"But having the gun he couldn't always be sure of buying the nerve, eh?
I guess you are right, Rankin; you usually are when you can forget to be
vindictive. And that brings us around to the jumping-off place again. Of
course, you will stay on with the new man--if he wants you to?"

"I don't know. That is my business, and none of yours."

It was a bid for a renewal of the quarrel which was never more than half
veiled between these two. But Gridley did not lift the challenge.

"Let it go at that," he said placably. "But if you should decide to
stay, I want you to let up on Flemister."

The morose antagonism died out of Hallock's eyes, and in its place came
craft.

"I'd kill Flemister on sight, if I had the sand; you know that, Gridley.
Some day it may come to that. But in the meantime----"

"In the meantime you have been snapping at his heels like a fice-dog,
Hallock; holding out ore-cars on him, delaying his coal supplies,
stirring up trouble with his miners. That was all right, up to
yesterday. But now it has got to stop."

"Not for any orders that you can give," retorted the chief clerk, once
more opening the door for the quarrel.

The master-mechanic got up and flicked the cigar ash from his
coat-sleeve with a handkerchief that was fine enough to be a woman's.