But if Weir's mind was put at ease so far as Janet was concerned, he had more than enough other cares to burden his thoughts. The loss of the deposition, chief of all; then the matter of effecting Martinez' release, wherever he was immured; and finally, as he learned from Meyers and Atkinson on reaching camp, the insidious promise of trouble in the "free whiskey party." "Perhaps whoever supplied the fire-water underestimated this copper-lined crew's capacity and didn't furnish enough," Meyers suggested. "Nobody was really drunk last night and here it is nearly noon, with the men all hanging about camp. If there was whiskey yet to be had, some of these thirsty, rollicking scrappers of ours would be right back at the spigot this morning." "Maybe so," Atkinson admitted. "Seems so--and yet I ain't easy in my mind. The men don't act right; they behave as if they're just waiting; they're restless and not a man could I get to open his mouth about where they found the stuff. If there wasn't to be any more, they would have told and tried to kid me. They appear to me as if just biding their time. Some men weren't gone, of course, those who don't drink. They stayed in the bunk-house and they know nothing." "We'll go on the supposition then that there will be more coming, and act accordingly," Weir stated, at once. "Watch them close, and put up a warning that men who are not at work in the morning, or who bring booze into camp, will be fired." "That's the trouble," the superintendent declared. "I don't think they brought a drop in except in their skins. And as we say, they weren't drunk. There's not a thing we can object to and they know it; somebody has put 'em wise how to act. Here they are, sober this morning, behaving themselves, and so on. We can't keep men from going for a walk if they want to; we can't string barb-wire around the camp and hold them in; we can't even say they can't touch a bottle if a stranger offers them one when they're on the outside." "But we can hold up the consequences if they go on a spree," Steele replied. "Most of them are satisfied with the work and pay and grub; they don't want to go." "No, but they like whiskey too, free whiskey in particular. They would say they're not getting drunk--no man ever really expects to when he starts drinking--and talk about their 'rights.' There are two or three fellows in camp now who are doing a lot of mouthing about labor's rights; I. W. W.'s, I'd say. Shouldn't be surprised if they were the ring-leaders." "If more whiskey comes, we must beat them to it." "That's my notion," Atkinson said, with a nod. "I didn't locate the booze fountain last night, but I did this morning. Took a horse at daylight and rode along the hills; about a mile south in some trees at the foot of the mountain, I came across a case of empty bottles and a keg half-full of water. That was all, but it showed where the 'birthday party' was."