I'D have said it couldn't happen," panted Henry, once more in his office, breathless and noting a slight disposition to fall to pieces. "Did they know him better than I did," he speculated, "—Scanlon, Madden and the bunch; or am I right about him after all? Anyway, it's a fight. That's clear."
And Henry Harrington was supremely at home in a fight. The first blow, he decided, should be delivered at Shell Point. He dictated a telegram to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, embodying forcefully his changed views on the matter, and took the precaution of having Miss Mayberry take that telegram to the main office instead of sending it out over the company wire; but did not know that the manager at the main office took also a precaution; he carried it first to Mr. Boland's back door. Now Mr. Boland's idea of autocracy did not extend to holding up interstate communications, but he took account of what this message said, and just as his strategy demanded that instant steps be taken to make that message futile, so his organization policy required immediate punishment for the traitor who had sent it. For days, as the treachery itself had begun to take head and rise, the form of that punishment had been preparing. The plan was ready and the Boland power was always mobilized. The short sharp order went forth to Scanlon. "Thumbs down," it said, "definitely and finally and smashingly down—
