“Well, I’ve got a snug bit laid by, and if things don’t brighten in time, why, I’ll go somewhere else.” “We’d be sorry to lose you, but I want you to do as you think best. This change may cause trouble, and if it does, we shall hope for your aid.” “I am with you as long as you are in the right.” The miner gave the young man’s hand a hearty grip and passed out. “Steel,” said Crofton the younger. “Gold,” replied his partner. “Well, as true as one and as good as the other, and we are both right.” As the young manager had said, so matters turned out. Within two days several car-loads of Negroes came in and began to build their huts. With the true racial instinct of colonisation, they all flocked to one part of the settlement. With a wisdom that was not entirely instinctive, though it may have had its origin in the Negro’s social inclination, they built one large eating-room a little way from their cabin and up the mountain-side. The back of the place was the bare wall of a sheer cliff. Here their breakfasts and suppers were to be taken, the midday meal being eaten in the mine. The Negro who held Jason Andrews’ place as foreman of Shaft 11, the best yielding of all the mines, and the man who seemed to be the acknowledged leader of all the blacks, was known as big Sam Bowles. He was a great black fellow, with a hand like a sledge-hammer, but with an open, kindly face and a voice as musical as a lute. On the first morning that they went in a body to work in the mines, they were assailed by the jeers and curses of the strikers, while now and then a rock from the hand of some ambushed foe fell among them. But they did not heed these things, for they were expected. For several days nothing more serious than this happened, but ominous mutterings foretold the coming storm. So matters stood on the night that Jason Andrews left his cabin to find out what was “up.” He went on down the road until he reached the outskirts of the crowd, which he saw to be gathered about a man who was haranguing them. The speaker proved to be “Red” Cleary, one of Daly’s first and most ardent converts. He had worked the men up to a high pitch of excitement, and there were cries of, “Go it, Red, you’re on the right track!” “What’s the matter with Cleary? He’s all right!” and, “Run the niggers out. That’s it!” On the edge of the throng, half in the shadow, Jason Andrews listened in silence, and his just anger grew.