So it was with check-weighman--as with scrip, and with company stores,
and with all the provisions of the law to protect the miner against
accidents. You might demand your legal rights, but if you did, it was a
matter of the boss's temper. He might make your life one damn misery
till you went of your own accord. Or you might get a string of curses
and an order, "Down the canyon!"--and likely as not the toe of a boot in
your trouser-seat, or the muzzle of a revolver under your nose.



SECTION 17.

Such conditions made the coal-district a place of despair. Yet there
were men who managed to get along somehow, and to raise families and
keep decent homes. If one had the luck to escape accident, if he did not
marry too young, or did not have too many children; if he could manage
to escape the temptations of liquor, to which overwork and monotony
drove so many; if, above all, he could keep on the right side of his
boss--why then he might have a home, and even a little money on deposit
with the company.

Such a one was Jerry Minetti, who became one of Hal's best friends. He
was a Milanese, and his name was Gerolamo, which had become Jerry in the
"melting-pot." He was about twenty-five years of age, and what is
unusual with the Italians, was of good stature. Their meeting took
place--as did most of Hal's social experiences--on a Sunday. Jerry had
just had a sleep and a wash, and had put on a pair of new blue overalls,
so that he presented a cheering aspect in the sunlight. He walked with
his head up and his shoulders square, and one could see that he had few