"Not now, Bob," spoke up the other quickly. "This is the company's time. We should both be discharged if we were to be caught fighting here and now. We will settle our difficulty some other time."
"So you were only bluffing, eh? I knew you didn't have the spunk to fight anything."
Steve pointed off to the mine shaft.
"There comes the skip with a load of ore. You had better get your car back there or you will have trouble enough without a fight."
Jarvis, with an exclamation, began pushing the tram car back over the top of the dump, Steve picking up his shovel and beginning his work of clearing the end of the tracks.
All day long the lad toiled industriously. It was hard work and his back ached, yet he kept to his task. When night came Steve had the satisfaction of being told that he had done a man's work that day.
A truce had been declared between the two boys, so far as fighting was concerned, though Jarvis continued his nagging at every opportunity. Steve took the other's scoffing good-naturedly, turning Bob's jibes with soft answers. For a full week both lads had labored far up on the ore dump. They had been too busy to think of their personal grievances for any great length of time. Saturday night had arrived, and when Steve left the dump to start for his boarding house he was told that the general superintendent wished to see him.
"I guess he is going to discharge me," thought the boy. "Well, I have done the best I could."
His surprise was great, therefore, when the superintendent said, as the lad came to a halt in front of the official's desk: