She had seen his hesitation, however. “He was a decent man once,” she declared. “’Tis the life here, that turns a man into a coward. ’Tis everything ye need, everywhere ye turn--ye have to ask favours from some boss. The room ye work in, the dead work they pile on ye; or maybe ’tis more credit ye need at the store, or maybe the doctor to come when ye’re sick. Just now ’tis our roof that leaks--so bad we can’t find a dry place to sleep when it rains.” “I see,” said Hal. “Who owns the house?” “Sure, there’s none but company houses here.” “Who’s supposed to fix it?” “Mr. Kosegi, the house-agent. But we gave him up long ago--if he does anything, he raises the rent. Today my father went to Mr. Cotton. He’s supposed to look out for the health of the place, and it seems hardly healthy to keep people wet in their beds.” “And what did Cotton say?” asked Hal, when she stopped again. “Well, don’t ye know Jeff Cotton--can’t ye guess what he’d say? ‘That’s a fine girl ye got, Burke! Why don’t ye make her listen to reason?’ And then he laughed, and told me old father he’d better learn to take a hint. ’Twas bad for an old man to sleep in the rain--he might get carried off by pneumonia.” Hal could no longer keep back the question, “What did your father do?” “I’d not have ye think hard of my old father,” she said, quickly. “He used to be a fightin’ man, in the days before O’Callahan had his way with him. But now he knows what a camp-marshal can do to a miner!” SECTION 20. Mary Burke had said that the company could stand breaking the bones of its men; and not long after Number Two started up again, Hal had a chance to note the truth of this assertion. A miner’s life depended upon the proper timbering of the room where he worked. The company undertook to furnish the timbers, but when the miner needed them, he would find none at hand, and would have to make the mile-long trip to the surface. He would select timbers of the proper length, and would mark them--the understanding being that they were to be delivered to his room by some of the labourers. But then some one else would carry them off--here was more graft and favouritism, and the miner might lose a day or two of work, while meantime his account was piling up at the store, and his children might have no shoes to go to school. Sometimes he would give up waiting for timbers, and go on taking out coal; so there would be a fall of rock--and the coroner’s jury would bring in a verdict of “negligence,” and the coal-operators would talk solemnly about the impossibility of teaching caution to miners. Not so very long ago Hal had read an interview which the president of the General Fuel Company had given to a newspaper, in which he set forth the idea that the more experience a miner had the more dangerous it was to employ him, because he thought he knew it all, and would not heed the wise regulations which the company laid down for his safety!