Reilly's face.

"I've talked to you," he said slowly, his eye blazing along the barrel,
"and I've knocked you down. But--"

The man staggered back, then walked away very pale, but muttering. Bannon
shoved back the revolver into his hip pocket. "It's all right, boys," he
said, "nothing to get excited about."

He walked to the edge and looked over. "We can't wait to pick it up a
stick at a time," he said. "I'll tell 'em to load four or five on each
larry. Then you can lift the whole bunch."

"We run some chances of a spill or a break that way," said the foreman.

"I know it," answered Bannon, dryly. "That's the kind of chances we'll
have to run for the next two months."

Descending to the ground, he gave the same order to the men below; then he
sent word to Peterson and Vogel that he wished to see them in the office.
He wiped his feet on the mat, glancing at Hilda as he did so, but she was
hard at work and did not look up. He took the one unoccupied chair and
placed it where he could watch the burnished light in her red hair.
Presently she turned toward him.

"Did you want something?" she asked.

"Excuse me. I guess--I--"

In the midst of his embarrassment, Max and Pete came in. "I've got a
couple of letters I want to talk over with you boys," he said. "That's why
I sent for you."

Pete laughed and vaulted to a seat on the draughting-table. "I was most
afraid to come," he said. "I heard you drawed a gun on that fellow,
Reilly. What was he doing to make you mad?"

"Nothing much."

"Well, I'm glad you fired him. He's made trouble right along. How'd it
happen you had a gun with you? Do you always carry one?"

"Haven't been without one on a job since I've worked for the old man."

"Well," said Pete, straightening up, "I've never so much as owned one, and
I never want to. I don't like 'em. If my fists ain't good enough to take
care of me against any fellow that comes along, why, he's welcome to lick
me, that's all."

Hilda glanced at him, and for a moment her eyes rested on his figure.
There was not a line of it but showed grace and strength and a magnificent
confidence. Then, as if for the contrast, she looked at Bannon. He had
been watching her all the while, and he seemed to guess her thought.

"That's all right," he said in answer to Peterson, "when it's just you and
him and a fellow to hold your coats. But it don't always begin that way.
I've been in places where things got pretty miscellaneous sometime