Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/428

  Then Mrs. Murray proceeded to deal with the company's contentions, going at once with swift intuition to the heart of the matter. "You were speaking of honor a moment ago, Colonel. There is such a thing in business?"

"Certainly, that's why I put that young man where he is."

"That means that the company expect him to deal fairly by them."

"That's about it."

"And being a man of honor, I suppose he will also deal fairly by the men and by himself."

"I guess so," said the colonel.

"I don't pretend to understand the questions fully, but from Ranald's letters I have gathered that he did not consider that justice was being done either to the men or to the company. For instance, in the matter of stores—I may be wrong in this, you will correct me, Colonel—I understand it was the custom to charge the men in the camps for the articles they needed prices three or four times what was fair."

"Well," said the colonel, "I guess things were a little high, but that's the way every company does."

"And then I understand that the men were so poorly housed and fed and so poorly paid that only those of the inferior class could be secured."

"Well, I guess they weren't very high-class," said the colonel, "that's right enough."

"But, Colonel, if you secure a better class of men, and you treat them in a fair and honorable way with