Had he added to the pay of his chief foreman it would have changed the ratio between that and the wages of the others, unless theirs, too, was increased.  In that event, a reproof was likely to come from the directors, and he would find it hard to retrace his steps.

Justice called for him to do just what he had done; it would be weak to do more.  “Hugh,” said he, also rising to his feet, “I am not quite through with you; I am now going to ask you to do me a favor.”

“I guess it’s safe to promise in advance that I will do it—­that is, of course, if it be in my power to do it.”

“It is in your power.  Last night, when I was in the woods near your cabin, I noticed a strange odor in the air; I could not imagine its cause, but I know now what it was.”

“What was it?” asked O’Hara, turning crimson.

“You and some of your friends have been illicitly making whiskey.  You have a distillery somewhere in the mountains, and, while working in the mills during the day, you have taken turns in running the still at night.  I will not ask you to tell me how long you have been doing this, but you know as well as I that it is a crime.”

The two men were silent a moment and then Hugh, without any appearance of agitation, said: 

“You have spoken the truth; the still was not more than a hundred feet from the cabin, and caused the smell you noticed.”

“How could you three attend to it when you were in the cabin?”

“Some one was generally close by.  The pipe that carried off the fumes ran into the chimney of our cabin and mixed with the smoke.  We took turns in looking after it.  Tom and I had been there earlier in the evening, and Jack was to look in now and then against our coming back.  But,” added Hugh, “you said you had a favor to ask of me.”

“So I have; I ask you to destroy that still, root and branch, and never take a hand in anything of the kind again.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Why not?  You are engaged in breaking the laws of your country, for which there is a severe penalty.  Now that you will have steady work, you cannot make the plea that would have been yours if the strike continued.  Why can’t you do as I ask you to do?”

“Because it has already been done.  After I got back to the cabin last night, Tom and Jack and I went out and wound up the business.  The worm has been thrown down the rocks, where it can never be found, the mash has been scattered to the four winds, and everything smashed to general flinders.  It took us nearly to daylight to finish it, but we stuck to it till the job was done.”

“I am delighted to hear that, what was the cause of all this?”

“I guess it must have been the little arbitrator,” said O’Hara, with a smile; “they say that when a man does a bad act he feels like doing others.  That may or may not be true, but I know that when a man does a good deed, the impulse to do more is awakened, and whatever good there is in him is strengthened.  I have been a bad man; I grew desperate after the death of Jennie; but when I held your Dollie in my arms it seemed that some of her goodness found its way into my heart.  I resolved with the help of heaven to be a better man.  The first step toward becoming so was to stop the unlawful work in which I had been engaged only a short time.