room. "I'm going
for another," she explained.

She was gone for some time. Craig glanced out of the window into the
slaty sky, from which rain was falling. It was a day unseasonably warm
and humid for early spring. "I hope it's raining in the Noda. But it's
just as liable to be snow. Latisan can't do much yet awhile." He looked
at his watch as if starting the Noda drives was a matter of minutes. He
was showing some impatience when Miss Kennard returned. She went to the
window, and sat in a chair there, her face turned from them. "If you
don't mind," she apologized. "It's on account of the light. I can hear
perfectly from here."

She heard then that the Comas wanted to put Echford Flagg down and out
as an operator, now that paralysis had stricken him. She had Craig's
assurance delivered to Mern that, without a certain Ward Latisan old
Flagg would not be able to bring his drive down. The Comas director
declared that an ordinary boss could never get along with the devils who
made up the crew. He declared further that Latisan was of a sort to suit
desperadoes and had put into the crew some kind of fire which made the
men dangerous to vested interests on the river. He devoted himself to
Latisan with subdued profanity, despite the presence of the young woman.
He averred that Latisan himself had no love for Flagg--nobody up-country
gave a tinker's hoot for Flagg, anyway. He insisted, desperate in spite
of certain modifying private convictions, that Latisan could be pried
off the job if some kind of a tricky influence could be brought to bear
or if his interest in the fight, as just a fight, could be dulled or
shifted to something else or side-tracked by a ruse. He pictured Flagg
as a man for whom nobody would stand up in his present state, now that
he was sick and out of the game.

"I hate to kick a cripple, even in my business," demurred Mern. "I have
flashes of decency," he continued, dryly. "You seem to be particularly
set on getting to the lumberjack, Latisan. Can't you do him up, and then
let Flagg have half a show for this season--probably his last?"

"Now you're talking of violence to Latisan, aren't you?"

"Let the plug-ugly have what he seems to be looking for," advised Mern.
"That is, if I get it straight from you what his nature is."

"He's all of that--what I have said," reaffirmed Craig, venomously. "But
look here, Mern, you can't go up into that region, where everything is
wide open to all men, and kill a