mall excuse for vent; the
hilarity was as expressive as a _viva voce_ vote, and its volume
suggested that there were more against Flagg than there were for him.

He did not lower his crest. "You all know what is happening this
season. You know why I have sent out for men. The Three C's crowd has
started stealing from my crews. I want men who have a grudge against the
Three C's. I want men who will fight the Three C's. Rufe Craig proposes
to steal the Noda as he has stolen the Tomah. He has been making his
brags of what he'll do to me. He won't do it, even if I have to make a
special trip to hell and hire a crew of devils. Now let me test out this
crowd." He was searching faces with a keen gaze. "All proper men to the
front ranks! Let me look at you!"

A slow movement began in the throng; men were pushing forward.

"Lively on the foot!" yelled Flagg. "I'm standing here judging you by
the way you break this jam of the jillpokes. Walk over the cowards, you
real men! Come on, you bully chaps! Come running! Hi yoop! Underfoot
with 'em!"

He swung his cant dog and kept on adjuring.

The real adventurers, the excitement seekers, the scrappers, drove into
the press of those who were in the way. The field became a scene of
riot. The bullies were called on to qualify under the eyes of the
master. There were fisticuffs aplenty because husky men who might not
care to enlist with old Eck Flagg were sufficiently muscular and ugly to
strike back at attackers who stamped on their feet and drove fists into
their backs.

Flagg, on the porch, followed all phases of the scattered conflict,
estimated men by the manner in which they went at what he had set them
to do, and he surveyed them with favor when they crowded close to the
edge of his rostrum, dwelling with particular interest on the faces
which especially revealed that they had been up against the real thing
in the way of a fight. Behind and around the gladiators who had won to
the porch pressed the cordon of malcontents who cursed and threatened.

"Much obliged for favor of prompt reply to mine of day and date," said
Flagg, with his grim humor. He drove his cant-dog point into the floor
of the porch and left the tool waggling slowly to and fro. He leaped
down among the men. He did not waste time with words. He went among
them, gripping their arms to estimate the biceps, holding them off at
arm's length to judge their height and weight. He also looked at their
teeth, rolling