a few of the level-headed men in the camp worked
up to the idea; the rest will come in, hands down."

"Who have you got strung?"

"Well, there's Luna, and----"

"Luna's a crowd by himself. He's got more faces than a town-clock
telling time to ten streets. Who else?"

"There's Thompson, the mine foreman----"

"Jim Thompson? Don't I know him now? He'll throw more stunts than a
small boy with a bellyful of green apples. Who else?"

Morrison looked a little sulky.

"Well, how about yourself. That's what I'm here to find out."

Bennie glared up wrathfully.

"You'll take away no doubts about me, if my tongue isn't struck by a
palsy till it can't bore the wax of your ears. When it comes to bosses,
I'll choose my own. I'm American and American born. I'd rather be bossed
by a silk tile and kid gloves than by a Tipperary hat and a shillalah,
with a damned three-cornered shamrock riding the necks of both. It's a
pretty pass we've come to if we've got to go to Irish peat-bogs and
Russian snow-banks to find them as will tell us our rights and how to
get them, and then import dagoes with rings in their ears and Hungarians
with spikes in their shoes to back us up. Let me talk a bit! I get my
seventy-five dollars a month for knowing my business and attending to
it, because my grub goes down the necks of the men instead of out on the
dump; because I give more time to a side of bacon than I do to
organising unions. And I'll tell you some more facts. The rich are
growing richer for using what they have, and the poor are growing poorer
because they don't know enough to handle what they've got. Organise a
union for keeping damned fools out of the Blue Goose, and from going
home and lamming hell out of their wives and children, and I'll talk
with you. As it is, the sooner you light out the more respect I'll have
for the sense of you that I haven't seen."

Morrison was blazing with anger.

"You'll sing another tune before long. We propose to run every scab out
of the country."

"Run, and be damned to you! I've got a thousand-acre ranch and five
hundred head of cattle. I've sucked it from the Rainbow at seventy-five
a month, and I've given value received, without any union to help me.
Only take note of this. I've laid my eggs in my own nest, and not at the
Blue Goose."

Morrison turned and left the room. Over his shoulder he flung back:

"This isn't the last word, you damned scab! You'll hear from me again."

"'Tis not the