CHAPTER IV
In a cellar-like house driven like a stake into the hillside above
Coal Creek lived Kate Hartnet with her son Mike. Her man had died with
the others during the fire in the mine. Her son like Beaut McGregor
did not work in the mine. He hurried through Main Street or went half
running among the trees on the hills. Miners seeing him hurrying along
with white intense face shook their heads. "He's cracked," they said.
"He'll hurt some one yet."
Beaut saw Mike hurrying about the streets. Once encountering him in
the pine woods above the town he walked with him and tried to get him
to talk. In his pockets Mike carried books and pamphlets. He set traps
in the woods and brought home rabbits and squirrels. He got together
collections of birds' eggs which he sold to women in the trains that
stopped at Coal Creek and when he caught birds he stuffed them, put
beads in their eyesockets and sold them also. He proclaimed himself an
anarchist and like Cracked McGregor muttered to himself as he hurried
along.
One day Beaut came upon Mike Hartnet reading a book as he sat on a log
overlooking the town. A shock ran through McGregor when he looked over
the shoulder of the man and saw what book he read. "It is strange," he
thought, "that this fellow should stick to the same book that fat old
Weeks makes his living by.
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