"
"The outrages may cease after a while," suggested Harry.
"No," answered Reade. "As long as the unknown enemy feels that he can
harass us without much risk of being caught red-handed, just so long will
he go on with his outrages---unless we give in."
"Give in?" asked Mr. Prenter, with a rising inflection in his voice.
"Unless we give in," supplied Tom promptly, "by allowing gambling and
rum-selling to go on openly in our camp of workmen."
"Have you any notion of giving in to that extent?" asked Mr. Prenter.
"Not an idea!" retorted Tom Reade promptly. "It wouldn't be my way to
surrender to the Devil. I'll fight to the last ditch---unless your
company really prefers to have Hazelton and myself cancel our contract and
get out of this work. Do you?"
"_I_ don't want you to quit," replied Mr. Prenter positively. "I admire
fighting grit, and I want to see you keep hammering away at the work until
you win and the job is finished. The board of directors will stand with me
on that, if I can sway them. As for Mr. Bascomb, you mustn't take him too
seriously. He's a first rate fellow in a lot of ways, but there's no fight
in him, and he's a bit close-fisted, too.
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