what was theirs into his garner.

"Yes," said Alton. "And what has happened before will happen
again--unless you stir round and stop it. That's the only use in
remembering things. Standing alone, Hallam and his crowd will squeeze
you out one by one; standing fast together for what is your own, you're
fit to choke off anybody, and what I've called you here for is to see
whether we can't fix up a Co-operative Company!"

A man stood up with a light in his eyes. "Then you've hit the thing
plumb where you wanted," he said. "Whose standing in with Alton of
Somasco, boys?"

There was a roar this time, and then a silence as if the assembly felt
that they had done an unseemly thing, but it was evident that they were
all of them ready.

"I figure you've got a programme?" said somebody.

"I have," said Alton. "I'll have a bigger one by and by, but in the
meanwhile it includes the selling of timber in place of destroying it,
and a doubling right off of the Somasco mill. It also takes in a
gristmill, the recording of more timber rights, and most of you getting
in on the ground floor of a new silver mine. There's to be an office
down in Vancouver, and a desiccated fruit store, and the best men we
can get hold of to run them. Now sit still while I read what might do
for a scheme."

They sat very still, and even Seaforth, who knew his comrade, wondered
a little, for that scheme, while crude in one or two directions, was
eminently workable. It provided for a pro rata division of profits and
partition of expenses, while each man would retain the control of his
own holding, and those who listened nodded now and then as they noted
the efficiency of some portion of the plan of co-operation.

"Now," said Alton quietly, laying down the paper. "That's my notion.
I'm willing to listen if any man can bring out a better."

There was a silence until Horton rose up at the foot of the table,
glass in hand. "I," he said simply, "don't think he can. Every dollar
I can raise is going in, and we're all standing in with Alton. Here's
the Somasco Consolidated, and to ---- with Hallam."

There was a roar louder than the first one, a clink of glasses, and
forgetting their reticence for once the big bronzed men thronged about
the one who smiled at them from the head of the table.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COMPACT

After the first meeting of the Somasco Consolidated, Alton was
frequently absent from the ranch, and spent most of the