no scabs, and Billy could work
every day. Also, she wondered where she was to get a sack of flour, for
she had long since ceased the extravagance of baker's bread. And so many
other of the neighborhood women had done this, that the little Welsh
baker had closed up shop and gone away, taking his wife and two little
daughters with him. Look where she would, everybody was being hurt by
the industrial strife.

One afternoon came a caller at her door, and that evening came Billy
with dubious news. He had been approached that day. All he had to do,
he told Saxon, was to say the word, and he could go into the stable as
foreman at one hundred dollars a month.

The nearness of such a sum, the possibility of it, was almost stunning
to Saxon, sitting at a supper which consisted of boiled potatoes,
warmed-over beans, and a small dry onion which they were eating raw.
There was neither bread, coffee, nor butter. The onion Billy had pulled
from his pocket, having picked it up in the street. One hundred dollars
a month! She moistened her lips and fought for control.

"What made them offer it to you?" she questioned.

"That's easy," was his answer. "They got a dozen reasons. The guy the
boss has had exercisin' Prince and King is a dub. King has gone lame in
the shoulders. Then they're guessin' pretty strong that I'm the party
that's put a lot of their scabs outa commission. Macklin's ben their
foreman for years an' years--why I was in knee pants when he was
foreman. Well, he's sick an' all in. They gotta have somebody to take
his place. Then, too, I've been with 'em a long time. An' on top of
that, I'm the man for the job. They know I know horses from the ground
up. Hell, it's all I'm good for, except sluggin'."

"Think of it, Billy!" she breathed. "A hundred dollars a month! A
hundred dollars a month!"

"An' throw the fellows down," he said.

It was not a question. Nor was it a statement. It was anything Saxon
chose to make of it. They looked at each other. She waited for him to
speak; but he continued merely to look. It came to her that she was
facing one of the decisive moments of her life, and she gripped herself
to face it in all coolness. Nor would Billy proffer her the slightest
help. Whatever his own judgment might be, he masked it with an
expressionless face. His eyes betrayed nothing. He looked and waited.

"You... you can't do that, Billy," she said finally. "You can't throw
the fellows down."

His hand shot out to