But as Barbara's gaze lingered on the heavy brutal lines of Wolf's massive figure and she caught again the gleam of his gray eyes a sickening sense of foreboding gripped her heart. CHAPTER XXII THE FIGHTING INSTINCT As questions of discipline became more and more pressing old Tom refused to sit as an active judge in the executive council. Norman protested in vain against his decision to retire for a while. "I can't do no good settin' thar listenin' to them fools," the miner declared. "They make me sick. Besides, ye all vote me down when I tells ye what to do, and things keep on goin' from bad to worse. Jest let me git out and move around among the boys a little. I think I can do some good. You folks is all too chicken-hearted to run this Brotherhood. Love and fellowship is all right, but ye've got ter mix a little law and common sense before ye can straighten the kinks out of this here community." Norman gave his consent reluctantly, and was amazed at the end of a week to observe a remarkable improvement in the spirit of the colony. Loafers disappeared, stealing all but ceased, drinking and fighting were on the decrease. One by one old Tom had taken the loafers with him on a long walk up the beach. He was usually gone about an hour and always came back laughing and chatting with his friend in the best of humour. Invariably the loafer went to work. In the same way he took a walk with each one of a crowd of wild, unmannerly boys, whose rudeness at the table and whose horse-play about the building had become unendurable. The effects of these walks seemed magical. Always the pair returned in a fine humour and the most marked revolution was immediately noted in the conduct of the offender. Norman asked the old man again and again for the secret of his power. He replied in the most casual way: "Just had a plain heart-to-heart talk with 'em and told 'em what had to be--that's all." The good work had continued for a week with uninterrupted success, when a bomb was suddenly exploded in the executive council by the appearance of an irate mother leading an insolent fourteen-year-old cub, who walked rather stiffly. Amid a silence that was painful, the mother stripped the boy to the waist, thrust him before Norman and Barbara, and said: "Now, tell them what you've just told me." The boy glanced cautiously around to see if his enemy were near and poured forth a tale the like of which had never been heard before. "Old Tom asked me to take a walk with him. He got me away off in a lonely place behind the big rocks on that little island up the beach and pulled up a plank drawbridge so I couldn't get back till he wanted to let me. He stripped me like this, tied me to a whipping-post and nearly beat the life out of me. He said he'd been appointed by the council to settle with me in private so nobody would know anything about it." "Said that he had been appointed by the council to whip you?" Norman asked, in amazement.