“We’ve go to do something dam’ quick,” said Slater, “or else the work will be tied up.  That would ‘crab’ Murray’s deal.  I’ve got a pick-handle that’s itching for Linn’s head.”  The speaker coughed hollowly and complained:  “I’ve got a bad cold on my chest—­feels like pneumonia, to me.  Wouldn’t that just be my luck?”

“Do you have pains in your chest?” inquired the girl, solicitously.

“Terrible!  But I’m so full of pains that I get used to ’em”.

“It isn’t pneumonia.”

Slater flared up at this, for he was jealous of his sufferings.

“It’s gumbago!” Eliza declared.

Dr. Gray’s troubled countenance relaxed into a grin as he said: 

“I’ll give you something to rub on those leather lungs—­harness-oil, perhaps.”

“Is this labor trouble really serious?” asked the girl.

“Serious!  It may knock us out completely.  Go away now and let me think.  Pardon my rudeness, Miss Appleton, but—­”

Slater paused at the door.

“Don’t think too long, Doc,” he admonished him, “for there’s a ship due in three days, and by that time there won’t be a ’rough-neck’ left on the job.  It’ll take a month to get a new crew from the States, and then it wouldn’t be any good till it was broke in.”

When he was alone the doctor sat down to weigh the news “Happy Tom” had brought, but the more squarely he considered the matter the more alarming it appeared.  Thus far the S. R. & N. had been remarkably free from labor troubles.  To permit them to creep in at this stage would be extremely perilous:  the briefest cessation of work might, and probably would, have a serious bearing upon O’Neil’s efforts to raise money.  Gray felt the responsibility of his position with extraordinary force, for his chief’s fortunes had never suffered in his hands and he could not permit them to do so now.  But how to meet this move of Gordon’s he did not know; he could think of no means of keeping these men at Omar.  As he had to Eliza, to meet the raise would be useless, and a new scale of wages once adopted would be hard to reduce.  Successful or unsuccessful in its effect, it would run into many thousands of dollars.  The physician acknowledged himself dreadfully perplexed; he racked his brain uselessly, yearning meanwhile for the autocratic power to compel obedience among his men.  He would have forced them back to their jobs had there been a way, and the fact that they were duped only added to his anger.

It occurred to him to quarantine the town, a thing he could easily do as port physician in case of an epidemic, but Omar was unusually healthy, and beyond a few surgical cases his hospital was empty.

His meditations were interrupted by Tom Slater, who returned to say: 

“Give me that dope, Doc; I’m coughing like a switch engine.”  Gray rose and went to the shelves upon which his drugs were arranged, while the fat man continued, “That Appleton girl has got me worried with her foolishness.  Maybe I am sick; anyhow, I feel rotten.  What I need is a good rest and a nurse to wait on me.”