Kitabı oku: «The Way of the Strong», sayfa 26

CHAPTER X
STRIKE TROUBLES SPREADING

It was a sultry afternoon, one of those clammy days when flies stick and become victims of the drink habit, striving to quench unnatural thirst at patches of spilled liquor on bar-room counters, and, in a final frenzy, endeavor to commit suicide in the dregs of warm tumblers left by their human fellow-sufferers.

Lionel K. Sharpe, the proprietor of the Russell Hotel at Everton, was propped behind his counter, smiling with amiable idiocy at the vagaries of two drunken flies scrambling about the inner sides of a tumbler, which contained the dregs of what was alleged to be port wine. Abe Hopkinson, and Josh Taylor, the bullet-headed butcher, watched them from the other side of the bar.

"Guess I'd say it's hereditary in flies," said Abe, feeling scientific.

"Wot's hered – hereditry?" demanded the butcher.

"Why – drink," explained Abe.

"Seems it's here – her – hereditry in most folk," smiled Lionel K., chewing the stump of his cigar vigorously to conceal his difficulty with such scientific terms.

The butcher nodded.

"I'd say some thirsts couldn't be brought on any other way," he said. "Well, not to say – easy."

Abe grinned.

"Guess you ain't a believer in that guy Darwin's highbrow theory?"

"Don't know what it is," replied the butcher, lifting the glass, and tilting it so as to put the ruddy liquid within reach of the volubly buzzing insects. "Anyway, I don't believe in it. Say – I'll swar' them two sossled microbes is holding a concert to 'emselves. See, one of 'em's doing the buzzin', and blamed if the other feller ain't just wavin' a leg to beat the band, keepin' time. Say, ain't they havin' a hell of a time?"

Lionel K. Sharpe struck a match, tried to light his cigar stump, burned his mustache, and abandoned the attempt.

"Hell!" he cried in disgust. Then he pointed at the flies. "Say, Josh, jest think of it. Guess that splash of port's well-nigh a sea – leastways a lake to them. How'd you fancy standin' around a sea of port wine?"

"Guess I'd rather be settin' in a boat and paddlin' around in it – jest as long as it wasn't your port. On second thought, I'd rather be in a sailin' craft. You see, I'd have more hands free." He pointed at the flies. "Say, that feller's quit buzzin'. I've a notion he's sung hisself hoarse. Mebbe he's got the hiccups. Wal, say, get that! They're kissin' each other."

"They're sloshed to the gills, sure," grinned Sharpe.

"Ain't it queer?" said Abe. "Blamed if it ain't jest the same with folks. They git a drink under their belts, an' it sets 'em foolish. They get blowin' their horns, an' doing things. Then they start singing, an' finish up shootin' – or kissin' each other."

Josh desisted from his efforts at plying the flies with more drink, and stared round at his companion.

"I'd jest like to know how drink takes you, Abe," he cried in pretended alarm, "fightin' or kissin'. 'Cause if it's the amorous racket, I quit you right here. I just ain't kissin' a thing. I quit it years ago. It's a fool trick, anyway, an' physic dopers all sez it's full to death of disease." Then he added speculatively: "Makes you sort o' wonder what kind o' disease your kisses 'ud hand around. You don't look as if you'd got a spavin, or a spring halt. What 'ud you guess, Lionel?"

"Guess?" Mr. Sharpe helped himself to a fresh cigar. "Ther' ain't no guessin' to it. Jest consumption. That's all."

He blew a cloud of smoke on the drunken flies, and sent them tumbling headlong into the liquor. Then he picked up the glass and washed it.

"Ah, yes," said Josh. "That's it – consumption – generly of liquor."

"Which you ain't never bustin' to pay fer," cried Abe, with a laugh.

"Pay? Wal, I'd smile. Pay? Guess I gone right on strike payin'. My union don't let its members pay oftener than they're obliged. But we don't stop non-unions payin'. Oh, no. We jest boost 'em right on an' help 'em pay."

"Strike?" said Abe. "Guess it's a kind o' fashion goin' around strikin'. Everybody's worrying to quit somethin' – an' it's most generly work. But that ain't no use to you, Josh. You got to do work 'fore you ken quit it."

The bullet-headed butcher smiled benignly.

"Work? Say, you ain't heard o' work. Guess you're one o' them all-fired capitalists, wot sets around makin' profit out o' us pore fellers who kill the meat what fills the tins you poison your customers with, by reason you've bought up a job line o' throw outs. Work?" he went on, throwing out his arms in ridiculous burlesque of a strike orator. "We are the fellers who do the work. We make your profit for you. We – we – we are the people wot sets the old world wobblin' around every day. We – us down-trods who have to drink Sharpe's rot-gut whisky while you amuse yourself settin' flies drunk on port wine!"

At that moment the swing door was thrust open, and Pete Farline, the drug-store keeper, and Sid Ellerton pushed their way in.

"Drink, Lionel," demanded Peter wearily.

But the hotel proprietor shook his head and winked at Josh.

"I gone on strike – sure," he said.

Pete looked around at Josh and Abe for enlightenment.

"Strike?" he inquired. "Guess I don't get you."

"Why every feller's strikin' now," grinned Josh.

"Oh."

"Quit servin' drinks?" asked Sid, supporting himself on the bar.

Lionel K. Sharpe shook his head and laughed.

"Nope," he said, amid a cloud of smoke. "Just quit chalkin' up Pete's score."

He obtained the laugh he required, and set glasses before the newcomers.

"Seein' it's that way, Lal, I'll have to go on strike sousin' your poison," Farline retorted. Then he turned to the others. "Say, fellers, let's strike for decent liquor, an' when we get it let's strike for havin' it free. If we get that, we'll have pipes laid on over our beds, and strike again if we don't get 'em."

"Why, yes," laughed Josh. "Then we'll strike cos the rats we see ain't spiders."

"Sure," nodded Abe. "An' strike like hell if they grow wings."

Lionel K. Sharpe held out his hand for Pete's money.

"Then when you wake up – you'll strike anyway," he said.

Pete handed him a dollar bill, and Josh's face purpled with laughter.

"Get it, boys," he cried. "Look at that!" he went on, pointing at Sharpe. "There he is, fellers. Ther's the capitalist. Money for nothin'. That's what it is. That's the feller we're on to. Down with Capital, sez I! Up with Labor, or any other old thing. Say, we're right on strike, an' I'm goin' out to get a banner, an' form a parade. I'm jest goin' to make speeches to the populace 'bout things. I'm full up o' Capital. We're sweated, that's wot we are. We won't stand for it, neither. Down with 'em. We want their blood. We want the world – with a fence round it. Say, fellers, ef I git busy that way will you ante up an automobile, an' drink, an' boost me into the government so I ken rob folks right, an' keep out of the penitentiary?"

"Boost you to hell!" cried Sharpe, as the swing doors were pushed open, and a stranger made his way in.

All eyes were turned upon the newcomer. He was a powerfully built man of medium size. The gray in his dark hair showed beneath his soft felt hat, and his eyes were narrow and keen. His dress was the ordinary dress of the city man, and quite unpretentious.

The men in the bar eyed him covertly as he made his way to the counter and called for a "long lager."

Lionel K. Sharpe served him as though strangers were an everyday occurrence in that bar, but he was speculating as to who he might be.

"Hot," said the man, after a long pull at his schooner of beer.

"Some," observed Sharpe, handing him his change.

"Bad road from Calford," the stranger said, after another journey into his beer.

"Hellish," returned Sharpe, wiping glasses.

"How far to Deep Willows?" asked the other, presently.

"Nigh seven," replied Sharpe.

"Across the river?"

"You don't need to. Keep to the right bank."

"Good. Thanks."

The stranger finished his drink, and made his way out of the place.

In a moment the "strikers" were crowding at the window watching his departure. They saw him walk across the road to a large automobile waiting for him. They saw him speak to the driver, and then jump into the seat beside him. Then the machine, with a heavy snort, rolled away.

"Another all-fired capitalist," laughed Josh.

"Friend of Hendrie's," murmured Abe.

"Didn't seem Hendrie's class," protested Pete.

Lionel K. Sharpe shook his head.

"I seen him before," he said reflectively. "Seems to me I see him at Calford some time back. Yes. That's it. He – say, gee!" He broke into a loud guffaw, and turned to Josh. "Say, he's the man for you. I mind hearing him shouting down with capitalists to a lot of bum railroaders. That's when I saw him."

"You're on your back, man. You got a nightmare," cried Josh scornfully. "Him drivin' about in an automobile."

Abe grinned.

"That's what they're out for," he cried contemptuously. Then he turned back to the bar. "Guess we'll have another drink – anyway."

Alexander Hendrie was leaving Angus Moraine's office, where he had spent the early hours of the afternoon discussing matters of business and receiving reports. The two men had also spent some time considering the conditions prevailing on the railroad, conditions threatening to affect them considerably. That a big strike was imminent was sufficiently apparent to them both, and each understood the disastrous possibilities to the harvest if it should occur at that time.

There had been strikes before, but, from Hendrie's confidential sources, it had been learned that the forthcoming strike would be of a particularly comprehensive nature. There was big talk of sympathetic strikes on the part of all transport workers, and among those who were required to handle goods ultimately intended for transport on the railroad.

The Scot was troubled. But Hendrie seemed to revel in the contemplation of a great struggle with Labor. Truth to tell, he was actually pleased that all his energies would be involved in the forthcoming fight. He would have less time to think, and he had no desire to think just now.

He left the office by the outer door, and walked leisurely round to the front of the house, intent upon the threatened struggle, and those things which would be affected by it. He was calmly considering every point, every detail in the great game in which his life was spent, which might be brought into contact with it.

At the entrance porch of the house he paused, and drew a bundle of cipher messages from his pocket. He read them carefully. Each one represented a financial transaction with some well-known Chicago wheat speculator, the completion of which would place his interests beyond the reach of disaster through any strikes. He had only to wire an affirmative to any one of them to set all doubts at rest.

However, he finally returned them to his pocket and shook his head. No, it was too easy. It would rob him of all place in the fight to come – if such fight really were coming. Besides, there would be that loss of profit for the speculator's risk; a loss which his keen, financial mind begrudged. No, not yet. There was time enough. He would only yield to the temptation of safeguarding the affairs of the Trust when it became absolutely necessary.

He thrust his hands deeply into his coat pockets, as though to emphasize his decision, and his gaze wandered toward the fair woodland picture of the river banks, crowded with virgin growth. Acres and acres of ripening grain lay beyond, and here and there, through breaks in the foliage, he could discern the tint of yellow amid the paling carpet of green. The sight of it further hardened his decision.

To a man of lesser caliber the responsibility of that wheat world must have been a burden to tax the nerves to the uttermost. But to Hendrie it was scarcely a labor. He loved this world he had made his, and it weighed far less upon him than did the more trifling worries adding friction to the routine of daily life. But for Monica's illness, and a curious sort of nightmare haunting the back cells of this man's memory, Alexander Hendrie must have been a perfectly happy man, reveling in a success which had been his life-long ambition.

Finally he turned from the pleasant scenes his thoughts were conjuring. He was about to pass into the house to visit the woman who was the choicest jewel in his crown of success. He moved toward the doorway, but paused abruptly. The sweep of the private trail on the north bank of the river had come within his view, and he beheld a powerful automobile rapidly approaching the house.

For the moment he believed it to be the visit of one of his associates in business, perhaps from Calford, or even Winnipeg. Then he doubted. He was expecting no one. Anyway he would have been notified of their coming.

He left the porch and stood out in the open, watching the vehicle curiously. It came swiftly on, its soft purr humming upon the still, hot air. It was a large touring car, and two people were occupying the front seat. The rest was empty.

A few moments later it drew up sharply abreast of him. A pair of keen eyes were staring at him from the other side of the chauffeur. Hendrie caught their stare, and a quick, deep breath filled his lungs.

For a while, it seemed quite a long time to the millionaire, no word was spoken. Then he saw the man on the other side of the driver jump out of the car. Then he heard him speak.

"You can go back up the trail," he said to his man. "I'll walk out and meet you when I want you."

Then the car moved off. It turned about, and finally rolled away. Hendrie saw all this without taking any interest. For some reason his thoughts had been abruptly carried back into a dim past, to a vision of a land of lofty, barren hills, a land of drear woods and shadowed valleys, a land where fierce cold ate into the bones, and strangled the joy of living.

And all the while his eyes were fixed upon the back of the powerful figure that remained turned toward him until the car had passed out of sight. Then the stranger swung about. His narrow eyes were alight with a passion that seemed unaccountable. He raised one hand, and his forefinger pointed a deadly hatred.

"You! Leo!" he cried.

The dreary scenes of the Yukon heights faded abruptly from the millionaire's mind. He looked into that narrow, evilly expressive face with a cold, hard stare.

"Yes," he said. "Well?"

There was no flinching. There was no surprise even. He spoke utterly without emotion, like the echo of those ruthless hills which only a moment before he had contemplated.

"So – I've come up with you at last!" cried Austin Leyburn. "Oh, I knew I should do so some day. It was not possible for it to be otherwise. I've searched. I've sounded every corner of this continent. Some day, I guessed I'd turn the stone under which you were hiding."

For an instant Hendrie's eyes lit. Then they smiled with a contempt for the mind that could suggest his hiding.

"Guess that's my name – has always been my name." said, with an expressive lifting of the shoulders. "Your search sounds better than it could have been in fact. I allow the world has known just where to set its finger on Alexander Hendrie for many years now. Say, p'raps you're not interested in wheat, and so missed finding me."

"You? Alexander Hendrie?" Leyburn cried incredulously.

"Guess that's my name – has always been my name." Hendrie smoothed his mane of hair with one steady hand. "Folks used to call me Leo, because – of this. By the way, you apparently came to see me?"

The face of Austin Leyburn expressed a devilish hatred no words could have told. It was a hatred nursed and fostered through long years when his mind and energies were wholly turned upon profit extracted through the ignorance and passion of fellow-creatures of inferior mentality. It was an atmosphere in which such passionate bitterness might well be fostered.

But the calmness of his intended victim, for the moment, had a restraining effect. He felt the need for coolness.

So he laughed. There was no mirth in his laughter. It was a hollow sound that jarred terribly.

"Yes, I came here to find Alexander Hendrie, and not – Leo. I came to find the millionaire wheat grower, and challenge him with the injustices he is handing out to white agricultural labor, whose representative I am. I came to warn him that it was impossible for men of our union to work side by side with black labor, which earns white man's pay. I came to tell him that if he persisted, there is not a white man in the country will work for him, and that he must dismiss all black labor at once. I came to tell Alexander Hendrie these things, and I find – Leo."

Hendrie smiled into his face.

"You came to tell him all this, and you found, in his stead – Leo, the feller I guess you're not particularly well disposed toward. In fact, whom you – rather dislike. Well?"

Years of self-discipline had given Austin Leyburn a fine control of himself. But before that control had been acquired he had been robbed of all he possessed in the world by a man named Leo. He had been made to suffer by this man as few men are made to suffer, and after facing trials and hardships few men face successfully. These sufferings had ingrained into his heart a passionate hatred and desire for revenge no acquired control could withstand, and now the torrent of his bitter animosity broke out.

"Whom I hate better than any man on earth," Leyburn cried, in a low, passionate tone. "Listen to me, Leo. You're a great man now. You're among the rich of this continent, and so you're the more worth crushing. We both find ourselves in different positions now. Very different positions. You are powerful in the control of huge capital, founded upon the gold you stole from me twenty years ago on the Yukon trail. I – I control hundreds of thousands of workers in this country. That is no mean power. Hitherto my power has been exercised in the legitimate process of protecting that labor from men of your class. But from this moment all that is changed. Before all things in my life I have a mission to fulfill. It is my personal vengeance upon the man who robbed me twenty years ago, and left his mistress, bearing her unborn child, to starve on the long winter trail."

"It is a lie! She was not left to starve. She was provided for."

Hendrie was driven to furious denial by the taunt.

"Ah, that's better!" cried Leyburn. "Much better. I've cut through your rough hide. I say you left her to starve – for all you cared. And I've set myself up as the champion of her cause as well as my own. I'm going to carry it through with all the power at my command. Oh, I know no law will help me to my vengeance. That highway robbery is just between ourselves. Well, I guess I don't need any one's help to avenge it."

Hendrie had himself well under control again. He nodded as the man paused.

"Go on," he said.

"I intend to," Leyburn cried, his face livid and working with the fury that drove him. "I'm going back now to Toronto to set the machinery working. And that machinery will grind its way on till you are reduced to the dust I intend to crush you into. It will not be Labor against Capital. But Labor against Alexander Hendrie."

"And what shall I be doing?" Hendrie's eyes were alight with something like amusement.

"You – you? I'll tell you what you'll be doing when I've finished. You'll be wishing to God you had never stolen a dead man's gold."

Hendrie started. His eyes grew tigerish. But he remained silent. Leyburn saw the change and understood it.

"Oh, God, it was a low-down game, something about parallel to the ghoul on the battlefield stealing money and accouterments from the dead soldiers. Now you are going to pay for it as you deserve. Don't make any mistake. By God, Leo, I'm going to smash you!"

Austin Leyburn turned away and hurried down the trail.

CHAPTER XI
LEYBURN'S INSPIRATION

Feverish activity was going forward in all the labor controls which acknowledged Austin Leyburn's leadership. Everywhere was agitation and ferment among the rank and file of the workers, while controlling staffs worked night and day.

Austin Leyburn had projected the greatest coup ever attempted in the country. At one stroke he intended to paralyze all trade. East and west, north and south, it was his purpose to leave the moving world at a standstill.

There were many nominal causes for the upheaval. They could be found every day, in almost every calling, each one, in itself, of a trivial nature, perhaps, but, collectively, an expression of tyranny and injustice on the part of the employers that he, Leyburn, and those others interested in the labor movement, declared could not be borne by the worker. So the latter awoke to learn of the many injustices he had been enduring, and of which, before, he had been utterly unaware.

The real cause of the forthcoming struggle lay far deeper. It found its breeding ground in the fertile realms of human nature, the human nature of the men who led the movement. They required self-aggrandizement and profit, and beneath the cloak of Principle they hid their unworthy desires from the searchlight of publicity. Principle – since democracy had struggled from beneath the crushing heel of the oppressor the word had become enormously fashionable. Its elasticity had been its success. It could be molded by the individual to suit every need. But in these days, it had become far more the hall-mark of hypocrisy than the expression of lofty ideals.

Years ago Austin Leyburn had declared his belief that some of the overflow from the world's pockets could be diverted into his own, by methods far less strenuous than those of the great Leo. Since then he had endeavored to prove his assertion.

That he had been successful there could be no doubt. He was far better equipped with this world's goods than he would have cared to proclaim from the platform to one of his labor audiences. He kept his private life hidden by a very simple process, and so much noise and bustle did he contrive in his calling that no one gave him credit for possessing any – private life.

But herein the world was mistaken. The life he displayed to his colleagues was simple and unpretentious. He lived in a cheap suite of apartments in the humbler quarters of Toronto. He ate in restaurants where he rubbed shoulders with men of the labor world. In his business he walked, or rode in the street cars. To carry added conviction his clothes were always of the ready-made order, and he possessed a perfect genius for reducing the immaculateness of a low, starched collar.

But there was another Austin Leyburn when the claims of his business released him for infrequent week-ends. He was an affluent sort of country squire. A man who reveled in the possession of an ample estate and splendid mansion, hidden away in the remotenesses of a natural beauty spot some twenty-five miles outside Toronto. Here he enjoyed the luxuries and comforts which in others were anathema to him. His cellar was well stocked with wines of the choicest vintages. His cigars were the best money could buy. He possessed a modest collection of works of art, and his house was furnished with all those things valued for their age and associations.

To this place he would adjourn at long intervals. And at such times even his name would be left behind him in the city, in company of his ready-made clothing, his scarcely immaculate collar, and the memory of fly-ridden restaurants, lest there should be a jarring note to his enjoyment as he lounged back in his powerful automobile, which was never permitted to cross the city limits.

All these things were bought and paid for by a method of making money almost devilish in its inception. Leyburn was a gambler on the stock market. He gambled in Labor strikes.

This was the great final coup he now contemplated. He cared not one jot for the injustices meted out to labor. He cared nothing for the sufferings, the privations it had to endure. Long ago he and many others of his associates had learned the fact that all strikes more or less affected the financial market. Nor were they slow to take advantage of it.

A general transport strike would send shares crashing to bed-rock prices; would send them tumbling as they had never fallen before, as even international war would not affect them. And when they had fallen sufficiently, when, in his own phraseology, the bottom had dropped out of the market, then he and his fellow-vultures would plunge their greedy beaks into the flesh of the carcass and gorge themselves. Then, and not till then, the starving worker might return to his work.

Just now he was in Calford and hard at work. While his subordinates lived in a whirl of organization, his it was to contrive that the news of the labor troubles reached the world at large in a sufficiently alarming type. And his gauge of the alarm achieved would be the state of the financial markets.

He had only that morning returned from Deep Willows, and it was not until long after his mid-day meal that he found leisure to turn his thoughts definitely to the fresh plans he had decided upon, on his journey back to Calford.

Now, as he sat before his desk, he picked up the receiver of the telephone and spoke sharply.

"Is Frank Smith in the office?" he demanded. "Yes. I said Smith. Oh! Then tell him to come to me at once."

He replaced the instrument and leaned back in his chair. He felt that Fate had played an extraordinarily pleasant trick upon him. In his cynical way he admitted grudgingly that for once she had been more than kind. The chance of it. A loose end. Yes, he had actually found himself with a loose end, and had promptly decided to fill up the time with a visit to the greatest wheat grower in the country in the interests of his new toy, the Agricultural Labor Society. It had led him – whither?

His narrow eyes smiled. But the smile died almost at its birth, lost in a bitter hatred for the man who had robbed him upon the Yukon trail twenty years ago.

The door of his room opened and Frank hurried in. His manner was nervous, quite unlike his usual manner. He was changed in appearance, too. Nor was it a change for the better. He looked older. His eyes were painfully serious. His dress wore an air of neglect. Whatever else the work of a labor organizer had done for him there was no outward sign of improvement.

"You sent for me?" he demanded, a look of nervous expectation in his serious eyes.

"Sure." Leyburn nodded. His manner was final. It was also the manner of an employer to a subordinate. The intimacy between these two had somehow died out.

Leyburn gazed at him thoughtfully, and the superiority of his position was displayed therein. Frank experienced a feeling of irritation. Leyburn frequently irritated him now. When they had first met, the boy's enthusiasm had made him regard this leader as something in the nature of a god. Since then he had discovered a good deal of clay about the feet of his deity.

"Guess I'm going to hand you a change of work, boy," Leyburn said at last, his manner deliberately impressive. "Say, you weren't a big hit with the railroaders." Frank winced perceptibly, and the other saw that his thrust had gone home. "Oh, I don't blame you a hell of a lot," he went on patronizingly. "You've never been a railroader – that's where it comes in. I'd say the feller that talks to those boys needs to be one of 'em. We got plenty without you, and – so I'm going to hand you a change, to the farming racket." Then he smiled. "Guess you're a bit of a mossback yourself. You'll understand those boys, and be able to talk 'em their own way."

Frank's face had flushed with the poignancy of his feelings over his failure. He felt even more the crudeness of this man's manner.

"I'll do my best," he said briefly.

There was none of his earlier enthusiasm in his assurance. Truth to tell, something of his enthusiasm had died on the night of his failure at the railroaders' meeting, and it had died after Alexander Hendrie had left him.

"That's right," said Leyburn, with some geniality. "I don't like your 'cocksures.' Give me the man out to do his damnedest. You'll make good, lad – this time. Say, I'm going to set you chasing up the work among the farms. See it's going ahead. Ther's men out to do the gassing. You'll just have to see they gas right. Get me? There's going to be a strike around harvest – this year. It's going to happen along with the transporters."

Frank was startled. There was to have been no serious movement this year on the agricultural side. Only preparations. Why this sudden change of plans?

"This year?" he said.

"That's how I said," returned Leyburn dryly.

"But I thought – "

"I'll do the thinking, boy," said Leyburn quickly. Then he grinned. "Guess I've done most of it already. You're on?"

"Why, yes." Frank was perplexed. Nor had he any definite objection.

"Good." Leyburn picked his teeth with a match. Then he went on: "You'll make your headquarters at Everton. That's where Hendrie's place is. I've got men at work there. They've been there quite a while. We're taking up that nigger question there, and punching it home for all we're worth. It's a good lever for running up wages on. The wheat men will be easy – their crops are perishable. If Hendrie don't squeal quick, he's got miles of wheat growing," he said significantly. "Of course he's only one. But he's good to work on. Now, just watch around there. Don't do a heap of big talk. The other'll do that. You'll go around the farms, the smaller ones, and do some private talk. You'll superintend the whole of that section. Guess there's a hundred and more farms in it. I'll hand you a schedule of 'em."

As Leyburn finished speaking, Frank stirred uneasily.

"Must I go on this work?" he asked hesitatingly.

Leyburn looked up sharply. There was a sparkle in his eyes.

"Sure," he said coldly.

"Couldn't you hand me another section?" Frank asked, after an awkward pause, while Leyburn regarded his averted face closely.

"Why?" The demand rapped out. It was full of a sudden, angry distrust. Leyburn was not in the habit of having his orders questioned in his own office.