Koppy stepped to the door and carelessly examined the sky, drew tobacco and cigarette papers and rolled himself a smoke. Then, yawning lazily, he reached back and pulled the door shut and strolled away out of sight round the corner of the shack. With a nasty laugh to the three men waiting there he led the way back through the window.

 

"Boss watching. Door closed--me not here."

 

One of the three men, a pair of golden hoops dangling from his ears, lifted a listening hand. From below broke the loud music of the orchestra.

 

"Boss think-a me there," he sneered. "Boss easy guy. Morani's orchestra, he say. Morani here." He struck himself dramatically on the chest.

 

"Not so easy maybe, boss ain't," Koppy shook a doubting head. "Big and strong and--and thick here," touching his head. "Maybe--I don't know."

 

From a pouch of tobacco which Koppy had thrown on the table they were rolling themselves cigarettes; it seemed to be a common stock of which the Pole, in deference to his rank, had the guardianship. One of the men struck a match thoughtfully.

 

"Get it out of your noodles that the boss don't know nothing. He gets there mighty spry sometimes. He's had too much of things lately to keep his eyes shut. We got to work pretty slick, I say."

 

Koppy straightened with a show of resentment.

 

"He never had the Workers before. We take him like that"--he closed one big dirty fist with a relentless movement--"and we crush him, like we crush all our bosses."

 

"All right, Koppy." The other puffed a ring of smoke. "I wish you're right, if it makes you sleep better. I'm in on the crushing game. Course the Workers make a difference. All the difference in the world," he added hastily, catching Koppy's glowering glance. "But we got to go smooth, I say, all the same-e. He's getting suspicious. That whiffer he belted you to-day on the saloon-sign ought to about hold you for a while. When your toes curled over that log I thought we'd be measuring you for a coffin."

 

The face of the underforeman went livid; a flood of foul expletives clogged his utterance.

 

The one who had not yet spoken broke in soothingly:

 

"Lefty just means he hit you hard. Why no somebody knife him?"

 

The four men asked each other the question with their eyes and, receiving no answer, looked confused.

 

"Why no you, Heppel?" demanded Koppy. "I had no time."

 

"Time wasn't hanging about loose when he let drive," grinned Lefty Werner.

 

"Mr. Conrad took your knife, Koppy," soothed Heppel. "You couldn't."

 

Morani, unobserved, had drawn from some hidden part of him a long stiletto and was whetting it slowly on the palm of his hand. Fascinated, they watched.

 

"We were a hundred to two," reflected Koppy in a low voice; and his eyes were puzzled.

 

That was as far as they ever got in the solution of the eternal puzzle of how one man holds a hundred under his thumb and sleeps the sleep of the unafraid.

 

"Which ain't quite to the point," Werner reminded them, "with this meeting due in half an hour. In the first place, are you sure the boss ain't on?"

 

The Pole lifted his shoulders haughtily.

 

"I do it--I, the president of the Independent Workers of the World."

 

"All right, old cock, but what do you do?"

 

"The orchestra." Morani waved a satisfied hand toward the music. "It play. No come-a to meeting."

 

"Can't say I'm sorry," muttered Werner under his breath.

 

"Men--many men--they play cards where boss can see," said Heppel, mildly chiding the lack of faith in his fellow-conspirator. "Camp same, boss think. Meeting in bush same time. Everything fine."

 

The local president of the Workers of the World spread his hands out in modest deprecation of such applause. Werner seemed convinced.

 

"You'd pull the wool over the eyes of a professional burglar, Koppy, while you stole his jemmy. But what's the idea of the meeting to-night? A crash--right off the bat?"

 

Koppy shrugged his shoulders; everything was in the lap of the gods; inspiration was one of his holds on his followers.

 

"'Cause every damn one of them will do what you say," Werner assured him, "from waiting to say grace before tackling the soup, to blowing that trestle to perdition. That is, if they can do it in the dark."

 

"In dark--it is our way," returned the leader crisply. "Laws? Bah! For the bosses they are, like everything else. We work down here." He passed a flat hand low above the floor.

 

"A bit lower than that, ain't it?" said Werner, hiding a smile.

 

"We cut off the feet of our bosses so they fall."

 

"Everybody take a high seat and keep your feet out of the water!" cried the irrepressible one. "But you want to make sure you don't cut so low the bosses hop out of the way. But I guess you're right--you're always right, Koppy. We got to do things in the dark, till we get the Labour Unions at our back. But they're a glass of water when it comes to the real thing."

 

With an imperceptible movement Morani's knife was out again, swishing back and forward across his palm with a low hissing sound. And every eye was rivetted on it. Koppy dragged his away and spoke:

 

"You three, you go to boss--"

 

Werner gave a startled exclamation.

 

"Meeting for that," Koppy went on relentlessly. "We send you three to talk to boss--"

 

"I never was no talker, Koppy, you know that," protested Werner.

 

But Morani continued to whet his knife with smiling unction.

 

"You see boss," said Koppy, "and demand we boss ourselves--that I boss or job stops. We Workers know no boss; we please ourselves. We boss out here. If any one say no--slash!"

 

He struck downward with his right hand, as he would gladly strike when he had the chance. And Morani repeated the movement, only far more subtly and efficiently. Werner stumbled to his feet, his eyes on Morani's stiletto.

 

"Here, you butcher, I'm not a boss. Keep that sticker away from my shins. Put it up, Morani, for God's sake! You don't need practice."

 

Koppy motioned him roughly back to the bunk on which he had been lying.

 

"You three tell boss that."

 

"Like............