THE STRIKE.
THE camp was soon plainly in view of all, and the reason for Charley's
exclamation apparent. Although it was not nearly noon, groups of
negroes were gathered around the various tents, and the big steam
shovel lay far ahead, motionless and deserted, with no hint of smoke
trailing from its smokestack. The only sign of activity about the camp
was the sweaty cook, once more engaged in the seemingly endless process
of molding bread on the dirty bench outside the tent.
Walter stopped the car, and Charley jumped out nimbly. None of his
anxiety showed in his manner. He strode up to the negro.
"Do you make bread every day?" he inquired lightly.
"Sho', Cap," responded the big negro. "De niggers want hit fresh every
day."
"Humph," commented the lad. "If I were you, I'd bake up enough at a
time to last two or three days. Then you would have more time to keep
things neat and clean, as they should be in a camp of this kind."
"Massa Murphy nebber found no fault wid my way ob doing things,"
objected the negro.
"Well, we are not Mr. Murphy," Charley said curtly. "We have bought him
out. We are the owners of this thing now, and we want our food clean.
Remember that. Now, tell me, which are Mr. Murphy's and the engineers'
tents?"
"Right ober dar 'mongst dat little clump of pines. De furst one is Mr.
Murphy's."
Charley strolled over to the little tent and entered it. It was small
and dirty, and the dirt floor was littered with whiskey bottles, all
empty. Charley viewed them with a grim smile. "No wonder Murphy lost
out," he murmured. "A man cannot put up a good fight and entertain
John Barleycorn at the same time." There was a rude box desk in one
corner of the tent, littered with letters and papers. Charley seated
himself beside it and overhauled its contents quickly. This done, he
walked out of the tent's squalor into the open air once more. He next
drew back the flap of the first engineer's tent, and peeped inside,
but the tent was deserted, as was also the second, save for disordered
cots and black, greasy clothing, flung here and there. In the third
tent, however, he found a young man, stretched out on a cot reading
a magazine. Unlike the other tents, this was neat and cleanly, and
the dirty working clothes of its occupants were hung up on a line
stretching across the tent. "Hello," he greeted Charley boyishly.
"Back again are you?"
"Yes," agreed Charley, as he noted the other's self-reliant, boyish
face. "I ought to have to apologize for not ringing your bell, or
knocking at your front door, but I didn't see either."
"That's all right," laughed the youth, as he sat up on the end of his
cot. "Take a seat on the other end. That's my seat of honor for my
visitors."
"What's your name?" Charley inquired.
"C. P. McCarty," replied the youth, with a grin. "I'm ashamed to
confess that the C. P. stands for Clarence Percy, but don't call me
either, for I see red when I get good and mad."
"One of the engineers?"
"Oh, we get called that sometimes by courtesy. Really, we are what you
might term runners. No one of us three is really a licensed engineer.
Say, what might your name be?"
"Charley West, one of the new owners of this business."
McCarty threw back his head and chuckled. "Whew!" he whistled, "just
to think I've been talking flippant to a new boss for the last ten
minutes."
"Never mind that," Charley grinned. "What I want to know is what's the
matter here? Why is the steam shovel not running? Where are the other
two runners?"
"Answer to question number one and two the same--general strike of all
hands," replied McCarty briefly. "Yesterday was pay day. We have had
no pay, any of us, for two months. Strike came when I went on watch. I
tried to stop it, but it was no good. Can't say as I blame the niggers
much. I'm kind of sore myself. It's bad enough living in a crowd like
this, working in mud and water, living on bum, dirty grub, and, when
you can't get your wages promptly, when you have a family to support,
it's pretty tough. As for your third question, the other two runners
have taken the dog and gone quail hunting."
"I see," said Charley absently. "How long have you been on the job?"
"Six months," said McCarty briefly. "I'm not an engineer, but I've
worked around machinery ever since I can remember, and I've dug out
more dirt on this job than the other two runners put together, if I do
say it, and I could have done double if I had had a good crew back of
me."
"I found Mr. Murphy's payroll in his tent," Charley observed. "I notice
that, for the past two months, the men have been working only a little
over half the time. How does that happen?"
"Accidents to the machine," said McCarty laconically. "I can't explain
them, but they keep happening right along. Strange part of it is, they
don't happen on my watch. Maybe that's just my good luck, but I have a
feeling that there's something wrong somewhere. I don't know as there
is anything wrong going on, but I've kinder got a hunch there is."
"How about the other two engineers? Are they all right?" Charley asked.
"Now, I'm not going to snitch on my mates," said McCarty decidedly. "I
may like them, or I may not, that has nothing to do with the matter."
"I think it has," said Charley coolly. "You owe a duty to your
employers far above any ethical or fancied duty to your mates, as you
call them. You are working for us, and we are the ones you look to
for your pay. I'm going to give you a check for your wages due this
afternoon. After to-day your salary will be $100 a month, and you'll
be chief engineer or runner on the job. There are conditions attached,
of course. You are to give me fully reports on everything pertaining
to your department; and, second, you will have to teach my chum,
Walter, how to run the machine. You will have to look after the machine
carefully, and, as soon as a part becomes worn in the least you must
notify me, so I can have a new part ready as soon as the old one gives
out. That's my proposition. Take it, or reject it, as you please."
McCarty reflected for a moment. "You're right," he said at last, "a
man cannot serve two masters, and I have no reason to love either of
the two engineers. They have bullied and slanged me as much as they
dared ever since I've been on the job. It's hard to judge a dredge man,
for they are the hardest class in the world. I guess it's the work and
the men they work for that makes them so, and, when it comes down to
real meanness and hardness, Bully Rooney and One-eye McGill stand at
the lowest of the list. I know it sounds like a sneak, knocking his
friends behind their backs, but I don't mean to be sneakish about it.
You can tell them just what I've said. That I believe they have caused
most of the hang-ups on this job--that but for them this job would have
paid expenses, at any rate."
Charley smiled. "I'm going to have a little talk with them," he
admitted, "but I am not going to tell them anything you have said. I
am grateful to you for what you have told me, and I believe we are
going to make this thing pay. By the way, can you tell me of any good
engineer that a man could depend upon to do the right thing?"
"There is Bob Bratton, of Miami," said McCarty, brightening, "he is
as white as they make them; but," he added despairingly, "the best
engineer in the world can do but little with a poor crew."
"I'm going to tend to that part of it," Charley said, with a smile.
"You do your part, and I'll see that the crew does theirs. Well, go
ahead and finish your story. There will be no work done on the machine
to-day. Glad to have had this little chat with you. So-long. I'll make
out your check this afternoon."
He stepped out of the tent into the clear sunshine again, strangely
cheered by the fact that he had found at least one man in the gang upon
whom he could depend.
At the cook tent he found Chris industriously scraping the dirt off the
bench, and vigorously scolding the big negro, who was standing idly by,
with a look of dismay on his ebony face.
"I'ze plum ashamed of you," Chris was saying. "I nebber thought dat a
Bahama nigger could be so plum nasty and dirty. I'se sho' ashamed of my
country when I see things like dis going on. Say, what island are you
from, nigger?"
"Eluther," said the negro sullenly.
"Elutheria," echoed Chris, "right next to de Spanish Wells Island, whar
you could hab learned all manner ob things from all dose white people
what lives there. Nigger, I'se sho' ashamed ob you."
Charley grinned, as he turned to the Captain, who was facing the rest
of the negroes, who had been drawn to the spot by the loud talking.
They were a rough-looking lot of humanity, pitted by smallpox on their
faces, and their bared arms and chests marked by old knife cuts and
pistol wounds. But they were almost giants in size, broad-shouldered,
and muscular-backed men with the narrow hips that mark the true athlete.
Charley paused to choose his words before addressing them.