s a low murmur of assent. "We'll win,
too--cry-baby!"

"You'd better hope so, Charlie Maxon!" flashed the object of his
derision. "You talked us into this strike in the beginnin', more than
any one else did, an' if we have to go back to work on th' old terms
your name is goin' to be _mud_!"

"Talked you into it, did I? All right, then--I did! What of it?
Afraid I'm goin' to quit on you, huh? Well, I'm not. If I talked you
into it, I'll get you _out_ of it--with more pay an' better
conditions." His voice hardened to a threatening note. "What's more,
we ain't goin' back on th' old terms or th' old conditions, neither.
You heard tell of th' fire that started in C buildin' t'other night,
didn't you? Said it was an accident, didn't they? Well, mebbe it was
an' mebbe it wasn't. Mebbe there's others who wouldn't be sorry to see
th' tannery go up in smoke! An' as for Simon Varr, before I'd go back
to work for him at the old scale I'd catch him by himself some night
an'--"

"Here he comes now!" broke in somebody abruptly.

Maxon, his harangue cut short, followed the gaze of all of them.
Coming toward them some fifty yards away, not from the direction of the
village but from a short-cut through the woods that led from the
tannery to his house on the hill, was the familiar, thickset, gray
figure of the man they had been discussing. They watched him draw near
for a moment, then quietly broke up into groups of two and three and
drifted silently away. Maxon lingered to the last from a spirit of
sullen bravado, but he had no wish to encounter his late employer face
to face and he, in turn, followed his comrades in retreat.

Simon Varr watched them go from beneath his shaggy, scowling eyebrows,
and his thin lips relaxed their usual tightness to curve in a
contemptuous sneer. Jackals!

He marched steadily to his objective, the door of the offices, and was
raising his hand to knock when there was the sound of an iron bar
sliding back and the door opened. Since the fire to which Maxon had
referred, it had been deemed advisable to employ a watchman by night
and a guard by day to protect the property from either accident or
sabotage. It was the day-man who had recognized his employer through
the Judas and drew the bar.

"Good afternoon, sir," he ventured politely.

Simon Varr was not accustomed to respect any amenity of social
intercourse and he paid no more attention now to the greeting than if
it had never been