the law specified that no one should go to work till he had certified
that all was safe. But what if the "fire-boss" overslept himself, or
happened to be drunk? It was too much to expect thousands of dollars to
be lost for such a reason. So sometimes one saw men ordered to their
work, and sent down grumbling and cursing. Before many hours some of
them would be prostrated with headache, and begging to be taken out; and
perhaps the superintendent would not let them out, because if a few
came, the rest would get scared and want to come also.

Once, only last year, there had been an accident of that sort. A young
mule-driver, a Croatian, told Hal about it while they sat munching the
contents of their dinner-pails. The first cage-load of men had gone down
into the mine, sullenly protesting; and soon afterwards some one had
taken down a naked light, and there had been an explosion which had
sounded like the blowing up of the inside of the world. Eight men had
been killed, the force of the explosion being so great that some of the
bodies had been wedged between the shaft wall and the cage, and it had
been necessary to cut them to pieces to get them out. It was them Japs
that were to blame, vowed Hal's informant. They hadn't ought to turn
them loose in coal mines, for the devil himself couldn't keep a Jap from
sneaking off to get a smoke.

So Hal understood how North Valley was a place of fear. What tales the
old chambers of these mines could have told, if they had had voices! Hal
watched the throngs pouring in to their labours, and reflected that
according to the statisticians of the government eight or nine of every
thousand of them were destined to die violent deaths before a year was
out, and some thirty more would be badly injured. And they knew this,
they knew it better than all the statisticians of the government; yet
they went to their tasks! Reflecting upon this, Hal was full of wonder.