The superintendent opened the door and was about to step out when he stopped suddenly and with a quick, decided movement drew back into the room and closed the door again. To the young man in the other end of the big office it looked as though the superintendent had seen something that startled him. Another moment and George was again bending over John's desk. "The old man is out there, John." "What! Father! Why I had no idea that he was coming down to-day." A look of anxiety came into the frank gray eyes. "He has not been so well lately, George. I wonder why he didn't come to the office first as usual." "He sometimes slips in back that way, you know," returned the superintendent. "He really ought not to be here," said the young man. "I wish--" He hesitated. "He's generally in a state of mind when he comes in like that," said George. "You're not needing a goat, are you, boy?" John smiled. "There's not a thing wrong in the plant so far as I know, George." "I don't know of anything either," returned the other, "but we may not know all the way. There's one thing sure, the old man ought not to be wandering through the works alone. There's some of those rough-necks would--well it's too darned easy, sometimes, for accidents to happen, do you see? I'll rustle out there and stick around convenient like. You'd better stay where you are as if you didn't know he was on the job. And remember, son, if you _should_ need a goat, I'm qualified. If anything has happened--whether it has or he only thinks it has--just you blame it on to old George. I'll understand." The work was at the height of its swing when burly Max Gardner paused a second to straighten his back and wipe the sweat from his sooty face. As he stooped again to his heavy task, he said to his mates in a voice that rumbled up from the depths of his naked, hairy chest, "Get a gate on y'--get a gate on y'--y' rough-necks. 'Tis th' boss that's a-lookin' 'round to see who he'll be tyin' th' can to next." The men laughed. "There's one thing sure," said Bill Connley, who looked as though his body were built of rawhide stretched over a framework of steel, "when John Ward ties the can to a man, that man knows what 'tis for. When he give Jim Billings his time last week, he says to him, says he, 'Jim, I'm sorry for y'. Not because I'm fir'in' y',' says he, 'but because y're such a loafer that y're no good to yerself nor to anybody else--y're a disgrace to the Mill,' says he, 'and to every honest working man in it.' An' Jim, he never give a word back--just hung his head an' got out of sight like a dog with his tail between his legs after a good swift kick." "An' th' young boss was right at that," commented sturdy Soot Walters. "Jim was a good man when he was new on the job, but since he got the wrinkles out of his belly, he's been killin' more time than any three men in the works."