casm of it was pleasing to his jangling nerves. "If you don't
guess right the first time, take another. If you're off the track
then, I'll get a doctor for you--or show you this arm of mine."

"Who started it?"

Torrance leaned forward and searched Conrad's face as if he considered
him demented.

"O' course," he sneered, "you'd go into court and swear I went on the
rampage and cornered them. You'd say I caught 'em at their evening
devotions and smashed their crucifixes over their heads and tackled 'em
with a cutlass in my teeth and two revolvers--"

"You might have a little on Morani for using a knife," Conrad agreed
calmly, "but you'd have trouble finding a lawyer to take such a case.
They made a request, without violence--"

"Yah, they knelt down on their marrow-bones and begged His Highness to
grant them the small boon of letting them put their feet on his neck.
They humbly petitioned me to kick over the trestle, pay them ten
dollars a day, raise the allowance of pie, and then give them
certificates of character. You'd have done it, I suppose. Only that
isn't the way I've made a success of railway construction, my lad."

Conrad took it cheerfully. "Then imagine you take it to court. Have
you time? It'll mean Battleford for the Police trial. And what would
you win? They don't jail men even out here for defending themselves.
And what would happen the trestle in the meantime?" He saw hesitation
in Torrance's eyes. "Besides, I'd hate to be called to prove the
sweetness of your temper and your unprovocative ways."

Torrance took it out on his pipe for three minutes. "Then off you make
for the camp," he decided, "and fire them. Don't let 'em even spend
the night here. If I set eyes on one of them again there'll be murder;
I won't be responsible for myself if that cur Werner's smirking physog
gets in front of me; and I'll punch Morani on sight, just for
safety-first."

Conrad rose and went to the door, where he stood in silence a long time
looking through the darkness to the camp lights.

"I'm thinking of the work," he said gravely.

"Oh!" snapped Torrance. "I'm not, of course!"

"Sometimes I question it. Werner and Morani and Heppel were sent by
the bohunks. With Koppy they have the whole bunch in the hollow of
their hands. We couldn't face a strike at this time of the year; we'd
never get another crew now till next spring--and you couldn't stand
that. . . . Don't imagine you've cowed them