AT SHAFT 11
"I do wish things would settle down some way or other," mused Mrs. Andrews. "I don't see why it is men can't behave themselves an' go 'long about their business, lettin' well enough alone. It's all on account o' that pesky walkin' delegate too. I wisht he'd 'a' kept walkin'. If all the rest o' the men had had the commonsense that Jason has, he would n't never'a' took no effect on them. But most of 'em must set with their mouths open like a lot o' ninnies takin' in everything that come their way, and now here 's all this trouble on our hands."
There were indeed troublous times at the little mining settlement. The men who made up the community were all employees, in one capacity or another, of the great Crofton West Virginia Mining Co. They had been working on, contented and happy, at fair wages and on good terms with their employers, until the advent among them of one who called himself, alternately, a benefactor of humanity and a labour agitator. He proceeded to show the men how they were oppressed, how they were withheld from due compensation for their labours, while the employers rolled in the wealth which the workers' hands had produced. With great adroit-
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