"To work! why, we've struck!"
"I haven't," said Em soberly. "I'm willing to work for a dollar a day."
There was a little cry of dismay from the girls; Steve Elliott's tanned face flushed a coppery red.
"You ain't goin' back on us, Em?" he said angrily.
"I ain't going back on my word," answered the girl; "you needn't work if you don't want to; this is a free country."
"It isn't, though,"' said Ike Burnham; "the raisin men have a ring—there's no freedom where there's rings."
"I suppose they go into them because they want to," said Em, setting her lips.
"They go into them because they'd get left if they didn't."
"Well, if I was a raisin man," persisted the girl quietly, "and wanted to go into a ring, I'd do it; but if anybody undertook to boss me into it, they'd have the same kind of a contract on hand that you've got." She turned her back on the little group and started toward the vineyard.
Irene had drifted toward Steve Elliott's side and was smiling expectantly up into his bronzed face. He broke away from her glance and strode after the retreating figure.