By Dallas Lore Sharp

It was a half-holiday at the quarries; the schools, the stores and shops all closed at noon. The whole quarry town had turned out to see the great granite shaft hauled to the station.

To avoid the risk and cost of two loadings, the forty-ton stone had been derricked to the road at the edge of the quarry, and there, under a temporary shed, had been cut, polished and crated. It now lay blocked upon a low, powerful dray, ready to be moved to the freight siding in the village, over a mile distant.

The stone was the largest single block of granite ever quarried at the Laston ledges. It had been an expensive job from the start, and a very troublesome one. It had led to a strike, a riot, and almost to murder.

There had been no man among the two hundred in the quarries capable of properly dressing the stone. So the company had brought in Gunar Gustavesen to do the work. And the men were angry at the intrusion of the outsider.

The company was warned. So was Gustavesen. But the work on the shaft went on—until the strike. Jonnasen, the leader of the men, was as sure he was right and as stubborn as Hendricks, president of the firm. Then the men grew ugly, there was a riot, Gustavesen’s furniture was burned in the street, and he himself so brutally attacked that he still lay slowly mending in one of the company’s houses.

It was a bitter victory, and Jonnasen was too honest a man to like it. When it was reported to him that Havelok Gustavesen, the sixteen-year-old son of the non-union man, had found some menial work in the company’s stables, he made it clear to the men that the boy was to be let alone. That is how it happened that young Gustavesen appeared among the men who were busy with the twenty-four-horse team attached to the heavy dray.

The road from the quarry to the station was down grade except for two steep hills, where the ledges cropped out, and where every ounce of the pulling power of the great team would be required. At the top of the second rise the downward slope stretched away for about half a mile with a sharp curve round the edge of the old quarry. The curve was guarded by heavy stone posts and a wooden rail.

The possibilities of all this had been reckoned with, and in order to keep the forty tons of granite from pushing the horses before it, a pair of heavy steel shoes had been fitted to a brake that might have held a freight-train.

Jonnasen settled himself upon the seat of the dray, gathered up the reins of the pole-team, and, with his foot upon the brake, gave the word to start. The drivers of the forward spans echoed the command, and the dray rolled out upon the road.

There is something inspiring in the work of willing horses. It is a noble enthusiasm, little less than inspiration, that takes possession of the horses themselves. The crowd along the road felt it and cheered, as the twelve pairs, pulling like one, took the great polished shaft to the top of the first hill.

It was a short and gentle descent to the second and steepest ridge. Jonnasen put on the brake, and caught the weight so easily that the horses of the pole moved free in their traces, yet kept them fairly taut.

Near the bottom of the slope he started them forward on the trot, loosed the brake, and sent the long line at a good pace to take the second ridge.

It was a pretty piece of work. So beautifully did the immense stone mount the rise that even the members of the firm in attendance cheered with the rest.

Then a silence fell. No one spoke of danger, but as the great, shining shaft pointed down the slope, its forty tons of dead weight seemed suddenly to have changed into active power. It seemed to poise at the top of the hill. It was a thing alive.

The ridge was a narrow ledge of granite, hardly wide enough to stop the dray upon. Jonnasen had intended to breathe his team here, but by the time the dray was up, the lead horses were already going down, and the load, without a pause, began to descend.

Jonnasen bore down on the brake, drew in his horses, and looked off down the long grade to the turn about the precipitous edge of the old quarry.

He drew a short, hard breath. No cooler man than this tall Swede ever held a rein. He could handle horses as he could handle men.

But he had made a mistake, and he knew it instantly. He should have stopped on the ridge, as he intended. He should have unhooked all the horses ahead of the pole-team here. They were in the way. The horses at the pole could guide the load down. The others were a menace, if anything should happen.

“But nothing should happen!” he muttered to himself, and a half-smile broke over his rugged face as he heard the grind of the brake and saw the slack in the traces taken up. The load was under his foot.

Just then the lead horses broke into a trot. Immediately the whole line started. Jonnasen bore down on the brake, and drew his own team hard back to check the pull, when there was a sharp crack, like the report of a pistol, and one of the steel shoes fell broken to the road.

Instantly a dozen warning voices told him what he too well knew had happened. The big horses knew, too, and settled back to stop the push from behind. Jonnasen put all his weight into the single steel shoe that bit at the back wheel. A stream of sparks flew from the tire, and a wild, shrill scream told that the brake still worked. But the horses were sliding.

Then the pole ran into the team ahead, the horses plunged, and there was confusion.

“Unhook them from the pole!” Jonnasen called to the nearest driver. The man dropped his lines, caught the jangling traces and tried to run in between the teams, but was struck by a hoof and rolled out of the road.

Panic seized the whole line of frightened horses. Some of the drivers still held their teams back, but they were being dragged helplessly.

“Unhook them!” Jonnasen shouted to the crowd shrinking back against the fence. Were he free to let his own team go, they might keep ahead of the load, and take the turn with a possible chance of rounding the edge of the deep quarry.

“Unhook them!” he shouted again, powerless to quit his place and do the thing himself. But no one was able to move.

Then a lithe young figure came bounding down from the ridge. It was young Gustavesen. He sprang upon the dray, ran forward, seized the whip in Jonnasen’s hand, and in a cool, deliberate voice, said:

“When I get hold, let ’em jump quick.” He dropped between the horses to the pole, and clutching the harness, got quickly out to the end. He was bending to catch the evener when a forward wheel struck a rut, and the long tongue snapped him viciously into the air.

He caught the hames of the nigh horse, and saved himself. Hanging to the hames, he swung back, lay out along the tongue, and reached again for the evener.

Jonnasen was watching, and as the boy laid his hand upon the big hook, he loosed the reins, the horses lunged, and the long, heavy bar was unhooked almost of itself.

Like a flash the boy straightened and swung the lash about the horses ahead, throwing himself an instant later upon the back of the horse he was holding.

The loosened teams were barely dragged to the side as the pole-team went by on the gallop, with its forty-ton stone.

Jonnasen had the horses under perfect control. He could guide them straight ahead. But the mighty stone was gathering momentum with every leap of the team, and powerful as they were Jonnasen began to realize that they would never be able to check or turn the downward plunge at the curve on the edge of the quarry.

Then he saw that young Gustavesen was making no attempt to fling himself from the galloping horse.

“Jump!” he shouted. “Jump, quick!”

Havelok turned. “I can’t jump!” he called back. “My leg! Tend your team! I’m safe here!”

The absolute confidence of the boy sent a strange thrill through the big Swede. It steadied him.

They were near to the turn, with the horses running close to the inner side, and still well in hand.

Jonnasen thought quickly. It was a chance—the only chance. One of them—both of them—might escape if he could hit with the long iron hub of the rear wheel the tough young white oak that stood out on the very round of the sharp curve.

Jonnasen drew the horses in a little, spoke to them quietly, then sent the front wheel past the tree with a bite at the bark, pulled the team hard in, and leaped.

There was a dull crash, a ripping of harness, and a grinding crunch as the forty-ton stone slued over the crushed wheel across the broken top of the tree.

Jonnasen was picked up in the road, unconscious, but not seriously hurt. The escape of Gustavesen was more than luck. It was a miracle, but a miracle worked by his own presence of mind, and the coolness, quickness and good judgment of Jonnasen.

As the wheel struck, the traces parted, the pole-chains snapped, and the horses shot ahead free, with the boy clinging to the harness.

When he was helped down, his right leg was found to be broken; but that had happened back along the road, when he was snapped from the pole while trying to unhook the forward teams. And it was this that prevented his trying to fling himself off to the road as his perilous ride began.

No harm had come to the shaft. The dray was a wreck, but the great stone lay unbroken, and almost unscratched, among the dÉbris.

It was a week later, as both Gustavesens, father and son, were convalescing, that they received a letter, concluding as follows:

Henceforth a man shall be a man here. Some things have been done that the men in this quarry are ashamed of. They believe now that every man has a right to work and live under the law according to the dictates of his own conscience.

For the men,

(Signed) Jonnasen.