King Coal | Page 5

as quick as
you can, or you'll go in your shirt-tail."
But Hal was angry enough to have been willing to go in his skin. "You
tell me who you are, and your authority for this procedure?"
"I'm marshal of the camp," said the man.
"You mean you're an employé of the General Fuel Company? And you
propose to rob me--"
"Put him out, Bill," said the marshal. And Hal saw Bill's fists clench.
"All right," he said, swallowing his indignation. "Wait till I get my

clothes on." And he proceeded to dress as quickly as possible; he rolled
up his blanket and spare clothing, and started for the door.
"Remember," said the marshal, "straight down the canyon with you,
and if you show your face round here again, you'll get a bullet through
you."
So Hal went out into the sunshine, with a guard on each side of him as
an escort. He was on the same mountain road, but in the midst of the
company-village. In the distance he saw the great building of the
breaker, and heard the incessant roar of machinery and falling coal. He
marched past a double lane of company houses and shanties, where
slattern women in doorways and dirty children digging in the dust of
the roadside paused and grinned at him--for he limped as he walked,
and it was evident enough what had happened to him.
Hal had come with love and curiosity. The love was greatly
diminished--evidently this was not the force which kept the wheels of
industry a-roll. But the curiosity was greater than ever. What was there
so carefully hidden inside this coal-camp stockade?
Hal turned and looked at Bill, who had showed signs of humour the day
before. "See here," said he, "you fellows have got my money, and
you've blacked my eye and kicked me blue, so you ought to be satisfied.
Before I go, tell me about it, won't you?"
"Tell you what?" growled Bill.
"Why did I get this?"
"Because you're too gay, kid. Didn't you know you had no business
trying to sneak in here?"
"Yes," said Hal; "but that's not what I mean. Why didn't you let me in
at first?"
"If you wanted a job in a mine," demanded the man, "why didn't you go
at it in the regular way?"

"I didn't know the regular way."
"That's just it. And we wasn't takin' chances with you. You didn't look
straight."
"But what did you think I was? What are you afraid of?"
"Go on!" said the man. "You can't work me!"
Hal walked a few steps in silence, pondering how to break through. "I
see you're suspicious of me," he said. "I'll tell you the truth, if you'll let
me." Then, as the other did not forbid him, "I'm a college boy, and I
wanted to see life and shift for myself a while. I thought it would be a
lark to come here."
"Well," said Bill, "this ain't no foot-ball field. It's a coal-mine."
Hal saw that his story had been accepted. "Tell me straight," he said,
"what did you think I was?"
"Well, I don't mind telling," growled Bill. "There's union agitators
trying to organise these here camps, and we ain't taking no chances
with 'em. This company gets its men through agencies, and if you'd
went and satisfied them, you'd 'a been passed in the regular way. Or if
you'd went to the office down in Pedro and got a pass, you'd 'a been all
right. But when a guy turns up at the gate, and looks like a dude and
talks like a college perfessor, he don't get by, see?"
"I see," said Hal. And then, "If you'll give me the price of a breakfast
out of my money, I'll be obliged."
"Breakfast is over," said Bill. "You sit round till the pinyons gets ripe."
He laughed; but then, mellowed by his own joke, he took a quarter
from his pocket and passed it to Hal. He opened the padlock on the gate
and saw him out with a grin; and so ended Hal's first turn on the wheels
of industry.

SECTION 3.
Hal Warner started to drag himself down the road, but was unable to
make it. He got as far as a brooklet that came down the mountain-side,
from which he might drink without fear of typhoid; there he lay the
whole day, fasting. Towards evening a thunder-storm came up, and he
crawled under the shelter of a rock, which was no shelter at all. His
single blanket was soon soaked through, and he passed a night almost
as miserable as the previous one. He could not sleep, but he could think,
and he thought about what had happened to him. "Bill" had said that a
coal mine