e to be your right hand in so far as I'm able, Mr. Flagg,"
declared Latisan, at last, pricked by the repeatedly iterated plaint.
"You can depend on me just as far as I can stretch my ability."

"But you told me you didn't like me for myself. You said you were
joining drives with me because I was proposing to fight. Now I can't
fight. No man will do my fighting for me unless he likes me for myself."

"I'll do it for you, sir," insisted Ward, determinedly. "It's right in
line with my plans. I'll take your orders. I'll come to you regularly at
Adonia. You shall know every move. I'll be merely your right hand to do
what you want done."

"I'm a hard man with my help, Latisan. You have agreed with me on that
point. I shall be ugly when I'm chained up. I shall say something to
you, and then you'll quit."

Latisan had been looking the situation squarely in the eye on his own
account. He was confronted by something wholly outside all his
calculations. He had enlisted merely as a lieutenant and had never
considered that he would be called on to assume authority as chief in
the field. He had been led to serve with Flagg because the old man was
the personification of permanency in the north country--seemed to be
something that could not be shaken by the assaults of the Comas--a man
who impressed all as being above the hazards of death and accident.
Somehow, after all the years and because he had been there as a fixture
through so many changes, Echford Flagg was viewed as something
perennial--as sure as sunrise, as solid and everlasting as the peak of
Jerusalem Knob, which overshadowed the big house on the ledges at
Adonia; he was a reality to tie to in a fight against a common foe.

But right then he was a whimpering old man who plucked and fumbled at a
dead right hand.

He was as helpless as a little man whom Latisan had plucked from a
brutal clutch of an assailant in front of a bulletin board. Craig was
still able enough. Craig was man size. Craig would be even more vicious
when the news of Flagg's condition reached him; he would perceive his
opportunity.

"It's sort of the code up where I come from. There's no objection to a
clean fight. But if you don't pick your bigness you must expect that
your bigness will offer himself mighty sudden." Latisan was not
recollecting what he had said to the chaps of Tech; he was putting
before his mind one of his fundamental principles as he listened to the
laments of the stricken giant