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Neither could they understand the growing disaffection among Thorpe's men. The numerical strength of the gang dwindled from nineteen down to fifteen, from fifteen to twelve. At last Thorpe voluntarily asked Philip to cut his salary in two, because he could not hold his men. On that same day the little sub-foreman and two others left him, leaving only nine men at work.
The long night passed, however, and the sun rose in Sabbath benediction, for it was Sunday, and found groups of men huddled around two wagons in silent contemplation of what the day before had brought. A more broken and disconsolate set of men than Scholar's would be hard to imagine. Flood inquired of their outfit if there was any sub-foreman, or segundo as they were generally called.
As far as possible, Misery and the sub-foreman avoided doing the work the customers paid for, and even what little they did was hurried over anyhow.
Loud voices turned him about, and he saw that Thorpe and the sub-foreman had approached a huge, heavy-shouldered man, with whom they seemed to be in serious altercation. Two or three of the workmen had drawn near, and Thorpe's voice rang out clear and vibrant. "You'll do that, Blake, or you'll shoulder your kit back home. And what goes with you goes with your clique.
However, she and the other girls were very eager to attend the round-up; and a messenger from Dan, the sub-foreman, had come in to headquarters with the announcement that the herdsmen from the combined ranches were driving down the biggest bunch of horses in a decade. "You and your party, Rhoda, can start away in the morning, bright and early," said her father at dinner that night.
If a straw boss wants to say something to the general superintendent, his message has to go through the sub-foreman, the foreman, the department head, and all the assistant superintendents, before, in the course of time, it reaches the general superintendent. Probably by that time what he wanted to talk about is already history.
When Misery was gone to repeat the same performance at some other job the sub-foreman would have a crawl round to see how the chaps were getting on: to find out if they had used up all their paint yet, or to bring them some putty so that they should not have to leave their work to go to get anything themselves: and then very often Rushton himself would come and stalk quietly about the house or stand silently behind the men, watching them as they worked.
The slackness of the work had led the management, in a good-willed attempt to provide as well as possible for the employees, to place several girls from other departments under this sub-foreman.
Thorpe's gang was hard at work when they came to the end of the rock-bed. Scarcely a man seemed to take notice when he appeared. There was one exception, a wiry, red-faced little man who raised a hand to his cap when he saw the foreman. "That's the sub-foreman," explained Thorpe. "He answers to me." The little man had given a signal, and Thorpe added, "Excuse me for a moment.
Where the girls wrapped both the heavier and the lighter materials, the allotment of these was in the hands of a sub-foreman, who, instead of being in the new position of a teacher rewarded for helping each worker to make her bonus, was in the old position of a distributor of favors.
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