e
chute, an' while it's runnin' past you must pick out the slate."

"Is that all?"

"By the time your hands are cut into mince-meat you'll think it's
enough," was the grim reply, and before Fred could speak again the day's
labor had begun. The black fragments came through the chute with a roar
which was deafening, and the "green hand" was at a loss to distinguish
coal from slate.

"Take out the dull, grayish stuff," Chunky shouted, as he seized from
the moving mass sufficient fragments to serve as specimens, and in a
short time Fred began to have a general idea of his duties.

Before the forty minutes "nooning" had come around his hands were cut
and bleeding; but the thought of his mother, who looked to him for
support, was enough to keep him busily at work, and when the whistle
sounded he had most assuredly earned half of the thirty-five cents.

A short rest, a lunch eaten amid the sooty vapor, which caused one to
fancy he was gazing through a veil whenever he glanced across the
building, and then the fatiguing labor was recommenced, to be ended only
at the stroke of six, when miners, buttys, mule drivers and bosses
hastened to the surface of the earth once more after having been
deprived of sunlight for nearly twelve hours.

Without paying any especial attention to the fact, Fred noticed that
although he was among the last to leave the breaker, the majority of the
boys followed close behind as he started toward home.

In order to reach the company's store it was necessary to traverse a
mirey road on which were no habitations for nearly fifty yards, and when
Fred was half this distance from the breaker, a voice from behind
shouted:

"Hi! Hold on a bit, you new feller!"

Fred turned to see a dozen of those who had been at work near him,
advancing threateningly.

"What do you want?" he asked, regretting now that he had not hurried on
ahead as Chunky suggested shortly before the whistle sounded.

"We've got a word to say, an' you're wanted very pertic'lar."

"I can't stop now."

"That's too bad, for there's a little business to be settled right
away," and the largest of the party stepped so near in front of Fred
that it would have been impossible for him to have advanced, except at
the risk of an encounter.

"Won't it do just as well in the morning?"

"I'm afraid not."

"But I promised to come straight home."

"You can't go till our 'count has been fixed."

"I don't owe you anything."

"Don't eh?