XX

For many minutes Philip did not move, or look from the bit of damp fabric which be held between his fingers.  His heart was chilled.  He felt sick.  Each moment added to the emotion which was growing in him, an emotion which was a composite of disgust and of anguish.  Jeanne—­Thorpe!  An eternity of difference seemed to lie between those two—­Jeanne, with her tender beauty, her sweet life, her idyllic dreams, and Thorpe, the gang-driver!  In his own soul he had made a shrine for Jeanne, and from his knees he had looked up at her, filled with the knowledge of his own unworthiness.  He had worshiped her, as Dante might have worshiped Beatrice.  To him she was the culmination of all that was sweet and lovable in woman, transcendently above him.  And from this love, this worship of his, she had gone that very night to Thorpe, the gang-man.  He shivered.  Going to the stove he thrust in a handful of paper, dropped the handkerchief in with it, and set the whole on fire.

A few moments later the door opened and MacDougall came in.  He was followed by the two swarthy-faced St. Pierres, the camp huntsmen.  Philip shook hands with them, and they passed after the engineer through a narrow door leading into a room which was known as the camp office, Cassidy, Henshaw, and the others followed within the next ten minutes.  There was not a man among them whose eyes faltered when Philip put up his proposition to them.  As briefly as possible he told them a part of what he had previously revealed to MacDougall, and frankly conceded that the preservation of property and life in the camp depended almost entirely upon them.

“You’re not the sort of men to demand pay in a pinch like this,” he finished, “and that’s just the reason I’ve confidence enough in you to ask for your support.  There are fifty men in camp whom we could hire to fight, but I don’t want hired fighters.  I don’t want men who will run at the crack of a few rifles, but men who are willing to die with their boots on.  I won’t offer you money for this, because I know you too well.  But from this hour on you’re going to be a part of the Great Northern Fish and Development Company, and as soon as the certificates can be signed I’m going to turn over a hundred shares of stock to each of you.  Remember that this isn’t pay.  It’s simply a selfish scheme of mine to make you a part of the company.  There are eight of us.  Give us each an automatic and I’ll wager that there isn’t a combination in this neck of the woods strong enough to do us up.”

In the pale light of the two oil-lamps the men’s faces glowed with enthusiasm.  Cassidy was the first to grip Philip’s hand in a pledge of fealty.

“When hell freezes over, we’re licked,” he said.  “Where’s me automatic?”

MacDougall brought in the guns and ammunition.