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Then there are the fines imposed to secure faithful work, the per capita commission paid on the labor sent in by the engineers, the discounts on time-checks, the weekly hospital and insurance dues collected from the men. All those things amount to a good round profit on a contract like ours." "To about how much, in figures, should you say?" queried Ford, with an air of the deepest interest.
He got his start down in the valley, raising alfalfa and feeding stock, and he always hired Indians whenever he could because they spent all their time-checks at the store. A Mexican or a white man might hold out a few dollars, or spend the whole wad for booze; but Indians are barred from getting drunk and they've only got one use for money.
He had paid them union wages and treated them right but now, with their time-checks in their pockets, they looked past him in stony silence. It puzzled him somehow, leaving him vaguely uneasy; but just as the stage pulled out he found the answer to his enigma.
But hundreds kept on toward Lake Bennett, and thence by water up Windy Arm to the Atlin country, and many of them have not yet returned to claim their time-checks. The autumn waned.
As the new-comers ranged themselves uncomfortably about the wall Dan Appleton entered and greeted them with his customary breeziness. "The pay-master is busy, and Doc Gray has a surgical case," he said, "so I'll cash your time-checks. Get me the box, will you, Sis?"
These were mainly Montenegrins, Polacks, or Slavs bound for the construction camps to the westward, and they surged from side to side like cattle, requiring Tomlinson's best efforts to keep them from rushing aft. O'Neil had employed thousands of such men; in fact, many of these very fellows had cashed his time-checks and knew him by sight.
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