The physician laughed.  “Don’t mistake leaf-mold for muck, that’s all we ask.  O’Neil is perfectly willing to let you investigate him.”

“Exactly!  And I could bite off his head for being so nice about it.  Not that I’ve discovered anything against him, for I haven’t —­I think he’s fine—­but I object to the principle of the thing.”

“He’ll never peep, no matter what you do or say.”

“It makes me furious to know how superior he is.  I never detested a man’s virtues as I do his.  Gordon is the sort I like, for he needs exposing, and expects it.  Wait until I get at him and the Trust.”

“The Trust, too, eh?”

“Of course.”

“Now what have the Heidlemanns done?”

“It’s not what they have done; it’s what they’re going to do.  They’re trying to grab Alaska.”

Dr. Gray shook his head impatiently, but before he could make answer Tom Slater entered and broke into the conversation by announcing: 

“I’ve spotted him, Doc.  His name is Linn, and he’s Gordon’s hand.  He’s at mile 24 and fifty men are quitting from that camp.”

“That makes two hundred, so far,” said the doctor.

“He’s offering a raise of fifty cents a day and transportation to Hope.”

Gray scowled and Eliza inquired quickly: 

“What’s wrong, Uncle Tom?”

“Don’t call me ‘Uncle Tom,’” Slater exclaimed, irritably; “I ain’t related to you.”

Miss Appleton smiled at him sweetly.  “I had a dear friend once—­ you remind me of him, he was such a splendid big man,” she said.

Tom eyed her suspiciously.

“He chewed gum incessantly, too, and declared that it never hurt anybody.”

“It never did,” asserted Slater.

“We pleaded, we argued, we did our best to save him, but—­” She shook her blond head sadly.

“What happened to him?”

“What always happens?  He lingered along for a time, stubborn to the last, then—­” Turning abruptly to Dr. Gray, she asked, “Who is this man Linn, and what is he doing?”

“He’s an emissary of Curtis Gordon and he’s hiring our men away from us,” snapped the physician.

“Why, Dan tells me Mr. O’Neil pays higher wages than anybody!”

“So he does, but Linn offers a raise.  We didn’t know what the trouble was till over a hundred men had quit.  The town is full of them, now, and it’s becoming a stampede.”

“Can’t you meet the raise?”

“That wouldn’t do any good.”

Tom agreed.  “Gordon don’t want these fellows.  He’s doing it to get even with Murray for those wo—­” He bit his words in two at a glance from Gray.  “What happened to the man that chewed gum?” he demanded abruptly.

“Oh yes!  Poor fellow!  We warned him time and again, but he was a sullen brute, he wouldn’t heed advice.  Why don’t you bounce this man Linn?  Why don’t you run him out of camp?”

“Fine counsel from a champion of equal rights!” smiled Gray.  “You forget we have laws and Gordon has a press bureau.  It would antagonize the men and cause a lot of trouble in the end.  What O’Neil could do personally, he can’t do as the president of the S. R. & N. It would give us a black eye.