rossed his path in many days he
listened now to an echo of Harrigan's activities.

"They're offering three a day in the Reserve camps." Fallon should not
have gloated. "Three a day and a bonus for the high week cut. We're
going back to the river."

"I see," again observed Steve. "Are they guaranteeing this wage for as
long as you want to work."

Apparently they had decided, too, that there should be no bargaining.

"We want our time," Fallon reiterated. "This is going to be a man's
year on the river!"

"You, also?" Steve inquired of Shayne.

That worthy gloated too.

"Yes, me also," he came back, "an' a hundred others, before the ice
goes out."

Big Louie he had given up for lost long before that, and yet it was
with Big Louie that Steve made a sincere effort.

"I'd like to have you stay, Louie," he faced the third man. "I need
you, for you can do more with horses than any man I know. You are
worth three a day to me. Do you care to think it over?"

Big Louie's eyes had been mournful when he stumbled in out of the cold.
They were that now. He started to turn toward the window for a look at
the stables, and then thought better of it. Resolutely, for him, he
shook his head.

"I am done--me," he muttered. "I work for no company that will leave
honest men to starve."

It was hopeless from the start, yet Steve tried again.

"I can promise you work as long as you are able to hold a rein," he
offered, but he moved nearer the door while he was speaking. "That is
all I can promise."

Perhaps Fallon believed that Big Louie was weakening; perhaps he felt
that the situation was too highly dramatic to be wasted, for he made a
wide flourish with one hand.

"We want our time, and we want it now," he threatened. "We're going to
show you who bosses this river, before we're done with you!"

Fallon shouldn't have gloated; he shouldn't have threatened. And
Shayne shouldn't have smiled. Steve had slipped the latch loose. Now
he swung open the door.

"Call for your time at the Morrison office," he said evenly, "and if
you're going--why, go!"

By collar and belt he swung him back and drove him sprawling into a
drift.

"Are you in a hurry, too, Shayne?" he asked pleasantly, and Shayne
buried his head beside Fallon's in the snow. Then Steve closed the
door carefully and turned again to Big Louie.

"Louie," he said, "I make it a rule to urge no man who does not wish to
stay. If it needs persuasion to