Jerry smiled sadly. "Yes, fine scheme for young feller--no got family!"

"That's all right," said Hal, "I'll take the job--I'll be the
check-weighman."

"Got to have committee," said Jerry--"committee go see boss."

"All right, but we'll get young fellows for that too--men who have no
families. Some of the fellows who live in the chicken-coops in
shanty-town. They won't care what happens to them."

But Jerry would not share Hal's smile. "No got sense 'nough, them
fellers. Take sense to stick together." He explained that they would
need a group of men to stand back of the committee; such a group would
have to be organised, to hold meetings in secret--it would be
practically the same thing as a union, would be so regarded by the
bosses and their spotters. And no organisation of any sort was permitted
in the camps. There had been some Serbians who had wanted to belong to a
fraternal order back in their home country, but even that had been
forbidden. If you wanted to insure your life or your health, the company
would attend to it--and get the profit from it. For that matter, you
could not even buy a post-office money-order, to send funds back to the
old country; the post-office clerk, who was at the same time a clerk in
the company-store, would sell you some sort of a store-draft.

So Hal was facing the very difficulties about which Olson had warned
him. The first of them was Jerry's fear. Yet Hal knew that Jerry was no
"coward"; if any man had a contempt for Jerry's attitude, it was because
he had never been in Jerry's place!