of
all the forces will be made by them. If the terms of settlement suit
them, your followers will take their medicine and look pleasant. Bring
the matter nearer home,--to your own experience. You have given your
time, neglected your family, and worked unceasingly for the advancement
of the cause. Your eloquence, your genius and your influence have held
the men in line when they have wavered and would have broken, and what
has your own order done for you, and what will it do at the coming
convention? They have guyed you in public and they will throw you down
hard when the time comes. It's nothing to me, only I hate to see a good
man turned down. I dislike to see real talent and personal worth wasted
upon a lot of loud-mouthed, uneducated coyotes who don't know who
Shakespeare is. You're too big a man, Cowels, that's the trouble;
you're out of your sphere. When you are master-mechanic, with your hands
full of promotions, they will look up to you, and it is all within easy
reach. If you will report for duty to-morrow morning you can go out on
Blackwings to-morrow night, with the Denver Limited, the finest train in
the West, behind you. The best run on the road will be the meanest
position you will ever be asked to fill. But I must say no more, for I
don't want to persuade you to take a step which you might regret in
after years. I only ask you to think it over to-night and choose between
what you call loyalty to the Brotherhood, and your plain duty to your
family--Good-night."

Hawkins possessed, in a remarkable degree, the rare faculty of knowing
how and when to let go.

When Cowels had made the foregoing facts known to his wife, she was
greatly surprised that he would entertain such a proposition for the
smallest fraction of a second, for she had always regarded him as the
soul of honor, and wholly unselfish. Now each pondered in silence over
the proposition. From her point of view it was a choice between the
Brotherhood and her home. Between temporary disgrace for her husband,
and hunger for her children, and she was not long in making up her mind.
The baby had been without milk that day. It had gone to bed hungry for
the first time in its life, and the thought of it made her desperate.

To Cowels's way of reasoning it was simply a question of choice between
the position of master of the Brotherhood and master-mechanic. Which was
nearest, and which would last longest and pay best? These were the
points he was consid