“I worked for him three year back on the South Branch.” The man spat savagely in the dust. “Self-respectin’ lumberjack wouldn’t ’a’ stayed twenty-four hours gittin’ what some of them fellers got. Me, it wasn’t so bad. ‘What was the matter?’ says you. ‘Plenty,’ says I. First, he starts in gittin’ rid of as good a crew as ever stuck their legs under a cook-shanty table, and filled up the woods with Polacks and Italians and Hunkies. Just critters with arms and laigs like folks. Grub was rotten—rotten! Them poor foreigners got it comin’ and goin’. Knocked round, fed spoiled meat—and then cheated out of their pay. Oh, foreigners hain’t the only ones that’s been cheated out of their pay in Michigan camps. I wisht I had what was comin’ to me fair, Mr. Ashe. Why, I knowed two Polacks that come out of Moran’s Camp Three, after workin’ from November till April—and they come out owin’ him eighteen dollars!” “Now, now,” said Jim. “I’m tellin’ the truth. Wanigan. Jest robbed off’n ’em. Get a plug of tobacco at the wanigan—charged for six. Like that. And fines. No wonder he’s gittin’ richer ’n hell. Gittin’ out his timber don’t cost him nothin’ to speak of. Men like him is drivin’ real woodsmen out of Michigan. You can go so far with robbin’ an Irishman or a Norwegian or a Nova-Scotian—and then somethin’ busts. But with them lingo-talkin’ foreigners, why there hain’t no fight to ’em. And he’ll do the same here. ’Fore another spring the camps’ll be full of ’em—and him robbin’ ’em. I’ve heard ugly things of Mike Moran. Not dealin’s with men, I mean. I’ve had stories whispered to me by men I believed. And one I know is so. Ask somebody that knows what become of Susie Gilders. I calc’late some girl’s dad or brother’ll be splittin’ Mike Moran with an ax one of these days. But I’m talkin’ too much, Mr. Ashe. Didn’t figger to git off on this rig. How about that job?” “Report to the superintendent. Tell him I sent you. What’s your name?” “Tim Bennett.” “Well, Tim, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I’d hate to have you think about me as you do about Moran. I’ll try to see you don’t. These are my mills, and the crew are working for me—but that doesn’t mean any man or girl is to be afraid of me. If anything goes wrong, tell me. Once I wanted to do something besides run a clothespin-mill. I wanted to see if I couldn’t turn in and do something for these Polacks and Hunkies and Italians—something that would change them from being foreigners into Americans. But I couldn’t have my way. But this much I can do—I can see that the folks who work for me get a square deal. You’ll find the superintendent back by the log-slide.” Tim hesitated a moment, seemed to have something more to say, but to find difficulty saying it. Finally he blurted out: “Say, Mr. Ashe, I b’lieve you and me is goin’ to get on.” Jim recognized the compliment; it was no small one. “I hope so, Tim,” he said.