“You might think a congressman don’t have much to do with us, way off in Washington; but it has a bad effect to have him campaigning, telling the men the company’s abusing them. So I’d like you just to kind o’ circulate a bit, and start the men on politics, and see if any of them have been listening to this MacDougall talk. (MacDougall’s this here Democrat, you know.) And I want to find out whether they’ve been sending in literature to this camp, or have any agents here. You see, they claim the right to come in and make speeches, and all that sort of thing. North Valley’s an incorporated town, so they’ve got the law on their side, in a way, and if we shut ’em out, they make a howl in the papers, and it looks bad. So we have to get ahead of them in quiet ways. Fortunately there ain’t any hall in the camp for them to meet in, and we’ve made a local ordinance against meetings on the street. If they try to bring in circulars, something has to happen to them before they get distributed. See?” “I see,” said Hal; he thought of Tom Olson’s propaganda literature! “We’ll pass the word out,--it’s the Republican the company wants elected; and you be on the lookout and see how they take it in the camp.” “That sounds easy enough,” said Hal. “But tell me, Mr. Stone, why do you bother? Do so many of these wops have votes?” “It ain’t the wops so much. We get them naturalised on purpose--they vote our way for a glass of beer. But the English-speaking men, or the foreigners that’s been here too long, and got too big for their breeches--they’re the ones we got to watch. If they get to talking politics, they don’t stop there; the first thing you know, they’re listening to union agitators, and wanting to run the camp.” “Oh yes, I see!” said Hal, and wondered if his voice sounded right. But the pit-boss was concerned with his own troubles. “As I told Si Adams the other day, what I’m looking for is fellows that talk some new lingo--one that nobody will ever understand! But I suppose that would be too easy. There’s no way to keep them from learning some English!” Hal decided to make use of this opportunity to perfect his education. “Surely, Mr. Stone,” he remarked, “you don’t have to count any votes if you don’t want to!” “Well, I’ll tell you,” replied Stone; “it’s a question of the easiest way to manage things. When I was superintendent over to Happy Gulch, we didn’t waste no time on politics. The company was Democratic at that time, and when election night come, we wrote down four hundred votes for the Democratic candidates. But the first thing we knew, a bunch of fellers was taken into town and got to swear they’d voted the Republican ticket in our camp. The Republican papers were full of it, and some fool judge ordered a recount, and we had to get busy over night and mark up a new lot of ballots. It gave us a lot of bother!” The pit-boss laughed, and Hal joined him discreetly.