The Iron Boys in the Mines Part 13

"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.

Sat.u.r.day 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 Sat.u.r.day 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. h.e.l.lo, Bob."

"h.e.l.lo 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 a.s.sumed a pugnacious att.i.tude.

"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 s.h.i.+rt 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."

CHAPTER IX

YOUNG GLADIATORS MEET

"Going to take off your boots?" questioned Steve.

"Sure."

"Then I'll take mine off, too."

He did so, tightened his belt and stepped out into the drift well within the flickering circle of light shed by the two candles.