Three members of the executive council, Norman, Barbara, and Tom, began at once the task of assigning work. The problems which immediately faced the council were overwhelming, but they were urgent and could admit of no delay. The absolute refusal of every member of the Brotherhood to do the dirty and disagreeable work brought at once two issues to a crisis. Either labour must be voluntary or involuntary. The people who did this work must be induced to agree to perform it or they must be forced to do it by a superior authority without their consent.

They could only be led to choose this work by inducements of an extraordinary nature—the payment of enormously high wages and the shortening of each day\'s work to a ridiculous minimum.

If wages were made unequal, the old problem of inequality would remain unsolved. For equal wages no man would lift his hand.

Confronted by this dilemma the executive [152]council decided at once to fix wages on an unequal basis rather than reduce its unwilling members to a condition of involuntary labour, which is merely a long way to spell slavery.

When this decision was announced, Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, once more lifted his voice in solemn protest:

"I denounce this act in the name of every principle which has brought us together," he cried, with solemn warning. "You have established a system far more infamous than the unequal wages of the old society where the law of the survival of the fittest is the court of last resort. You have opened the door of fathomless corruption by substituting the whim of an executive council for the law of nature. It is the beginning of jealousy, strife, favouritism, jobbery, and injustice."

"Then what\'s a better way?" Old Tom asked, with a sneer.

"It\'s your business to find a better way," cried the man of visions.

Tom glared at the poet with a look of fury and Norman whispered to the old miner:

"Remember, Tom, you\'re sitting as a judge in the Supreme Court of State!"

"Can\'t help it. I never did have no use for a fool. Ef he can\'t tell us a better way, let \'im shet up."

[153]Barbara pressed Tom\'s arm, and he subsided.

The court at once entered into the question of wages for domestic service.

It had been agreed, at the suggestion of the Wolfs, that they should spend their time in quietly investigating the qualifications of each member of the Brotherhood for the work to be assigned, and make their reports in secret to the majority of the court, which should sit continuously until all had been decided.

Neither Norman, Barbara, nor the old miner suspected for a moment the deeper motive which Wolf concealed behind this withdrawal from the decision of these cases. They found out in a very startling way later.

The chief cook demanded a hundred dollars a month.

Old Tom snorted with contempt. Norman smiled and spoke kindly:

"Remember, Louis, you only received $75 a month in San Francisco. Here the Brotherhood provides every man with his food, his clothes, and his house. Wages are merely the inducement used to satisfy each individual that labour may still be done by free contract, not by force."

"Well, it\'ll take a hundred a month to satisfy me," was the stolid reply. "I didn\'t come here to cook. I could do that in the old hell we lived [154]in. I came here to do better and bigger things. I can do them, too——"

"But we\'ve fixed the salary of the general manager at only seventy-five dollars a month, and you demand a hundred?"

"I do, and if the general manager prefers my job, I\'ll trade with you and guarantee to do your work better than it\'s being done."

"Yes, you will!" old Tom growled, as he leaned over Barbara and whispered to Norman.

"Make it thirty dollars a month, and if he don\'t go to work—leave him to me, I\'ll beat him till he does it."

"No, we can\'t manage it that way, Tom. We must try to satisfy him."

"Hit\'s a hold-up, I tell ye—highway robbery—the triflin\' son of a gun! Don\'t you say so, miss?" Tom appealed earnestly to Barbara.

"We must have cooks, Tom—and we want everybody to be happy."

"Make him cook, make him—that\'s his business—I\'d do it if I knowed how. He\'s got to take what we give \'im. He can\'t git off this island. He enlisted for five years. If he deserts, court-martial and shoot him."

In spite of old Tom\'s bitter protest, Norman and Barbara succeeded in persuading the chief cook to accept eighty-five dollars a [155]month—an advance of ten dollars over the highest wages he had ever received before.

When the eighteen assistant cooks lined up for the settlement of their wages a new problem of unexpected proportions was presented. They had listened attentively to the case of the chef, and their chosen orator presented his argument in brief but emphatic words:

"We demand the exact wages you have voted the chef."

"Well, what do ye think er that?" old Tom groaned to Norman. "Hit\'s jist like I told ye. Hit\'s a hold-up."

"We must persuade them, Tom," the young leader replied.

"Let me persuade \'em!" the old miner pleaded.

"How?" Barbara asked, with a twinkle in her brown eyes.

"I\'ll line \'em up agin that wall and trim their hair with my six-shooter. I won\'t hurt \'em. But when I finish the job I\'ll guarantee they\'ll do what I tell \'em without any back talk. You folks take a walk and make me Chief Justice fer an hour, and when you come back we\'ll have peace and plenty. Jest try it now, and don\'t you butt in. Let me persuade \'em!"

Norman shook his head.

"Keep still, Tom! We must reason with them."

[156]"Ye \'re wastin\' yer breath," the miner drawled in disgust.

"Don\'t you think, comrades," Norman began, in persuasive tones, "that your demands are rather high?"

"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "We come here to get equal rights. We don\'t want to cook. I\'m a born actor, myself. I expected to play in Shakespeare when I joined the Brotherhood. Anybody that wants this job can have it. If we do your hot, dirty, disgusting, disagreeable work while the others play in the shade we are going to get something for it."

"Even so," the young leader responded, "is it fair that an assistant cook should receive equal wages with the chef?"

"And why not? Labour creates all value. The chef\'s a fakir. We do all the work. He never lifts his hand to a pot or pan. He struts and loafs through the kitchen and lords it over the men. Let him try to run the kitchen without us, and see how much you get to eat! We stand on the equal rights of man!"

"But my dear comrade——"

"Don\'t use them words," old Tom pleaded, "jest let me make a few remarks——"

Barbara pinched Tom\'s arm and he subsided.

"Can\'t you see," Norman went on, "that we [157]are paying the chef for his directive ability, for his inventive genius in creating new dishes and making old ones more delicious? You but execute his orders."

"We stand square on our principles. Labour creates all values. The chef never works. We make every dish that goes to the table. If it has any value we make it. We demand our rights!"

The court agreed on fifty dollars a month, and the men refused to consider it.

"We prefer to work in the fields, the foundry, the machine-shop, the mills, the forests, anywhere you like except the kitchen. Let the chef do your work. Good day!"

They turned and marched out in a body and sat down in the sunshine.

In vain Norman argued and pleaded. They stood their ground with sullen determination.

A final clincher which the young leader could not evade always ended the argument. The spokesman came back to it with dogged persistence:

"What did you mean, then, when you\'ve been drumming into our ears that labour creates all value? We do all the work, don\'t we?"

The upshot of it was the eighteen assistant cooks marched back into the hall, stood before the judges, and all were granted equal wages with the chef.

[158]Whereupon the chef sprang to his feet and faced the court with blazing eyes.

"You grant these chumps—these idiots—wages equal to mine? Not one of them has brains enough to co............