Loring had begun to flush a trifle under the sharp scrutiny, before Mr. Cameron again spoke.
“I was thinking of giving you a position on the hoist. The man on Number Three is going to quit to-morrow.” Mr. Cameron said “quit,” with a little snap of the jaw, that left no doubt as to why the man was going to leave. “Do you know anything about the work?” he went on.
Loring’s “No, but I think perhaps I can learn,” seemed to irritate Mr. Cameron, who exclaimed: “Good Lord, man! ‘think perhaps you may be able to learn.’ ‘Think perhaps!’ Here you are going to have men’s lives in your hands. It is no place for a man who thinks ‘perhaps.’ Still I will try you. You will receive three dollars and a half for eight hours, and overtime, extra. At that the work is not hard. You can go up to the shaft now. Colson, the man whom you are going to try to replace, is on shift, and he will teach you what he can. You go on the pay-roll to-morrow.” Cutting short Stephen’s thanks, Mr. Cameron abruptly left the office.
Duncan began to chuckle quietly.
“It is damned lucky for you, Loring, that you didn’t go on much further with your theories of ‘thinking perhaps.’ I don’t know where you were before you came here, and I don’t care; but here it will help you some to remember that it is only what you do know or can do that counts.”
Stephen took cheerfully this good advice, and after securing his hat, he stretched himself comfortably in the doorway, then started up the hill to the mine. In the hot glare he climbed the tramway which led from the hungry ore cribs by the smelter to Number Three hoist. He was still weak, and the climb tired him considerably. Several times, in the course of the few hundred yards, he stopped and rested. As many times more he was compelled to step to one side of the track in order to let the funny, squat, little ore cars whiz by him, the brake cable behind them stretching taut, and whining with the peculiar note of metal under tension. When at last, tired and out of breath, he reached the hoist box, Colson gave him a sour greeting.
“Damned boiler leaks like a sieve. Have to keep stoking her all the time. Engine is always getting centered. Wish you joy! It’s the worst job I ever tackled.”
In answer to Loring’s request for instructions, Colson slowly wiped his hands on a bit of oily waste, and having taken a fresh chew of tobacco, proceeded to explain the working of the drum hoist, and the signal code.
For the rest of the afternoon, under Colson’s supervision, Stephen managed the clutch that governed the cable, and at the ever recurring clang of one bell, ran the ore buckets with great speed up the shaft. Whenever the signal of three bells, followed by one, rang out, he brought the buckets slowly and decorously to the surface, for that told of a human load. Loring, in spite of apparent clumsiness, possessed a great amount of deftness, and he was soon running the hoist fairly well, although the jerks with which the engine was brought to a standstill told the miners that a new and inexperienced hand was at the clutch.
At half-past three the men of the shift began to signal to come to the surface. Loring asked Colson how, when the shift did not end till four, this was allowed. Colson explained that as the mine was non-Union, and employed mostly Mexican labor, the piece work system was in use. When the men had filled a certain number of buckets, they could come to the surface regardless of the time. The result had been that more work was accomplished than formerly, while the miners had shorter hours.