The Iron Boys in the Mines Part 2

"Yes, sir. Because I am willing to work."

"Have you tried to get a position in town? I should think that would be better for a lad of your age than to work in the mines."

"No, sir; I have always wanted to be a miner. I want to start at the bottom and learn the business."

"I am afraid you could not stand it, my lad," answered Mr. Carrhart after brief reflection. "And, besides, as you understand, all the hiring is done by the officials at the mines."

"Yes, sir. But you need have no fear that I shall not be able to do a man's work. I was one of the best athletes in the high school. I was quite frail when I began going to school, but by systematic exercise I have built myself up. I can stand a much greater strain than you would imagine to look at me. If I do not make good they will not keep me.

Won't you please give me a chance to try, sir?"

"How would you like to come in the office here?"

"I should like it, of course, sir; but, as I have already said, I prefer to begin at the bottom and work up."

"My lad, you are of the right stuff. You will get on in the world. Not much of anything matters in the face of such determination as yours. The work in the mines is very hard. You will find rough men there and you will meet with more or less temptation, but I believe you are strong enough to keep yourself above it."

"Yes, sir. I am sure of that, sir."

By this time Mr. Carrhart was busily writing. Steve watched him, not quite certain whether or not the interview was at an end.

"You--you will give me a chance, sir?" asked the lad after a moment's silence.

"Yes; here is a letter to the general superintendent of the Cousin Jack Mine. I have asked him to give you employment at the earliest possible moment. I shall hope to hear good reports from you, Rush. Remember what I have said to you. I shall keep an eye on you."

"Oh, thank you, sir; thank you! I cannot tell you how I appreciate your kindness."

"Purely a matter of business, my lad. I see in you the making of an excellent man for the company. We are looking for young men with your determination and grit."

As Steve pa.s.sed out through the reception room the office boy stepped in front of him.

"I'll lick you the first time I catch you outside," announced the guardian of the door.

"Please don't," answered Steve. "Somebody might get hurt. Besides, I am not a fighter. Good afternoon."

Rush hurried out to carry the good news to his mother.

"That boy has the making of a great man," mused Carrhart, as he stood with hands clasped behind his back, gazing down into the street. "Yes, he will be heard from some of these days, unless I am greatly in error."

CHAPTER II

HANDLING THE RED ORE

"Why, boy, you couldn't stand up for an hour down below ground."

Ike Penton, general superintendent of the Cousin Jack Mine, smiled indulgently into the eager face of Steve Rush.

"It's a man's work, not a boy's work. Mr. Carrhart's letter gives you a fine endors.e.m.e.nt. He seems to think you have the making of a miner in you, and acting on his judgment, I shall of course give you a chance."

"Thank you, sir. You will try to place me down in one of the mines, will you not?"

"No; I shall not take the responsibility of doing so just at the present moment. I shall use you above ground for a few days, until I see what you are best fitted to do, and then--but mind you, I am not making any promises--I will see what can be done for you."

The superintendent smiled indulgently. He was a man of kindly impulses and he had boys of his own. Then, too, he remembered the day, many years before, when he, also, had sought employment in the iron mines. By sheer pluck he had worked his way up from the ranks, until now he was the head of an army of more than five thousand men, distributed among the various mines.

"Yes, I will see what can be done for you," repeated the superintendent.

"Thank you, sir; but I wish you might find a place for me down in the mines."

"Why are you so anxious to get below ground, my lad?"

"So that I may begin my apprentices.h.i.+p at once."

"When will you be ready to go to work?"

"I am ready now," answered Steve promptly.

"The day is well along. Report here at seven o'clock to-morrow morning, and I will place you at something. Your pay, to begin, will be a dollar a day. Here is the address of a boarding house that I should advise you to put up at, unless you already have made arrangements."

"No, sir."

"Very well. Report to the boarding house boss some time to-day and he will see that you are taken care of. There are very good boys there, and you will learn considerable about the business of mining from them. Let me advise you, however, not to mix in too much with the foreign element.

Let them alone and you will find they will do the same with you. Pay strict attention to duty, be punctual and work, and you will get along.

Our discipline is strict, but we have the interests of our men at heart.

In so far as they will let us, we make their well-being our first care.

Here is a copy of the rules governing the conduct of men in all departments. Study it well to-day and come back here to-morrow morning at the hour named."

Briefly thanking the superintendent, Steve left the mine office at Iron Mountain and proceeded to the boarding house. There he was a.s.signed to a room in which were cots for two men. The place was neat and clean, though extremely plain. There were no evidences of luxury in the furnis.h.i.+ngs, and when he sat down to his first meal there he found the food plain but wholesome; the miners mostly silent and in a great hurry to have done with their meal. Considering how they bolted their food, Steve did not understand how any of them managed to keep out of the hospital.

"It's a wonder they don't all have chronic indigestion," he thought.

No one paid any attention to the quiet youth, after the first careless glance at him, as the men took their places at the table. The lad did not care particularly. He was rather glad that they did leave him wholly to himself until he should become better acquainted with his surroundings.

What Steve was curious about, however, was who his roommate was to be.

When he asked the boarding house boss about this the boy was told to wait until night, when he would see for himself. After that Steve asked no more questions.

After dinner young Rush went out to wander about and get acquainted with his surroundings. Iron Mountain, the town in which was located the mine where he was to work, was a village of about seventeen hundred inhabitants, nestling between two high ranges of mountains. The timber had been cut off, and wherever the eye chanced to rest it was met by a forest of black stumps, with here and there the shaft of an iron mine rising dark and gloomy.

It was the most cheerless scene that Steve Rush had ever gazed upon. The buildings in the village proper were mostly mere shacks, the public school being the only building worthy of a name in the entire community.

The streets of the town were deserted, but beneath them, far down in the earth, men toiled and burrowed by day and by night, penetrating deeper and deeper into the earth in their quest for Nature's riches.

The lad was lonely. He would have been homesick had he not been possessed of the grit to keep his emotions in check. But as he strolled over toward the towering, gloomy mine shafts he began to realize that he was at the very fountain head of the greatest steel industry in the world. From the quiet of the little mining village he had come upon a scene of work the like of which he had never seen before.

As he gazed, the great ore cars shot up from the mines with a roar.

Leaping to the top of the high shaft, they hurled their cargoes of red ore into waiting dump cars, then dropped back below ground with a speed almost too great for the human eye to follow. Men red with the metal they were handling were laboring on the surface, their faces streaked with perspiration, their rolled-up sleeves and open-necked s.h.i.+rts displaying the brawn and muscle without which the great steel company would quickly lose its greatness.