e, letting them
fall back at break-neck speed against the engine-house. Fortunately it
occurred at a time when the men were not riding up the incline, so no
lives were lost. This accident was the subject of discussion that night at
"The Miner's Rest." O'Day was over-solicitous about the welfare of the
men. He criticised corporations which risked the lives of the workmen for
the sake of saving. "Anyone could see the cable was weak in spots," he
said. "It wasn't a week ago that I walked up the incline--wouldn't trust
myself to such a rotten chain. A new cable costs, of course, and the
company used the old one till it fell to pieces. They hain't risking their
lives. What does it matter to them if a few Slavs and Polacks hand in
their checks? Huns and Dagos are thick as blackberries in June, and about
as valuable."

At his words the men about the tables scowled. It mattered to them if a
few lives were lost, providing their own were among them.

"I wish I had the corporations by the throat," added O'Day vehemently, all
the while watching the effect of his words upon his hearers. He could read
these people like an open book, and he was keen enough to know when it was
wise to stop talking and when continue. "I'd choke them into taking care
of the men's lives. You're all just so many cattle to them. A Hun isn't so
much to them as a cow, and they would see you all in perdition rather than
lose a good mule."

The faces about him were scowling and malignant. Each man was ready to
believe all evil against that great and incomprehensible body known as a
corporation. They had heard the war-cry between capital and labor dinned
into their ears since the day they set foot upon American soil. It meant
nothing to them that their teachers were always men like O'Day, who, while
lining their own pockets with the laborers' earnings, cry out against the
men who are getting more, though lawfully. It never came to their
untrained minds that O'Day proved nothing. He said so, that was enough.
O'Day listened to the muttered growls of dissatisfaction.

"But, I suppose," he continued hypocritically, "that we shouldn't blame
the men who have put their money in the mines. They are only wanting a
fair interest on their investment. That's only right. No doubt they send
money enough right into Bitumen to have things kept up first-class, better
houses for the miners, and cables that don't break. I'm thinking there
hain't one of those big ones in the cit