Again the tall man nodded as he followed the other’s gaze.

“That’s so.  But I don’t blame the mill-bosses.  This gang is trying to steal from the men who’ve always handed out a straight deal.  Do you blame them for defending themselves?”

Michael shook his head.

“I don’t see I can.  After all—­”

“No.  Listen.  You boys have it in your own hands.  These crooks from the Skandinavia got a strangle holt on the youngsters of this outfit who’ve no kiddies like those.  You older boys let ’em get it.  You weren’t awake.  Now you find yourselves caught in the tide.  We’ve got to make a break for it.  There’ll be heat in plenty when you break free.  Seven o’clock.  That’s the time your masters ordered the meeting for.  Seven o’clock.  That’s the time they intend to commit their great crime—­with you helping them.”

Father Adam smiled as he drove his satire home.

“Not on your life!” The man’s grey eyes were fierce.  “Give us the lead, Father,” he cried.  “We—­we just got to have that.  Ther’ ain’t a real lumber-jack in these forests won’t follow it.  It’ll be a scrap.  A hell of a scrap.  Oh, I know.  Maybe some of us’ll never see the light of another day.  But sure it’s got to be.  We ought to’ve gone over from the start, and stood by our jobs.  But I guess none of us with wives and kiddies had the guts.  They threatened our women and children, an’ we weakened.  But it’s different now, sure.  We’ve learned our lesson.  It’s themselves they’re out for, an’ we’ll be their dogs to be kicked and bullied as they see fit.  We’ll follow your lead, Father, an’ it don’t matter a cuss when the scrap comes.”

Father Adam nodded.  His dark eyes were alight with something more than the smile shining in them.

“Good,” he said.  “I shall be there.”

He moved away and Michael rejoined his companions.  They talked together for a moment or two while their eyes followed the receding figure.  They saw it stop and speak to one of their wives.  She had a small child with her.  They saw it bend down into a squatting attitude and draw the child towards it.  Then they saw a lean hand draw out of its mit and proceed to touch a swelling on the little mite’s neck.  They understood.  And when the figure finally passed on out of sight, they returned to their work, each man absorbed in his own thought, each man with a surge of deep feeling for that lonely figure.  For they were all men who knew, and understood the man who lived in the twilight of the forests.

* * * * *

The recreation room was packed to suffocation, packed from end to end with a human freight.  The benches were crowded, and the tables groaned under the weight of as many rough-clad creatures as could crowd themselves thereon.  Every inch of floor space was occupied, and even the recesses in the log walls which contained the windows were utilised as sitting places for the audience which had gathered at the imperative order of the Soviet of the Workers.