“Tim Bennett, you’re boss of the gang that goes to the camp. I’ll take ten men away from you. You’ll have thirty—it ought to be enough. You”—he pointed to a man—“come with me, and you and you and you.” He selected his men. “On the jump,” he said to Gilders, and at the heels of their guide they plunged headlong to re-enforce the party that had gone before. Jim held a match to his watch. It was fifteen minutes past ten. They had three-quarters of an hour to reach a point that could not be reached in less than an hour. When they arrived the battle for the roundhouse would have been on a quarter of an hour. If Moran’s party were strong enough that quarter of an hour might spell defeat for the whole enterprise. If the first attacking party could hold out until Jim arrived— “Hustle,” Jim said, briefly, and saved his breath for the exertion before him. The men went silently now, grimly. The smell of imminent battle was in their noses. Ahead of them were comrades facing uneven odds. It was not simply to fight that they hurried, but to succor their friends. Jim’s legs, untrained to woods travel, cried out for rest, but his will compelled them on. At last lights shone below them, the black tube of the Diversity Company’s smokestack lifted into the star-shimmering sky—ten minutes would take them to it. They heard a sudden, distant shout, other shouts, a babel of sounds subdued by distance. The fight for the roundhouse was on. The attacking party had struck, had met surprising resistance. “Run!” shouted Jim. They ran, stumbling, falling headlong. Men’s breath came pantingly; bruised shins were paid for in brief oaths. Each man sought to outdistance his fellows, to be first to add his weight to the tide of battle. Down the last gully they charged, across the flat before the mills, over the tracks. Before them loomed the roundhouse, now bright with electric light. Before the big doors swayed and writhed a group of men. Other dark figures, two and two, quaintly intertwined, moved and struggled and smote like living silhouettes. Hoarse shouts arose; the thud of blows; the shuffling of feet came to Jim’s ears. Then he was in the midst of it. Even with the addition of Jim’s reinforcements his party was outnumbered; but Moran’s men, under the shock and surprise of the charge, gave way, but only for an instant. Inside, Jim saw the engine, steam up, a man in the cab. They were getting ready to bring it out. Why? he asked himself, even as the sight of it was shut out and he was hemmed in by fighting men. It was Jim’s first real fight. It came to him suddenly that he could fight, that he was worthy to stand side by side with these lumberjacks, to give blows where they gave blows, and he was glad.