But Mr. Brotherton of the Brotherton Book & Stationery Company held aloof from the Merchants’ Protective Association. Mr. Brotherton at odd times, at first by way of diversion, and then as a matter of education for his growing business, had been glancing at the contents of his wares. Particularly had he been interested in the magazines. Moreover, he was talking. And because it helped him to sell goods to talk about them, he kept on talking.

About this time he affected flowing negligee bow ties, and let his thin, light hair go fluffy and he wrapped rather casually it seemed, about his elephantine bulk, a variety of loose, baggy garb, which looked like a circus tent. But he was a born salesman–was Mr. Brotherton. He plastered literature over Harvey in carload lots.

One day while Mr. Brotherton was wrapping up “Little Women” and a “Little Colonel” book and “Children of the Abbey” that Dr. Nesbit was buying for Lila Van Dorn, the Doctor piped, “Well, George, they say you’re getting to be a regular anarchist–the way you’re talking about conditions in the Valley?”

“Not for a minute,” answered Mr. Brotherton. “Why, man, all I said was that if the old spider kept making the men use that cheap powder that blows their eyes out and their hands off, and their legs off, they ought to unionize and strike. And if it was my job to handle that powder I’d tie the old devil on a blast and blow him into hamburger.” Mr. Brotherton’s rising emotions reddened his forehead under his thin hair, and pulled at his wind. He shook a weary head and leaned on a show case. “But I say, stand by the boys. Maybe it will make a year of bad times or maybe two; but what of that? It’ll make better times in the end.”

The Doctor put his head to one side, cocked one eye and cried: “How would that go?”

“Now you’re shoutin’, Doc. Bust a machine, and the company pays for it. Bust a man, the man pays for it or his wife and children or his friends or the county. That’s not fair. A man’s as much of a part of the cost of production as a machine!”

The Doctor toddled out, clicking his cane and whistling a merry tune and left Mr. Brotherton enjoying his maiden meditations upon the injustices of this world. In the midst of his meditations he found that he had been listening for five minutes to Captain Morton. The Captain was expounding some passing dream about his Household Horse. Apparently the motor car, which was multiplying rapidly in Harvey, had impressed him. He was telling Mr. Brotherton that his Household Horse, if harnessed to the motor car, would save much of the power wasted by the chains. He was dreaming of the distant day when motor cars would be used in sufficient numbers to make it profitable for the Captain to equip them with his power saving device.

But Mr. Brotherton cut into the Captain’s musings with: “You tell the girls to wash the cat for I’m coming out to-night.”

“Girls?–huh–girls?” replied the Captain as he looked over his spectacles at Mr. Brotherton. “’Y gory, man, what’s the matter with me–eh? I’m staying out there on Elm Street yet–what say?” And he went out smiling.

When the Captain entered the house, he found Emma getting supper, Martha setting the table and Ruth, with a candy box before her at the piano, going over her everlasting “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ahs” from “C to C” as Emma called it.

Emma took her father’s hat, put it away and said: “Well, father–what’s the news?”

“Well,” replied the Captain, with some show of deliberation, “a friend of mine down town told me to tell you girls to wash the cat for he’ll be along here about eight o’clock.”

“Well,” sighed Emma, “I don’t know that I want him even if he has on his Shriner’s pin. I just believe I’ll go to bed. The way I feel to-night I’m so sick of children I believe I wouldn’t marry the best man on earth.”

“Oh, well, of course, Emma,” suggested the handsome Miss Morton, “if you feel that way about it why, I–”

“Now Martha–” cried the elder sister, “can’t you let me alone and get out of here? I tell you, the superintendent and the principal and the janitor and the dratted Calvin kid all broke loose to-day and I’m liable to run out doors and begin to jump and down in the street and scream if you start on me.”

But after supper the three Misses Morton went upstairs, and did what they could to wipe away the cares of a long and weary day. They put on their second best dresses–all but Emma, who put on her best, saying she had nothing else that wasn’t full of chalk and worry. At seven forty-five, they had the parlor illuminated. As for the pictures and bric-a-brac–to-wit, a hammered brass flower pot near the grate, and sitting on an onyx stand a picture of Richard Harding Davis, the contribution of the eldest Miss Morton’s callow youth, also a brass smoking set on a mission table, the contribution of the youngest Miss Morton from her first choir money–as for the pictures and bric-a-brac, they were dusted until they glistened, and the trap was all set, waiting for the prey.

They heard the gate click and the youngest Miss Morton said quickly: “Well, if he’s an Odd Fellow, I guess I’ll take him. But,” she sighed, “I’ll bet a cooky he’s an Elk and Martha gets him.”

The Captain went to the door and brought in the victim to as sweet and demure a trio of surprised young women and as patient a cat, as ever sat beside a rat hole. After he had greeted the girls–it was Ruth who took his coat, and Martha his hat, but Emma who held his hand a second the longest, after she spied the Shriner’s pin–Mr. Brotherton picked up the cat.

This was Mr. Brotherton’s standard joke. Ruth said she never felt the meeting was really opened until he had teased them about Epaminondas’ pretended kittens.

For the first hour the talk ranged with obvious punctility over a variety of subjects–but never once did Mr. Brotherton approach the subject of politics, which would hold the Captain for a night session. Instead, Mr. Brotherton spun literary tales from the shop. Then the Captain broke in and enlivened the company with a description of Tom Van Dorn’s new automobile, and went into such details as to cams and cogs and levers and other mechanical fittings that every one yawned and the cat stretched himself, and the Captain incidentally told the company that he had got Van Dorn’s permission to try the Household Horse on the old machine before it went in on the trade.

Then Ruth rose. “Why, Ruth, dear,” said Emma sweetly, “where are you going?”

“Just to get a drink, dear,” replied Ruth.

“I suppose there’ll be plenty of potatoes for the hash?”

And not waiting for answer, he marched to the kitchen with the cat, and in due time, they heard the “Sweet Bye and Bye” going up the back stairs, and then the thump, thump of the Captain’s shoes on the floor above them.

The eldest Miss Morton, in her best silk dress, with her mother’s cameo brooch at her throat, and with the full, maidenly ripeness of twenty-nine years upon her brow, with her hair demurely parted on said brow, where there was the faintest hint of a wrinkle coming–which Miss Morton attributed to a person she called “the dratted Calvin kid,”–the eldest Miss Morton, hair, cameo, silk dress, wrinkle, the dratted Calvin kid and all, did or did not look like a siren, according to the point of view of the spectator. If he was seeking the voluptuous curves of the early spring of youth–no: but if he was seeking those quieter and more restful lines that follow a maiden with a true and tender heart, who is a good cook and who sweeps under the sofa, yes.

“You know, George,” she was old enough for that, and at rare times when they were alone she called him George, “I’m working up a kind of sorrow for Judge Van Dorn–or pity or something. When I taught little Lila he was always sending her candy and little trinkets. Now Lila is in the grade above me, and do you know the Judge has taken to walking by the schoolhouse at recess, just to see her, and walking along at noon and at night to get a word with her. He has put up a swing and a teeter-totter board on the girls’ playgrounds. This morning I saw him standing, gazing after her, and he was as sad a figure as I ever saw. He caught me looking at him and smiled and said:

“‘Fine girl, Emma,’ and walked away.”

“Lord, Emma,” said Mr. Brotherton, as he brought his big, baseball hands down on his fat knees. “I don’t blame him. Don’t you just think children are about the nicest things in this world?”

Emma was silent. She had expressed other sentiments too recently. Still she smiled. And he went on:

“Oh, wow!–they’re mighty fine to have around.”

But Mr. Brotherton was restless after that, and when the clock was striking ten he was in the hall. He left as he had gone for a dozen years. And the young woman stood watching him through the glass of the door, a big, strong, handsome man–who strode down the walk with clicking heels of pride, and she turned away sadly and hurried upstairs.

“Martha,” she asked, as she took down her hair, “was it ordained in the beginning of the world that all school teachers would have to take widowers?”

And without hearing the answer, she put out the light.

Mr. Brotherton, stalking–not altogether unconsciously down the walk, turned into the street and as he went down the hill, he was aware that a boy was overtaking him. He let the boy catch up with him. “Oh, Mr. Brotherton,” cried the boy, “I’ve been looking for you!”

“Well, here I am; what’s the trouble?”

Brotherton looked the boy over and exclaimed:

“Grant?” and then, “Oh–why, Kenyon, I didn’t know you. You are certainly that human bean-stalk, son. Let’s take a look at you. Well, say–” Mr. Brotherton stopped and backed up and paused for dramatic effect. Then he exploded: “Say, boy, if I had you in an olive wood frame, I could get $2.75 or $3.00 for you as Narcissus or a boy Adonis! You surely are the angel child!”

The boy’s great black eyes shone up at the man with something wistful and dream-like in them that only his large, sensitive mouth seemed to comprehend. For the rest of the child’s face was boy–boy in early adolescence. The boy answered simply:

“Grant said to tell you that he expects the break to-morrow and is anxious to see you.”

Mr. Brotherton looked at the boy again–the eyes haunted the man–he could not place them, yet they were familiar to him.

“Where you been, kid?” he asked. “I thought you were in Boston, studying.”

“It’s vacation, sir,” answered Kenyon.

Brotherton pulled the lad up under the next corner electric lamp and again gazed at him. Then Mr. Brotherton remembered where he had seen the eyes. The second Mrs. Van Dorn had them. This bothered the man.

The eyes of the boy that flashed so brightly into Mr. Brotherton’s eyes, certainly puzzled him and startled him. But not so much as the news the boy carried. For then Mr. Brotherton knew that Market Street would be buzzing in the morning and that the cyclone clouds that were lowering, soon would break into storm.

The next morning at eight o’clock, Grant Adams came hurrying into Brotherton’s store. As he strode down the long store room, Brotherton thought that Grant in his street clothes looked less of a person than Grant in his overalls. But the big man rose like a frisky mountain in earthquake and called:

“Hello there, Danton–going to shake down the furnace fires of revolution this morning, I understand.”

Grant stared at Brotherton. Solemnly he said, as he stood an awkward moment before sitting. “Well, Mr. Brotherton, the time has come, when I must fight. To-day is the day!”

“Yes,” replied Brotherton, “I heard a few minutes ago that they were going to run you out of the district to-day. The meeting in the Commercial Club rooms is being called now.”

“Yes,” said Grant, “and I’ve been asked to appear before them.”

“I guess they are going to try and bluff you out, Grant,” said Brotherton.

“Soh, boss–soh, boss–don’t get excited,” counseled Mr. Brotherton. “They’ll blow off a little steam in the meeting this morning, and then you go on about your business.”

“But you don’t know what I know, George Brotherton,” protested Grant as he leaned forward. “I have converted enough spies–oh, no–not counting the spies who were converted merely to scare me–but enough real spies to know that they mean business!” He stopped, and sitting back in his chair again, he said grimly, “And so do I–I shall talk to the men to-night, or–”

“All right, son; you’ll talk or ‘the boy, oh, where was he?’ I’ll tell you what,” cried Mr. Brotherton; “you’ll fool around with the buzz saw till you’ll get killed. Now, look here, Grant–I’m for your revolution, and six buckets of blood. But you can’t afford to lose ’em! You’re dead right about the chains of slavery and all that sort of thing, but don’t get too excited about it. You live down there alone with your father and he is talking to spooks, and you’re talking to yourself; and you’ve got a kind of ingrown idea of this thing. Give the Lord a little time, and he’ll work out this pizen in our social system. I’ll help you, and maybe before long Doc’ll see the light and help you; but now you need a regulator. You ought to have a wife and about six children to hook you up to the ordinary course of nature! And see here, Grant,” Mr. Brotherton dropped a weighty hand on Grant’s shoulder, “if you don’t be careful you’ll furnish the ingredients of a public funeral, and where will your revolution be then–and the boys in the Valley and your father and Kenyon?”

While Brotherton was speaking, Grant sat with an impassive face. But when Kenyon’s name was uttered he looked up quickly and answered:

“Well–say!” It came out of Mr. Brotherton with a crash like a falling tree, “Grant–well, say! Through sickness and health, for better or for worse, till death do us part–if that will satisfy you.” He put his big paw over and grabbed Grant’s steel hook and jerked him to his feet. “You’ve sure sold Kenyon into bondage. When I saw him last night–honest to God, man–I thought I’d run into a picture roaming around out of stock without a frame! Him and me together can do Ariel and Prospero without a scratch of make-up.” Grant beamed, but when Brotherton exclaimed as an afterthought, “Say, man, what about that boy’s eyes?” Grant’s features mantled and the old grim look overcast his face, as Brotherton went on: “Why, them eyes would make a madonna’s look like fried eggs! Where did he get ’em–they’re not Sands and they’re not Adams. He must take back to some Peri that blew into Massachusetts from an enchanted isle.” Brotherton saw that he was annoying Grant in some way. Often he realized that his language was not producing the desired effect; so he veered about and said gently, “You’re not in any danger, Grant; but so long as I’m wearing clothes that button up the front–don’t worry about Kenyon, I’ll look after him.”

As he sat blindly glaring at the floor, there may have stolen into his being some ember from the strange flame burning about our earth, whose touch makes men mad with the madness that men have, who come from the wildernesses of life, from the lowly walks and waste places–the madness of those who feed on locusts and wild honey; who, like St. Francis and Savonarola, go forth on hopeless quests for the unattainable ideal, or like John Brown, who burn in the scorching flame all the wisdom of the schools and the courts, and for one glorious day shine forth with their burning lives a beacon by which the world is lighted to its own sad shame.

Grant never remembered what he said by way of introduction as he stood staring at the crowd. It was a different crowd from audiences he knew. To Grant it was the market place; merchants, professional men; clerks, bankers,–well-dressed men, with pale, upturned faces stretched before him to the rear of the hall. It was all black and white, and as his soul cried “life and death” back of his conscious speech, the image came to him that all these pale, black-clad figures were in their shrouds, and that he was talking to the visible body of death–laid out stiffly before him.

What answer he made to Van Dorn does not matter. Grant Adams could not recall it when he had finished. But ever as he spoke through his being throbbed the electrical beat of the words, “I am the resurrection and the life.” And he was exultant in the consciousness that in the struggle of “life and death,” life would surely win. So he stood and spoke with a tongue of flame.

After the crowd had left the hall, Grant hurried toward the street leading to South Harvey. As he turned the corner, the man whom Grant had seen in the hall met him, the man whom Grant recognized as a puddler in one of the smelters. He came up, touched Grant on the shoulder and asked:

“Adams?” Grant nodded.

“Are you going down to South Harvey?”

Grant replied, “Yes, I’m going to hold a meeting there to-night.”

“Well, if you try,” said the man, pushing his face close to Grant’s, “you’ll get your head knocked off–that’s all. We don’t like your kind–understand?” Grant looked at the man, took his measure physically and returned:

“All right, there’ll be some one around to pick it up–maybe!”

The man walked away, but turned to say:

“Mind now–you show up in South Harvey, and we’ll fix you right!”

As Grant turned to board a South Harvey car, Judge Van Dorn caught his arm, and said:

“Wait a minute, the next car will do.”

The Judge’s wife was with him, and Grant was shocked to see how doll-like her face had become, how the lines of character had been smoothed out, the eyelids stained, the eyebrows penciled, the lips colored, until she had a bisque look that made him shudder. He had seen faces like hers, and fancied that he knew their story.

“I would like to speak with you just a minute. Come up to the office. Margaret, dearie,” said Van Dorn, “you wait for me at Brotherton’s.” In the office, Van Dorn squared himself before Grant and said:

Grant looked at Van Dorn. Then he asked:

“You represent the Harvey Fuel Company, Judge?”

“Yes,” replied the Judge with much pride of authority, “and we–”

Grant stopped him. “Judge,” he said, “if you blow your horn–I’ll ring my bell and–If I don’t hold my meeting to-night, your mines won’t open to-morrow morning.” The Judge rose and led the way to the door.

“Oh, well,” he sneered, “if you won’t take advice, there’s no need of wasting time on you.”

“No,” answered Grant, “only remember what I’ve said.”

When Grant alighted from the car in South Harvey, he found his puddler friend waiting for him. The two went into the Vanderbilt House, where Grant greeted Mrs. Williams, the landlady, as an old friend, and the puddler cried: “Say, lady–if you keep this man–we’ll burn your house.”

“Well, burn it–it wouldn’t be much loss,” retorted the landlady, who turned her back upon the puddler and said to Grant: “We’ve given you the front room upstairs, Grant, for the committee. It has the outside staircase. Your room is ready. You know the Local No. 10 boys from the Independent are all coming around this afternoon–as soon as they learn where the meeting is.”

The puddler walked away and Grant went out into the street; looked up at the wooden structure with the stairway rising from the sidewalk and splitting the house in two. Mounting the stairs, he found a narrow hall, leading down a long line of bedrooms. He realized that he must view his location as a general looks over a battlefield.

Up town in Harvey, the ants also were busy. The company was sending men over Market Street, picking out the few individuals who owned vacant lots, leasing them for the month and preparing to justify the placarding and patrolling that already had been done. One of the ants that went hurrying out of the Sands hill on this errand, was John Kollander, and after he had seen Wright & Perry and the few other merchants who owned South Harvey real estate, he encountered Captain Ezra Morton, who happened to have a vacant lot, given to the Captain in the first flush of the South Harvey boom, in return for some service to Daniel Sands. John Kollander explained his errand to the Captain, who nodded wisely, and stroked his goatee meditatively.

“I got to think it over,” he bawled, and walked away, leaving John Kollander puzzled and dismayed. But Captain Morton spent no time in academic debate. In half an hour he was in South Harvey, climbing the stairs of the Vanderbilt House, and knocking at Grant Adams’s door. Throwing open the door Grant found Captain Morton, standing to attention with a shotgun in his hands. The Captain marched in, turned a square corner to a chair, but slumped into it with a relieved sigh.

“But ’y gory–is that the way to do a man, I says? No–why, that ain’t free speech! I remember when they done Garrison and Lovejoy and those old boys that way before the war. I fit, bled and died for that, Grant–eh? And I says to the girls this noon: ‘Girls–your pa’s got a lot in South Harvey, over there next to the Red Dog saloon, that he got way back when they were cheap, and now that the company’s got all their buildings up and don’t want to buy any lots–why, they’re cheaper still–what say?’

“And ’y gory, I says to the girls–‘If your ma was living I know what she’d say. She’d say, “You just go over there and tell that Adams boy that lot’s hisn, and if any one tries to molest him, you blow ’em to hell”–that’s what your ma’d say’–only words to that effect–eh? And so by the jumping John Rogers, Grant–here I am!”

He looked at the shotgun. “One load’s bird shot–real fine and soft, with a small charge of powder.” He put his hand to his mouth sheepishly and added apologetically, “I suppose I won’t need it,–but I just put the blamedest load of buck shot and powder in that right barrel you ever saw–what say?”

Grant said: “Well, Captain–this isn’t your fight. You don’t believe in what I’m talking about–you’ve proved your patriotism in a great war. Don’t get into this, Captain.”

“Grant Adams,” barked the Captain as if he were drilling his company, “I believe if you’re not a Socialist, you’re just as bad. But ’y gory, I fought for the right of free speech, and free meetings, and Socialist or no Socialist, that’s your right. I’m going to defend you on my own lot.” He rose again, straightened up in rheumatic pain, marched to the door, saluted, and said:

And with that he thumped limpingly down the narrow stairs, across the little landing, out of the door and into the street.

Grant stood at the top of the stairs and watched him out of sight. Then Grant pulled himself together, and went out to see the gathering members of the Labor Council in the hotel office and the men of Local No. 10 to announce the place of meeting. Later in the afternoon he met Nathan Perry. When he told Nathan of the meeting, the young man cried in his rasping Yankee voice:

“Good–you’re no piker. They said they had scared the filling out of you at the meeting this morning, and they’ve bragged they were going to beat you up this afternoon and kill you to-night. You look pretty husky–but watch out. They really are greatly excited.”

“Well,” replied Grant grimly, “I’ll be there to-night.”

“Nevertheless,” returned Nathan, snapping off his words as though he was cutting them with steel scissors, “Anne and I agreed to-day, that I must come to Mrs. Williams’s and take you to the meeting. They may get ugly after dark.”

Half an hour later on the street, Grant was passing his cousin Anne, wheeling Daniel Kyle Perry out to take the air. He checked his hurried step when he caught her smile and said, “Well, Anne, Nate told me that you wish to send him over to the meeting to-night, as my body guard. I don’t need a body guard, and you keep Nate at home.” He smiled down on his cousin and for a moment all of the emotional storm in his face was melted by the gentleness of that smile. “Anne,” he said–“what a brick you are!”

She laughed and gave him the full voltage of her joyous eyes and answered:

Grant shook his head. “Well, what did you say?” he asked.

“Oh, I said that while they were doing such perfectly awful things to you, your friends wouldn’t be making lace doilies! And she rang off. What do you think of it?” she asked.

“Just throwing a scare into me–under orders,” responded the man and hurried on.

When Grant returned to the hotel at supper time, he found Mr. Brotherton sitting in a ramshackle rocking chair in the upstairs bedroom, waiting.

“I thought I’d come over and bring a couple of friends,” explained Mr. Brotherton, pointing to the corner, where two shotguns leaned against the wall.

“Why, man,” exclaimed Grant, “that’s good of you, but in all the time I’ve been in the work of organization, I’ve never carried a gun, nor had one around. I don’t want a gun, Mr. Brotherton.”

“I do,” returned the elder man, “and I’m here to say that moral force is a grand thing, but in these latitudes when you poke Betsy Jane under the nose of an erring comrade, he sees the truth with much more clearness than otherwise. I stick to the gun–and you can go in hard for moral suasion.

“Also,” he added, “I’ve just taken a survey of these premises, and told the missus to bring the supper up here. There may be an early curtain raiser on this entertainment, and if they are going to chase you out of town to-night, I want a good seat at the performance.” He grinned. “Nate Perry will join us in a little quiet social manslaughter. I called him up an hour ago, and he said he’d be here at six-thirty. I think he’s coming now.” In another minute the slim Yankee figure of Nathan was in the room. It was scarcely dusk outside. Mrs. Williams came up with a tray of food. As she set it down she said:

“There’s a crowd around at the Hot Dog, you can see them through the window.”

“There’s another saloon across the road here,” said Mr. Brotherton, looking up from his food. “My understanding is that they’re going to make headquarters across the street in Dick’s Place. You know I got a pipe-line in on the enemy through the Calvin girl. She gets it at home, and her father gets it at the office. Our estimable natty little friend Joe will be down here–he says to keep the peace. That’s what he tells at home. I know what he’s coming for. Tom Van Dorn will sit in the back room of that saloon and no one will know he’s there, and Joseph will issue Tom’s orders. Lord,” cried Mr. Brotherton, waving a triangle of pie in his hand, “don’t I know ’em like a book.”

While he was talking the crowd slowly was swelling in front of the Hot Dog saloon. It was a drinking and noisy crowd. Men who appeared to be leaders were taking other men in to the bar, treating them, then bringing them out again, and talking excitedly to them. The crowd grew rapidly, and the noise multiplied. Another crowd was gathering–just a knot of men down the street by the Company’s store, in the opposite direction from the Hot Dog crowd. Grant and Nate noticed the second crowd at the same time. It was Local No. 10. Grant left the window and lighted the lamp. He wrote on a piece of paper, a few lines, handed it to Nathan, saying:

“Here, sign it with me.” It read:

“Boys–whatever you do, don’t start anything–of any kind–no matter what happens to us. We can take care of ourselves.”

Nathan Perry signed it, slipped down the stairs into the hall, and beckoned to his men at the Company’s store. The crowd at the Hot Dog saw him and yelled, but Evan Evans came running for the note and took it back. Little Tom Williams came up the stairs with Nathan, saying:

The little landlord went into No. 3, appeared with a rifle, and came bobbing into the room.

Grant at the window could see the crowd marching from the Hot Dog to Dick’s Place, yelling and cursing as it went. The group in the bedroom over the street opened the street windows to see better and hear better. An incandescent over the door of the saloon lighted the narrow street. In front of the saloon and under the light the mob halted. The men in the room with Grant were at the windows watching. Suddenly–as by some prearranged order, four men with revolvers in their hands ran across the street towards the hotel. Brotherton, Williams and Perry ran to the head of the stairs, guns in hand. Grant followed them. There they stood when the door below was thrown open, and the four men below rushed across the small landing to the bottom of the stairs. It was dark in the upper hall, but a light from the street flooded the lower hall. The men below did not look up; they were on the stairs.

“Stop,” shouted Brotherton with his great voice.

That halted them. They looked up into darkness. They could see no faces–only four gun barrels. The men farthest up the stairs literally fell into the arms of those below. Then the four men below scrambled down the stairs as Mr. Brotherton roared:

“I’ll kill the first man who puts his foot on the bottom step again.”

With a cry of terror they rushed out. The crowd at the Company store hooted, and the mob before the saloon jeered. But the four men scurried across the street, and told the crowd what had happened. For a few minutes no move was made. Then Grant, who had left the hallway and was looking through the window, saw the little figure of Joseph Calvin moving officiously among the men. He went into the saloon, and came out again after a time. Then Grant cried to Brotherton at the head of the stairs:

“Watch out–they’re coming; more of them this time.” And half a dozen armed men rushed across the street and appeared at the door of the hallway.

The crowd left the sidewalk and moved into the saloon, and the street was deserted for a time. Local No. 10 held its post down by the Company Store. It seemed like an age to the men at the head of the stairs. Yet Mr. Brotherton’s easy running fire of ribaldry never stopped. He was excited and language came from his throat without restraint.

Then Grant’s quick ear caught a sound that made him shudder. It was far away, a shrill high note; in a few seconds the note was repeated, and with it the animal cry one never mistakes who hears it–the cry of an angry mob. They could hear it roaring over the bridge upon the Wahoo and they knew it was the mob from Magnus, Plain Valley and Foley coming. On it came, with its high-keyed horror growing louder and louder. It turned into the street and came roaring and whining down to the meeting place at the saloon. It filled the street. Then appeared Mr. Calvin following a saloon porter, who was rolling a whiskey barrel from the saloon. The porter knocked in the head, and threw tin cups to the crowd.

“What do you think of that for a praying Christian?” snarled Mr. Brotherton. No one answered Mr. Brotherton, for the whiskey soon began to make the crowd noisy. But the leaders waited for the whiskey to make the crowd brave. The next moment, Van Dorn’s automobile–the old one, not the new one–came chugging up. Grant, at the window, looked out and turned deathly sick. For he saw the puddler who had bullied him during the day get out of the car, and in the puddler’s grasp was Kenyon–with white face, but not whimpering.

The men made way for the puddler, who hurried the boy into the saloon. Grant did not speak, but stood unnerved and horror-stricken staring at the saloon door which had swallowed up the boy.

“Well, for God–” cried Brotherton.

The little Welshman moaned. And the three men stood staring at Grant whose eyes did not shift from the saloon door. He was rigid and his face, which trembled for a moment, set like molten bronze.

“If I surrender now, if they beat me here with anything less than my death, the whole work of years is gone–the long struggle of these men for their rights.” He spoke not to his companions, but through them to himself. “I can’t give up–not even for Kenyon,” he cried. “Tom–Tom,” Grant turned to the little Welshman. “You stood by and heard Dick Bowman order Mugs to hold the shovel over my face! Did he shrink? Well, this cause is the life and death struggle of all the Dicks in the Valley–not for just this week, but for always.”

Below the crowd was hushed. Joe Calvin had appeared and was giving orders in a low tone. The hulking figure of the puddler could be seen picking out his men; he had three set off in a squad. The men in the room could see the big beads of sweat stand out on Grant’s forehead. “Kenyon–Kenyon,” he cried in agony. Then George Brotherton let out his bellow, “Grant–look here–do you think I’m going to fire on–”

But the next minute the group at the window saw something that made even George Brotherton’s bull voice stop. Into the drab street below flashed something all red. It was the Van Dorn motor car, the new one. But the red of the car was subdued beside the scarlet of the woman in the back seat–a woman without hat or coat, holding something in her arms. The men at the window could not see what those saw in the street; but they could see Joe Calvin fall back; could see the consternation on his face, could see him waving his hands to the crowd to clear the way. And then those at the window above saw Margaret Van Dorn rise in the car and they heard her call, “Joe Calvin! Joe Calvin–” she screamed, “bring my husband out from behind that wine room door–quick–quick,” she shrieked, “quick, I say.”

“You she devil, what do you–”

But he stopped without finishing his sentence. The men above looked down at what he was looking at and saw a child–Tom Van Dorn’s child, Lila, in the car.

“My God, Margaret–what does this mean?” he almost whispered in terror.

“It means,” returned the strident voice of the woman, “that when you sent for your car and the driver told me he was going to Adamses–I knew why–from what you said, and now, by God,” she screamed, “give me that boy–or this girl goes to the union men as their shield.”

Van Dorn did not speak. His mouth seemed about to begin, but she stopped him, crying:

“And if you touch her I’ll kill you both. And the child goes first.”

The woman had lost control of her voice. She swung a pistol toward the child.

“Give me that boy!” she shrieked, and Van Dorn, dumb and amazed, stood staring at her. “Tell them to bring that boy before I count five: One, two,” she shouted, “three–”

“Oh, Joe,” called Van Dorn as his whole body began to tremble, “bring the Adams boy quick–here!” His voice broke into a shriek with nervous agitation and the word “here” was uttered with a piercing yell, that made the crowd wince.

Calvin brought Kenyon out and sent him across the street. Grant opened a window and called out: “Get into the car with Lila, Kenyon–please.”

The woman in the car cried: “Grant, Grant, is that you up there? They were going to murder the boy, Grant. Do you want his child up there?”

Van Dorn started for her car, but Brotherton at the window bellowed across a gun sight: “Move an inch and I’ll shoot.”

Grant called down: “Margaret, take Lila and Kenyon home, please.”

Then, with Mr. Brotherton’s gun covering the father in the street below, the driver of the car turned it carefully through the parting crowd, and was gone as mysteriously and as quickly as he came.

“Now,” cried Mr. Brotherton, still sighting down the gun barrel pointed at Van Dorn, standing alone in the middle of the street, “you make tracks, and don’t you go to that saloon either–you go home to the bosom of your family. Stop,” roared Mr. Brotherton, as the man tried to break into a run. Van Dorn stopped. “Go down to the Company store where the union men are,” commanded Mr. Brotherton. “They will take you home.

“Hey–you Local No. 10,” howled the great bull voice of Brotherton. “You fellows take this man home to his own vine and fig tree.”

Van Dorn, looking ever behind him for help that did not come, edged down the street and into the arms of Local No. 10, and was swallowed up in that crowd. A rock from across the street crashed through the window where the gun barrels were protruding, but there was no fire in return. Another rock and another came. But there was no firing.

Grant, who knew something of mobs, felt instinctively that the trouble was over. Nathan and Brotherton agreed. They stood for a time–a long time it seemed to them–guarding the stairs. Then some one struck a match and looked at his watch. It was half past eight. It was too late for Grant to hold his meeting. But he felt strongly that the exit of Van Dorn had left the crowd without a leader and that the fight of the night was won.

He stepped to an iron balcony outside the window and putting his hands to his mouth uttered a long horn-like blast. The men saw him across the street. “Come over here, all of you–” he called. “I want to talk to you–just a minute.”

The crowd moved, first one or two, then three or four, then by tens. Soon the crowd stood below looking up half curiously–half angrily.

“You see, men,” he smiled as he shoved his hand in his pocket, and put his head humorously on one side:

“We are more hospitable when you all come than when you send your delegations. It’s more democratic this way–just to kind of meet out here like a big family and talk it over. Some way,” he laughed, “your delegates were in a hurry to go back and report. Well, now, that was right. That is true representative government. You sent ’em, they came; were satisfied and went back and told you all about it.” The crowd laughed. He knew when they laughed that he could talk on. “But you see, I believe in democratic government. I want you all to come and talk this matter over–not just a few.”

He paused; then began again: “Now, men, it’s late. I’ve got so much to say I don’t want to begin now. I don’t like to have Tom Van Dorn and Joe Calvin divide time with me. I want the whole evening to myself. And,” he leaned over clicking his iron claw on the balcony railing while his jaw showed the play of muscles in the light from below, “what’s more I’m going to have it, if it takes all summer. Now then,” he cried: “The Labor Council of the Wahoo Valley will hold its meeting to-morrow night at seven-thirty sharp on Captain Morton’s vacant lot just the other side of the Hot Dog saloon. I’ll talk to that meeting. I want you to come to that meeting and hear what we have to say about what we are trying to do.”

When Grant had relieved him and told him that the trouble was over, the little old man looked up with his snappy eyes and his dried, weazened smile and said: “’Y gory, man–I’m glad you come. I was just a-thinking I bet them girls of mine haven’t cooked any potatoes to go with the meat to make hash for breakfast–eh? and I’m strong for hash.”

George Brotherton took the Captain to the street car that night. They rode face to face and all that the Captain had seen and more, outside the Vanderbilt House, and all that George Brotherton had seen within its portals, a street car load of Harvey people heard with much “’Y gorying” and “Well–saying,” as the car rattled through the fields and into Market Street. Amiable satisfaction with the night’s work beamed in the moon-face of Mr. Brotherton and the Captain was drunk with martial spirit. He shouldered his gun and marched down the full length of the car and off, dragging Brotherton at his chariot wheels like a spoil of battle.

“Come on, George,” called the Captain as the audience in the car smiled. “Young man, I need you to tell the girls that their pa ain’t gone stark, staring mad–eh? And I want to show ’em a hero!–What say? A genuine hee-ro!”

It was half an hour after the Captain bursting upon his hearthstone like a martial sky rocket, had exploded the last of his blue and green candles. The three girls, sitting around the cold base burner, beside and above which Mr. Brotherton stood in statuesque repose, heard the Captain’s tale and the protests of Mr. Brotherton much as Desdemona heard of Othello’s perils. And when the story was finished and retold and refinished and the Captain was rising with what the girls called the hash-look in his snappy little eyes, Martha saw Ruth swallow a vast yawn and Martha turned to Emma an appreciative smile at Ruth’s discomfiture.

But Emma’s eyes were fixed upon Mr. Brotherton and her face turned toward him with an aspect of tender adoration. Mr. Brotherton, who was not without appreciation of his own heroic caste, saw the yawn and the smile and then he saw the face of Emma Morton.

As he saw her standing among her sisters, his heart hid from him the little school teacher with crow’s feet at her eyes, but revealed instead the glowing heart of an exalted woman, who did not realize that she was uncovering her love, a woman who in the story she had heard was living for a moment in high romance. Her beloved, imperiled, was restored to her; the lost was found and the journey which ends so happily in lovers’ meetings was closing.

His eyes filled and his voice needed a cough to prime it. The fire, glowing in Emma Morton’s eyes, steamed up George Brotherton’s will–the will which had sent him crashing forward in life from a train peddler to a purveyor of literature and the arts in Harvey. Deeds followed impulses with him swiftly, so in an instant the floor of the Morton cottage was shaking under his tread and with rash indifference, high and heroic, ignoring with equal disdain two tittering girls, an astonished little old man and a cold base burner, the big man stalked across the room and cried:

“Well, say–why, Emma–my dear!” He had her hands in his and was putting his arm about her as he bellowed: “Girls–” his voice broke under its heavy emotional load. “Why, dammit all, I’m your long-lost brother George! Cap, kick me, kick me–me the prize jackass–the grand sweepstake prize all these years!”

“No, no, George,” protested the wriggling maiden. “Not–not here! Not–”

“You are going to have a wedding, aren’t you, Emma?” burst in Ruth, and George cut in:

“Wedding–why, this is to be the big show–the laughing show, all the wonders of the world and marvels of the deep under one canvas. Why, girls–”

“Well, Emma, you’ve just got to wear a veil,” laughed Martha hysterically.

“Veil nothing–shame on you, Martha Morton. Why, George hasn’t asked–”

“Now ain’t it the truth!” roared Brotherton. “Why veil! Veil?” he exclaimed. “She’s going to wear seven veils and forty flower girls–forty–count ’em–forty! And Morty Sands best man–”

“Keep still, George,” interrupted Ruth. “Now, Emma, when–when, I say, are you going to resign your school?”

Mr. Brotherton gave the youngest and most practical Miss Morton a look of quick intelligence. “Don’t you fret; Ruthie, I’m hog tied by the silken skein of love. She’s going to resign her school to-morrow.”

“Indeed I am not, George Brotherton–and if you people don’t hush–”

But Mr. Brotherton interrupted the bride-to-be, incidentally kissing her by way of punctuation, and boomed on in his poster tone, “Morty Sands best man with his gym class from South Harvey doing ground and lofty tumbling up and down the aisles in pink tights. Doc Jim in linen pants whistling the Wedding March to Kenyon Adams’s violin obligato, with the General hitting the bones at the organ! The greatest show on earth and the baby elephant in evening clothes prancing down the aisle like the behemoth of holy writ! Well, say–say, I tell you!”

“Grand Canyon!” laughed Brotherton. “Why, Cap, we’re going to go seven times around the world and twice to the moon before we turn up in Harvey. Grand Canyon–”

“Well, at least, father,” cried Martha, “we’ll get her that tan traveling dress and hat she’s always wanted.”

“But I tell you girls to keep still,” protested the bride-to-be, still in the prospective groom’s arms and proud as Punch of her position. “Why, George hasn’t even asked me and–”

“Neither have you asked me, Emma, ’’eathen idol made of mud what she called the Great God Buhd.’” He stooped over tenderly and when his face rose, he said softly, “And a plucky lot she cared for tan traveling dresses when I kissed her where she stud!” And then and there before the Morton family assembled, he kissed his sweetheart again, a middle-aged man unashamed in his joy.

It was a tremendous event in the Morton family and the Captain felt his responsibility heavily. The excited girls, half-shocked and half-amused and wholly delighted, tried to lead the Captain away and leave the lovers alone after George had hugged them all around and kissed them again for luck. But the Captain refused to be led. He had many things to say. He had to impress upon Mr. Brotherton, now that he was about to enter the family, the great fact that the Mortons were about to come into riches. Hence a dissertation on the Household Horse and its growing popularity among makers of automobiles; Nate Perry’s plans in blue print for the new factory were brought in, and a wilderness of detail spread before an ardent lover, keen for his first hour alone with the woman who had touched his bachelor heart. A hundred speeches came to his lips and dissolved–first formal and ardent love vows–while the Captain rattled on recounting familiar details of his dream.

“The hash–George, she’s the best girl–’Y gory, the best girl in the world. But she will forget to chop the hash over night!”

As George Brotherton, bumping his head upon the eternal stars, turned into the street, he saw the great black hulk of the Van Dorn house among the trees. He smiled as he wondered how the ceremonies were proceeding in the Temple of Love that night.

It was not a ceremony fit for smiles, but rather for the tears of gods and men, that the priest and priestess had performed. Margaret Van Dorn had taken Kenyon home, then dropped Lila at the Nesbit door as she returned from South Harvey. When she found that her husband had not reached home, she ran to her room to fortify herself for the meeting with him. And she found her fortifications in the farthest corner of the bottom drawer of her dresser. From its hiding place she brought forth a little black box and from the box a brown pellet. This fortification had been her refuge for over a year when the stress of life in the Temple of Love was about to overcome her. It gave her courage, quickened her wits and loosened her tongue. Always she retired to her fortress when the combat in the Temple threatened to strain her nerves. So she had worn a beaten path of habit to her refuge.

Then she made herself presentable; took care of her hair, smoothed her face at the mirror and behind the shield of the drug she waited. She heard the old car rattling up the street, and braced herself for the struggle. She knew–she had learned by bitter experience that the first blow in a rough and tumble was half the battle. As he came raging through the door, slamming it behind him, she faced him, and before he could speak, she sneered:

“Ah, you coward–you sneaking, cur coward–who would murder a child to win–Ach!” she cried. “You are loathsome–get away from me!”

The furious man rushed toward her with his hands clinched. She stood with her arms akimbo and said slowly:

“You try that–just try that.”

“You are a coward–aren’t you?”

She put her fingers under his jaw, and sneered, “If ever you lay hands on me–just one finger on me, Tom Van Dorn–” She did not finish her sentence.

The man uttered a shrill, insane cry of fury and whirled and would have run, but she caught him, and with a gross physical power, that he knew and dreaded, she swung him by force into a chair.

“Now,” she panted, “sit down like a man and tell me what you are going to do about it? Look up–dawling!” she cried, as Van Dorn slumped in the chair.

The man gave her a look of hate. His eyes, that showed his soul, burned with rage and from his face, so mobile and expressive, a devil of malice gaped impotently at his wife, as he sat, a heap of weak vanity, before her. He pulled himself up and exclaimed:

“Well, there’s one thing damn sure, I’ll not live with you any more–no man would respect me if I did after to-night.”

“And no man,” she smiled and said in her mocking voice, “will respect you if you leave me. How Laura’s friends will laugh when you go, and say that Tom Van Dorn simply can’t live with any one. How the Nesbit crowd will titter when you leave me, and say Tom Van Dorn got just what he had coming! Why–go on–leave me–if you dare! You know you don’t dare to. It’s for better or worse, Tom, until death do us part–dawling!”

She laughed and winked indecently at him.