"Then there's no reason why Brace should hide any longer."
"He mustn't so much as show his nose. Come over by the slope and watch Billings and his crowd. They are in a peck of trouble, expecting that Brace will be found, and since no one is allowed to enter the mine matters begin to look tough for them."
Fred followed his friend and saw those who had intended to cause a terrible disaster clustered around the mouth of the slope in a feverish state of excitement.
"This is a nice way to treat honest men," Billings was saying as the two approached. "We work for starvation wages, an' then get laid off whenever the bosses like, without so much as a notice. It's time we did something to show we're men."
"I'm told the pumps are choked," an old miner said, "an' if that's the case Mr. Wright oughter shut down. Farley's never has had a very good name; but one or two stoppages like this'll show it's worked on the square."
"What a fool you are!" Billings cried angrily. "Haven't you got sense enough to see that this thing has been done so's we'll run deeper in debt at the store, an' have to submit to a cut down when Wright gets ready to put the screws on?"
Several of the bystanders loudly expressed their belief in the correctness of Billings' theory, and instantly the greatest excitement prevailed. The group increased in numbers each moment, and Billings took upon himself the office of spokesman.
One proposed they march in a body to the superintendent's house and demand that the machinery be started again. Another insisted on forcing their way into the mine to ascertain the true cause of the stoppage, and in this last speaker Fred recognized one of the men who had helped make Joe Brace a prisoner.
"They want to find him before Mr. Wright orders an examination," he whispered to Sam, and the latter replied:
"In less than an hour they'll have force enough to do as they please. It's time we were out of this; you go home to tell Joe, and I'll see Mr. Wright if possible."