On the way down they passed Clark, and with boyish abandon waved their hats in greeting, Clark smiled back and whirled on. The sight of them provoked the question in his mind and brought it closer. What if these men were not paid next week, as they were promised? Returning to his office, he devoted himself to innumerable details affecting the iron works. To shut them down was not so simple a thing as he anticipated. They had acquired a momentum it was difficult to arrest. Then, wiring in code to Philadelphia for his requirements in cash, he went up to the big house on the hill and shut himself from all intruders. On the terrace, overlooking river and works, he walked ceaselessly up and down, irritated but not alarmed. Some foreign substance had got into the delicate wheels of progress, and the machine was for the moment out of adjustment. From where he stood the works were visible, and while he missed the long illumination of the rail mill and the pyramidal flame of the converters, there still sparkled the pulp mill with its long, lighted windows and the gleam of water in the tail race. Twenty-four hours ago he was sitting on the deck of the Evangeline with the genial bishop. Now he was very much alone. What would Wimperley and the rest do in such an emergency? He had never seen them in a corner. His reverie was interrupted by a message that Manson desired to see him. "Riots?" said Clark to himself, then aloud, "Bring him here." The big man came up, extending a friendly hand. Clark had a curious dislike for physical, personal contact, even of the slightest, but now overcame it with difficulty and motioned his visitor to a chair. The latter sat speechless. "Well, Mr. Manson?" Clark asked when the silence became too perceptible. "I came to ask you if there were any prospects of trouble at the works," said the latter presently. He spoke jerkily, and in a note far removed from the deep boom of his usual voice. "Why should you expect any trouble because pay day is postponed for a week?" Manson lifted his heavy lids. "Is it only for a week?" Clark got up and paced the terrace, his head thrust forward, his hands behind his back. There was that in the visitor's manner which puzzled him. The evident agitation and discomfort, the anxious moving of the thick arms, the constant shifting of the feet, all pointed to something that struck deeper than the possibility of a riot. And Manson, he had reason to know, was no coward. "I anticipate that it will be less than a week. How many men have you?" "Thirty, and myself." "We have twenty guards at the works, also, if need be, there's the local militia." "Have you ever seen them?" said the chief constable contemptuously. "No, but the law is behind them and a certain amount of discipline," then, his voice changing abruptly, "Mr. Manson, are you afraid?"