been given that only members of the regiment and people having important business with its officers should be allowed within the walls; but the summons for duty had reached over eight hundred of its men while still at their places of business downtown. There was no time to go home, and the Colonel could not resist the pleas that came from without. First by threes and fours, then by dozens, scores, and finally in one uninterrupted stream, relatives and friends, followed by mere curiosity-seekers, swept past the guarded gates, until the great interior was packed, and there was no room for more. Before it was possible to form the command in the big drill-hall the guards had to clear the court, then drive all men and boys into the space thus redeemed, and post a solid section across the sally-port to hold it against further ingress. It was 3.50 when the Colonel was handed his orders, and touched the button that flashed the summons to each company commander. It was just 5.45 when he reported his command in readiness, and just 6.30 when, amidst a storm of cheers, tears, and God-speeds, through a flashing sea of white handkerchiefs he guided his startled, spirited horse, and followed by his staff and a solid column of fours, eight hundred strong, turned into the broad avenue and led the way. No exultant strain of martial music, no gayly decked bandsmen at the head of the regiment; only the hoarse throb of the drums. No nodding plumes and snowy helmets, cross-belts, trousers. This was war's array, magnificently stern, but as magnificently simple. Officers and men alike wore the drab slouch hat of the regulars in the field, and the sombre blouses of dark blue, the broad drab ammunition belt, crammed with copper cartridges, the brown equipments, haversacks, leggings, etc., all without an atom of show or tinsel. Even the popular idea of glittering bayonet and gleaming musket seemed rebuked, for the sloping Springfields were brown and businesslike as the belts and leggings. Out they strode with steady swinging step, and the heart of the great city seemed to leap to its throat, the spray of the eastward billows to its blinking eyes, for riot, insurrection, defiance to law and order, peace and security, had again burst forth, and were raging every instant nearer and nearer its very vitals. Police and sheriff had grappled or cajoled in vain, and here at last was its right arm—the hope and strength and pride of house and home, the pet regiment of the Western metropolis was being sent to check the torrent where it raged its maddest, through that mile-long reach of the Great Western yards. "Eight hundred strong with more a-coming," as the papers put it, the —th went swinging down the applauding avenue to face far more than ten times its weight in foes. No wonder women wept and waved their hands, and strong men prayed as they said God-speed and good-by.

Out to the rioters flashed the news of the muster. Trainmen, switchmen, one and all, knew the coming force. Many a time had they carried them to the summer encampments in the interior of the State. More than once within the year had they hurried them away to the scene of some mad outbreak among the mines and iron-works. The masses of the mob might hoot and jeer and cry derision and boast of the reception they would give the "dudes," the "tin soldiers"; but these railway men, schooled themselves in lessons of order and discipline, knew the stern stuff of which the regiment was really made. Already the thinking men among them had begun to edge away, leaving only an occasional crack-brained enthusiast like Farley in the crowd. Long since had the promoters of the row, such restless agitators as Steinman and Frenzal, slipped off to shelter, where neither bullet nor bayonet could reach them, but where they could dictate further violence and plan madder schemes. Over about the deserted shops, away from the mad tumult of the yards, numbers of the strikers stood in gloomy contemplation of the wreck, but taking no further part in the proceedings. Work had been suspended during the day, for such was the need of old and trusted hands in the passenger stations and on the abandoned switch-engines that other foremen besides stern old Wallace had been called away, and these were stalwarts to whom the strikers had appealed in vain. Struck between the eyes by a coupling-pin while handling the lever of a switch-engine an hour before, Mr. Ainslie, the master-mechanic of the Air Line, had just been borne by in an ambulance: and Wallace, looking even older, sadder, sterner, than he did at dawn, bore down upon the muttering shamefaced group as he returned for his coat, hanging there on its accustomed peg in the darkening shops. Something of the smouldering fire in his eyes seemed to overawe them, for they gave way in sullen silence, many of them turning to avoid the glower of the old Scotchman's gaze, and let him by without a word. There were those among them who earlier in the day could have cried him shame for his blunt refusal to either strike or sympathize. Stoltz, who called upon him with fiery words and fierce gesticulation at ten o'clock, had been told to go and stay. At one, when men were needed to man the engines, he had sent word to Jim to come and take his place in a cab and handle the lever like a man, or keep out of his sight till he could behave like one: and as no Jim came, the father himself manned the throttle of the first engine to force a way to the yards, just in time to see his beloved son shot down, apparently by the senseless folly of a deputy trained neither to aim nor to endure. His heart was hot against the leaders who had brought this madness on the men he had known and almost swayed for years, and he could not refrain from harsh invective now. Halting short, he turned upon the sullen group.

"Are you satisfied with your work now, you blind, misguided fools? Have you gained one point? You've struck down—killed, perhaps—the best man that ever handled a wrench in these shops. You've stoned my flesh and blood. Why don't you mob me? I would have run that engine back until every track was clear had I had my way. Why don't you mob me? I begged Mr. Williams to let me go and fetch away those trains, car by car, if need be. Why don't you mob me, I say? Your advisers are frauds, and you are fools or worse. Look there at your doing!" he cried, pointing to the heaping wreck up the long lines of rail.

They would not answer him. Some already realized the extent of their blunder; others, sullen and disheartened, knew not how. All seemed to start and turn as though at sound of a familiar voice, when a man stepped from the open office door and began to speak, calmly at first, then with growing resonance and effect, as though he were again upon the rostrum preaching to the oppressed.

"No one would willingly harm you, Mr. Wallace: no one would knowingly have injured Mr. Ainslie. Our people, even when wronged and down-trodden, respect gray hairs, but the time has come when even patience has its limit. We are not the wreckers yonder, though we well might be. All that is the work of a great sympathetic people, long protesting against the tyranny to which we have bowed in the past. We would have spared the road and its officials as we have spared you, but let me say to you now the blow that downed your son was a blessing in disguise, for had he joined those coming minions of the government—those fancy soldiers of the aristocratic wards—I would not be answerable for what might happen, not only to him, but to you and yours."

Wallace let the speaker finish before he strode a long step nearer.