responsibility.

"About face and back to the camp," he shouted. "I will look at your
dinner and we shall see!"

They hesitated a moment, but he went among them, pushing them down the
bank.

He followed with the padrone behind the jabbering throng, and the two
engineers came along at his earnest request.

"Mr. Searles," said Parker after a little while, as they walked side by
side, "being an older and wiser man than I am you are probably right in
suggesting that I did wrong in interfering in this affair at the outset.
But," he half-chuckled, "I am going to lay the blame on my professor in
sociology. He set me to thinking pretty hard in college and I guess I
haven't been out from under his influence long enough to get hardened
into the selfish views of my fellowman."

There was earnestness under his smile.

"My boy," said the elder, "I am not blaming you for what you have
done for the poor devils. But I have been all for business in my life.
Business hasn't seemed to mix well with philanthropy. I haven't dared to
think of what I ought to do. I have thought only of what I had to do, to
earn a living for my family."

"Well," said Parker, "if the P. K. & R. folks decide that I've been
meddling in matters that are none of my business I have no family to
suffer for my indiscretion--but I have prospects and I know that a
discharged man is worse off than a man who has started."

The elder man patted Parker's arm.

"As it stands now--and I'm speaking as a friend, young man, and not as a
captious critic--you have set this Italian camp all askew by giving them
countenance in the first place. They haven't any regulators in their
heads, you see! When you're feeding charity to that kind of ruck you've
got to be careful Parker, that they don't trample you down when they
rush for the trough."

The young man walked along up the hillside in silence. But just as
they arrived in front of the long camp the scowl of puzzled hesitation
disappeared from his forehead.

"As old Uncle Flanders used to say," he muttered, "'When a man sticks
his finger into a tight knot-hole he'd better pull it out mighty quick,
before it swells, even if he does leave some skin on the edges.'"

The men halted and grouped themselves about the door. Their eager looks
and nudgings of each other showed plainly that they expected their
champion to take up their cause against the padrone once more.

Dominick prudently halted at a little distance.

"You