mplained the
big boss, scrubbing his knuckles against his belted jacket.

"Come out in the road where it ain't private ground owned by the old
land-grabber," pleaded MacCracken. "I'll meet you somewhere, Ben Kyle,
where it'll have to be a fair stand-up." But Kyle gave him no further
attention.

"Take the boys into the ram pasture," directed his employer. He pointed
to a long, low addition in the rear of "The Barracks," the shelter that
served for the housing of the Thorntons' crews, migratory to or from the
big woods. "I'll bring out a present. I guess you've got a good, able
crew there, Ben."

Chairman Presson followed the old man back into the mansion. He was
angry, and made his sentiment known, but Thornton was stubborn.

"There may be another way of running this district just at this time,
Luke, but this is _my_ way of running it, and I'm going to control that
caucus. So what are you growling about?" He was opening a closet in the
wall.

"But you're starting a scandal--and they'll get so stirred up that
they'll put an independent ticket into the field. You'll have to fight
'em all over again at the polls. You're rasping them too hard."

"Luke, there are a lot of things you know about down-country politics,
and perhaps you know more than I do about politics in general. But
there's a rule in seafaring that holds good in politics. If you're
trying to ratch off a lee shore it's no time to be pulling down your
canvas."

He took a jug out of the closet, and went to the low building. The
chairman followed along, not comforted.

The woodsmen had piled their duffel-bags in corners and were waiting.
There were long tables up and down the centre of the room. They were
flanked by benches. The tables were furnished with tin plates, tin
pannikins, knives, and two-tined forks. The big boss had already given
his orders. He and his crew had been expected. Men were hustling food
onto the tables. There were great pans heaped with steaming baked beans,
dark with molasses sweetening, gobbets of white pork flecking the
mounds. Truncated cones of brownbread smoked here and there on platters.
Cubes of gingerbread were heaped high in wooden bowls, and men went
along the tables filling the pannikins with hot tea. The kitchen was in
a leanto, and the cook was pulling tins of hot biscuits from the oven.
There was not a woman in sight about "The Barracks." There had been none
for years. Those men in the dirty canvas aprons were maids,