“I wanted to work while I was young,” said he, “but now I’m cured, an’ fer good.” The world had come to seem to him a place especially constructed for the purpose of making him work, and every faculty he possessed was devoted to foiling this plot. Sitting by a camp-fire near the stream which ran down the valley, Hal had a merry time pointing out to “Dutch Mike” how he worked harder at dodging work than other men worked at working. The hobo did not seem to mind that, however--it was a matter of principle with him, and he was willing to make sacrifices for his convictions. Even when they had sent him to the work-house, he had refused to work; he had been shut in a dungeon, and had nearly died on a diet of bread and water, rather than work. If everybody would do the same, he said, they would soon “bust things.” Hal took a fancy to this spontaneous revolutionist, and travelled with him for a couple of days, in the course of which he pumped him as to details of the life of a miner. Most of the companies used regular employment agencies, as the guard had mentioned; but the trouble was, these agencies got something from your pay for a long time--the bosses were “in cahoots” with them. When Hal wondered if this were not against the law, “Cut it out, Bo!” said his companion. “When you’ve had a job for a while, you’ll know that the law in a coal-camp is what your boss tells you.” The hobo went on to register his conviction that when one man has the giving of jobs, and other men have to scramble for them, the law would never have much to say in the deal. Hal judged this a profound observation, and wished that it might be communicated to the professor of political economy at Harrigan. On the second night of his acquaintance with “Dutch Mike,” their “jungle” was raided by a constable with half a dozen deputies; for a determined effort was being made just then to drive vagrants from the neighbourhood--or to get them to work in the mines. Hal’s friend, who slept with one eye open, made a break in the darkness, and Hal followed him, getting under the guard of the raiders by a foot-ball trick. They left their food and blankets behind them, but “Dutch Mike” made light of this, and lifted a chicken from a roost to keep them cheerful through the night hours, and stole a change of underclothing off a clothes-line the next day. Hal ate the chicken, and wore the underclothing, thus beginning his career in crime.