"Oh, no--sure not." And Hal caught the trace of a smile on the
pit-boss's face.

He went away, smiling in his turn. The "red-faced feller. Gus," was the
person Madvik had named as being a "spotter" for the company!

There were ins and outs to this matter of "spotting," and sometimes it
was not easy to know what to think. One Sunday morning Hal went for a
walk up the canyon, and on the way he met a young chap who got to
talking with him, and after a while brought up the question of
working-conditions in North Valley. He had only been there a week, he
said, but everybody he had met seemed to be grumbling about short
weight. He himself had a job as an "outside man," so it made no
difference to him, but he was interested, and wondered what Hal had
found.

Straightway came the question, was this really a workingman, or had Alec
Stone set some one to spying upon his spy. This was an intelligent
fellow, an American--which in itself was suspicious, for most of the new
men the company got in were from "somewhere East of Suez."

Hal decided to spar for a while. He did not know, he said, that
conditions were any worse here than elsewhere. You heard complaints, no
matter what sort of job you took.

Yes, said the stranger, but matters seemed to be especially bad in the
coal-camps. Probably it was because they were so remote, and the
companies owned everything in sight.

"Where have you been?" asked Hal, thinking that this might trap him.