Coalville was a hamlet worthy of its name, for its people not only mined coal, they breathed it, ate it, slept in it, and absorbed it at every pore. The town was divided into two parts, one on the hillside, the other in the valley. That portion on the hillside was popularly known as “Stringtown,” and consisted of row upon row of houses, all built upon the same plan, and arranged upon the slope which mounted gently upward from the mouth of the mine which gave the town its only reason for existence. These houses consisted invariably of three rooms and an attic, and into them were crowded the miners, for the most part Slavs or Poles. They had been brought direct from Europe, the immigration laws to the contrary notwithstanding, shipped out to the mine in car-load lots, assigned to the houses which were to be their homes, supplied with the tools necessary to mining, and put to work. By incessant labour, they were able to earn enough to provide themselves and their ever-increasing families with food enough to keep body ? 249 ? and soul together, and clothing enough to cover their nakedness. More they did not ask. They were not compelled to serve in the army, they were not under police surveillance, they paid no taxes. So they were happy and contented, imagining themselves free.

Down in the valley, a quarter of a mile away, was the town proper—that is to say, about a hundred houses, larger, cleaner, and more pretentious than the hovels on the hillside. Here the superintendents lived, the bosses, the office force, and most of the Americans employed about the mine. Here, too, were the bakery, the two stores, supposed to be run upon a competitive basis, but really under one management, and the fifteen saloons into which no small portion of the miners’ wages went, and which yielded an annual profit of about a thousand per cent. on the investment.

The company which owned the mine owned the town,—not the residences only, but the stores, the barber-shop, the bakery, the boarding-house, and even the saloons. The money which it paid out in wages flowed back to it, practically undiminished, through one of these channels; and these minor industries contributed in no small degree to the handsome dividends, issued quarterly, which the mine paid. Perhaps if the stockholders had known just how these dividends were earned, they might not have received them so complacently; but none of them thought it worth while to inquire—or perhaps ? 250 ? they feared to investigate too closely the sources of so satisfactory an income.

The town was not upon the railroad, which passed about half a mile to the east of it. Two spurs of track connected the mine with the main line, but these spurs were used solely for the company’s business, and no passengers were carried over them. Hence it was necessary for every one wishing to leave the town to tramp half a mile along a road muddy or dusty, according to the weather, to the little frame shack on the main line, which served as a station for the town. It may be that the exertion needed to leave the town was one reason why so many persons, once they had arrived there, remained, and never thereafter emancipated themselves from bondage to coal-dust, nor saw the sky except through the black clouds arising ceaselessly from the dumps. To only one class of person did the town turn a cold shoulder, and that was to the labour organizer. The company was most anxious to keep its men free from the “union” microbe, which was working such disastrous results upon the dividends of other mining enterprises; it believed that it was the best and most proper judge of the wages which its men should receive. Therefore, whenever a union man struck the town he found himself unable to secure a place to sleep or food to eat—he had to get out or starve; when he asked for employment, he found all the places taken and no prospect of a job anywhere. The company, ? 251 ? however, was generous; if the applicant happened to be out of money, he could always secure the funds necessary to take him away from Coalville.

The train pulled up before the little Coalville station on time; and Allan reported at once for duty and relieved the day man, who lived at Athens, and who hurried out to catch the accommodation, which would take him home.

For twenty minutes, Allan devoted himself to looking over the orders on the hook and getting acquainted with the position of trains; then his attention was attracted by a heavy bumping on the floor of the little waiting-room. It sounded as though a heavy trunk was being brought in, but when he looked through the ticket-window, he saw two men rolling a heavy chest end over end across the room.

The Coalville station contained three rooms. At one end was the waiting-room, with a row of benches along the wall; in the centre was the office, about six feet wide, in which the operator worked; and beyond it was another room where freight for Coalville was stored until it could be hauled away. There was a door from the office into both waiting-room and freight-shed as shown in the diagram.

It will be seen that the station had been constructed just as cheaply as possible. The passenger traffic to and from Coalville was not such as to require elaborate accommodations, and the freight for the town was allowed to take care of itself the best it could.

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The Station at Coalville

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The men who were bringing in the chest stopped where they had it in the middle of the waiting-room, and one of them, looking up, caught Allan’s eye as he looked at them through the ticket-window.

“We’d like to put this box in the freight-shed for awhile,” said the stranger. “The door’s locked, and we thought maybe you’d let us take it through your office.”

“Why, certainly,” answered Allan, who suspected at once that this was the chest containing the money for the miners, and he opened the door and helped them through with it. It was certainly heavy, but its weight, Allan decided, was more from its massive, iron-bound construction than from its contents.

The men went on into the freight-shed with it, and Allan heard them talking together, but he was called back to his instrument to take an order and for the moment forgot them. Presently one of them came out again, passed through the office, jumped down the steps of the waiting-room, and hastened away into the darkness.

It happened that there were two coal-trains to be started westward to Cincinnati just then, so perhaps half an hour passed before Allan looked up again. When he did so, he found the other custodian of the box standing at his elbow. He was a tall, slim man of middle age, with a black mustache ? 254 ? and dare-devil expression, which somehow made Allan think that he had been a cowboy. The slouch hat which he wore pulled down over his eyes added to this effect, as did the repeating rifle whose butt rested on the floor beside him. When the boy looked up, he nodded sociably, and sat down on the end of the table, one leg swinging in the air.

“It allers did beat me,” he began, “how a feller could learn t’ understand one o’ them little machines,” motioning toward the sounder.

“All it takes is practice,” answered Allan, leaning back in his chair. “It’s like everything else. Now I couldn’t hit a barn door with that rifle of yours, but I dare say you could hit a much smaller object.”

“Why, yes,” drawled the other, patting the gun affectionately. “I hev picked off my man at six hundred yards.”

“Your man?”

“I used t’ be depitty sheriff of Chloride County, Arizony,” explained the stranger. “Hopkins is my name—Jed Hopkins. Mebbe you’ve heerd o’ me?”

But Allan was forced to confess that he never had.

“Well, I’ve seen some excitin’ times,” Hopkins went on. “But life out thar ain’t what it was twenty year ago. I g............