CHAPTER XVII

THEIR FIRST PROMOTION

"Wait a minute," said Mr. Penton, hurrying across the hall to the office of the time-keepers.

He was gone but a few moments and when he returned there was a look on his face that Steve had never seen there before. It was a look that meant trouble for someone. The superintendent sat down, gazing out of the window at the towering shaft of the Cousin Jack Mine.

"You did not answer my previous question. I asked you whom you suspected."

"I dislike to make so serious a charge against anyone, sir, but a certain man was seen standing near the door leading down to the platform the day before I fell in. Two persons saw him."

"Who was the man?"

"The man was Spooner, sir."

"You are sure of that?"

"Sure of it according to my information."

"Well, lad, this is Spooner's time check that you have brought to me," replied Mr. Penton in an impressive voice.

"I reckon that evidence would hang a live cat," muttered Bob Jarvis.

"Yes, it is sufficient evidence to warrant my looking up the man and lodging a complaint against him. Was he alone when he was seen at the door of the shaft, or don't you know?"

"Marvin was with him, sir."

"Ah! Rush, you have done well. You are a very shrewd young man. In fact, I am proud of both of you. When we have anything of this sort on hand again I shall get you to investigate it. However, I do not believe there is another man in the mine who is wicked enough to attempt the life of a boy. There is another matter that I have had in mind for some time. That is, your advancement. You have learned fast. You already know more about the mine and its operation than a number of men who have spent the greater part of their lives below ground."

"Thank you, sir. We have tried to improve our opportunities."

"You have done so. You have done the company a great service in finding the place where the shortage occurred. I have already expressed myself on this point. After receiving my report in that case, the president of the company wrote me to reward you as I saw fit. I shall do so by promoting you. It is not much of a promotion, but it will give you an opportunity to acquaint yourselves the better with the mine and its operations. I now appoint you two boys inspectors of tracks. Your duties will be to see that the tram tracks are in perfect condition. It will keep you busy, for there are a good many miles of track in the Cousin Jack. You, Rush, will take the east half and Jarvis the west. That will take you both well over the mine. It would be simpler to divide your territory by levels, but I consider the former plan the better one for your own good. You will require some technical information that the engineer will give you. He also will supply you with maps of the trackage, which you will study carefully."

"I am very grateful," breathed Steve, his eyes lighting up.

"You're welcome, lad. I want to push you along as fast as you are ready, but you must not expect to go too fast."

"I think I have done very well as it is, sir."

"Your pay will be two dollars a day."

Twelve dollars a week! It was more money than either of the boys ever had earned before. To them it seemed a large sum of money. They were very happy and proud. Their new work was to begin on the following morning. Jarvis went back to finish his day at drifting in ore, while Steve returned to his boarding place, where he sat down and wrote a long letter to his mother, telling her of his good fortune.

In the meantime Mr. Penton set an inquiry on foot to locate Spooner and Marvin. The men had applied for work in a neighboring mine, he learned, but had failed to get employment there. Neither man had been seen in those parts since. Mr. Penton decided that they had left the range, and he was thankful for it, as it relieved him of an unpleasant duty. However, that day he made a detailed report to the president of the mining company by letter, giving the boys full credit for what they had discovered. Mr. Penton also made report of the promotion he had given them. This was afterwards heartily endorsed by President Carrhart.

Early the next morning the boys went over the mine with an assistant engineer. He gave them a long talk on tracks, Steve asking many questions as they went along. That afternoon the Iron Boys began their work, having laid out a certain number of levels that were to be visited each day. As Mr. Penton had told them, their new position took them to nearly every part of the mine, from the lowest working level to the tram tracks on the surface and far up on the trestle.

By the time that they had been at their new work for several months, each lad had proved that he was worthy of the confidence placed in him by the general superintendent.

Steve had been figuring on a problem in his department for a long time, and one day he went to the superintendent with it, or rather to learn whether the problem were a problem at all.

"I want to ask, Mr. Penton, if the expense of keeping up your motors that draw the dump cars in the mines is very great."

"I should say it is," was the prompt answer. "You see, they draw very heavy loads. Those cars of ore are not light."

"I am well aware of that. You will remember that I had a load dropped on me once," smiled Steve.

"We wear out, I should say, on an average of six motors a year. That runs into money. And the repairs on them, in the meantime, are very expensive."

"Would any arrangement that would tend to lessen the strain on the motors be of advantage to the company?"

"That is self-evident. Of course it would. What is more, relieving the cars of the strain to which they are subjected would save a few thousand dollars a year. Have you something in mind?"

Mr. Penton smiled good-naturedly on the young man who was standing before him.

"Yes, sir, I have a plan by which I think you ought to be able to save your electric motors considerably and at the same time make greater speed in getting ore to the chutes."

"If you have a practical plan for doing that you will have accomplished a great deal, young man. What is your plan?"

"Well, sir, it is an engineering problem. Not being an engineer, I perhaps shall not be able to overcome all the difficulties in the way. I can tell you, though, what I think would help."

"Do so."

"I find that in most of the levels there is a considerable up grade to the chutes where the tram cars are dumped."

"That is a fact."

"Would it not be much better to have the loaded cars run down grade to the chutes? Then they would go back up the grade empty," suggested Steve half hesitatingly.

Mr. Penton gazed at him quizzically.

"Do you know, my boy, you have made a suggestion that even the keenest of our engineers evidently never have thought of?"

"I am glad if I have suggested something worth while," said Steve, with a pleased smile.

"But how do you propose to go about it? The levels are made and the tracks are laid to fit the conformation. How are you going to get over that condition?" asked the superintendent, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"As I told you, I am not an engineer."

"But you have an idea?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let's hear it."

"I have watched the trackmen grading on the railroad and I do not see why you cannot do the same thing here. You have plenty of waste dirt and rock in the mine. It is being taken out every day. Why not utilize some of it in raising the tracks at the 'rises'? That would give the cars a good start and the electric motor would not have to wear itself out getting the cars started. Continue doing this, even if you have to begin cutting the level lower down by the chutes. I am sure that that feature could easily be overcome by your engineers. In the sub-levels and new drifts you could do the same thing."

"How?"

"Cut down to them, sir, when you are drifting in. I want you to know that this is not wholly my idea. My friend Bob, in discussing the track question with me, said it was a pity that the motors had to haul their loads up hill in most instances. I got to thinking over this and out of it all came the plan I have proposed, so you see he is the one who is really entitled to the credit."

"The credit is yours. Rush, you've a great head on that slender body of yours, and it isn't so slender, at that, judging from the ease with which you picked up a rail one day last week and laid it in place." Mr. Penton laughed. "No; not so slender as it might seem to one who did not know you. This is really a very important matter. It is a matter that I shall have to take up with the main office at Duluth. I have an idea that they will adopt your suggestion without very much delay," said Mr. Penton.

"Yes, sir."

"The engineering department reports that the inspection of tracks has never been done so thoroughly and intelligently as since you and Jarvis have been on the work. This naturally pleases me very much. It shows me that my estimate of you was correct. Have you anything else to suggest?"

"No, sir; I think not. I think that will be about enough for to-day."

The superintendent agreed with him and Steve went back to his work. Bob Jarvis was quickly acquainted with what the superintendent had said, much to the latter's gratification. In due time, the plan having been passed upon by the company's engineers at the home office, word was received at the mines that it had been adopted. The young men who had suggested it were highly commended, President Carrhart adding in his letter to Mr. Penton:

"I knew that boy Rush couldn't help but do something, with a name like his."

The work was put in progress as soon after that as the plans could be worked out, bearing in mind that the operation of the mine must not be interfered with. It may be imagined with what keen interest Steve Rush and Bob Jarvis watched the changing of the grades. They were also interested in another direction, when, one pay day soon after, they found that their salaries had been raised to fifteen dollars a week each.

Bob declared he felt like a millionaire.

"What are you going to do with all that money?" asked Steve.

"I think I shall buy some of the company's stock," answered Jarvis.

"Not a half bad idea. That is what I am going to do when I get money enough. As it is, I am sending home most of what I earn. But the money is in good hands," he smiled.

"Mine's in the bank. I am getting four per cent. interest on it, but I haven't got to where I can live on the interest I receive from it. I was figuring the other night, and at the present rate it will be twenty years before I shall be able to live on my income--my interest, I mean."

"Well, I don't want to live on my income. I want to be up and doing something as long as I've got a kick left in me. Cheer up, Bob, you may be a millionaire yet."

"Yes; when I have long, yellow whiskers, maybe," laughed Jarvis.

In the course of two months the new system was working to the satisfaction of everyone. Already it was being applied to the other mines belonging to the company, and even at that early day it was apparent that the Rush Gravity System, as it was called, was destined to prove a great saving to the company. The name, too, was considered unusually appropriate.

One day, a few months later, as Steve was on his rounds, he caught sight of a man in miner's costume who instantly attracted his attention. The man was rather tall and wore a full beard. Rush stopped and gazed after the fellow until he passed out of sight.

"I wonder who he is?" muttered Steve. "There is something about him--about the way he folded his hand over his mouth, that is unpleasantly familiar to me."

On the day following, while Steve was chatting with one of the shift bosses on the twelfth level, he saw the fellow again.

"Who is that man?" asked the boy sharply, pointing to the one who had attracted his attention.

"His name is Klink--John Klink."

"What does he do?"

"He is acting as a drift inspector at present, I believe."

"Klink?" mused the lad. "I don't think I ever heard the name before. Do you know where he comes from?"

"I think he comes from the San Juan Mine, over on the McCormick range. I don't know anything about him, but he seems to know his business pretty well. He is inspecting temporarily. The inspector whose place he is taking is at home sick. Klink is a boss miner."

"I must have been mistaken," thought Rush, as he proceeded along his route inspecting the tracks on that level. "But I can't get it out of my mind that I have seen the fellow somewhere before, and under unpleasant circumstances, at that."

He had, and at no distant day, he was destined to see the man under still more unfavorable circumstances.