through their delegation.
I'm willing to wager the camp never hears of the fight; it might
disillusion them of a fancied power. Koppy knows better than to let
them know they're licked."

"I said to fire them." Torrance spoke so calmly that Conrad searched
his eyes with unaccustomed concern. Yet the foreman did not falter.

"There are other things to consider--"

The contractor raised himself to his full height and frowned down on
the smaller man. "You seem to misunderstand your position, Adrian
Conrad. What did I hire you for?"

"For quarter what I'm worth," replied Conrad caustically.

Torrance blinked twice, then, coldly:

"From the first of this month your pay will be four hundred a month.
Now do what you're told--or your pay stops instanter."

"Then I'll have to work for nothing," said Conrad serenely. "I'm not
working for you--or you'd have been paying me four hundred for the last
two years, and some one else to look after me." He examined the
contractor up and down with frank disgust. "I don't know how any
daughter of yours keeps me here."

Tressa came to them then and seized a hand of each. They made a pretty
picture in the lighted doorway--the big, frowning father in the rear,
the smaller foreman with one foot on the step, and between them this
sweet girl whose whole horizon was bounded by them, holding a hand of
each, now dimpling, now pouting, always pleading and certain of herself.

Down in the camp the peace of night had fallen. Weary and gorged,
quieted by the evening's lounge and the music they loved, the crude
off-scourings of a dozen nations had retired to their bunks and were
sleeping as peacefully as if their consciences were clean. Here and
there a light twinkled, but as the three in the doorway looked, they
blanked out one by one. The soundless night had closed in.

Torrance moved uncomfortably. He would have yielded to anything but
disobedience, and a disobedience that entailed the retention of men who
had made a ridiculous demand and then attacked him when he refused it.
Would it look as if he feared to discipline, as if the flash of a knife
could cow him? Anything rather than knuckle down to such creatures!

"May I speak to the boss?"

A familiar voice came out of the darkness not a. yard from Conrad.
They heard it with an inward start; the training of their lives had
been never to exhibit alarm--it was one of the muscles whereby they
controlled men like these.

"I h