“You’re quitting on me before the job’s finished?” raged Tregarvon. “You are a lot of bally idiots! The money you are getting for this haul is more than any one of you will see from now to Christmas! Are you a pack of silly women that you can’t stand a little man-sized talk from a boss?” “That’s jist hit,” said Daggett. “Looks like you-all was used to rippin’ and tearin’ at them no-account furriners up No’th that ain’t got nothin’, and don’t know enough to raise a terruction when you cuss ’em out. We-all ain’t nuther niggers n’r furriners. I’ll take my pay and quit.” Tregarvon became heavily sarcastic. “Is this your way of telling me that you want more money?” Bickler, the oldest man in the squad, made answer. “I reckon you-all ain’t got money enough to make us-all come back f’r another day like what this’n has been, Mr. Tregarvon. You’ve got a heap to l’arn ef ye allow to stay down yere in old Tennessee and get white men to work f’r ye.” “Quit, then, and be damned to you!” Tregarvon exploded. “Show up at the office in Coalville to-morrow morning before I leave, and you’ll get your pay. I don’t carry your money around with me in my pocket.” To a clattering of hoofs and a jingling of trace-chains the cavalcade moved off down the pike, leaving the deserted boss standing beside the stranded machinery truck. Tregarvon knew very well that by another day the story of the strike and its cause would be passed from lip to ear throughout the length and breadth of the Wehatchee, and there would be no hope of recruiting another gang among the farmers. The half-mile of sandy wood road still remained to be traversed, and without the teams the load could be moved only by means of a block and tackle and winch, manned by Tryon’s gang of track laborers; a process which would add other exasperating days of delay. The dusk was thickening under the trees when the discouraged hauling-boss took his coat from the truck and struggled into it preparatory to setting out upon the long tramp down the mountain. He had seen nothing of Carfax since an hour before noon, when the yellow car had edged past the road obstructions on its way up the pike. But now he heard the purring of a motor and waited. The car was coming down the cross-mountain road, and Tregarvon could see that there were two persons in it. Instead of turning in at the campus gates, it came on, and Carfax braked it to a stop opposite the loaded truck. “Is that you, Vance?” he called to the figure standing in the shadow of the pines. “Yes.” Tregarvon stepped out of the shadows and crossed to the automobile, though the nearer approach was not needed to assure him that Carfax’s companion was Richardia Birrell. “You are coming along beautifully!” Carfax praised, speaking as one who holds himself delicately aloof from the toilsome details. “It’s great to be a working-man and able to do things. One day more will take you over to the drilling ground, won’t it?”