“Who the hell are you, anyway?  You ain’t the guy owning these mills.  We know where you come from—­”

Like lightning Bull took him up.

“Do you?” he shouted back.  “Then we know where you come from.  The man who knew me before I became boss here must belong to the Skandinavia.  That’s the only place any lumber-jack could have known me.  Here.  Come up here.  Stand out.  Show yourself.  And I’ll hand the boys your pedigree.  It’ll be easy.  It’s the trouble with us just now, we’ve got too many stiffs from the Skandinavia, and you’ve got our own good boys paralysed.  They haven’t the guts to stand on the notions that have handed them the best wages in the pulp trade these fifteen years.  Guess you’ve persuaded them they ain’t got swell houses, and good food, and cheap heat and light, and, instead are living like all sorts of swine in their hogpens.  It’s the way of the Skandinavia just now.  The Skandinavia’s out for our blood.  They want to smash us.  Do you know why?  Because they’re an alien firm who wants to steal these forests from the Canadians to fill their own pockets with our wealth.  We’re for the Canadians, and we’ve built up a proposition that’s going to beat the foreigner right out into the sea.  But that don’t matter now.  These guys, these long-haired, unwashed guys, that reckon to hand you boys these mills, are sent by the Skandinavia to wreck us.  Well, go right over to ’em.  Help ’em.  Sign every darn document they hand you.  They’ll be your own death warrants, anyway.  You want war.  You can have it.  I’m here to fight.  Meanwhile you best get home to your cold houses, for the mills are closed down.  You’re locked out.”

He turned without waiting a second and passed through the back door by which he had entered.  And his men followed on his heels.

* * * * *

Bull was in his office.  For all the storm of the morning the rest of the day had passed quietly.  Now it was late at night.  His stove was radiating a luxurious heat.  He was quite unconcerned that the electrically-heated steam radiators were cold.  He was alone.  Harker and the engineer were still down at the mill.  He was awaiting the report they would bring him later.

He had passed some time in reading the pledge of Communal Brotherhood which he had brought away with him from the recreation room, and he had read the signatures that had been affixed to it.  The latter were few, and every name inscribed was of foreign origin.  But it was the document itself which concerned him most.  If it were honest he felt that its authors were wild people who should be kept under restraint.  If it were not honest, then hanging or shooting was far too lenient a fate to be meted out to them.  It was Communism in its wildest, most unrestrained form.

In his final disgust he flung the papers on his desk.  And as he did so a sound reached him from the outer office, which had long since been closed for the night by the half-breed, Loale.