yes, your own brother, too! Isn't it true that Edward would disapprove what you're doing?”
“Yes, dear, I fear so.”
“And you set yourself up against them—against everybody you know! Is it reasonable to think the older people are all wrong, and only you are right? Isn't it at least possible you're making a mistake? Think about it—honestly, Hal, for my sake!”
She was looking at him pleadingly; and he leaned forward and took her hand. “Jessie,” he said, his voice trembling, “I know that these working people are oppressed; I know it, because I have been one of them! And I know that such men as Peter Harrigan, and even my own brother, are to blame! And they've got to be faced by some one—they've got to be made to see! I've come to see it clearly this summer—that's the job I have to do!”
She was gazing at him with her wide-open, beautiful eyes; underneath her protests and her terror, she was thrilling with awe at this amazing madman she loved. “They will kill you!” she cried.
“No, dearest—you don't need to worry about that—I don't think they'll kill me.”
“But they shot at you!”
“No, they shot at Joe Smith, a miner's buddy. They won't shoot at the son of a millionaire—not in America, Jessie.”
“But some dark night—”
“Set your mind at rest,” he said, “I've got Percy tied up in this, and everybody knows it. There's no way they could kill me without the whole story's coming out—and so I'm as safe as I would be in my bed at home!”
SECTION 22.
Hal was still possessed by his idea that Jessie must be taught—she must have knowledge forced upon her, whether she would or no. The train would not start for a couple of hours, and he tried to think of some use he could make of that precious interval. He recalled that Rosa Minetti had returned to her cabin to attend to her baby. A sudden vision came to him of Jessie in that little home. Rosa was sweet and good, and assuredly Little Jerry was a “winner.”
“Sweetheart,” he said, “I wish you'd come for a walk with me.”
“But it's raining, Hal!”
“It won't hurt you to spoil one dress; you have plenty.”
“I'm not thinking of that—”
“I wish you'd come.”
“I don't feel comfortable about it, Hal. I'm here as Percy's guest, and he mightn't like—”
“I'll ask him if he objects to your taking a stroll,” he suggested, with pretended gravity.
“No, no! That would make it worse!” Jessie had no humour whatever about these matters.
“Well, Vivie Cass was out, and some of the others are going. He hasn't objected to that.”
“I know, Hal. But he knows they're all right.”
Hal laughed. “Come on, Jessie. Percy won't hold you for my sins! You have a long train journey before you, and some fresh air will be good for you.”
She saw that she must make some concession to him, if she was to keep any of her influence over him.
“All right,” she said, with resignation, and disappeared and returned with a heavy veil over her face, to conceal her from prying reportorial eyes; also an equipment of mackintosh, umbrella and overshoes, against the rain. The two stole out of the car, feeling like a couple of criminals.
Skirting the edge of the throng about the pit-mouth, they came to the muddy, unpaved quarter in which the Italians had their homes; he held her arm, steering her through the miniature sloughs and creeks. It was thrilling to him to have her with him thus, to see her sweet face and hear her voice full of love. Many a time he had thought of her here, and told her in his imagination of his experiences!
He told her now—about the Minetti family, and how he had met Big and Little Jerry on the street, and how they had taken him in, and then been driven by fear to let him go again. He told his check-weighman story, and was telling how Jeff Cotton had arrested him; but they came to the Minetti cabin, and the terrifying narrative was cut short.
It was Little Jerry who came to the door, with the remains of breakfast distributed upon his cheeks; he stared in wonder at the mysteriously veiled figure. Entering, they saw Rosa sitting in a chair nursing her baby. She rose in confusion; but she did not quite like to turn her back upon her guests, so she stood trying to hide her breast as best she could, blushing and looking very girlish and pretty.
Hal introduced Jessie, as an old friend who was interested to meet his new friends, and Jessie threw back her veil and sat down. Little Jerry wiped off his face at his mother's command, and then came where he could stare at this incredibly lovely vision.
“I've been telling Miss Arthur what good care you took of me,” said Hal to Rosa. “She wanted to come and thank you for it.”
“Yes,” added Jessie, graciously. “Anybody who is good to Hal earns my gratitude.”
Rosa started to murmur something; but Little Jerry broke in, with his cheerful voice, “Why you call him Hal? His name's Joe!”
“Ssh!” cried Rosa. But Hal and Jessie laughed—and so the process of Americanising Little Jerry was continued.
“I've got lots of names,” said Hal. “They called me Hal when I was a kid like you.”
“Did she know you then?” inquired Little Jerry.
“Yes, indeed.”
“Is she your girl?”
Rosa laughed shyly, and Jessie blushed, and looked charming. She realised vaguely a difference in manners. These people accepted the existence of “girls,” not concealing their interest in the phenomenon.
“It's a secret,” warned Hal. “Don't you tell on us!”
“I can keep a secret,” said Little Jerry. After a moment's pause he added, dropping his voice, “You gotta keep secrets if you work in North Valley.”
“You bet your life,” said Hal.
“My father's a Socialist,” continued the other, addressing Jessie; then, since one thing leads on to another, “My father's a shot-firer.”
“What's a shot-firer?” asked Jessie, by way of being sociable.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Little Jerry. “Don't you know nothin' about minin'?”
“No,” said Jessie. “You tell me.”
“You couldn't get no coal without a shot-firer,” declared Little Jerry. “You gotta get a good one, too, or maybe you bust up the mine. My father's the best they got.”
“What does he do?”
“Well, they got a drill—long, long, like this, all the way across the room; and they turn it and bore holes in the coal. Sometimes they got machines to drill, only we don't like them machines, 'cause it takes the men's jobs. When they got the holes, then the shot-firer comes and sets off the powder. You gotta have—” and here Little Jerry slowed up, pronouncing each syllable very carefully—“per-miss-i-ble powder—what don't make no flame. And you gotta know just how much to put in. If you put in too much, you smash the coal, and the miner raises hell; if you don't put in enough, you make too much work for him, an' he raises hell again. So you gotta get a good shot-firer.”
Jessie looked at Hal, and he saw that her dismay was mingled with genuine amusement. He judged this a good way for her to get her education, so he proceeded to draw out Little Jerry on other aspects of coal-mining: on short weights and long hours, grafting bosses and camp-marshals, company-stores and boarding-houses, Socialist agitators and union organisers. Little Jerry talked freely of the secrets of the camp. “It's all right for you to know,” he remarked gravely. “You're Joe's girl!”
“You little cherub!” exclaimed Jessie.
“What's a cherub?” was Little Jerry's reply.
SECTION 23.
So the time passed in a way that was pleasant. Jessie was completely won by this little Dago mine-urchin, in spite of all his frightful curse-words; and Hal saw that she was won, and was delighted by the success of this experiment in social amalgamation. He could not read Jessie's mind, and realise that underneath her genuine delight were reservations born of her prejudices, the instinctive cruelty of caste. Yes, this little mine chap was a cherub, now; but how about when he grew big? He would grow ugly and coarse-looking, in ten years one would not know him from any other of the rough and dirty men of the village. Jessie took the fact that common people grow ugly as they mature as a proof that they are, in some deep and permanent way, the inferiors of those above them. Hal was throwing away his time and strength, trying to make them into something which Nature had obviously not intended them to be! She decided to make that point to Hal on their way back to the train. She realised that he had brought her here to educate her; like all the rest of the world, she resented forcible education, and she was not without hope that she might turn the tables and educate Hal.
Pretty soon Rosa finished nursing the baby, and Jessie remarked the little one's black eyes. This topic broke down the mother's shyness, and they were chatting pleasantly, when suddenly they heard sounds outside which caused them to start up. It was a clamour of women's voices; and Hal and Rosa sprang to the door. Just now was a critical time, when every one was on edge for news.
Hal threw open the door and called to those outside “What is it?” There came a response, in a woman's voice, “They've found Rafferty!”
“Alive?”
“Nobody knows yet.”
“Where?”
“In Room Seventeen. Eleven of them—Rafferty, and young Flanagan, and Johannson, the Swede. They're near dead—can't speak, they say. They won't let anybody near them.”
Other voices broke in; but the one which answered Hal had a different quality; it was a warm, rich voice, unmistakably Irish, and it held Jessie's attention. “They've got them in the tipple-room, and the women want to know about their men, and they won't tell them. They're beatin' them back like dogs!”
There was a tumult of weeping, and Hal stepped out of the cabin, and in a minute or so he entered again, supporting on his arm a girl, clad in a faded blue calico dress, and having a head of very conspicuous red hair. She seemed half fainting, and kept moaning that it was horrible, horrible. Hal led her to a chair, and she sank into it and hid her face in her hands, sobbing, talking incoherently between her sobs.
Jessie stood looking at this girl. She felt the intensity of her excitement, and shared it; yet at the same time there was something in Jessie that resented it. She did not wish to be upset about things like this, which she could not help. Of course these unfortunate people were suffering; but—what a shocking lot of noise the poor thing was making! A part of the poor thing's excitement was rage, and Jessie realised that, and resented it still more. It was as if it were a personal challenge to her; the same as Hal's fierce social passions, which so bewildered and shocked her.
“They're beatin' the women back like dogs!” the girl repeated.
“Mary,” said Hal, trying to soothe her, “the doctors will be doing their best. The women couldn't expect to crowd about them!”
“Maybe they couldn't; but that's not it, Joe, and ye know it! They been bringin' up dead bodies, some they found where the explosion was—blown all to pieces. And they won't let anybody see them. Is that because of the doctors? No, it ain't! It's because they want to tell lies about the number killed! They want to count four or five legs to a man! And that's what's drivin' the women crazy! I saw Mrs. Zamboni, tryin' to get into the shed, and Pete Hanun caught her by the breasts and shoved her back. 'I want my man!' she screamed. 'Well, what do you want him for? He's all in pieces!' 'I want the pieces!' 'What good'll they do you? Are you goin' to eat him?'”
There were cries of horror now, even from Jessie; and the strange girl hid her face in her hands and began to sob again. Hal put his hand gently on her arm.
“Mary,” he pleaded, “it's not so bad—at least they're getting the people out.”
“How do ye know what they're doin'? They might be sealin' up parts of the mine down below! That's what makes it so horrible—nobody knows what's happenin'! Ye should have heard poor Mrs. Rafferty screamin'. Joe, it went through me like a knife. Just think, it's been half an hour since they brought him up, and the poor lady can't be told if her man is alive.”
SECTION 24.
Hal stood for a few moments in thought. He was surprised that such things should be happening while Percy Harrigan's train was in the village. He was considering whether he should go to Percy, or whether a hint to Cotton or Cartwright would not be sufficient.
“Mary,” he said, in a quiet voice, “you needn't distress yourself so. We can get better treatment for the women, I'm sure.”
But her sobbing went on. “What can ye do? They're bound to have their way!”
“No,” said Hal. “There's a difference now. Believe me—something can be done. I'll step over and have a word with Jeff Cotton.”
He started towards the door; but there came a cry: “Hal!” It was Jessie, whom he had almost forgotten in his sudden anger at the bosses.
At her protest he turned and looked at her; then he looked at Mary. He saw the latter's hands fall from her tear-stained face, and her expression of grief give way to one of wonder. “Hal!”
“Excuse me,” he said, quickly. “Miss Burke, this is my friend, Miss Arthur.” Then, not quite sure if this was a satisfactory introduction, he added, “Jessie, this is my friend, Mary.”
Jessie's training could not fail in any emergency. “Miss Burke,” she said, and smiled with perfect politeness. But Mary said nothing, and the strained look did not leave her face.
In the first excitement she had almost failed to notice this stranger; but now she stared, and realisation grew upon her. Here was a girl, beautiful with a kind of beauty hardly to be conceived of in a mining-camp; reserved, yet obviously expensive—even in a mackintosh and rubber-shoes. Mary was used to the expensiveness of Mrs. O'Callahan, but here was a new kind of expensiveness, subtle and compelling, strangely unconscious. And she laid claim to Joe Smith, the miner's buddy! She called him by a name hitherto unknown to his North Valley associates! It needed no word from Little Jerry to guide Mary's instinct; she knew in a flash that here was the “other girl.”
Mary was seized with sudden acute consciousness of the blue calico dress, patched at the shoulder and stained with grease-spots; of her hands, big and rough with hard labour; of her feet, clad in shoes worn sideways at the heel, and threatening to break out at the toes. And as for Jessie, she too had the woman's instinct; she too saw a girl who was beautiful, with a kind of beauty of which she did not approve, but which she could not deny—the beauty of robust health, of abounding animal energy. Jessie was not unaware of the nature of her own charms, having been carefully educated to conserve them; nor did she fail to make note of the other girl's handicaps—the patched and greasy dress, the big rough hands, the shoes worn sideways. But even so, she realised that “Red Mary” had a quality which she lacked—that beside this wild rose of a mining-camp, she, Jessie Arthur, might possibly seem a garden flower, fragile and insipid.
She had seen Hal lay his hand upon Mary's arm, and heard her speak to him. She called him Joe! And a sudden fear had leaped into Jessie's heart.
Like many girls who have been delicately reared, Jessie Arthur knew more than she admitted, even to herself. She knew enough to realise that young men with ample means and leisure are not always saints and ascetics. Also, she had heard the remark many times made that these women of the lower orders had “no morals.” Just what did such a remark mean? What would be the attitude of such a girl as Mary Burke—full-blooded and intense, dissatisfied with her lot in life—to a man of culture and charm like Hal? She would covet him, of course; no woman who knew him could fail to covet him. And she would try to steal him away from his friends, from the world to which he belonged, the future of happiness and ease to which he was entitled. She would have powers—dark and terrible powers, all the more appalling to Jessie because they were mysterious. Might they possibly be able to overcome even the handicap of a dirty calico dress, of big rough hands and shoes worn sideways?
These reflections, which have taken many words to explain, came to Jessie in one flash of intuition. She understood now, all at once, the incomprehensible phenomenon—that Hal should leave friends and home and career, to come and live amid this squalor and suffering! She saw the old drama of the soul of man, heaven and hell contending for mastery of it; and she knew that she was heaven, and that this “Red Mary” was hell.
She looked at Hal. He seemed to her so fine and true; his face was frank, he was the soul of honourableness. No, it was impossible to believe that he had yielded to such a lure! If that had been the case, he would never have brought her to this cabin, he would never have taken a chance of her meeting the girl. No; but he might be struggling against temptation, he might be in the toils of it, and only half aware of it. He was a man, and therefore blind; he was a dreamer, and it would be like him to idealise this girl, calling her naïve and primitive, thinking that she had no wiles! Jessie had come just in time to save him! And she would fight to save him—using wiles more subtle than those at the command of any mining-camp hussy!
SECTION 25.
It was the surging up in Jessie Arthur of that instinctive self, the creature of hereditary cruelty, of the existence of which Hal had no idea. She drew back, and there was a quiet hauteur in her tone as she spoke. “Hal, come here, please.”
He came; and she waited until he was close enough for intimacy, and then said, “Have you forgotten you have to take me back to the train?”
“Can't you come with me for a few minutes?” he pleaded. “It would have such a good effect if you did.”
“I can't go into that crowd,” she answered; and suddenly her voice trembled, and the tears came into her sweet brown eyes. “Don't you know, Hal, that I couldn't stand such terrible sights? This poor girl—she is used to them—she is hardened! But I—I—oh, take me away, take me away, dear Hal!” This cry of a woman for protection came with a familiar echo to Hal's mind. He did not stop to think—he was moved by it instinctively. Yes, he had exposed the girl he loved to suffering! He had meant it for her own good, but even so, it was cruel!
He stood close to her, and saw the love-light in her eyes; he saw the tears, the trembling of her sensitive chin. She swayed to him, and he caught her in his arms—and there, before these witnesses, she let him press her to him, while she sobbed and whispered her distress. She had been shy of caresses hitherto, watched and admonished by an experienced mother; certainly she had never before made what could by the remotest stretch of the imagination be considered an advance towards him. But now she made it, and there was a cry of triumph in her soul as she saw that he responded to it. He was still hers—and these low people should know it, this “other girl” should know it!
Yet, in the midst of this very exultation, Jessie Arthur really felt the grief she expressed for the women of North Valley; she really felt horror at the story of Mrs. Zamboni's “man”: so intricate is the soul of woman, so puzzling that faculty, older than the ages, which enables her to be hysterical, and at the same time to be guided in the use of that hysteria by deep and infallible calculation.
But she made Hal realise that it was necessary for him to take her away. He turned to Mary Burke and said, “Miss Arthur's train is leaving in a short time. I'll have to take her hack, and then I'll go to the pit-mouth with you and see what I can do.”
“Very well,” Mary answered; and her voice was hard and cold. But Hal did not notice this. He was a man, and not able to keep up with the emotions of one woman—to say nothing of two women at the same time.
He took Jessie out, and all the way back to the train she fought a desperate fight to get him away from here. She no longer even suggested that he get decent clothing; she was willing for him to come as he was, in his coal-stained mining-jumpers, in the private train of the Coal King's son. She besought him in the name of their affection. She threatened him that if he did not come, this might be the last time they would meet. She even broke down in the middle of the street, and let him stand there in plain sight of miners' wives and children, and of possible newspaper reporters, holding her in his arms and comforting her.
Hal was much puzzled; but he would not give way. The idea of going off in Percy Harrigan's train had come to seem morally repulsive to him; he hated Percy Harrigan's train, and Percy Harrigan also, he declared. And Jessie saw that she was only making him unreasonable—that before long he might be hating her. With her instinctive savoir faire, she brought up his suggestion that she might find some one to chaperon her, and stay with him at North Valley until he was ready to come away.
Hal's heart leaped at that; he had no idea what was in her mind—the certainty that no one of the ladies of the Harrigan party would run the risk of offending her host by staying under such circumstances.
“You mean it, sweetheart?” he cried, happily.
She answered, “I mean that I love you, Hal.”
“All right, dear!” he said. “We'll see if we can arrange it.”
But as they walked on, she managed, without his realising it, to cause him to reflect upon the effect of her staying. She was willing to do it, if it was what he wanted; but it would injure, perhaps irrevocably, his standing with her parents. They would telegraph her to come at once; and if she did not obey, they would come by the next train. So on, until at last Hal was moved to withdraw his own suggestion. After all, what was the use of her staying, if her mind was on the people at home, if she would simply keep him in hot water? Before the conversation was over Hal had become clear in his mind that North Valley was no place for Jessie Arthur, and that he had been a fool to think he could bring the two together.
She tried to get him to promise to leave as soon as the last man had been brought out of the mine. He answered that he intended to leave then, unless some new emergency should arise. She tried to get an unqualified promise; and failing in that, when they had nearly got to the train she suddenly made a complete surrender. Let him do what he pleased—but let him remember that she loved him, that she needed him, that she could not do without him. No matter what he might do, no matter what people might say about him, she believed in him, she would stand by him. Hal was deeply touched, and took her in his arms again and kissed her tenderly under the umbrella, in the presence of the wondering stares of several urchins with coal-smutted faces. He pledged anew his love for her, assuring her that no amount of interest in mining-camps should ever steal him from her.
Then he put her on the train, and shook hands with the departing guests. He was so very sombre and harassed-looking that the young men forbore to “kid” him as they would otherwise have done. He stood on the station-platform and saw the train roll away—and felt, to his own desperate bewilderment, that he hated these friends of his boyhood and youth. His reason protested against it; he told himself there was nothing they could do, no reason on earth for them to stay—and yet he hated them. They were hurrying off to dance and flirt at the country club—while he was going back to the pit-mouth, to try to get Mrs. Zamboni the right to inspect the pieces of her “man”!
BOOK FOUR — THE WILL OF KING COAL
SECTION 1.
The pit of death was giving up its secrets. The hoist was busy, and cage-load after cage-load came up, with bodies dead and bodies living and bodies only to be classified after machines had pumped air into them for a while. Hal stood in the rain and watched the crowd and thought that he had never witnessed a scene so compelling to pity and terror. The silence that would fall when any one appeared who might have news to tell! The sudden shriek of anguish from some woman whose hopes were struck dead! The moans of sympathy that ran through the crowd, alternating with cheers at some good tidings, shaking the souls of the multitude as a storm of wind shakes a reed-field!
And the stories that ran through the camp—brought up from the underground world—stories of incredible sufferings, and of still more incredible heroisms! Men who had been four days without food or water, yet had resisted being carried out of the mine, proposing to stay and help rescue others! Men who had lain together in the darkness and silence, keeping themselves alive by the water which seeped from the rocks overhead, taking turns lying face upwards where the drops fell, or wetting pieces of their clothing and sucking out the moisture! Members of the rescue parties would tell how they knocked upon the barriers, and heard the faint answering signals of the imprisoned men; how madly they toiled to cut through, and how, when at last a little hole appeared, they heard the cries of joy, and saw the eyes of men shining from the darkness, while they waited, gasping, for the hole to grow bigger, so that water and food might be passed in!
In some places they were fighting the fire. Long lines of hose had been sent down, and men were moving forward foot by foot, as the smoke and steam were sucked out ahead of them by the fan. Those who did this work were taking their lives in their hands, yet they went without hesitation. There was always hope of finding men in barricaded rooms beyond.
Hal sought out Jeff Cotton at the entrance to the tipple-room, which had been turned into a temporary hospital. It was the first time the two had met since the revelation in Percy's car, and the camp-marshal's face took on a rather sheepish grin. “Well, Mr. Warner, you win,” he remarked; and after a little arguing he agreed to permit a couple of women to go into the tipple-room and make a list of the injured, and go out and give the news to the crowd. Hal went to the Minettis to ask Mary Burke to attend to this; but Rosa said that Mary had gone out after he and Miss Arthur had left, and no one knew where she was. So Hal went to Mrs. David, who consented to get a couple of friends, and do the work without being called a “committee.” “I won't have any damned committees!” the camp-marshal had declared.
So the night passed, and part of another day. A clerk from the office came to Hal with a sealed envelope, containing a telegram, addressed in care of Cartwright. “I most urgently beg of you to come home at once. It will be distressing to Dad if he hears what has happened, and it will not be possible to keep the matter from him for long.”
As Hal read, he frowned; evidently the Harrigans had got busy without delay! He went to the office and telephoned his answer. “Am planning to leave in a day or two. Trust you will make an effort to spare Dad until you have heard my story.”
This message troubled Hal. It started in his mind long arguments with his brother, and explanations and apologies to his father. He loved the old man tenderly. What a shame if some emissary of the Harrigans were to get to him to upset him with misrepresentations!
Also these ideas had a tendency to make Hal homesick; they brought more vividly to his thoughts the outside world, with its physical allurements—there being a limit to the amount of unwholesome meals and dirty beds and repulsive sights a man of refinement can force himself to endure. Hal found himself obsessed by a vision of a club dining-room, with odours of grilled steaks and hot rolls, and the colours of salads and fresh fruits and cream. The conviction grew suddenly strong in him that his work in North Valley was nearly done!
Another night passed, and another day. The last of the bodies had been brought out, and the corpses shipped down to Pedro for one of those big wholesale funerals which are a feature of mine-life. The fire was out, and the rescue-crews had given place to a swarm of carpenters and timbermen, repairing the damage and making the mine safe. The reporters had gone; Billy Keating having clasped Hal's hand, and promised to meet him for luncheon at the club. An agent of the “Red Cross” was on hand, and was feeding the hungry out of Mrs. Curtis's subscription-list. What more was there for Hal to do—except to bid good-bye to his friends, and assure them of his help in the future?
First among these friends was Mary Burke, whom he had had no chance to talk to since the meeting with Jessie. He realised that Mary had been deliberately avoiding him. She was not in her home, and he went to inquire at the Rafferties', and stopped for a good-bye chat with the old woman whose husband he had saved.
Rafferty was going to pull through. His wife had been allowed in to see him, and tears rolled down her shrunken cheeks as she told about it. He had been four days and nights blocked up in a little tunnel, with no food or water, save for a few drops of coffee which he had shared with other men. He could still not speak, he could hardly move a hand; but there was life in his eyes, and his look had been a greeting from the soul she had loved and served these thirty years and more. Mrs. Rafferty sang praises to the Rafferty God, who had brought him safely through these perils; it seemed obvious that He must be more efficient than the Protestant God of Johannson, the giant Swede, who had lain by Rafferty's side and given up the ghost.
But the doctor had stated that the old Irishman would never be good to work again; and Hal saw a shadow of terror cross the sunshine of Mrs. Rafferty's rejoicing. How could a doctor say a thing like that? Rafferty was old, to be sure; but he was tough—and could any doctor imagine how hard a man would try who had a family looking to him? Sure, he was not the one to give up for a bit of pain now and then! Besides him, there was only Tim who was earning; and though Tim was a good lad, and worked steady, any doctor ought to know that a big family could not be kept going on the wages of one eighteen-year-old pit-boy. As for the other lads, there was a law that said they were too young to work. Mrs. Rafferty thought there should be some one to put a little sense into the heads of them that made the laws—for if they wanted to forbid children to work in coal-mines, they should surely provide some other way to feed the children.
Hal listened, agreeing sympathetically, and meantime watching her, and learning more from her actions than from her words. She had been obedient to the teachings of her religion, to be fruitful and multiply; she had fed three grown sons into the maw of industry, and had still eight children and a man to care for. Hal wondered if she had ever rested a single minute of daylight in all her fifty-four years. Certainly not while he had been in her house! Even now, while praising the Rafferty God and blaming the capitalist law-makers, she was getting a supper, moving swiftly, silently, like a machine. She was lean as an old horse that has toiled across a desert; the skin over her cheek-bones was tight as stretched rubber, and cords stood out in her wrists like piano-wires.
And now she was cringing before the spectre of destitution. He asked what she would do about it, and saw the shadow of terror cross her face again. There was one recourse from starvation, it seemed—to have her children taken from her, and put in some institution! At the mention of this, one of the special nightmares of the poor, the old woman began to sob and cry again that the doctor was wrong; he would see, and Hal would see—Old Rafferty would be back at his job in a week or two!
SECTION 2.
Hal went out on the street again. It was the hour which would have been sunset in a level region; the tops of the mountains were touched with a purple light, and the air was fresh and chill with early fall. Down the darkening streets he saw a gathering of men; there was shouting, and people running towards the place, so he hurried up, with the thought in his mind, “What's the matter now?” There were perhaps a hundred men crying out, their voices mingling like the sound of waves on the sea. He could make out words: “Go on! Go on! We've had enough of it! Hurrah!”
“What's happened?” he asked, of some one on the outskirts; and the man, recognising him, raised a cry which ran through the throng: “Joe Smith! He's the boy for us! Come in here, Joe! Give us a speech!”
But even while Hal was asking questions, trying to get the situation clear, other shouts had drowned out his name. “We've had enough of them walking over us!” And somebody cried, more loudly, “Tell us about it! Tell it again! Go on!”
A man was standing upon the steps of a building at one side. Hal stared in amazement; it was Tim Rafferty. Of all people in the world—Tim, the light-hearted and simple, Tim of the laughing face and the merry Irish blue eyes! Now his sandy hair was tousled and his features distorted with rage. “Him near dead!” he yelled. “Him with his voice gone, and couldn't move his hand! Eleven years he's slaved for them, and near killed in an accident that's their own fault—every man in this crowd knows it's their own fault, by God!”
“Sure thing! You're right!” cried a chorus of voices “Tell it all!”
“They give him twenty-five dollars and his hospital expenses—and what'll his hospital expenses be? They'll have him out on the street again before he's able to stand. You know that—they done it to Pete Cullen!”
“You bet they did!”
“Them damned lawyers in there—gettin' 'em to sign papers when they don't know what they're doin'. An' me that might help him can't get near! By Christ, I say it's too much! Are we slaves, or are we dogs, that we have to stand such things?”
“We'll stand no more of it!” shouted one. “We'll go in there and see to it ourselves!”
“Come on!” shouted another. “To hell with their gunmen!”
Hal pushed his way into the crowd. “Tim!” he cried. “How do you know this?”
“There's a fellow in there seen it.”
“Who?”
“I can't tell you—they'd fire him; but it's somebody you know as well as me. He come and told me. They're beatin' me old father out of damages!”
“They do it all the time!” shouted Wauchope, an English miner at Hal's side. “That's why they won't let us in there.”
“They done the same thing to my father!” put in another voice. Hal recognised Andy, the Greek boy.
“And they want to start Number Two in the mornin'!” yelled Tim. “Who'll go down there again? And with Alec Stone, him that damns the men and saves the mules!”
“We'll not go back in them mines till they're safe!” shouted Wauchope. “Let them sprinkle them—or I'm done with the whole business.”
“And let 'em give us our weights!” cried another. “We'll have a check-weighman, and we'll get what we earn!”
So again came the cry, “Joe Smith! Give us a speech, Joe! Soak it to 'em! You're the boy!”
Hal stood helpless, dismayed. He had counted his fight won—and here was another beginning! The men were looking to him, calling upon him as the boldest of the rebels. Only a few of them knew about the sudden change in his fortunes.
Even while he hesitated, the line of battle had swept past him; the Englishman, Wauchope, sprang upon the steps and began to address the throng. He was one of the bowed and stunted men, but in this emergency he developed sudden lung-power. Hal listened in astonishment; this silent and dull-looking fellow was the last he would have picked for a fighter. Tom Olson had sounded him out, and reported that he would hear nothing, so they had dismissed him from mind. And here he was, shouting terrible defiance!
“They're a set of robbers and murderers! They rob us everywhere we turn! For my part, I've had enough of it! Have you?”
There was a roar from every one within reach of his voice. They had all had enough.
“All right, then—we'll fight them!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah! We'll have our rights!”
Jeff Cotton came up on the run, with “Bud” Adams and two or three of the gunmen at his heels. The crowd turned upon them, the men on the outskirts clenching their fists, showing their teeth like angry dogs. Cotton's face was red with rage, but he saw that he had a serious matter in hand; he turned and went for more help—and the mob roared with delight. Already they had begun their fight! Already they had won their first victory!
SECTION 3.
The crowd moved down the street, shouting and cursing as it went. Some one started to sing the Marseillaise, and others took it up, and the words mounted to a frenzy:
“To arms! To arms, ye brave!
March on, march on, all hearts resolved
On victory or death!”
There were the oppressed of many nations in this crowd; they sang in a score of languages, but it was the same song. They would sing a few bars, and the yells of others would drown them out. “March on! March on! All hearts resolved!” Some rushed away in different directions to spread the news, and very soon the whole population of the village was on the spot; the men waving their caps, the women lifting up their hands and shrieking—or standing terrified, realising that babies could not be fed upon revolutionary singing.
Tim Rafferty was raised up on the shoulders of the crowd and made to tell his story once more. While he was telling it, his old mother came running, and her shrieks rang above the clamour: “Tim! Tim! Come down from there! What's the matter wid ye?” She was twisting her hands together in an agony of fright; seeing Hal, she rushed up to him. “Get him out of there, Joe! Sure, the lad's gone crazy! They'll turn us out of the camp, they'll give us nothin' at all—and what'll become of us? Mother of God, what's the matter with the b'y?” She called to Tim again; but Tim paid no attention, if he heard her. Tim was on the march to Versailles!
Some one shouted that they would go to the hospital to protect the injured men from the “damned lawyers.” Here was something definite, and the crowd moved in that direction, Hal following with the stragglers, the women and children, and the less bold among the men. He noticed some of the clerks and salaried employés of the company; presently he saw Jeff Cotton again, and heard him ordering these men to the office to get revolvers.
“Big Jack” David came along with Jerry Minetti, and Hal drew back to consult with them. Jerry was on fire. It had come—the revolt he had been looking forward to for years! Why were they not making speeches, getting control of the men and organising them?
Jack David voiced uncertainty. They had to consider if this outburst could mean anything permanent.
Jerry answered that it would mean what they chose to make it mean. If they took charge, they could guide the men and hold them together. Wasn't that what Tom Olson had wanted?
No, said the big Welshman, Olson had been trying to organise the men secretly, as preliminary to a revolt in all the camps. That was quite another thing from an open movement, limited to one camp. Was there any hope of success for such a movement? If not, they would be foolish to start, they would only be making sure of their own expulsion.
Jerry turned to Hal. What did he think?
And so at last Hal had to speak. It was hard for him to judge, he said. He knew so little about labour matters. It was to learn about them that he had come to North Valley. It was a hard thing to advise men to submit to such treatment as they had been getting; but on the other hand, any one could see that a futile outbreak would discourage everybody, and make it harder than ever to organise them.
So much Hal spoke; but there was more in his mind, which he could not speak. He could not say to these men, “I am a friend of yours, but I am also a friend of your enemy, and in this crisis I cannot make up my mind to which side I owe allegiance. I'm bound by a duty of politeness to the masters of your lives; also, I'm anxious not to distress the girl I am to marry!” No, he could not say such things. He felt himself a traitor for having them in his mind, and he could hardly bring himself to look these men in the eye. Jerry knew that he was in some way connected with the Harrigans; probably he had told the rest of Hal's friends, and they had been discussing it and speculating about the meaning of it. Suppose they should think he was a spy?
So Hal was relieved when Jack David spoke firmly. They would only be playing the game of the enemy if they let themselves be drawn in prematurely. They ought to have the advice of Tom Olson.
Where was Olson? Hal asked; and David explained that on the day when Hal had been thrown out of camp, Olson had got his “time” and set out for Sheridan, the local headquarters of the union, to report the situation. He would probably not come back; he had got his little group together, he had planted the seed of revolt in North Valley.
They discussed back and forth the problem of getting advice. It was impossible to telephone from North Valley without everything they said being listened to; but the evening train for Pedro left in a few minutes, and “Big Jack” declared that some one ought to take it. The town of Sheridan was only fifteen or twenty miles from Pedro, and there would be a union official there to advise them; or they might use the long distance telephone, and persuade one of the union leaders in Western City to take the midnight train, and be in Pedro next morning.
Hal, still hoping to withdraw himself, put this task off on Jack David. They emptied out the contents of their pockets, so that he might have funds enough, and the big Welshman darted off to catch the train. In the meantime Jerry and Hal agreed to keep in the background, and to seek out the other members of their group and warn them to do the same.
SECTION 4.
This programme was a convenient one for Hal; but as he was to find almost at once, it had been adopted too late. He and Jerry started after the crowd, which had stopped in front of one of the company buildings; and as they came nearer they heard some one making a speech. It was the voice of a woman, the tones rising clear and compelling. They could not see the speaker, because of the throng, but Hal recognised her voice, and caught his companion by the arm. “It's Mary Burke!”
Mary Burke it was, for a fact; and she seemed to have the crowd in a kind of frenzy. She would speak one sentence, and there would come a roar from the throng; she would speak another sentence, and there would come another roar. Hal and Jerry pushed their way in, to where they could make out the words of this litany of rage.
“Would they go down into the pit themselves, do ye think?”
“They would not!”
“Would they be dressed in silks and laces, do ye think?”
“They would not!”
“Would they have such fine soft hands, do ye think?”
“They would not!”
“Would they hold themselves too good to look at ye?”
“They would not! They would not!”
And Mary swept on: “If only ye'd stand together, they'd come to ye on their knees to ask for terms! But ye're cowards, and they play on your fears! Ye're traitors, and they buy ye out! They break ye into pieces, they do what they please with ye—and then ride off in their private cars, and leave gunmen to beat ye down and trample on your faces! How long will ye stand it? How long?”
The roar of the mob rolled down the street and back again. “We'll not stand it! We'll not stand it!” Men shook their clenched fists, women shrieked, even children shouted curses. “We'll fight them! We'll slave no more for them!”
And Mary found a magic word. “We'll have a union!” she shouted. “We'll get together and stay together! If they refuse us our rights, we'll know what to answer—we'll have a strike!”
There was a roar like the crashing of thunder in the mountains. Yes, Mary had found the word! For many years it had not been spoken aloud in North Valley, but now it ran like a flash of gunpowder through the throng. “Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!” It seemed as if they would never have enough of it. Not all of them had understood Mary's speech, but they knew this word, “Strike!” They translated and proclaimed it in Polish and Bohemian and Italian and Greek. Men waved their caps, women waved their aprons—in the semi-darkness it was like some strange kind of vegetation tossed by a storm. Men clasped one another's hands, the more demonstrative of the foreigners fell upon one another's necks. “Strike! Strike! Strike!”
“We're no longer slaves!” cried the speaker. “We're men—and we'll live as men! We'll work as men—or we'll not work at all! We'll no longer be a herd of cattle, that they can drive about as they please! We'll organise, we'll stand together—shoulder to shoulder! Either we'll win together, or we'll starve and die together! And not a man of us will yield, not a man of us will turn traitor! Is there anybody here who'll scab on his fellows?”
There was a howl, which might have come from a pack of wolves. Let the man who would scab on his fellows show his dirty face in that crowd!
“Ye'll stand by the union?”
“We'll stand by it!”
“Ye'll swear?”
“We'll swear!”
She flung her arms to heaven with a gesture of passionate adjuration. “Swear it on your lives! To stick to the rest of us, and never a man of ye give way till ye've won! Swear! Swear!”
Men stood, imitating her gesture, their hands stretched up to the sky. “We swear! We swear!”
“Ye'll not let them break ye! Ye'll not let them frighten ye!”
“No! No!”
“Stand by your word, men! Stand by it! 'Tis the one chance for your wives and childer!” The girl rushed on—exhorting with leaping words and passionate out-flung arms—a tall, swaying figure of furious rebellion. Hal listened to the speech and watched the speaker, marvelling. Here was a miracle of the human soul, here was hope born of despair! And the crowd around her—they were sharing the wonderful rebirth; their waving arms, their swaying forms responded to Mary as an orchestra to the baton of a leader.
A thrill shook Hal—a thrill of triumph! He had been beaten down himself, he had wanted to run from this place of torment; but now there was hope in North Valley—now there would be victory, freedom!
Ever since he had come to the coal-country, the knowledge had been growing in Hal that the real tragedy of these people's lives was not their physical suffering, but their mental depression—the dull, hopeless misery in their minds. This had been driven into his consciousness day by day, both by what he saw and by what others told him. Tom Olson had first put it into words: “Your worst troubles are inside the heads of the fellows you're trying to help!” How could hope be given to men in this environment of terrorism? Even Hal himself, young and free as he was, had been brought to despair. He came from a class which is accustomed to say, “Do this,” or “Do that,” and it will be done. But these mine-slaves had never known that sense of power, of certainty; on the contrary, they were accustomed to having their efforts balked at every turn, their every impulse to happiness or achievement crushed by another's will.
But here was this miracle of the human soul! Here was hope in North Valley! Here were the people rising—and Mary Burke at their head! It was his vision come true—Mary Burke with a glory in her face, and her hair shining like a crown of gold! Mary Burke mounted upon a snow-white horse, wearing a robe of white, soft and lustrous—like Joan of Arc, or a leader in a suffrage parade! Yes, and she was at the head of a host, he had the music of its marching in his ears!
Underneath Hal's jesting words had been a real vision, a real faith in this girl. Since that day when he had first discovered her, a wild rose of the mining-camp taking in the family wash, he had realised that she was no pretty young working-girl, but a woman with a mind and a personality. She saw farther, she felt more deeply than the average of these wage-slaves. Her problem was the same as theirs, yet more complex. When he had wanted to help her and had offered to get her a job, she had made clear that what she craved was not merely relief from drudgery, but a life with intellectual interest. So then the idea had come to him that Mary should become a teacher, a leader of her people. She loved them, she suffered for them and with them, and at the same time she had a mind that was capable of seeking out the causes of their misery. But when he had gone to her with plans of leadership, he had been met by her corroding despair; her pessimism had seemed to mock his dreams, her contempt for these mine-slaves had belittled his efforts in their behalf and in hers.
And now, here she was taking up the role he had planned for her! Her very soul was in this shouting throng, he thought. She had lived the lives of these people, shared their every wrong, been driven to rebellion with them. Being a mere man, Hal missed one important point about this startling development; he did not realise that Mary's eloquence was addressed, not merely to the Rafferties and the Wauchopes, and the rest of the North Valley mine-slaves, but to a certain magazine-cover girl, clad in a mackintosh and a pale green hat and a soft and filmy and horribly expensive motoring veil!