ef me pay----"

Stuyvesant signed to the servant. "Take them round to the back corral; we
can't have them on the veranda." Then he turned to Dick. "You and Bethune
must convince them that the time-sheets are right; you know more about
the thing than I do. Haven't you been helping Francois, Fuller?"

"I'm not a linguist," Jake answered with a grin. "When they talk French
and Spanish at once it knocks me right off my height, as Francois
sometimes declares."

They all went round to the back of the house, where Bethune and Dick
argued with the men. The latter had been dismissed and while ready to go
wanted a grievance, though some honestly failed to understand the
deductions from their wages. They had drawn small sums in advance, taken
goods out of store, and laid off now and then on an unusually hot day,
but the amount charged against them was larger than they thought. For all
that, Bethune using patience and firmness pacified them, and after a time
they went away satisfied while the others returned to the veranda.

"Arguing in languages you don't know well is thirsty work, and we'd
better have a drink," Bethune remarked.

He pushed the carafe across the table, but Dick picked up his glass,
which he had left about half full. He was hot and it was a light Spanish
wine that one could drink freely, but when he had tasted it he emptied
what was left over the veranda rails.

Bethune looked surprised, but laughed. "The wine isn't very good, but the
others seem able to stand for it. I once laid out a mine ditch in a
neighborhood where you'd have wanted some courage to throw away a drink
the boys had given you."

"It was very bad manners," Dick answered awkwardly. "Still, I didn't like
the taste----"

He stopped, noticing that Jake gave him a keen glance, but Stuyvesant
filled his glass and drank.

"What's the matter with the wine?" he asked.

Dick hesitated. He wanted to let the matter drop, but he had treated
Bethune rudely and saw that the others were curious.

"It didn't taste as it did when I left it. Of course this may have been
imagination."

"But you don't think so?" Stuyvesant rejoined. "In fact, you suspect the
wine was doped after we went out?"

"No," said Dick with a puzzled frown; "I imagine any doping stuff would
make it sour. The curious thing is that it tasted better than usual but
stronger."

Stuyvesant picked up the glass and smelt it, for a little of the liquor
remained in the bottom.

"It's