King coal, p.20
King Coal, page 20
He was so happy that he was able to think of himself again, and to realise that he had not eaten that day. It was noon-time, and he went into Reminitsky’s, and was about half through with the first course of Reminitsky’s two-course banquet, when his cruel disillusioning fell upon him!
He looked up and saw Jeff Cotton striding into the dining-room, making straight for him. There was blood in the marshal’s eye, and Hal saw it, and rose, instinctively.
“Come!” said Cotton, and took him by the coat-sleeve and marched him out, almost before the rest of the diners had time to catch their breath.
Hal had no opportunity now to display his “tea-party manners” to the camp-marshal. As they walked, Cotton expressed his opinion of him, that he was a skunk, a puppy, a person of undesirable ancestry; and when Hal endeavoured to ask a question—which he did quite genuinely, not grasping at once the meaning of what was happening—the marshal bade him “shut his face,” and emphasised the command by a twist at his coat-collar. At the same time two of the huskiest mine-guards, who had been waiting at the dining-room door, took him, one by each arm, and assisted his progress.
They went down the street and past Jeff Cotton’s office, not stopping this time. Their destination was the railroad-station, and when Hal got there, he saw a train standing. The three men marched him to it, not releasing him till they had jammed him down into a seat.
“Now, young fellow,” said Cotton, “we’ll see who’s running this camp!”
By this time Hal had regained a part of his self-possession. “Do I need a ticket?” he asked.
“I’ll see to that,” said the marshal.
“And do I get my things?”
“You save some questions for your college professors,” snapped the marshal.
So Hal waited; and a minute or two later a man arrived on the run with his scanty belongings, rolled into a bundle and tied with a piece of twine. Hal noted that this man was big and ugly, and was addressed by the camp-marshal as “Pete.”
The conductor shouted, “All aboard!” And at the same time Jeff Cotton leaned over towards Hal and spoke in a menacing whisper: “Take this from me, young fellow; don’t stop in Pedro, move on in a hurry, or something will happen to you on a dark night.”
After which he strode down the aisle, and jumped off the moving train. But Hal noticed that Pete Hanun, the breaker of teeth, stayed on the car a few seats behind him.
BOOK THREE — THE HENCHMEN OF KING COAL
1. It was Hal’s intention to get to Western City as quickly as possible to call upon the newspaper editors. But first he must have money to travel, and the best way he could think of to get it was to find John Edstrom. He left the train, followed by Pete Hanun; after some inquiry, he came upon the undertaker who had buried Edstrom’s wife, and who told him where the old Swede was staying, in the home of a labouring-man nearby.
Edstrom greeted him with eager questions: Who had been killed? What was the situation? Hal told in brief sentences what had happened. When he mentioned his need of money, Edstrom answered that he had a little, and would lend it, but it was not enough for a ticket to Western City. Hal asked about the twenty-five dollars which Mary Burke had sent by registered mail; the old man had heard nothing about it, he had not been to the post-office. “Let’s go now!” said Hal, at once; but as they were starting downstairs, a fresh difficulty occurred to him. Pete Hanun was on the street outside, and it was likely that he had heard about this money from Jeff Cotton; he might hold Edstrom up and take it away.
“Let me suggest something,” put in the old man. “Come and see my friend Ed MacKellar. He may be able to give us some advice—even to think of some way to get the mine open.” Edstrom explained that MacKellar, an old Scotchman, had been a miner, but was now crippled, and held some petty office in Pedro. He was a persistent opponent of “Alf” Raymond’s machine, and they had almost killed him on one occasion. His home was not far away, and it would take little time to consult him.
“All right,” said Hal, and they set out at once. Pete Hanun followed them, not more than a dozen yards behind, but did not interfere, and they turned in at the gate of a little cottage. A woman opened the door for them, and asked them into the dining-room where MacKellar was sitting—a grey-haired old man, twisted up with rheumatism and obliged to go about on crutches.
Hal told his story. As the Scotchman had been brought up in the mines, it was not necessary to go into details about the situation. When Hal told his idea of appealing to the newspapers, the other responded at once, “You won’t have to go to Western City. There’s a man right here who’ll do the business for you; Keating, of the Gazette.”
“The Western City Gazette?” exclaimed Hal. He knew this paper; an evening journal selling for a cent, and read by working-men. Persons of culture who referred to it disposed of it with the adjective “yellow.”
“I know,” said MacKellar, noting Hal’s tone. “But it’s the only paper that will publish your story anyway.”
“Where is this Keating?”
“He’s been up at the mine. It’s too bad you didn’t meet him.”
“Can we get hold of him now?”
“He might be in Pedro. Try the American Hotel.”
Hal went to the telephone, and in a minute was hearing for the first time the cheery voice of his friend and lieutenant-to-be, “Billy” Keating. In a couple of minutes more the owner of the voice was at MacKellar’s door, wiping the perspiration from his half-bald forehead. He was round-faced, like a full moon, and as jolly as Falstaff; when you got to know him better, you discovered that he was loyal as a Newfoundland dog. For all his bulk, Keating was a newspaper man, every inch of him “on the job.”
He started to question the young miner as soon as he was introduced, and it quickly became clear to Hal that here was the man he was looking for. Keating knew exactly what questions to ask, and had the whole story in a few minutes. “By thunder!” he cried. “My last edition!” And he pulled out his watch, and sprang to the telephone. “Long distance,” he called; then, “I want the city editor of the Western City Gazette. And, operator, please see if you can’t rush it through. It’s very urgent, and last time I had to wait nearly half an hour.”
He turned back to Hal, and proceeded to ask more questions, at the same time pulling a bunch of copy-paper from his pocket and making notes. He got all Hal’s statements about the lack of sprinkling, the absence of escape-ways, the delay in starting the fan, the concealing of the number of men in the mine. “I knew things were crooked up there!” he exclaimed. “But I couldn’t get a lead! They kept a man with me every minute of the time. You know a fellow named Predovich?”
“I do,” said Hal. “The company store-clerk; he once went through my pockets.”
Keating made a face of disgust. “Well, he was my chaperon. Imagine trying to get the miners to talk to you with that sneak at your heels! I said to the superintendent, ‘I don’t need anybody to escort me around your place.’ And he looked at me with a nasty little smile. ‘We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you while you’re in this camp, Mr. Keating.’ ‘You don’t consider it necessary to protect the lives of the other reporters,’ I said. ‘No,’ said he; ‘but the Gazette has made a great many enemies, you know.’ ‘Drop your fooling, Mr. Cartwright,’ I said. ‘You propose to have me shadowed while I’m working on this assignment?’ ‘You can put it that way,’ he answered, ‘if you think it’ll please the readers of the Gazette.’”
“Too bad we didn’t meet!” said Hal. “Or if you’d run into any of our check-weighman crowd!”
“Oh! You know about that check-weighman business!” exclaimed the reporter. “I got a hint of it—that’s how I happened to be down here to-day. I heard there was a man named Edstrom, who’d been shut out for making trouble; and I thought if I could find him, I might get a lead.”
Hal and MacKellar looked at the old Swede, and the three of them began to laugh. “Here’s your man!” said MacKellar.
“And here’s your check-weighman!” added Edstrom, pointing to Hal.
Instantly the reporter was on his job again; he began to fire another series of questions. He would use that check-weighman story as a “follow-up” for the next day, to keep the subject of North Valley alive. The story had a direct bearing on the disaster, because it showed what the North Valley bosses were doing when they should have been looking after the safety of their mine. “I’ll write it out this afternoon and send it by mail,” said Keating; he added, with a smile, “That’s one advantage of handling news the other papers won’t touch—you don’t have to worry about losing your ‘scoops’!”
2. Keating went to the telephone again, to worry “long distance”; then, grumbling about his last edition, he came back to ask more questions about Hal’s experiences. Before long he drew out the story of the young man’s first effort in the publicity game; at which he sank back in his chair, and laughed until he shook, as the nursery-rhyme describes it, “like a bowlful of jelly.”
“Graham!” he exclaimed. “Fancy, MacKellar, he took that story to Graham!”
The Scotchman seemed to find it equally funny; together they explained that Graham was the political reporter of the Eagle, the paper in Pedro which was owned by the Sheriff-emperor. One might call him Alf Raymond’s journalistic jackal; there was no job too dirty for him.
“But,” cried Hal, “he told me he was correspondent for the Western press association!”
“He’s that, too,” replied Billy.
“But does the press association employ spies for the ‘G. F. C.’?”
The reporter answered, drily, “When you understand the news game better, you’ll realise that the one thing the press association cares about in a correspondent is that he should have respect for property. If respect for property is the back-bone of his being, he can learn what news is, and the right way to handle it.”
Keating turned to the Scotchman. “Do you happen to have a typewriter in the house, Mr. MacKellar?”
“An old one,” said the other—“lame, like myself.”
“I’ll make out with it. I’d ask this young man over to my hotel, but I think he’d better keep off the streets as much as possible.”
“You’re right. If you take my advice, you’ll take the typewriter upstairs, where there’s no chance of a shot through the window.”
“Great heavens!” exclaimed Hal. “Is this America, or mediaeval Italy?”
“It’s the Empire of Raymond,” replied MacKellar. “They shot my friend Tom Burton dead while he stood on the steps of his home. He was opposing the machine, and had evidence about ballot-frauds he was going to put before the Grand Jury.”
While Keating continued to fret with “long distance,” the old Scotchman went on trying to impress upon Hal the danger of his position. Quite recently an organiser of the miners’ union had been beaten up in broad day-light and left insensible on the sidewalk; MacKellar had watched the trial and acquittal of the two thugs who had committed this crime—the foreman of the jury being a saloon-keeper one of Raymond’s heelers, and the other jurymen being Mexicans, unable to comprehend a word of the court proceedings.
“Exactly such a jury as Jeff Cotton promised me!” remarked Hal, with a feeble attempt at a smile.
“Yes,” answered the other; “and don’t make any mistake about it, if they want to put you away, they can do it. They run the whole machine here. I know how it is, for I had a political job myself, until they found they couldn’t use me.”
The old Scotchman went on to explain that he had been elected justice of peace, and had tried to break up the business of policemen taking money from the women of the town; he had been forced to resign, and his enemies had made his life a torment. Recently he had been candidate for district judge on the Progressive ticket, and told of his efforts to carry on a campaign in the coal-camps—how his circulars had been confiscated, his posters torn down, his supporters “kangarooed.” It was exactly as Alec Stone, the pit-boss, had explained to Hal. In some of the camps the meeting-halls belonged to the company; in others they belonged to saloon-keepers whose credit depended upon Alf Raymond. In the few places where there were halls that could be hired, the machine had gone to the extreme of sending in rival entertainments, furnishing free music and free beer in order to keep the crowds away from MacKellar.
All this time Billy Keating had been chafing and scolding at “long distance.” Now at last he managed to get his call, and silence fell in the room. “Hello, Pringle, that you? This is Keating. Got a big story on the North Valley disaster. Last edition put to bed yet? Put Jim on the wire. Hello, Jim! Got your book?” And then Billy, evidently talking to a stenographer, began to tell the story he had got from Hal. Now and then he would stop to repeat or spell a word; once or twice Hal corrected him on details. So, in about a quarter of an hour, they put the job through; and Keating turned to Hal.
“There you are, son,” said he. “Your story’ll be on the street in Western City in a little over an hour; it’ll be down here as soon thereafter as they can get telephone connections. And take my advice, if you want to keep a whole skin, you’ll be out of Pedro when that happens!”
3. When Hal spoke, he did not answer Billy Keating’s last remark. He had been listening to a retelling of the North Valley disaster over the telephone; so he was not thinking about his skin, but about a hundred and seven men and boys buried inside a mine.
“Mr. Keating,” said he, “are you sure the Gazette will print that story?”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed the other. “What am I here for?”
“Well, I’ve been disappointed once, you know.”
“Yes, but you got into the wrong camp. We’re a poor man’s paper, and this is what we live on.”
“There’s no chance of its being ‘toned down’?”
“Not the slightest, I assure you.”
“There’s no chance of Peter Harrigan’s suppressing it?”
“Peter Harrigan made his attempts on the Gazette long ago, my boy.”
“Well,” said Hal, “and now tell me this—will it do the work?”
“In what way?”
“I mean—in making them open the mine.”
Keating considered for a moment. “I’m afraid it won’t do much.”
Hal looked at him blankly. He had taken it for granted the publication of the facts would force the company to move. But Keating explained that the Gazette read mainly by working-people, and so had comparatively little influence. “We’re an afternoon paper,” he said; “and when people have been reading lies all morning, it’s not easy to make them believe the truth in the afternoon.”
“But won’t the story go to other papers—over the country, I mean?”
“Yes, we have a press service; but the papers are all like the Gazette—poor man’s papers. If there’s something very raw, and we keep pounding away for a long time, we can make an impression; at least we limit the amount of news the Western press association can suppress. But when it comes to a small matter like sealing up workingmen in a mine, all we can do is to worry the ‘G. F. C.’ a little.”
So Hal was just where he had begun! “I must find some other plan,” he exclaimed.
“I don’t see what you can do,” replied the other.
There was a pause, while the young miner pondered. “I had thought of going up to Western City and appealing to the editors,” he said, a little uncertainly.
“Well, I can tell you about that—you might as well save your car-fare. They wouldn’t touch your story.”
“And if I appealed to the Governor?”
“In the first place, he probably wouldn’t see you. And if he did, he wouldn’t do anything. He’s not really the Governor, you know; he’s a puppet put up there to fool you. He only moves when Harrigan pulls a string.”
“Of course I knew he was Old Peter’s man,” said Hal. “But then”—and he concluded, somewhat lamely, “What can I do?”
A smile of pity came upon the reporter’s face. “I can see this is the first time you’ve been up against ‘big business.’” And then he added, “You’re young! When you’ve had more experience, you’ll leave these problems to older heads!” But Hal failed to get the reporter’s sarcasm. He had heard these exact words in such deadly seriousness from his brother! Besides, he had just come from scenes of horror.
“But don’t you see, Mr. Keating?” he exclaimed. “It’s impossible for me to sit still while those men die?”
“I don’t know about your sitting still,” said the other. “All I know is that all your moving about isn’t going to do them any good.”
Hal turned to Edstrom and MacKellar. “Gentlemen,” he said, “listen to me for a minute.” And there was a note of pleading in his voice—as if he thought they were deliberately refusing to help him! “We’ve got to do something about this. We’ve got to do something! I’m new at the game, as Mr. Keating says; but you aren’t. Put your minds on it, gentlemen, and help me work out a plan!”
There was a long silence. “God knows,” said Edstrom, at last. “I’d suggest something if I could.”
“And I, too,” said MacKellar. “You’re up against a stone-wall, my boy. The government here is simply a department of the ‘G. F. C.’ The officials are crooks—company servants, all of them.”
“Just a moment now,” said Hal. “Let’s consider. Suppose we had a real government—what steps would we take? We’d carry such a case to the District Attorney, wouldn’t we?”
“Yes, no doubt of it,” said MacKellar.
“You mentioned him before,” said Hal. “He threatened to prosecute some mine-superintendents for ballot-frauds, you said.”
