He started to question the young miner as soon as he was introduced, and it quickly became clear to Hal that here was the man he was looking for. Keating knew exactly what questions to ask, and had the whole story in a few minutes. “By thunder!” he cried. “My last edition!” And he pulled out his watch, and sprang to the telephone. “Long distance,” he called; then, “I want the city editor of the Western City _Gazette_. And, operator, please see if you can’t rush it through. It’s very urgent, and last time I had to wait nearly half an hour.” He turned back to Hal, and proceeded to ask more questions, at the same time pulling a bunch of copy-paper from his pocket and making notes. He got all Hal’s statements about the lack of sprinkling, the absence of escape-ways, the delay in starting the fan, the concealing of the number of men in the mine. “I knew things were crooked up there!” he exclaimed. “But I couldn’t get a lead! They kept a man with me every minute of the time. You know a fellow named Predovich?” “I do,” said Hal. “The company store-clerk; he once went through my pockets.” Keating made a face of disgust. “Well, he was my chaperon. Imagine trying to get the miners to talk to you with that sneak at your heels! I said to the superintendent, ‘I don’t need anybody to escort me around your place.’ And he looked at me with a nasty little smile. ‘We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you while you’re in this camp, Mr. Keating.’ ‘You don’t consider it necessary to protect the lives of the other reporters,’ I said. ‘No,’ said he; ‘but the _Gazette_ has made a great many enemies, you know.’ ‘Drop your fooling, Mr. Cartwright,’ I said. ‘You propose to have me shadowed while I’m working on this assignment?’ ‘You can put it that way,’ he answered, ‘if you think it’ll please the readers of the _Gazette_.’” “Too bad we didn’t meet!” said Hal. “Or if you’d run into any of our check-weighman crowd!” “Oh! You know about that check-weighman business!” exclaimed the reporter. “I got a hint of it--that’s how I happened to be down here to-day. I heard there was a man named Edstrom, who’d been shut out for making trouble; and I thought if I could find him, I might get a lead.” Hal and MacKellar looked at the old Swede, and the three of them began to laugh. “Here’s your man!” said MacKellar. “And here’s your check-weighman!” added Edstrom, pointing to Hal. Instantly the reporter was on his job again; he began to fire another series of questions. He would use that check-weighman story as a “follow-up” for the next day, to keep the subject of North Valley alive. The story had a direct bearing on the disaster, because it showed what the North Valley bosses were doing when they should have been looking after the safety of their mine. “I’ll write it out this afternoon and send it by mail,” said Keating; he added, with a smile, “That’s one advantage of handling news the other papers won’t touch--you don’t have to worry about losing your ‘scoops’!”