.

"Look at us. It ain't a case any more of sympathetic strike for the
mill-workers. We got our own troubles. They've fired our four best
men--the ones that was always on the conference committees. Did it
without cause. They're lookin' for trouble, as I told you, an' they'll
get it, too, if they don't watch out. We got our tip from the Frisco
Water Front Confederation. With them backin' us we'll go some."

"You mean you'll... strike?" Saxon asked.

He bent his head.

"But isn't that what they want you to do?--from the way they're acting?"

"What's the difference?" Billy shrugged his shoulders, then continued.
"It's better to strike than to get fired. We beat 'em to it, that's all,
an' we catch 'em before they're ready. Don't we know what they're doin'?
They're collectin' gradin'-camp drivers an' mule-skinners all up
an' down the state. They got forty of 'em, feedin' 'em in a hotel in
Stockton right now, an' ready to rush 'em in on us an' hundreds more
like 'em. So this Saturday's the last wages I'll likely bring home for
some time."

Saxon closed her eyes and thought quietly for five minutes. It was not
her way to take things excitedly. The coolness of poise that Billy so
admired never deserted her in time of emergency. She realized that
she herself was no more than a mote caught up in this tangled,
nonunderstandable conflict of many motes.

"We'll have to draw from our savings to pay for this month's rent," she
said brightly.

Billy's face fell.

"We ain't got as much in the bank as you think," he confessed. "Bert had
to be buried, you know, an I coughed up what the others couldn't raise."

"How much was it?"

"Forty dollars. I was goin' to stand off the butcher an' the rest for a
while. They knew I was good pay. But they put it to me straight. They'd
been carryin' the shopmen right along an was up against it themselves.
An' now with that strike smashed they're pretty much smashed themselves.
So I took it all out of the bank. I knew you wouldn't mind. You don't,
do you?"

She smiled bravely, and bravely overcame the sinking feeling at her
heart.

"It was the only right thing to do, Billy. I would have done it if you
were lying sick, and Bert would have done it for you an' me if it had
been the other way around."

His face was glowing.

"Gee, Saxon, a fellow can always count on you. You're like my right
hand. That's why I say no more babies. If I lose you I'm crippled for
life."

"We've got to eco