me and I pay them."

"Without discontent?"

"I hope so. If I found a man doing half time and grumbling, I should
kick him out."

"They don't combine?"

"We all combine. I get good work. They get good wages. It's a square
deal."

"Profit-sharing?"

"No, not exactly."

"It strikes me as a sort of community," said MacLeod. "Everybody at work
and everything in common."

"Now, why does it strike you that everything is in common? The place is
mine."

"Ah, my dear fellow!" MacLeod forgot the simplicity of the moment and
put on his platform voice. "Nothing is ours."

Osmond regarded him with a slow smile coming,--his perfect clothes, his
white hand, his air of luxurious equipment.

"Isn't it?" he asked ironically. "Well, it looks mighty like it. But I
haven't any data. I know what goes on inside my own fences. I don't know
much more. What do you want of Peter?"

"To-day?"

"Any time. All the time. He has joined your league. What do you intend
to do with him?"

MacLeod put his hands in his pockets and stretched his legs a little
farther. He regarded the outer circle of hills, and then brought his
gaze back over the pleasant rolling land between. Finally he looked at
Osmond and smiled at him in what seemed a community of feeling.

"My dear fellow," he said, "I am not considering the individual."

"I am," said Osmond, with an offensive bluntness. "I am considering
Peter. What are you going to do with him?"

"Your brother joined us of his own free will."

"Yes. But now you've got him, what do you want to do with him?"

"Isn't it of any use for me to tell you that when a man joins us, he has
passed beyond personal recognition or privilege? Outside our circle, he
is an individual; he counts. Inside--well, it is difficult to say what
he is. We want him then to consider himself one of the drops that make a
sea. The sea washes down things--even the cliffs. The drop of water is
of no importance alone. With a million, million others, it moves. It
crushes."

Osmond sat looking straight at him with eyes that burned. His hands,
hanging at his side, were clenched. He recognized the might of the man,
the crude physical power of him like an emanation, and he felt the
despairing helplessness of trying to move a potency like that. Cliffs
might be corroded by the sea; but a human force that respects no other
cannot be easily invaded. He spoke without his own will, and heard
himself speaking:--

"You haven't any soul!"