“Go inside,” he said, “and coax those two helpers of yours out of those ovens. They couldn't understand my Italian. Tell them that they are safe. Let the padrone through, men! Do you hear?”
The crowd sullenly parted and Dominick trotted up the lane they left, hastening with apprehensive shruggings of his shoulders.
“Go about your work,” said Parker, clutching his arm a moment as the padrone hastened past. “I can see it isn't your fault this time.”
“Now, men,” he cried, turning to the throng, “few words and short so that you may all understand. Dominick's dinner is good. Good as any in the line boarding camps. I'm going to eat here. You come in and eat too.”
A mumbling began among them and immediately it swelled into a jabbering chorus as the few who understood translated his words to the others.
He leaped down off the muddy stoop and strode among them, cuffing this one and that of those malcontents who were noisiest.
“That young man certainly understands dago nature,” muttered Searles to the other engineer. “A club, good grit and a hard fist will drive them when a machine gun wouldn't.”
“I stood up for you when you were not used right,” shouted the young man. “He has given you what I told him to give you—what you asked for. Go in there and get it.”
He knew who the ring-leaders in the mutiny were and he drove those into the camp first. The others followed. In five minutes they were all at their places at table munching quietly. Another man, even with equal determination, might have not succeeded. But the greediest grumbler among them understood that this young man had first been as valiant to secure their rights as he was now ready to curb their rebellion.
In his own heart he was loathing this role of arbiter and mentor. His first interference had come out of his natural sense of justice. He had pitied this herd of men who had been so helplessly appealing against their wrongs.