CHAPTER XIII

STRAIGHTENING THE CROOKED ONES

A brief investigation on the part of the mine captain on the day following verified all that the boys had told the superintendent. Watching the tally-board man from behind the partition that shut off the skip shaft, the captain saw the man falsify the tally of the ore cars, making it show a considerable excess of the actual amount of ore contained in each car.

At noon Marvin was summoned to the office of the superintendent and confronted with the facts. After a few minutes of stubborn denial, the rascal gave in and told the whole story. He was to share half of the amount thus gained with the man Spooner. Up to that time the two men had made a substantial rake-off six days in every week.

After the tally-man had made a clean breast of the steal the superintendent said:

"Go back to your post. You will receive further orders later in the day. But see to it that nothing is said to Spooner until I have seen him; then you two can talk and growl all you wish. You will have something to growl about, I promise you that. How long has this thing been going on?"

"For six weeks, sir."

"How much have you cheated the company out of thus far?"

Marvin handed Mr. Penton a slip of paper on which he had made some figures while talking, after which the tally-man departed very much crestfallen.

Spooner was the next man summoned, and the contractor passed the most uncomfortable hour of his life under Mr. Penton's shrewd questioning. Spooner had been a miner and his contracting was of only recent date. When he saw that the superintendent was in possession of all the facts, he admitted that he had been receiving pay for many tons a day more than he had delivered to the company.

Mr. Penton considered the matter for some moments, while the contractor stood before him twisting his hat nervously between his hands, now and then shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"What do you think I ought to do with a rascal like you?" finally demanded the superintendent.

"I'll give up my contract and go back to working in the drift."

"You will do nothing of the sort! You will keep on with your contract until you have paid back what you have robbed the company of, you and your partner in crime, Marvin. You are a fine pair. By rights I ought to send both of you to jail. Perhaps I may do that yet, but that will depend upon what officials higher up order me to do. For the present, however, you will engage to pay back what you have stolen; that is, unless you prefer to hand over the money in a lump."

"I haven't that much money--I have no money."

"I thought not; therefore two thirds of the amount will be deducted from the money due you each week and one third from the wages of the tally-man."

Spooner essayed to speak, but the words seemed to stick in his throat. Finally he managed to mumble:

"All--all right, sir."

"But, mind you, no more of your thieving tricks, or I'll have you in the cooler before you realize it."

"All right, sir. I--I'd like to ask a question."

"Ask it."

"Who was the man who gave me away?"

"You ought to know better than to ask me that question. Frankly, it is none of your concern. We have been looking for this leak for some time, and we have found it. Had you possessed a grain of common sense you would have known that, sooner or later, you would have been checked up. You're checked. The interview is ended. Go back to work."

"I'll _find_ the man!" growled Spooner. "I'll find him if it takes all the rest of my life to do it, and when I do----"

"What then?" interrupted the superintendent, fixing stern eyes on the man before him.

"I'll tell him what I think of him," answered the contractor lamely, as he left the room.

All the other contract drifts had been found to be working regularly, so it was reasonable that the entire shortage might be charged to Spooner. As a matter of fact, this shortage tallied very closely with the figures that the tally-man had given to the superintendent.

When the contractor returned to his drift he was more subdued than any of his regular shift had ever before seen him. They could not understand the sudden change. There was one there, however, who did understand. That one was Bob Jarvis. Bob was leaning against the "shore" just outside of the vein the men were working. He was doing nothing in particular.

Some moments passed before Spooner discovered this.

"Get in there, you, before I shove you in! Get hold of a shovel! What do you think I'm paying you for? What are you trying to do--hold up the wall? The lagging will do that without your help. Get to work."

"I am working," answered Bob coolly, making no effort to obey the order of the contractor.

"You are working, eh?"

"Yes."

"May I inquire what you are working at?"

"Yes, I'm working for the company. My particular business at this moment is watching you."

"Watching me?"

"Yes, sir; I am here to check you up. I am not working for you to-day. As I said, I am working for the company. Don't let me disturb you, sir. I'll try not to get in the way."

"Do you know why you are doing this?"

"Yes; because I am ordered to do so."

"Is that all you know?"

"It may be, and then again it may not be."

With a growl, Spooner turned and began to abuse his men, while Bob remained leaning against the wall, checking each car as it was filled.

In the meantime, when Marvin returned to his station on the level below, he stepped to the tally-board and relieved the man who had been placed there to act during the regular man's absence.

As Marvin was looking over the boards Steve stepped up, touching him on the shoulder. The tally-man's face flushed angrily.

"What do you want?"

"Merely to say to you that I have had orders to check you up, to see that you check every car properly."

"I won't stand it. I'll----"

Steve shrugged his shoulders.

"That is a matter with which I have no concern. You will have to fight that out with the superintendent. I shall obey my orders and it will be better for you, I should imagine, to submit without trying to make matters uncomfortable for me. I shall do what I have been told to do, just the same. When a train draws up you will plug only when you see that I am looking at the board, please. I'll dump the cars after you have done that and I shall know if you have moved the plugs when I am not looking."

Marvin's face twitched nervously, but he made no reply.

There was nothing of triumph in Steve's attitude. The lad was attending to business to the best of his ability. He discovered, after a time, that Marvin was watching him narrowly. As he watched, the tally-man's face grew blacker and blacker.

"I wonder if he suspects?" thought Rush.

As a matter of fact, Marvin was beginning to see light. At noon the tally-man hurried away, after sulkily asking Steve to watch the tally-board. First, however, the man made a memorandum of the tally, so that Steve could not change it without Marvin's being aware of the fact. The lad pretended not to have observed this, but a quiet smile hovered about the corners of his mouth as he laid out his lunch on a clean, white napkin on the bench beside him.

Instead of going up in the cage, Marvin hastily climbed a ladder to the sub-level, where he waited for Spooner to come out.

"Well, what is it?" demanded the contractor in a surly tone.

"I've got wise to something. Where can we talk?"

"Come over in the drift here. There's no one near by."

The men slipped into a dead drift, extinguished their candles and engaged in earnest conversation.

Bob Jarvis' shrewd eyes had observed the actions of the men. He was sitting in the Spooner contract eating his lunch, but they had not noticed him.

"I wish I could find out what they are talking about," he muttered. "But I am not a spy. I don't know that I care particularly. I'll tell Steve, for I have an idea there is mischief in the air. There they go down the level."

The two men climbed down the ladder to the main level. A few minutes later Steve saw Spooner alone, sauntering along the tracks. When the contractor reached the chute he halted, peering over at the lad as if he had just discovered him.

"Hello, Rush," he greeted, turning and coming over to where Steve was sitting.

"Good afternoon."

Spooner sat down on the bench, and, for a moment or two, nothing was said, Steve continuing with his lunch as indifferently as if the contractor had not been there.

"So you're the sneak who gave me away, are you?" demanded Spooner, turning upon the lad savagely.

Steve eyed the contractor calmly.

"Am I?"

"You are!"

"I may be the man, and in fact I will admit that I was instrumental in exposing your crookedness, but I am not a sneak. It strikes me that you have laid yourself open to being called one."

The man's face turned white with anger. He opened and closed his fingers, with difficulty restraining himself from fastening them upon the calm-faced boy beside him. Steve munched his food steadily, but he was watching the man narrowly.

"I--I'll be even with you for that, you sneaking cur!" shouted Spooner. "Yes, I'll be even with you!"

"I wouldn't threaten, were I in your place. If anything should happen to me you might be accused, you know," answered Rush in a tantalizing tone. "What do you propose to do to me?"

Spooner leaped up and shook his fist under the Iron Boy's nose. The latter did not flinch.

"What do I propose to do to you? I'll tell you what I am going to do to you. I'm going to drive you out of this mine. I'll never stop till I've driven you off the range and out of the mine country. You'll never be able to get a day's work in a mine on this range after I get through with you, if nothing worse happens to you in the meantime. I'll----"

"It strikes me that you are pretty much in the same box yourself----"

"Oh, I wish you were a man! I wish you weren't a weak, baby-faced kid! I'd beat you to a pulp right----"

"Don't let that worry you, Spooner. Sail in, if you feel you have got to take it out of me. Perhaps you will feel better after you have vented your ugly temper on someone, even if it is a boy. Now get off from this platform!" commanded Rush, with a sudden change of tone, as he rose quickly to his feet. "You've got no business here, anyway. Get out!"

Steve grabbed up the iron bar with which he dumped the cars and started for the contractor. He had no intention of using it on the man, but he did not wish to engage in a fight with the fellow, being pretty sure that he would get the worst of it, for Spooner was a large and powerful man. Therefore the Iron Boy chose what he considered to be the most effective way of ridding himself of the contractor's presence.

Spooner hesitated a moment, then began backing up, his face pale with rage, his fists clenched.

"You had better turn about and face the other way, unless you want to fall through the chutes," warned Steve.

Spooner turned with an exclamation. A second more and he would have fallen in and shot down to the level below. As it was, he was obliged to jump over the opening to save himself, landing on the other side of the track. There he paused and renewed his abuse of young Rush.

"I've had enough of your nonsense! Get out!" commanded the sturdy lad. He, too, leaped the chutes and made for the contractor, brandishing his iron bar. Spooner turned and ran down the level until he reached the ladder, up which he climbed to his own drift.

"There, I guess I shall not be troubled by that fellow any more," said Steve, returning slowly to his interrupted lunch.

But he had not heard the last of Spooner.

The contractor, fuming with rage, was already plotting the downfall of the lad who had been the cause of his undoing.