of the mill. You're right, I ain't got
a bit of doubt I could do it. And if I don't do it, you needn't
have me."

An illumination fell upon Johnnie's mind. She saw that Buckheath was in
league with her stepfather, and that the pressure was put on according
to the younger man's ideas, and would be instantly withdrawn at his
bidding. Yet, when the swift revulsion such knowledge brought with it
made her ready to dismiss him at once, thought of Deanie's wasted little
countenance, with the red burning high on the sharp, unchildish
cheekbone, stayed her. For a while she walked with bent head. Heavily
before her mind's eye went the picture of Gray Stoddard among his own
people, in his own world--where she could never come.

"Have it your way," she said finally in a suffering voice.

"What's that you say? Are you goin' to take me?" demanded Buckheath,
pressing close and reaching out a possessive arm to put around her.

"I said yes," Johnnie shivered, pushing his hand away; "but--but it'll
only be when you can come to me and tell me that the children are all
right. If you fail me there, I--"

Back at the Victory, downstairs went Reardon's messenger to where Pap
Himes was sweating over the new machinery. Work always put the old man
in a sort of incandescent fury, and now as Bob spoke to him, he raised
an inflamed face, from which the small eyes twinkled redly, with a grunt
of inquiry.

"That youngest gal o' yours," the man repeated. "She's tryin' to leave
her job and go home. Reardon said tell you, an' see what you had to say.
The Lord knows we have trouble enough with those young 'uns. I'm glad
when any of their folks that's got sand is around to make 'em behave. I
reckon she can't come it over you, Gid."

Himes straightened up with a groan, under any exertion his rheumatic old
back always punished him cruelly for the days of indolence that had let
its suppleness depart.

"Huh?" he grunted. "Whar's she at? Up in the spinnin' room? Well, is
they enough of you up thar to keep her tendin' to business for a spell,
till I can get this thing levelled?" He held to the mechanism he was
adjusting and harangued wheezily from behind it. "I cain't drop my job
an' canter upstairs every time one o' you fellers whistles. The chap
ain't more'n two foot long. Looks like you-all might hold on to her for
one while--I'll be thar soon as I can--'bout a hour"; and he returned
savagely to his work.

When Mandy left her, Deanie tried for a t