"I reckon I understand conditions here, sir, better than"--he longed to say "any damned Yankee," but he controlled the impulse--"any stranger from the North." "No you don't!" Markham flashed back. "Exploitation isn't any fairer here than where I come from. Because these people don't realize it is no excuse for men like you and me. I know all about what you set forth as explanation and excuse--it goes up North the same as it does here. Supply and demand; business is business and all the rest of it, but you and I know that it ought not go! We have no right to take it out of the people." "You've managed to take out your pile"--Crothers' smile was vanishing,--"'cording to your own telling. Millions ain't got by magic, these times." Markham fixed the ugly eyes with his calm gaze. "You are free to come and see how I have made my money," he said. "I have a system that includes every employee in my money-getting. They, every mother's son of them, have a chance with me to better themselves. I have never worked a child in my mills nor a woman about to become a mother, or for months after. I don't talk about these things--I live them! Now I mean to make money up here--honest money; my just share, and I'm going to follow my past line of action. I find it pays. Young Morley knows conditions here, and I'm going to pay him a big salary as interpreter. He's a high class man. Why, good God! Crothers, I sometimes think he was called to lead his people out of bondage." Having permitted himself this flight Markham struck another blow that completed Crothers' dismay. "There have got to be laws protecting these mountain folks from themselves. I'm not casting reflections, but you have all been passed by in the general scuffle, down yonder, and some one has got to sit up and take notice. There should be child labour laws, educational laws and sanitary laws. There should be appropriations made for carrying on good work in the mountains!" The light of Sandy's torch was flaring well ahead of Markham and he was following eagerly. "Such men as you ought to be up and doing. It's going to be an open fight, as far as I'm concerned, and I want to tell you now that so long as there is decent and clean methods used, all may be well, but I'm going to see fair play, and I thought it was only friendly to come to you and show my cards." "Thank you!" Crothers moistened his lips and plunged his hands in his pockets. "Is this a threat, sir?" "No; a warning." "Well, sir, I mean to do business along my own lines." "I mean to do the same, Crothers, and I'd like to add, that in any clash please remember you are up against me--not Sandford Morley." "I'm not likely to forget that, sir." There was a little more talk, pro and con, and then the two men parted as men can do, after a heated and vital discussion, apparently on the best of terms.