o, and I'm not taking any contract to handle a lot of drunken
river-hogs as well as go against a game."

"All right," agreed Nolan, "I'm with you."

The thirty or so men of the rear crew then in camp signified their
intention to stay by the procession.

"You can't make those sharps disgorge," counselled Newmark. "At the
first look of trouble they will light out. They have it all fixed. Force
won't do you much good--and may get some of you shot."

"I'm not going to use force," denied Orde. "I'm just going to play their
game. But I bet I can make it go. Only I sort of want the moral support
of the boys."

"I tell you, you CAN'T win!" cried Newmark disgustedly. "It's a brace
game pure and simple."

"I don't know about it's being pure," replied Orde drolly, "but it's
simple enough, if you know how to make the wheels go 'round. How is it,
boys--will you back my play?"

And such was their confidence that, in face of Newmark's demonstration,
they said they would.

VII

After the men had been paid off, perhaps a dozen of them hung around
the yards awaiting evening and the rendezvous named by Orde. The rest
drifted away full of good intentions, but did not show up again. Orde
himself was busy up to the last moment, but finally stamped out of the
office just as the boarding-house bell rang for supper. He surveyed what
remained of his old crew and grinned.

"Well, boys, ready for trouble?" he greeted them. "Come on."

They set out up the long reach of Water Street, their steel caulks
biting deep into the pitted board-walks.

For nearly a mile the street was flanked solely by lumber-yards, small
mills, and factories. Then came a strip of unimproved land, followed
immediately by the wooden, ramshackle structures of Hell's Half-Mile.

In the old days every town of any size had its Hell's Half-Mile, or the
equivalent. Saginaw boasted of its Catacombs; Muskegon, Alpena, Port
Huron, Ludington, had their "Pens," "White Rows," "River Streets,"
"Kilyubbin," and so forth. They supported row upon row of saloons, alike
stuffy and squalid; gambling hells of all sorts; refreshment "parlours,"
where drinks were served by dozens of "pretty waiter-girls," and huge
dance-halls.

The proprietors of these places were a bold and unscrupulous lot.
In their everyday business they had to deal with the most dangerous
rough-and-tumble fighters this country has ever known; with men bubbling
over with the joy of life, ready for quar