Rod continued.
"Simple. Leave it to the men," Andy counseled. "Don't make any arbitrary statements about either hours or wages. This bunch is wiser to conditions in general than you'd think. Show 'em your hand and give them the option of deciding what they want to do. Better let me handle them myself. Will you back up whatever I say or do?"
"Yes, your judgment is as good as mine where they're concerned."
Andy wrinkled his brows for a minute.
"I have a hunch they'll stand for pretty nearly anything you want to do, if they know your reasons," he said at last. "Be a pity to bust up a crack crew. I think they kinda feel that way themselves. It's a cut or a shutdown anyway."
Rod confirmed this.
"Well, we'll see to-night."
Hall went away. Rod watched him follow alongshore after Isabel. They disappeared together over a mossy point. His glance came back along the booming ground, followed the shore. Rod junior played on the gravel with the small son of a hook-tender and the equally small daughter of a high-rigger. A dozen houses where married men lived with their families faced that strip of shore. Clothes fluttered from taut lines. It neared five o'clock. Supper fires flung blue pennants from various chimneys. Over in the messhouse a flunky sang at his work and dishes clinked. From far up on the wooded slopes came shrill whistle blasts, the throb of machinery, all muffled in the deep cool forest over which was spreading a blight of raw stumps, broken branches, a litter of destruction.
He went into the house. Mary sat with a few letters in her lap, the gleanings of that steamer's mail. She looked up at him expectantly. He shook his head.
"Can't tell yet where we'll come out," he said.