“I’ll tell you that when the time comes. It has nothing to do with the present case. The best thing you can do now is to make the whole thing public and get public opinion behind us. They don’t own all the newspapers in the state, and they don’t own all the newspapers in the rest of the country, either. Are you on?” “You bet. Aren’t you afraid there’ll be a sudden strike among your miners? After all, Amalgamated is popular among the mining class. They pay good wages and treat the men pretty squarely all round. I’ll say that much for them.” “I’m not worrying about that. I’ll raise the wages of my miners, and they like me. I call every one of them by his first name, and they’re men--not a Bohunk among them--and like the idea, too, of a fight under a good captain. If I’d put an Eastern manager in who’d put on dog, it might be different, but I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with them, and not one of them has stuck harder to his job. Besides, Mann is devoted to me, and has great influence over them.” “Well, Amalgamated can’t queer you in the East, for you get your roll from the Smelting Works. If that went back on you----” “I’m not worrying about that, either. Torrence is a friend of mine. He’s also a Mason. If things get hot he’ll give headquarters a hint that my men, their blood being up, are as likely as not to make a bonfire somewhere. Get back to town and give the story to the new evening paper. Its lay is to fight Amalgamated for the sake of notoriety. See that their brightest man writes a story for one of the biggest New York and Chicago newspapers. Now, clear out. I’ve got to go below.” XXVII The next day Gregory visited a mine in Lewis and Clark County which recently had shut down, and bought a compressor at second hand. His miners with the air drills were soon working at five times the rate of speed that had been possible with the hand drills. The contractor in charge of the development work on what was impudently known as the Apex Mine, had installed a gasoline hoist, every new device, and as large a force as it was possible at that early stage to employ with profit. Gregory interviewed Osborne and Douglas, and obtained profuse assurances, but Mann soon discovered that there was an increased force on the Primo copper vein. Their original lease was nearly up but they had accepted Mark’s offer of two months’ grace; an offer he deeply regretted now, but the papers were signed and sealed. They made a feint of pushing the drift across the fault, but as they employed a small force at that point there was little room for doubt that they had been amply compensated for a doubtful undertaking.