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Updated: May 3, 2025
Atkinson swung fully about to stare at the new chief. Then he went on, "They'd quit to a man if made to do a man's work; I supposed that Magney had told you that. A dozen times I've been ready to throw up my job from self-respect; I'm ashamed to boss work where men can loaf and I must keep my tongue between my teeth. I was considering just now the matter of leaving." "No need, Atkinson.
From this time these men will work or get their dismissal." The other pushed his hat atilt and rubbed his head in surprise. "What about that 'company policy' of hiring nothing but local labor to keep the community friendly which Magney was always kicking about?" he asked. "That was what made him sorer than anything else, and beat him.
They'll not show up again, either, until you send word for them to come back and then they'll know you've surrendered. Magney tried it once, just once. And that's why you found me chewing tobacco so lamb-like and saying nothing." "Turn your gat loose," Weir said. And turning on his heel, he went back to headquarters.
He had come suddenly, unexpectedly, returning with Magney, the engineer in charge, when the latter had been summoned east for a conference with the company's directors. He had replaced Magney, who was now whirling away to the nearest railway point, Bowenville, thirty-five miles distant.
Under Magney the work of construction had been inaugurated the previous summer, but progress had not been as rapid as desired; there had been delays, labor difficulties, local opposition during the months since; and Weir had been chosen to succeed Magney.
And it was this ability to handle difficulties that had brought about the decision of the directors of the company to put him in charge, as the man best qualified, at San Mateo, where the situation was unsatisfactory, costly, baffling. Since his arrival a week before he had been consulting with Magney, studying maps and blue-prints, examining the work and analyzing general conditions.
In a dozen places, in a dozen ways, Magney, his predecessor, had been hampered, checked, defeated and the main contributing cause was poor workmen, inefficient work. On that sore Weir's skillful finger fell at once. Standing there before the low office building he watched Magney depart.
They've set out to bust this company, or tire it out till it throws up the sponge. They've spiked Magney, and they'll try to spike you next, and every manager who comes. That's plain talk I'm giving you, Mr. Weir, but it's fact; and if it doesn't sound nice to your ears, you can have my resignation any minute." "I've been hoping to hear it. From now on drive this crowd of coffee-colored loafers.
For Magney he felt a certain amount of sympathy, for the engineer was leaving with a recognition of defeat; he was a likeable man, as Steele Weir had discovered during their brief acquaintance, a good theoretical engineer, but lacking in the prime quality of a successful chief fighting spirit and an indomitable will.
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