"You've got two hundred and forty-odd here and at Riley's; in all that number don't you suppose you could find a dozen or two who would stand by us?"
"Honestly, then, I don't, Mr. Ballard. I'm not lukewarm, as ye might think: I'll stand with you while I can squint an eye to sight th' gun. But the minute you tell the b'ys what you're wantin' them to do, that same minute they'll give you the high-ball signal and quit."
"Strike work, you mean?"
"Just that."
Ballard went into a brown study, and Fitzpatrick respected it. After a time the silence was broken by the faint tapping of the tiny telegraph instrument on the contractor's desk. Ballard's chair righted itself with a crash.
"The wire," he exclaimed; "I had forgotten that you had brought it down this far on the line. I wonder if I can get Bromley?"
"Sure ye can," said the contractor; and Ballard sat at the desk to try.
It was during the preliminary key-clickings that Blacklock came to the door of the pay office. "There's a man out here wanting to speak to you, Mr. Fitzpatrick," he announced; and the contractor went out, returning presently to break into Ballard's preoccupied effort to raise the office at Elbow Canyon.
"One of the foremen came in to say that the Craigmiles men were coming back. For the last half-hour horsemen by twos and threes have been trailing up the river road and heading for the ranch headquarters," was the information he brought.
"It's Carson's gang," said Ballard, at once.