CHAPTER VIII

BOB MAKES GOOD HIS WORD

"The superintendent wishes to see you at his office when convenient."

This message was brought to Steve Rush at his boarding house on the day following the accident in the drift. The lad's wounds had been treated, and he had been allowed to go home late in the afternoon of the same day. The powder-man, however, had been much more seriously injured. It was doubtful if the man ever would be able to work in the mines again.

Steve would have returned to work on the following morning, had the superintendent not given orders that he was not to do so, and the superintendent's orders were law in the mines.

The lad was somewhat surprised at the summons. However, he lost no time in going over to the offices. The superintendent was out at the moment and Rush was ushered into the handsome private office, where he was told to wait. Steve gazed about him, nodding thoughtfully.

"One of these days I shall have an office like this," he thought aloud. "Some day, in the distant future, I shall be a superintendent, too."

"So you want to be a superintendent, eh?"

The boy turned to find himself looking into the smiling face of Mr. Penton. Steve's face flushed rosy red.

"I--I guess I must have been thinking out loud, sir."

"Your ambition is a worthy one. Keep on in the way you are going and promotion is sure. You are now a part of one of the greatest games in the industrial world. Realize this and you have made a long stride forward. How are you feeling to-day?"

"I do realize it, sir, and I am proud of the very small part I am playing in that world. In answer to your question, I am feeling perfectly well to-day; I am ready for work."

"To-morrow will be time enough. Take the day off. Your pay will go on just the same. In this connection there is another little matter that I have sent for you to adjust. You are not of age?"

"Oh, no, sir."

"I will state what I have to say, just the same. It is customary, when one has been hurt in the mines, to have our claim adjuster call upon him at proper time and make such settlement as can be agreed upon, after which the injured party signs a release. I have prepared a release here with the amount left blank. You have done a very brave act; I am willing to do what is right in the matter. To what extent do you think you have been damaged, Rush?"

There was a quizzical look in the eyes of the superintendent as he asked the question.

"Have you the release?"

Mr. Penton handed a paper to the boy. The latter read it through carefully, then asking for a pen, drew a line through the space left blank for the amount and signed his name.

"I am not that kind of man, Mr. Penton," said Steve. "If you wish my mother's signature to the paper, I will have her sign it. I do not care to receive any money that I have not earned."

"Rush," said the superintendent, rising and placing a hand on the boy's shoulder, "you talk like a true man. You _are_ a true man. It is not your refusal of the money that causes me to say that, but the principle that prompted the refusal. I felt that you would act as you have done. I see I was not mistaken in you. You will get on. No boy with your spirit could help getting on. Do you wish to be transferred from Spooner's shift to one not so hard?"

"No, sir; I am not looking for an easy job. I am looking for hard work and to learn everything there is to learn in this great industry. When I have earned promotion I want it."

"And you shall have it. Finish the week in level seventeen and I'll see what can be done for you in some other direction. Do you think you will be able to work to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

Mr. Penton shook hands with him and the lad departed, light hearted and happy. He did not waste the time that he was resting--not Steve. Instead he went directly back to the works, remaining all day in the vicinity of the shaft watching the progress of the work and asking questions whenever he could find anyone willing to answer them. He visited the dry houses, where the miners changed their clothes and took their shower baths, a clean, comfortable building provided with numbered lockers for the street clothes of the employés of the company, and where those who chose might eat their lunches in the cold weather.

Steve learned a lesson that he did not forget. He learned it from the old pensioner in charge of the dry houses.

"Make your men comfortable, look out for their safety and you will get fully a third more work out of them," said the old attendant. And this was the principle on which the company acted.

The day passed quickly, and Steve went early to bed, in order to be up early on the following morning. This time he took no chances of getting lost in the mine. He followed one of the trammers who worked in his part of the mine, and reached Spooner's contract some fifteen minutes before the hour for beginning work. The contractor liked to have his men on the job early, and when he could drive them into doing so, he managed to get ten minutes or so extra work out of them before the whistle on the level blew the signal to begin work.

Steve smiled good-naturedly when Spooner ordered him to get in and begin shoveling. The lad was not averse to doing so. All evidences of the accident had been removed and once more the drift was open and workable. A new powder-man had taken the place of the injured man, a quiet, self-contained young fellow on whom Spooner's bulldozing tactics had no effect.

"See here, boy, how about that shovel?" demanded the contractor, after the lad had been working a short time.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean the shovel you banged up hammering on the drift to make us hear."

Rush looked puzzled.

"What about it, sir?"

"Shovels cost money. I have to furnish the tools on my job. I'll expect you to pay for that one. Got any money with you?"

"No, sir."

"Well, see that you bring it to-morrow. The shovel's worth a dollar."

"Yes, sir. I will speak to the superintendent about it, and if he says it is proper for me to pay you I will do so," replied the lad wisely.

"Speak to the superintendent?" shouted the contractor. "You'll do nothing of the sort. I'm running my business; the super isn't. If you try that game on me I'll fire you. You don't have to pay for the shovel if you don't want to. But you're a cheat if you don't."

"I am not a cheat," protested Steve indignantly. "As I said before, if the superintendent says I ought to pay you, I shall do so gladly. You can fire me if you wish to. I am not so much in love with number seventeen that I would shed tears were I ordered out of it."

The contractor glared, started to speak, then gaining control of himself, turned and walked away. Rush, in the meantime, was energetically throwing dirt and when the long day was ended he had shoveled into ore cars ten tons of soft ore. The lad handed his tally slip to the contractor at the close of the day's work.

Spooner uttered a grunt of disapproval.

"Only ten tons!" he groaned. "You'll have to do better than that. Unless you can handle twelve you're not fit to be below ground."

"I understand, sir, that twelve tons a day is the record and that only one man has accomplished that in the last ten years," answered the boy promptly. "But I'll equal it before I am through here; not especially to gratify you, but for my own satisfaction."

Mr. Spooner had no more to say.

"How many tons a day does he get out of this contract?" asked Steve, as he was waiting for the cage to ascend to the surface.

"Fifty tons is the most we ever got out in a day," was the answer from Steve's companion.

"How much does he get a ton?"

"That we don't know. He never tells his business. Some contractors get less and some more, depending upon how the ore runs, how much paint rock there is to be thrown out in the dirt."

"Do the others run about the same?"

"I reckon they do."

Steve was always seeking for information, and what he was learning in these early days was to serve him well in the future.

For the rest of the week he worked diligently, increasing his daily output by at least a ton. One day he fell considerably below this, as the ore came out hard and was not delivered to the car men as fast as they could handle it. That was a day that Spooner was at his worst.

Saturday came, the day that the young miner was to receive his first pay envelope. He had made it a practice to carry his lunch below and eat it there. This saved him considerable effort, and gave him an opportunity to rest before the whistles blew to resume work. Steve usually chose some quiet spot in an unused drift, where, seating himself by the side of a little stream of water trickling from the rocks, he would stick his candle-holder in a crevice and tuck the cover of his dinner pail under the trickling stream to catch water to drink with his meal.

He had just settled himself down for his noon-day meal, on this Saturday afternoon, when he was attracted by a bobbing candle on a miner's cap approaching him from down the drift just off the main level.

"Now, I wonder what he wants?" mused Rush, peering out curiously. "I believe that's Bob Jarvis. He is probably coming in here to eat his dinner. He'll be surprised to find me here. Hello, Bob."

"Hello yourself."

"I just did. Sit down and have lunch with me."

"I ain't lunching to-day. I----"

"Eat some of mine if you haven't yours with you. There is enough for both of us in my pail, and here is some of the finest water you ever drank. It's colder than any ice water I ever tasted."

Bob did not reply. He was standing over Steve, peering down at the latter with a steady gaze. Presently Rush noticed that Jarvis was acting peculiarly. There was a constraint in his manner that Steve had never seen there before.

"What's the matter? Anything gone wrong, Bob?"

"No; nothing has gone wrong. Something's going that way pretty soon, though."

"What do you mean?"

"I promised you a licking, didn't I?"

"I believe you did, but that is all past now. You saved me from the drift. I shan't forget that, old fellow. I hope I get a chance to do you a good turn one of these days."

"You're going to get it now."

"I am going to get what?"

"The licking."

Steve rose slowly to his feet after carefully placing his dinner pail to one side.

"Do you mean you want to fight me after having saved my life, Bob Jarvis?"

"That's what!"

Rush gazed steadily at his companion of the moment. The taller boy had assumed a pugnacious attitude.

"I don't want to fight you, Bob."

"Then you'll stand for a coward; you'll be a 'missie' for certain."

Steve began slowly to strip off his oilskins. His blouse and flannel shirt came next. These removed, he stuck his candlestick in a crevice in the rocks high enough up to shed a fairly good light over the drift.

"How'll you have it?" he asked coolly.

"No hitting below the belt; hammer in the clinches when we can. All fair and above board," answered Jarvis, making himself ready for the fray.

"Very well," replied Steve. "I am ready whenever you are."