LOYALTY.
"WHERE do all you boys come from?[A] I've been pretty well over the
Bahama Islands, but I can't quite place you chaps," Charley said,
smilingly. "What island are you from, anyway?"
"I reckon most of us men are from Andros and Abacco Islands. Thar's
four or five from Little Abacco or Green Turtle Key."
"I have never been ashore at Andros or Abacco Island, but I know
lots of fellows from Green Turtle Key. Will those of you from Green
Turtle Key please step to one side?" Five grinning negroes separated
themselves from the crowd.
"I understand that you boys have quit work and gone on a strike because
your wages have not been paid. Well, inside of two hours I will have
your checks made out, and you can go. We will not need you any longer.
"Hold on, you fellows from Green Turtle Key," he said, as they began
to move away with the crowd. "I can't carry you all in at one trip.
The truck can't do it on a dirt road. I want you fellows to stay over
to-morrow, and I will take you in the next day, and I want you to work
cleaning up this camp. Of course, we will pay you extra for the work,
but it must be done well. Captain Westfield, here, will show you what
we want done."
The five negroes began to grumble, but the lad silenced them with a
word. "If you are in such a hurry to go, you can walk in," he said. The
negroes were not anxious to walk in, so they gave a grudging consent.
"Gee," whispered Walter, who had been listening closely. "How can we
afford to pay them? They say there is two months' pay due them, and
that will about eat up the balance of our funds."
"We have simply got to pay them," Charley grinned. "The labor alien law
is strict, and they could tie up the machine with liens and render us
helpless. Things are not quite as bad as they look. I've been looking
over Murphy's papers, and I find that this month he had dug 10,000
yards so far. He could not collect the money on it until the county
engineer comes out and measures it up, and that will not be until the
end of the month, so we will get the $1,750 coming in."
"But look what shape we are putting ourselves in," said Walter
anxiously. "We can't work the machine without men."
"Don't worry about that," said Charley cheerfully. "I'll tend to
getting new and better men. What I would like you to do is to stick
right close to McCarty and learn everything you can about the machine.
He'll be glad enough to show you. I want you to master it, so that you
will know how every part of it works, and can let me know, so that I
can have a new part ready when the old one gives out."
"Good," Walter exclaimed. "I would rather fool around machinery than do
any other work. Say, where's McCarty's tent? I want to have a talk with
him."
"Wait until after dinner," Charley counseled. "He's enjoying himself
now."
"But what am I going to do, Charles?" protested Captain Westfield. "I
don't see where I come in."
"I want you to be general overseer over the ground men, graders, and
teamsters. You see, Captain, we want to push the work as fast as we
can, and with as few accidents as possible. I am going to increase the
men's wages, but they have got to earn their money. Take the graders
we watched yesterday. Two good men could have done the work those five
were doing. Now, if you will help me, we will get up our two tents a
little farther up the road. To-morrow I wish that you would see that
every tent is taken down and scrubbed with soap and water with a good
dose of carbolic acid in it. When they are dry, have them pitched
again, not far from that little bunch of spruce there. We will pitch
our own tents among the spruces."
McCarty and Walter came to their assistance, and in a short time the
two tents were pitched in the thicket of glossy green and the dirt
floors carpeted thickly with fragrant pine needles. This done, Charley
brought over from Murphy's tent the box with its collection of papers.
The payroll was already made out, so all the lad had to do was to make
out the checks and, as soon as it was done, the negroes filed in, one
by one, signed their names to the pay sheet, and received their checks.
Some of them would have liked to have stayed and worked on, but the lad
was sick of their dirtiness and laziness, and wanted no more of them.
Dinner followed close upon the completion of this task, and all
gathered around the long tables upon which Chris had already impressed
somewhat of cleanliness, and had cleaned up some of the rubbish which
had littered the floor. The grinning negroes sat down to a dinner such
as they hadn't eaten in many a day--plain and simple, but wholesome and
well flavored and well cooked.
They had hardly begun to eat when the engineers entered, bearing a
big bag of quail and followed by a panting pointer dog. They sat down
quietly at the boys' table, and sullenly began to eat. Charley noted
their faces with dissatisfaction. He knew, from what he had seen of the
class, that dredge men are a hard, cruel, overbearing class, but these
two shocked him in their sheer coarseness and brutality of expression,
and from each emanated the strong odor of cheap whiskey. If not drunk,
they were apparently on the verge of drunkenness.
Charley waited until the last negro had filed out of the tent, then he
turned to McCarty. "You might introduce me to your mates," he said,
with mild sarcasm. "They are so highly trained, socially, that it seems
that they will not speak without an introduction."
McCarty grinned with delight at his new boss.
"This," he said lightly, "is Bully Rooney; the one on the left is
One-eyed McGill. Mr. Rooney, Mr. McGill, meet your new boss, Mr. West."
"If he's the new boss, he can just understand one thing," growled
Rooney, "I'm not going to have any greenhorn fooling around the machine
when I am working on it."
"Nor me, neither," growled his companion.
"You will not be troubled at all in that way," Charley assured them
smilingly. "I'm going into town in the truck between two and three
o'clock, and, if you can get your things packed up, I'll take you
in. Your checks are ready, and I'll give them to you as soon as you
sign the payroll. I do not want a man in our gang whom I cannot trust
absolutely. And I will not have one that drinks. Drink leads to
carelessness, and carelessness leads to accidents. I imagine that's why
the machine has been broken down so much."
A scowl of rage showed on Rooney's face. "That snip of a McCarty has
been shooting off his mouth too much."
"Murphy's papers told me all I needed to know," said Charley quickly,
but McCarty spoke up coolly and on his own behalf:
"And I've told him about the same thing, and ought to have told him
more. I should have told him that the machine has been losing money
ever since you two came on the job. That nearly all the dirt that has
been thrown out has been thrown out on my shift. That not a week has
passed without the machine suffering some breakdown that, in most
cases, could have been avoided. Lastly, I could, and should have told
him, that there will not be a cent of money made on this job until it's
rid of you two skulking, booze-fighting man-killers."
Bully Rooney's face grew black with anger, and he launched himself like
a clumsy bear at the slight McCarty. The youth, his Irish-blue eyes
sparkling with anger, drew back his fists for a swinging blow at the
other, but Charley promptly stepped in between the two with his little
automatic in his hand.
"Here, that's about enough of this," he exclaimed. "If there's any
fighting to be done in this camp hereafter, we will do it--understand
that. Now you two go to your tents and pack up what belongs to you, for
I start for town at three prompt."
The two sullenly departed for their tents, muttering angrily as they
went, and Charley turned to McCarty.
"I wish you would take Walter down to the machine with you this
afternoon and show him all you can about its workings. I would also
like you to make out a list of what new parts may be needed soon, and I
will order them at once. If you know or can think of anything that will
help to make the machine dig more dirt, I wish you would suggest it to
me, and we will go over it together. If it's feasible, we'll adopt it
at once."
"I can suggest two or three things, right now," said McCarty, eagerly.
"First, our pump is all on the bum. Its valve is all worn out. It
needs repacking, and it needs a bigger intake pipe. We have to fill
the boiler six times in twenty-four hours, and it takes an hour each
time. If it had been tended to properly it would not take over fifteen
minutes at a time to fill up the boiler; as it is, we lose a clear
five hours' work a day on that one item alone. Then, there's the wood.
It is always piled on the left side of the track, so that we always
have to swing the machine around and wait for the ground men to load
it on, and, of course, we do no work until they get through, which
generally takes them 15 minutes, while, if it were placed on the other
side, the machine could keep right on while the men were loading.
There's another hour lost a day."
"Six hours' waste out of twenty-four," Charley exclaimed. "Get the
measurement of that valve and intake pipe at once, and I'll get
them when I go in this time. As for the wood business, that belongs
in your department," he said, turning to the teamster, a lanky,
humorous-looking Missourian; "what have you got to say about it?"
FOOTNOTE:
[A] A form of address generally used in the South when white speaks to
black.