They stopped their shrill vituperation and, crowding about him, began to bleat their explanations and appeals. But he threw out his arms, pushed them back a safe distance from the panting Dominick and roared them into silence, brandishing his fists, as he would have quelled a noisy school. When they understood that he wished them to be quiet they were silent, all leaning forward, their eyes shining, their lips apart, their fists clinched as tho they were holding their tongues in leash by that means, their dark, brown faces alight with wistful, almost palpitating eagerness. The regard they fixed on his face was baleful in its intentness. “Looka what they do,” yelled Dominick rushing to his side. He had stripped his sleeve back from his arm. Blood was trickling from a knife gash. Then the tumult broke out again from the crowd. Two men leaped forward shaking their hats in their hands and screaming assertions and pointing quivering fingers at bullet holes in the crowns. “Shut up!” barked the young man. The presence of the satiric and unsympathetic old engineer nerved him to settle the dispute, if he might. The hint from the other that he had been meddling in what was outside his business gave him an uncomfortable sense of responsibility. “About face and back to the camp,” he shouted. “I will look at your dinner and we shall see!” They hesitated a moment, but he went among them, pushing them down the bank. He followed with the padrone behind the jabbering throng, and the two engineers came along at his earnest request. “Mr. Searles,” said Parker after a little while, as they walked side by side, “being an older and wiser man than I am you are probably right in suggesting that I did wrong in interfering in this affair at the outset. But,” he half-chuckled, “I am going to lay the blame on my professor in sociology. He set me to thinking pretty hard in college and I guess I haven't been out from under his influence long enough to get hardened into the selfish views of my fellowman.” There was earnestness under his smile. “My boy,” said the elder, “I am not blaming you for what you have done for the poor devils. But I have been all for business in my life. Business hasn't seemed to mix well with philanthropy. I haven't dared to think of what I ought to do. I have thought only of what I had to do, to earn a living for my family.” “Well,” said Parker, “if the P. K. & R. folks decide that I've been meddling in matters that are none of my business I have no family to suffer for my indiscretion--but I have prospects and I know that a discharged man is worse off than a man who has started.” The elder man patted Parker's arm.