The Italian rose tremblingly and stepped across to the flooring. He dropped limply to a seat on a prostrate column, and moaned into his hands.
Without glancing at him or at the workmen who had eyed this measure doubtfully, Foley moved over to the Swede and gripped him as he had the Italian. "Now youse, youse sneakin' Squarehead! Get out o' here, too!"
The Swede's right hand came up and laid hold of Foley's wrist with a grip that made the walking delegate start. The scab rose to his feet and stepped across to the planking. Foley was tall, but the Swede out-topped him by an inch.
"I hold ma yob, yes," growled the Swede, a sudden flame coming into his heavy eyes.
Foley had seen that look in a thousand scabs' eyes before. He knew its meaning. He drew back a pace, pulled his derby hat tightly down on his head and bit into his cigar, every lean muscle alert.
"Get off the job! Or I'll kick youse off!"
The Swede stepped forward, his shoulders hunched up. Foley crouched back; his narrowed gray eyes gleamed. The men in both gangs looked on from their places about the cranes and up on the beams in statued expectation. Barry and Pig Iron hurried up to Foley's support.
"Keep back!" he ordered sharply. They fell away from him.
A minute passed—the two men standing on the loosely-planked edge of a sheer precipice, watching each other with tense eyes. Suddenly a change began in the Swede; the spirit went out of him as the glow from a cooling rivet. His arms sank to his side, and he turned and fairly slunk over to where lay an old brown overcoat.
The men started with relief, then burst into a jeering laugh. Foley moved toward Barry, then paused and, with hands back in his pockets, watched the two scabs make their preparation to leave, trundling his cigar about with his thin prehensile lips. As they started down the ladder, the Swede sullen, the Italian still trembling, he walked over to them with sudden decision.