The group of silent men broke, and one of them stepped forward
and shook his forefinger at Clay.

``No man can talk to me like that,'' he said, warningly, ``and
think I'll work under him. I resign here and now.''

``You what--'' cried Clay, ``you resign?''

He whirled his horse round with a dig of his spur and faced them.

``How dare you talk of resigning? I'll pack the whole lot of you
back to New York on the first steamer, if I want to, and I'll
give you such characters that you'll be glad to get a job
carrying a transit. You're in no position to talk of resigning
yet--not one of you. Yes,'' he added, interrupting himself,
``one of you is MacWilliams, the man who had charge of the
railroad. It's no fault of his that the road's not working. I
understand that he couldn't get the right of way from the people
who owned the land, but I have seen what he has done, and his
plans, and I apologize to him--to MacWilliams. As for the rest
of you, I'll give you a month's trial. It will be a month before
the next steamer could get here anyway, and I'll give you that
long to redeem yourselves. At the end of that time we will have
another talk, but you are here now only on your good behavior and
on my sufferance. Good-morning.''

As Clay had boasted, he was not the man to throw up his position
because he found the part he had to play was not that of leading
man, but rather one of general utility, and although it had been
several years since it had been part of his duties to oversee the