Wise and learned in the ways of men--and Polacks--was Spirlaw. Spirlaw was not dealing with the _possibility_ of trouble--it was simply a question of how long it would be before it started. He folded the letter, sealed it in one of the company’s manilas, and, as he watched Number Twelve disappear around the bend steaming east for Big Cloud with Keating aboard her and the epistle reposing in Keating’s pocket, he stretched out his arms that were big as derrick booms and drew in a long breath like a man from whose shoulders has dropped a heavy load. That day Spirlaw talked from his heart to the men, and they listened in sullen, stupid silence, leaning on their picks and shovels. “You know me,” he snapped, and his eyes starting at the right of the group rested for a bare second on each individual face as they swept down the line. “You know _me_. You’ve been actin’ like sulky dogs lately--don’t think I haven’t spotted it. You saw what happened to that coyote friend of yours that sneaked in here last night. I meant it as a lesson for the bunch of you as well as him. The yarns he was fillin’ you full of are mostly lies, an’ if they ain’t it’s none of your business, anyhow. It won’t pay you to look for trouble, I promise you that. You can take it from me that I’ll bash the first man to powder that tries it. Get that? Well then, wiggle them picks a bit an’ get busy!” “The man that hits first,” said Spirlaw to himself, as he walked away, “is the man that usually comes out on top. I guess them there few kind words of mine ‘ll give ‘em a little something to chew on till Carle-ton sends that hardware down, I guess they will, h’m?” The camp was pretty quiet that night--quieter than usual. The cook-house and the three bunk-houses, that lay a few hundred yards east of the trestle, might have been occupied by dead men for all the sounds that came from them. Occasionally, Spirlaw, sitting out as usual in front of his own shanty, that was between the trestle and the gang’s quarters, saw a Polack or two skulk from one of the bunk-houses to the other--and he scowled savagely as he divided his glances between them and the sky. It looked like a storm in the mountains, and a storm in the mountains is never by any possibility to be desired--least of all was it to be desired just then. The men at work was one thing; the men cooped up for a day, or two days, of enforced idleness with the temper they were in was another-- Spirlaw turned in that night with the low, ominous roll of distant thunder for a lullaby. Once in the night he woke suddenly at the sound of a splitting crash, and once, twice, and again, like a fierce, winking stream of flame, the lightning filled the shack bright as day, while on the roof the rain beat steadily like the tattoo of a corps of snare drums. Spirlaw smiled grimly as the darkness shut down on him again.