CHAPTER X.
A HARD PLACE TO FILL.
After their brief but somewhat heated discussion, Franklin watched Bob Jackson and Mike Nolan hurry away to a near-by restaurant, and then walked slowly away to a quiet corner where he might eat the lunch Belden Brice's house-keeper had put up for him.
"Those fellows will certainly try to do me harm unless I comply with their demands," reasoned the young electrician to himself, as he sat down in a sunny corner and began to munch a sandwich. "But I can't see what right they have to dictate as to how much I shall do. I want to earn all I can and I'll never do it if I listen to them. What is best to be done?"
It was easy for Franklin to ask himself this question, but it was much more difficult, if not impossible, to answer it. The young electrician pondered over the matter all the while he was eating and yet, when the last crumb was consumed, he had arrived at no definite conclusion.
For one brief instant the thought came to his
