n no financial campaigns in their own city. Thorpe
went carefully over the Philadelphia acceptances in his vault, and
wondered what they were worth. To St. Marys set out a stream of
representatives of various creditor companies, that filled the local
hotels and journeyed out to the works and came back unsatisfied.
Philadelphia dispatches were devoured, and the word "reorganization"
was one to charm with. One by one, the Company's steamers slid up to
the long docks, made fast and drew their fires, till it seemed that the
works, like a great octopus, was withdrawing every arm and filament it
ever had radiated, and was coiling them endlessly at its cold and
clammy side. Yet, for all of this, it did not seem possible that the
whole structure was tumbling, the structure on which so many years of
labor--so much genius and enthusiasm--so many millions--had been
lavished, until one afternoon a drunken Swede threw a stone into a
butcher's window in Ironville and, putting forth a horny hand, seized a
side of bacon and set forth, reeling, down the street. Two hours later
the startled chief accountant, from a window in his office, saw a swarm
of a thousand men surge through the big gates of the works and,
trampling the guard, flow irregularly forward.

The mob spilt on, a river of big strong men, unaware of its own
strength. They were not bent on willful destruction, but the whole
mass was animated by an inchoate desire to find out something for
itself. At the door of the rail mill stood the superintendent and his
firemen, with drawn revolvers. The rioters liked these men because
they worked with and understood them. They were not associated with
the present trouble. So on to the administration building, where the
office staff looked out, petrified with fear. Here, the mob decided,
was another breed, so there commenced a hammering on the big oaken door
and stones showered through the windows.

At this, Hobbs, stricken with mortal terror, and oblivious of the girls
who gathered around him, lost his head. There was no escape
downstairs, but opposite his desk was a grated iron window that led on
to an adjoining roof. Noting it desperately, he heaved up his soft
body and made a plunge for safety. But such was his bulk that, though
head, arms and shoulders went through, he stuck there, anchored in an
iron grip.

"Help!" he called chokingly, "Help!"

The mob looked up and stared, when from the rear ranks came a bull-lik