annon. "Did he give any reason?"

"Yes, he did. You won't mind my speaking it right out, I guess. He said
the men didn't like you, and if you wasn't recalled they'd likely
strike. He said they'd work under me if you was recalled, but he didn't
think he could keep 'em from going out if you stayed. That ain't what I
think, mind you; I'm just telling you what he said. Then he kind of
insinuated that I ought to do something about it myself. That made me
tired, and I told him to come to you about it. I said you was the boss
here now, and I was only the foreman of the night shift."

Until that last sentence Bannon had been only half listening. He made no
sign, indeed, of having heard anything, but stood hacking at the pine
railing with his pocket-knife. He was silent so long that at last
Peterson arose to go. Bannon shut his knife and wheeled around to face
him.

"Hold on, Pete," he said. "We'd better talk this business out right
here."

"Talk out what?"

"Oh, I guess you know. Why don't we pull together better? What is it
you're sore about?"

"Nothing. You don't need to worry about it."

"Look here, Pete. You've known me a good many years. Do you think I'm
square?"

"I never said you wasn't square."

"You might have given me the benefit of the doubt, anyway. I know you
didn't like my coming down here to take charge. Do you suppose I did?
You were unlucky, and a man working for MacBride can't afford to be
unlucky; so he told me to come and finish the job. And once I was down
here he held me responsible for getting it done. I've got to go ahead
just the best I can. I thought you saw that at first, and that we'd get
on all right together, but lately it's been different."

"I thought I'd been working hard enough to satisfy anybody."

"It ain't that, and you know it ain't. It's just the spirit of the
thing. Now, I don't ask you to tell me why it is you feel this way. If
you want to talk it out now, all right. If you don't, all right again.
But if you ever think I'm not using you right, come to me and say so.
Just look at what we've got to do here, Pete, before the first of
January. Sometimes I think we can do it, and sometimes I think we can't,
but we've got to anyway. If we don't, MacBride will just make up his
mind we're no good. And unless we pull together, we're stuck for sure.
It ain't a matter of work entirely. I want to feel that I've got you
with me. Come around in the afternoon if you happen to be awake, an