“We’ve got the freight-house fitted up for them, and Stanley has a detail of men guarding it. You know as well as I do that the only way to hold those men is to keep the strikers away from them. Stanley can keep guard all right on the outside, but we’ve got to have somebody to keep guard on the inside. I want you to go to work there as a kind of head bottle-washer, and keep your eyes open for trouble. At the first sign of it, let me know.”
Reddy nodded again.
“All right,” he said. “I ain’t much at bottle-washin’, but I knows how t’ kape my eyes open an’ my ears too. When do I begin?”
“The sooner the better.”
“I’ll go over right away, then,” and Reddy took down his hat and put on his coat. “Good-bye, old woman,” he added to his wife, who had been sitting listening silently to all this. “Look fer me back whin ye see me comin’.”
He patted her on the back and started for the door. Mrs. Magraw paused to help Allan into his overcoat.
“You won’t be lettin’ nothin’ happen t’ him, Allan?” she asked, anxiously, forgetting his new title in the emotion of the moment.
“That I won’t,” he assured her.
“I’ve got a sort o’ feelin’ that there’s goin’ t’ be trouble, an’ that Reddy’ll be in it,” she added. “It come t’ me strong when I set there listenin’.”
“Perhaps there will be trouble, Mrs. Magraw,” said Allan. “Indeed, I’ll be surprised if there isn’t. But we’ll come through all right.”