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74 "He's a good fellow, personally, and mighty accommodating. But he owns only a one-third interest, so what can he do against a man like Easton, who owns two-thirds and refuses to spend a nickel to keep his own property in repair?"

"Easton is n't so bad," remarked another; "but he's an old man, and weak, and Wilder makes him do anything he likes."

"Why don't the cottagers organize?" asked Jarrod.

"They are organized. The annual meeting is to be held next Saturday night," was the reply. "But they never do anything at those meetings except bewail their condition of slavery and mildly denounce Wilder and Easton."

"What we lack," said a grizzled old fellow with piercing black eyes glinting underneath shaggy brows, "is a leader; an organizer. The whole system of imposition here is a fester