“Men,” he demanded, “are you going to be free, or are you going to allow yourselves to be treated like a lot of slaves by this boy?”

“If that’s all you’ve got to say,” Tom warned “you may as well start now.”

“Start?” scoffed the sallow-faced one.  “Where to?”

“Anywhere, outside of this camp,” Tom informed him.  “You can’t stay here any longer, and you can’t come here again.  If I catch you, again, on this company’s property, I’ll see to it that you’re arrested, and locked up for trespass.”

“That’s the way to talk!” nodded Treasurer Prenter, approvingly.

“I guess I’ll go when I get good and ready,” asserted the stranger.

In the front ranks of the crowd pressing around them, Reade now discerned the face of the Italian gang-master with whom he had talked recently.

“What’s your name?” Tom demanded, turning about on the gang-master.

“Scipio, sir.”

“Then, Scipio, take four men, and escort this fellow out of the camp.  Don’t use any force unless you have to, but see to it that this fellow leaves camp as quickly as he can walk—–­or be dragged.  Start him now.”

Gang-master Scipio plainly didn’t like the job, but he liked it better than he did the idea of being discharged.  So he spoke to four Italians about him, and the five surrounded the man.

“Hol’ on dar, Boss Reade!” spoke up a negro.  “Ef yo’ carry dis matter too far, den dere’s gwine to be a strike on dis wohk.  Jess ez dis gemman sez, we ain’t no slaves.  Yo’ try to stop all our pleasures ebenings, an’ dar’s gwine be a strike—–­shuah!”

“You may strike right now, if you wish to,” Tom retorted, facing the last speaker.  “Mr. Renshaw will be prepared to pay you off within hour.  Any other man in this camp who isn’t content to get along without liquor and gambling may as well strike at the same time.  Mr. Renshaw, it’s half-past eight.  At nine o’clock please be at the house ready to pay off any man who isn’t satisfied to live and work in a camp where neither drinking nor gambling is allowed.  Scipio, why haven’t you started that fellow away from here?”

“Too bigga crowd in front of us,” replied the Italian gang-master, shrugging his shoulders.

“Come on, Harry,” Tom replied.  “We’ll see if we can’t make a way through the crowd.”  The two young engineers placed themselves at the head of the squad, and succeeded quickly in opening up a passage through a crowd that seemed to be at least half hostile.

Thus Tom found himself soon face to face with an American.

“Evarts!” Reade cried, angrily.  “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here by permission,” snarled the discharged foreman.

“Whose permission?” Tom insisted, briskly.

“Mr. Bascomb’s,” replied Evarts, with a leer so full of satisfaction that Reade didn’t doubt the truth of the statement.

“Mr. Bascomb,” Tom called, “did you tell Evarts that he might visit this camp?”