, nursing his knee, diligently saying nothing. It was Tom,
undoubtedly, but a Tom who had become a citizen of another world, a
newer world than the one the ex-artilleryman knew and lived in.
He--Caleb--had freely predicted a riot as the result of the half-pay
proposal; yet Tom had applied the match and there was no explosion. The
buzzing, arguing groups were not riotous--only fiercely questioning.

It was Ludlow, hammering clamorously for silence on the shell of the big
crane ladle, who acted as spokesman when the uproar was quelled.

"You're all right, Tom Gordon--you and your daddy. But you've hit us
plum' 'twixt dinner and supper. If you two was the company--"

Tom stood up and interrupted.

"We are the company. While Mr. Farley is away we're the bosses; what we
say, goes."

"All right," Ludlow went on. "That's a little better. But we've got a
kick or two comin'. Is this half-pay goin' to be in orders on the
company's store?"

"I said cash," said Tom briefly.

"Good enough. But I s'pose we'd have to spend it at the company's store,
jest the same, 'r get fired."

"No!"--emphatically. "I'm not even sure that we should reopen the store.
We shall not reopen it unless you men want it. If you do want it, we'll
make it strictly cooeperative, dividing the profits with every employee
according to his purchases."

"Well, by gol, that's white, anyway," commented one of the coke burners.
"Be a mighty col' day in July when old man Farley'd talk as straight as
that."

"Ag'in," said Ludlow, "what's this half-pay to be figured on--the
reg'lar scale?"

"Of course."

"And what security do we have that t'other half 'll be paid, some time?"

"My father's word, and mine."

"And if old man Farley says no?"

"Mr. Farley is out of it for the present, and he has nothing to say
about it. You are making this deal with Gordon and Gordon."

"Well, now, that's a heap more like it." Ludlow turned to the miners.
"What d'ye say, boys? Fish or cut bait? Hands up!"

There was a good showing of hands among the white miners and the coke
burners, but the negro foundry men did not vote. Patty, the mulatto
foreman who was Helgerson's second, explained the reason.

"You ain't said nuttin' 'bout de foundry, Boss Tom. W-w-w-w-we-all boys
been wukkin' short ti-ti-time, and m-m-m-makin' pig ain't gwine give
we-all n-n-nuttin' ter do." Patty had a painful impediment in his
speech, and the strain of the public occasion doubled it.

"We ar