"I think it has," said Charley coolly. "You owe a duty to your employers far above any ethical or fancied duty to your mates, as you call them. You are working for us, and we are the ones you look to for your pay. I'm going to give you a check for your wages due this afternoon. After to-day your salary will be $100 a month, and you'll be chief engineer or runner on the job. There are conditions attached, of course. You are to give me fully reports on everything pertaining to your department; and, second, you will have to teach my chum, Walter, how to run the machine. You will have to look after the machine carefully, and, as soon as a part becomes worn in the least you must notify me, so I can have a new part ready as soon as the old one gives out. That's my proposition. Take it, or reject it, as you please." McCarty reflected for a moment. "You're right," he said at last, "a man cannot serve two masters, and I have no reason to love either of the two engineers. They have bullied and slanged me as much as they dared ever since I've been on the job. It's hard to judge a dredge man, for they are the hardest class in the world. I guess it's the work and the men they work for that makes them so, and, when it comes down to real meanness and hardness, Bully Rooney and One-eye McGill stand at the lowest of the list. I know it sounds like a sneak, knocking his friends behind their backs, but I don't mean to be sneakish about it. You can tell them just what I've said. That I believe they have caused most of the hang-ups on this job--that but for them this job would have paid expenses, at any rate." Charley smiled. "I'm going to have a little talk with them," he admitted, "but I am not going to tell them anything you have said. I am grateful to you for what you have told me, and I believe we are going to make this thing pay. By the way, can you tell me of any good engineer that a man could depend upon to do the right thing?" "There is Bob Bratton, of Miami," said McCarty, brightening, "he is as white as they make them; but," he added despairingly, "the best engineer in the world can do but little with a poor crew." "I'm going to tend to that part of it," Charley said, with a smile. "You do your part, and I'll see that the crew does theirs. Well, go ahead and finish your story. There will be no work done on the machine to-day. Glad to have had this little chat with you. So-long. I'll make out your check this afternoon." He stepped out of the tent into the clear sunshine again, strangely cheered by the fact that he had found at least one man in the gang upon whom he could depend. At the cook tent he found Chris industriously scraping the dirt off the bench, and vigorously scolding the big negro, who was standing idly by, with a look of dismay on his ebony face.