"I never took a dollar from the mill, and I told the old man so. I----"
"You've been squealing, have you? Well, you just go on, only remember this. If you're going to set in a little game of freeze-out, you play your cards close to your coat."
Luna saw the drift of Morrison's remarks, and hastened to defend himself.
"It's gospel truth. I haven't squealed." He gave a detailed account of his midnight interview with Firmstone, defining sharply between his facts and his inferences. He finally concluded: "The old man's sharp. There isn't a corner of the mine he doesn't know, and there isn't a chink in the mill, from the feed to the tail-sluice, that he hasn't got his eye on." Luna's mood changed from the defensive to the assertive. "I'll tell you one thing more. He's square, square as a die. He had me bunched, but he give me a chance. He told me that I could stop the stealing at the mill, that I had got to, and, by God, I'm going to, in spite of hell!"
Morrison was relieved, but a sneer buried the manifestation of his relief.
"Well," he exclaimed, "of all the soft, easy things I ever saw you're the softest and the easiest!"
"Hard words break no bones," he answered, sullenly.
"That may be," answered Morrison; "but it doesn't keep soft ones from gumming your wits, that's sure."
"I mean just this. You say the old man had you bunched. Well, he's got you on your back now, and roped, too."
"There's more'n one will be roped, then. If it comes to a show-down, I'll not be alone."
"All right, Mr. Luna." Morrison spoke evenly. "When you feel like calling the game just go right ahead. I'm not going to stop you."
Luna made no immediate reply. Morrison waited, ostentatiously indifferent. Luna finally broke the silence.
"I don't see how the old man's got me roped."
"Well, now you're acting as if you had sense. I'll tell you. I'm always ready to talk to a man that's got sense. Just answer a few straight questions. In the first place, you've been stealing from the mill."
"I tell you I haven't," broke in Luna; "but I can tell you who has." He looked sharply at Morrison.
Morrison waved his hand with wearied endurance.
"Well, you're foreman at the mill. If there's been stealing, and you know your business, you know where it was done and how it was done. If you don't know your business what are you there for, and how long are you going to stay? You say yourself the old man is sharp, and he is. How long is he going to keep either a thief or a fool in your place?"