m the mine. Three or four remained with Luna around
Morrison. His voice was hoarse and broken.

"He's thrown us over. You see that? It's up to us to play it alone. He's
put it up to your face that he's with you, but he's playing against you.
He can't stop us now. It's gone too far. The first tug is coming,
to-morrow. We'll win out, hands down. The Rainbow first, then Pierre."
He ended with a string of profanity.

Luna took up Morrison's broken thread.

"There's fifty men with rifles in the canon. Hartwell's gang will never
get through. The boys are going to shoot at sight."

"Where's Firmstone?" Morrison's face writhed.

"Up to the mine. He's getting in his work." Luna looked over his
shoulder at the crowd of miners.

"That's so. The foreman's fired. So am I. He is going to die boss." The
man grinned, as he held out a time check.

"He'll die, anyway." Morrison's jaws set. "You're sure he's at the
mine?"

"Dead sure. He's got his work cut out to-night. Lots of scabs held out.
He's put the night boss in foreman." The man grinned again.

Morrison laid a hand on his shoulder.

"You're game?"

"You bet I am!"

"Go back to the mine to-night----"

"And miss all the fun down here?" the man interrupted.

Morrison's hand rested more heavily on the shoulder.

"Don't get flip. Have some fun of your own up there. The supe will hear
the racket down here early. He'll start down with his scabs to help out.
Two men can start a racket there that will keep him guessing. If he's
started it will fetch him back. If he hasn't he won't start at all."

"What kind of a racket, for instance?"

Morrison swung impatiently on his foot.

"What's the matter with letting off a box or two of powder under the
tram?"

"Nothing. Is that our job?"

"Yes. And see that it's done."

"That's me. Come on, Joe. Let's have a drink first."

These two were the penitents whom Firmstone had taken back.

The greater number of the men were crowded around the gilded bar,
drinking boisterously to the success of the union and death to scabs and
companies. A few, more sober-minded, but none the less resolute,
gathered around Morrison. They were the leaders upon whom he depended
for the carrying out of his orders, or for acting independently of them
on their own initiative, as occasion might demand. With logic fiendish
in its cunning, he pointed out to them their right to organise, laid
emphasis on their pacific intentions only to defend their r