The camp-marshal sat at his desk with a cigar between his teeth. He was writing, and he went on writing until the jailer had gone out and closed the door. Then he turned his revolving chair and crossed his legs, leaning back and looking at the young miner in his dirty blue overalls, his hair tousled and his face pale from his period of confinement. The camp-marshal’s aristocratic face wore a smile. “Well, young fellow,” said he, “you’ve been having a lot of fun in this camp.” “Pretty fair, thank you,” answered Hal. “Beat us out all along the line, hey?” Then, after a pause, “Now, tell me, what do you think you’re going to get out of it?” “That’s what Alec Stone asked me,” replied Hal. “I don’t think it would do much good to explain. I doubt if you believe in altruism any more than Stone does.” The camp-marshal took his cigar from his mouth, and flicked off the ashes. His face became serious, and there was a silence, while he studied Hal. “You a union organiser?” he asked, at last. “No,” said Hal. “You’re an educated man; you’re no labourer, that I know. Who’s paying you?” “There you are! You don’t believe in altruism.” The other blew a ring of smoke across the room. “Just want to put the company in the hole, hey? Some kind of agitator?” “I am a miner who wants to be a check-weighman.” “Socialist?” “That depends upon developments here.” “Well,” said the marshal, “you’re an intelligent chap, that I can see. So I’ll lay my hand on the table and you can study it. You’re not going to serve as check-weighman in North Valley, nor any other place that the ‘G. F. C.’ has anything to do with. Nor are you going to have the satisfaction of putting the company in a hole. We’re not even going to beat you up and make a martyr of you. I was tempted to do that the other night, but I changed my mind.” “You might change the bruises on my arm,” suggested Hal, in a pleasant voice. “We’re going to offer you the choice of two things,” continued the marshal, without heeding this mild sarcasm. “Either you will sign a paper admitting that you took the twenty-five dollars from Alec Stone, in which case we will fire you and call it square; or else we will prove that you took it, in which case we will send you to the pen for five or ten years. Do you get that?” Now when Hal had applied for the job of check-weighman, he had been expecting to be thrown out of the camp, and had intended to go, counting his education complete. But here, as he sat and gazed into the marshal’s menacing eyes, he decided suddenly that he did not want to leave North Valley. He wanted to stay and take the measure of this gigantic “burglar,” the General Fuel Company. “That’s a serious threat, Mr. Cotton,” he remarked. “Do you often do things like that?” “We do them when we have to,” was the reply. “Well, it’s a novel proposition. Tell me more about it. What will the charge be?”