looked again. When they spoke to him in the bakery or on the street he
spoke back fearlessly and looked them in the eyes. Young girls in the
school walked home down the hill with other boys and at night dreamed
of Beaut McGregor. When some one spoke ill of him they answered
defending and praising him. Like his father he was a marked man in the
town of Coal Creek.




CHAPTER II


One Sunday afternoon three boys sat on a log on the side of the hill
that looked down into Coal Creek. From where they sat they could see
the workers of the night shift idling in the sun on Main Street. From
the coke ovens a thin line of smoke rose into the sky. A freight train
heavily loaded crept round the hill at the end of the valley. It was
spring and over even that hive of black industry hung a faint promise
of beauty. The boys talked of the life of people in their town and as
they talked thought each of himself.

Although he had not been out of the valley and had grown strong and
big there, Beaut McGregor knew something of the outside world. It
isn't a time when men are shut off from their fellows. Newspapers and
magazines have done their work too well. They reached even into the
miner's cabin and the merchants along Main Street of Coal Creek stood
before their stores in the afternoon and talked of the doings of the
world. Beaut McGregor knew that life in his town was exceptional, that
not everywhere did men toil all day black and grimy underground, that