Late in the afternoon the Wildcat's tactics had converted a group of admirers who had discovered in the prosaic business of rustling freight a first-class chance to make a laughing game of it. Meanwhile, they were moving record tonnage. At evening the pier foreman sent for the Wildcat. "Tomorrow morning you take a gang down to Section Seventeen and start moving flour into the _West King_. There'll be five a day extra in it--that'll buy grub for the goat." "Cap'n, yessuh--you means I'se fo'man?" "That's what I mean. Keep your niggers rustlin'." "Yass suh! Sho' will!" The Wildcat jerked at Lily's string halter. "Goat, say you'se 'bliged to de cap'n. Stan' roun' theh, fo' I shows you who's de boss wid a club!" "Blaaa!" returned Lily. The pier foreman smiled. "You might round up some more men if you can find 'em," he continued. "We can use a lot more. I'll give you twenty dollars a man for all you can get. Tell 'em ten a day, with grub and quarters furnished here on the dock." "Cap'n, you means I gits twenty dollars fo' ev'y stevedo' nigger whut I 'cumulates?" "That's it." "How much is a hund'ed niggers, suh?" "Two thousand dollars." "Cap'n, you gits 'em tomorr'. Us kin rule dat many single handed--me 'suadin' an' Lily rammin'. Mebbe two hund'ed. Come on heah, goat! Le's go!" The Wildcat left the pier with visions of a military formation of a million men, marching steadily toward a place where they were worth twenty dollars apiece to him. In his dream of being king of all labour agents he failed to include the difficulties with which his pathway was beset. The stevedores' strike, gaining strength each day, now included a floating committee whose duty it was to discourage the enlistment of new labour. The Wildcat borrowed a dollar and ate supper at the lunch counter where he had met Trombone, hoping that he might again encounter that individual. Ranged about him were ten or fifteen hearty eaters; and to this group, at the termination of his own meal, he addressed his invitation to participate in the business of loading steamships with outbound freight. "Ten dollahs a day, boy, comf'table place fo' sleepin', an' all de grub you kin eat." His oration fell on barren ground. He left the lunch counter without having gained a single recruit. "C'm on heah, Lily. Dese city niggers sho' is triflin'. Whut us needs is fiel' han's, o' else some heavy 'suader like a hoe handle. Us aims to sleep some now. Mebbe tomorr' Lady Luck boons me wid men whut craves a job wid rations an' ten dollahs a day."