THE ROCK-DRILLING CONTEST
The main street of Globe was swarming with men, from the court-house
square down past the viaduct to where the Bohunks dwelt. And the men
were all miners, deep-chested and square-shouldered, but white from
working underground. They were gathered in knots before the soft-drink
emporiums that before had all been saloons and as Denver rode in they
shouted a hoarse welcome and followed on to Miners' Hall. There the
Committee of Arrangements was sitting in state but when Denver strode in
a huge form bulked up before him and Slogger Meacham grinned at him
evilly. Two months before, on the Fourth of July, they had been partners
in the winning team; but now Meacham had taken on with a Cornishman from
Miami and they counted the money as good as won.
"What are you doing here?" demanded the Slogger insolently, "do you
think you're going to compete?"
"Danged right I am, if the judges will let me," answered Denver shoving
resolutely past; and at sight of their lost champion the committee
brightened up, though they glanced at each other anxiously. But what
they wanted was a contest, something that would bring out the crowd and
make the great day a success, and they waited upon Denver expectantly.
"Well, here's where you get left then," spoke up Meacham with a sneer,
"the entries were closed at noon."
"Oh, hell!" cursed Denver and was turning to go when the chairman called
him back.
"Just a minute," he said, "didn't you send in your entry? I believe
we've got it here, somewhere." He began to fumble industriously through
a pile of papers and Denver caught his breath. For a moment he had seen
his dreams brought to nothing, his last chance at the prize-money gone;
but at this tentative suggestion on the part of the chairman he suddenly
took heart of grace. They wanted him to compete, it had been advertised
in all the papers, and they were willing to meet him half-way. But
Denver was no liar, he shook his head and sighed, then turned back at a
sudden thought.
"Maybe Tom Owen made the entry?" he burst out eagerly, "he was over to
see me, you know."
"That was it!" exclaimed the chairman as if clutching at a straw, "say,
where is that blank of theirs, Joe?"
"Search me," answered Joe, "it's around here, somewhere. Oh, I know!"
And he went out into the back room. "Ain't this it?" he inquired
returning with a paper and the chairman snatched it away from him.
"Yes," he said, "how'd it get out there? Well, no matter--that's all
right, Mr. Russell!"
"No it ain't!" blurted out Meacham making a grab for the paper; but the
chairman struck away his hand.
"You keep out of this!" he said. "What d'ye think you're trying to do?
You keep out or I'll put you out!"
"It's a flim-flam!" raged Meacham, "you're trying to job me. He never
made no entry."
"I never claimed to," retorted Denver boldly and Meacham turned on him,
his pig eyes blazing with fury.
"I'll fix you, for this!" he burst out hoarsely, "I'll get you if I have
to kill you. You robbed me once, but you won't do it again; so I give
you fair warning--pull out!"
"You robbed _me_!" came back Denver, "and these boys all know it.
But I fought you fair for the whole danged roll----"
"You did naht!" howled Meacham, "you had a feller with ye----"
"Well, I'll fight you right now, then," volunteered Denver
accommodatingly but the Slogger did not put up his hands.
"That's all right," he said backing sullenly away, "but remember what I
told you--I'll git ye!"
"You'll git nothing!" returned Denver and laughed him out the door,
though there were others who muttered warnings in his ears. Slogger
Meacham was a fighter as well as a driller and his flight with the
prize-money was not the first time that he had lapsed from the ways of
strict rectitude. He had killed a man during the riots at Goldfield and
had been involved in several ugly brawls; but his record as a bad man
did not deter Denver from opposing him and he went out to hunt up Owen.
Tom Owen was a good man, and he was also a good driller, but there was
one thing that Denver held against him--he had been a drinking man when
Arizona was wet. And a man who has drunk, no matter when, is never quite
the same in a contest. He has lost that narrow margin of vital force,
those last few ounces of strength and stamina which win or lose at the
finish. Yet even at that he was a better man than Meacham, who had laid
down like a yellow dog. Denver remembered that too and when he found his
man he told him they were due to win. Then he borrowed some drills and a
pair of eight-pound hammers and they went through a try-out together.
Owen was quick and strong, he made the changes like lightning and struck
a heavy blow; but when it was over and he was rolling a cigarette Denver
noticed that his hand was trembling. The strain of smashing blows had
over-taxed his nerves, though they had worked but three or four minutes.
"Well, do the best you can," said Denver at last, "and for cripes sake,
keep away from this boot-leg."
There was plenty of it in town on this festive occasion, a
nerve-shattering mixture that came in from New Mexico and had a kick
like a mule. It was circulating about in hip pockets and suit-cases and
in automobiles with false-bottomed seats, and Denver knew too well from
past experience what the temptation was likely to be; yet for all his
admonitions when he met Owen in the morning he caught the bouquet of
whisky. It was disguised with sen-sen and he pretended not to notice it
but his hopes of first money began to wane. They went out again to the
backyard of an old saloon where a great block of granite was embedded
and while their admirers looked on they practiced their turn, for they
had never worked together. A Cornish miner, a champion in his day,
volunteered to be their coach and at each call of: "Change!" they
shifted from drill to hammer without breaking the rhythm of their
stroke.
"You'll win, lads," said the Cornishman, patting them affectionately on
the back and Denver led them off for their rub-down.
The band began to play in the street below and the Miners' Union marched
past, after which they banked in about a huge block of granite and the
drilling contests began. The drilling rock was placed on a platform of
heavy timbers at the lower side of the court-house square, and the slope
above it and the windows of all the buildings were crowded with shouting
miners. First the men who were to compete in the single-jack contests
mounted the platform one by one; and the sharp, _peck_,
_peck_, of their hammers made music that the miners knew well.
Then, as their holes were cleaned out and the depth of each measured,
the first team of double-jackers climbed up to the platform amid the
frantic plaudits of the crowd. The announcer introduced them, they laid
out their drills and the hammer-man poised his double-jack; then at the
word from the umpire they leapt into action, striking and turning like
men gone mad.
There were five teams entered, of which Denver's was the last, but when
Meacham and his partner were announced as the next contestants his
impatience would not brook further delay. With his own precious drills
tied securely in a bundle and Owen and the coach behind him he fought
his way to the base of the platform and sat down where he could watch
every blow. They came on together, a team hard to match; Meacham
stripped to the waist, his ponderous head thrust forward, the muscles
swelling to great knots in his arms. His partner wore the heavy, yellow
undershirt of a miner, his trousers draped low on his hips; and to hold
them up he had a strand of black fuse twisted loosely in place of a
belt. He was a hard, hairy man, with grim, deep-set eyes and a jaw that
jutted out like a crag and as he raised his hammer to strike Denver saw
that he was out to win.
"Go!" called the umpire and the hammer smote the drill-head till it made
the blue granite smoke; and then for thirty seconds he flailed away
while Slogger Meacham turned the short starter-drill.
"Change!" called their coach and with a single swoop Meacham flung his
drill back into the crowd and caught up his hammer to strike. His
partner dropped his hammer and chucked in a fresh drill--_smash_,
the hammer struck it into the rock--and so they turned and struck while
the ramping miners below them looked on in envious amazement. As each
drill was thrown out it was brought back from where it fell and examined
by the quick-eyed coach, and as he called off the half minutes he
announced their probable depth as indicated by the mud marks on the
drills. Across the block from the two drillers knelt a man with a rubber
tube who poured water into the churning hole; and at each blow of the
hammer the gray mud leapt up, splashing turner and hammer-man alike.
At the end of five minutes they were down fifteen inches, at ten they
still held their pace; but as Denver glanced doubtfully at his coach and
Owen the sound of the drilling changed. There was a grating noise, a
curse from the turner, and as he flung out the drill and thrust in
another a murmur went up from the crowd. They had broken the bit from
the brittle edge of their drill and the new drill was grinding away on
the fragment, which dulled the keen edge of the steel. The quick ears of
the miners could sense the different sound as the drill champed the
fragment to pieces, and when the next change was made the mud-marks on
the drill showed that over an inch had been lost. A team working at top
speed averaged three inches to the minute, driving down through hard
Gunnison granite; but Meacham and his partner had lost their fast start
and they had yet four minutes to go. The tall Cornishman's eyes
gleamed--he struck harder than ever--but Meacham had begun to lose
heart. The accident upset him, and the grate of the broken steel as the
drill bit down on chance fragments; and as his coach urged him on he
glanced up from his turning with a look that Denver knew well. It was
the old pig-eyed glare, the look of unreasoning resentment, that he had
seen on the Fourth of July.
"He's quitting," chuckled Owen when Meacham rose to strike; but when the
hole was measured it came to forty-three and fifteen-sixteenths of an
inch. The big Cornishman had done it in spite of his partner, he had
refused to accept defeat; and now, with only two more teams to compete,
they led by nearly an inch.
"You can beat it!" cried Denver's coach, "I've done better than that
myself! Forty-four! You can make forty-six!"
"I'm game," answered Denver, "but it takes two to win. Do you think you
can stick it out, Tom?"
"I'll be up there, trying," returned Owen grimly and Denver nodded to
the coach.
The next team did no better, for it is a heart-breaking test and the sun
was getting hot, and when Denver and Owen mounted up on the platform a
hush fell upon the crowd. Denver Russell they knew, but Owen was a new
man; and a drilling contest is won on pure nerve. Would he crack, like
Meacham, as the end approached, or would he stand up to the punishment?
They looked on in silence as Denver spread out his drills--a full
twenty, oil-tempered, of the best Norway steel, each narrower by a hair
than its predecessor. The starter was short and heavy, with an
inch-and-a-quarter bit; and the last long drill had a seven-eighths bit,
which would just cut a one-inch hole. They were the best that money
could buy and a famous tool-sharpener in Miami had tempered their edges
to perfection. Denver picked up his starter, all the officials left the
platform, and Owen raised his hammer.
"Are the drillers ready?" challenged the umpire. "Then _go_!" he
shouted, and the double-jack descended with a smash. For thirty seconds
while the drill leapt and bounded, Denver held it firmly in its place,
and at the call of "Change!" he chucked it over his shoulder and swung
his own hammer in the air. Owen popped in a new drill, the hammer struck
it squarely and the crowd set up a cheer. Denver was working hard,
striking faster than his partner; and in every stroke there was a
smashing enthusiasm, a romping joy in the work, that won the hearts of
the miners. He was what they had been before drink and bad air had
sapped the first freshness of their strength, or dust and hot stopes had
broken their wind, or accidents had crippled them up--he was a miner,
young and hardy, putting his body behind each blow yet striking like a
tireless automaton.
"Change!" cried the coach, his voice ringing with pride; and as the
drill came flying back he shouted out the depth which was better than
three inches for the minute. At five minutes it was sixteen, at ten,
thirty-three; but at eleven the pace slackened off and at twelve they
had lost an inch. Tom Owen was weakening, in spite of his nerve, in
spite of his dogged persistence; he struck the same, but his blows had
lost their drive, the drill did not bite so deep. At every stroke, as
Denver twisted the long drill loose and turned it by so much in the
hole, he raised it up and struck it against the bottom, to add to the
weight of the blows. The mud and muck from the hole splashed up into his
face and painted his body a dull gray, but at thirteen minutes they had
lost their lead and Tom Owen was striking wild. Then he missed the steel
and a great voice rose up in mocking, stentorian laughter.
"Ho! Ho!" it roared, and Denver knew it well--it was Slogger Meacham,
exulting.
"Here--you turn!" he said flinging out his drill, and as Owen sank down
on his knees by the hole Denver caught up his double-jack and struck.
For a half minute, a minute, he flailed away at the steel; while Owen,
his shoulders heaving, turned the drill like clock-work and gasped to
win back his strength.
"Thirteen and a half!" announced the coach at last and then he shouted:
"Change!"
"No--_turn_!" panted Denver, never missing a stroke; and Owen sank
back to his place by the hole while the battery of blows kept on.
"Fourteen!" proclaimed the coach, "you're about an inch behind. How
about it--do you want to change?"
"No--turn!" choked Denver. "I'll finish it--_turn_!" And as Owen
straightened his back Denver struck like a mad-man while the sweat
poured down in a shower. The official umpire leapt up on the platform to
toll off the last sixty seconds, but the rise and fall of Denver's body
was faster by far than his count. A frenzy seemed to seize him as the
half minute was called and Owen slipped in their last drill; and with
hoarse, coughing grunts he smashed it deeper and deeper while the miners
surged forward with a cheer.
"Fifty-eight--fifty-nine--_sixty_!" cried the umpire, slapping him
sharply on the back to stop, and Denver fell like dead across the stone.
His great strength had left him, completely, on the instant; and when he
raised his head there was a grinning crowd around him as his coach was
measuring the last drill.
"The poor, dom fool!" he exclaimed commiseratingly, "and to think of him
wurruking like thot. He's ahead by two inches and more."