"What's all this buzzin' round about young Tom?" queried one of the men
in the miners' caucus. "Might' nigh every other word with old Caleb was,
'Tom; my son, Tom.' Why, I riccollect him when he wasn't no more'n
knee-high to a hop-toad!"

"Well, you bet your life he's a heap higher'n that now," said another,
who had chanced to be at the station when the Gordons, father and son,
left the train together. "He's a half a head taller than the old man,
an' built like one o' Maje' Dabney's thoroughbreds. But I reckon he
ain't nothin' but a school-boy, for all o' that."

"Gar-r-r!" spat a third. "We've had one kid too many in this outfit, all
along. I'll bet, if the truth was knowed, th't that young Farley'd skin
a louse for the hide and tallow."

"Yes," chimed in a fourth, a "huckleberry" miner from the Bald Mountain
district, "and I reckon whar thar's sich a hell of a smoke, thar's a
right smart heap o' fire, ef it could on'y be onkivered."

But all of this was in a manner beside the mark, and there were many to
inquire what the Gordons were going to do. Ludlow, check weigher in
Number Two entry, and the head of the local union, took it on himself to
reply.

"B'gosh! I don't b'lieve the old man knows, himself. He fit around and
fit around, talkin' to me, and never said nothin' more'n that there was
goin' to be a meetin' here at two o'clock, and Tom--his son Tom--was
goin' to speak to it."

"All right; we're a-waitin' on son Tom right now," said a grizzled old
coal-digger on the outer edge of the group. "And ef he's got anything to
say, he cayn't say hit none too sudden. My ol' woman told me this
mornin' she was a-hittin' the bottom o' the meal bar'l, kerchuck! ever'
time she was dippin' into hit. Hit's erbout time there was somepin
doin', ez I allow."

"Saw it off!" warned Ludlow. "Here they come, both of 'em."

Tom and his father had entered the building from the cupola side, and
Tom mounted the flask-built platform while the men were scattering to
find seats. He made a goodly figure of young manhood, standing at ease
on the pile of frames until quiet should prevail, and the glances flung
up from the throng of workmen were friendly rather than critical. When
the time came, he began to speak quietly, but with a certain masterful
quality in his voice that unmistakably constrained attention.

"I suppose you have all been told why the works are shut down--why you
are out of a job in the middle of summer; and I understa