(_The men return to the fire_)

And so I do not see just what it is You hope to gain by leaving Foreston.

You cannot spend your lives on highways, friends.

Where will you go? Have you some place in mind?

BILL PATTEN.

It's none of your d.a.m.n business where we go.

We don't wear no man's collar.

SILAS MAURY.

Bill is right.

BILL PATTEN.

Nor Egerton's, nor no man's on this earth.

HARRY EGERTON.

I beg your pardon, friends, I did not mean----

BILL PATTEN.

We're twenty-one years old and we're free men.

HARRY EGERTON.

I did not mean you had no right to go.

You have.

BILL PATTEN.

You bet we have.

SILAS MAURY.

You can't get men And want to scare us back, that's what you want, Talkin' as how the mills will shut us out.

HARRY EGERTON.

I have no wish to scare you back, my friend.

BILL PATTEN.

Then what's your proposition?

HARRY EGERTON.

I have none.

BILL PATTEN.

Come up to shake hands, eh, and say, Good-bye?

HARRY EGERTON.

I chanced upon you here.

BILL PATTEN.

'Chanced' h.e.l.l! We know.

SILAS MAURY.

If it's my rent you're after, if it's that, I think you might at least let that much go For what my boy did, findin' of the log.

HARRY EGERTON.

Friends, you misunderstand me if you think That I am here to speak for any man, Or round you up, or lift one hand to stay Your coming or your going. You are free And can do what you please.

BILL PATTEN.

You bet we can, For all your bayonets.

HARRY EGERTON.

_My_ bayonets?

BILL PATTEN.

Yes.

SILAS MAURY.

Think we don't know you, eh?

HARRY EGERTON.

I do not know, I do not know what I can say to you.

I understand just how you----

SILAS MAURY.

(_Plucks him by the sleeve and points off up the valley_)

There's your home, Off there in that big mansion on the hill.

Go there and live your life; you're none of us.