s, by the thousands. Their day will come, by God, it
will."

By now, the ex-engineer and the bar-keeper had retired to the saloon
back of the grocery to talk over the details of this new outrage. Dyke,
still a little dazed, sat down by one of the tables, preoccupied, saying
but little, and Caraher as a matter of course set the whiskey bottle at
his elbow.

It happened that at this same moment, Presley, returning to Los Muertos
from Bonneville, his pockets full of mail, stopped in at the grocery to
buy some black lead for his bicycle. In the saloon, on the other side
of the narrow partition, he overheard the conversation between Dyke and
Caraher. The door was open. He caught every word distinctly.

"Tell us all about it, Dyke," urged Caraher.

For the fiftieth time Dyke told the story. Already it had crystallised
into a certain form. He used the same phrases with each repetition, the
same sentences, the same words. In his mind it became set. Thus he would
tell it to any one who would listen from now on, week after week, year
after year, all the rest of his life--"And I based my calculations on a
two-cent rate. So soon as they saw I was to make money they doubled
the tariff--all the traffic would bear--and I mortgaged to S.
Behrman--ruined me with a turn of the hand--stuck, cinched, and not one
thing to be done."

As he talked, he drank glass after glass of whiskey, and the honest
rage, the open, above-board fury of his mind coagulated, thickened, and
sunk to a dull, evil hatred, a wicked, oblique malevolence. Caraher,
sure now of winning a disciple, replenished his glass.

"Do you blame us now," he cried, "us others, the Reds? Ah, yes, it's
all very well for your middle class to preach moderation. I could do it,
too. You could do it, too, if your belly was fed, if your property
was safe, if your wife had not been murdered if your children were not
starving. Easy enough then to preach law-abiding methods, legal redress,
and all such rot. But how about US?" he vociferated. "Ah, yes, I'm a
loud-mouthed rum-seller, ain't I? I'm a wild-eyed striker, ain't I?
I'm a blood-thirsty anarchist, ain't I? Wait till you've seen your
wife brought home to you with the face you used to kiss smashed in by a
horse's hoof--killed by the Trust, as it happened to me. Then talk about
moderation! And you, Dyke, black-listed engineer, discharged employee,
ruined agriculturist, wait till you see your little tad and your mother
turned out o