father before him had loved them. He squared his shoulders, and
his jaws hardened. No man, without justice on his side, should dictate
to him; no man should order him to hire this man or discharge that
one. He alone had that right; he alone was master. Bennington was not
a coward; he would not sell to another; he would not shirk the task
laid out for his hand. Unionism, such as it stood, must receive a
violent lesson. And McQuade?

"Damn him!" he muttered, his fingers knotting.

Education subdues or obliterates the best of fighting in the coward
only. The brave man is always masculine in these crises, and he will
fight with his bare hands when reason and intelligence fail. A great
longing rose up in Bennington's heart to have it out physically with
McQuade. To feel that gross bulk under his knees, to sink his fingers
into that brawny throat!--The men, eying him covertly, saw his arms go
outward and his hands open and shut convulsively. More than ever they
avoided his path. Once before they had witnessed a similar
abstraction. They had seen him fling to the ground a huge puddler who
had struck his apprentice without cause. The puddler, one of the
strongest men in the shops, struggled to his feet and rushed at his
assailant. Bennington had knocked him down again, and this time the
puddler remained on the ground, insensible. Bennington had gone back
to his office, shutting and opening his fists. Ay, they had long since
ceased calling him the dude. The man of brawn has a hearty respect for
spectacular exhibitions of strength.

One o'clock. The trip-hammers began their intermittent thunder, the
rolling-machines shrieked, and the hot ore sputtered and crackled.
Bennington returned to his office and re-read the letter his father
had written to him on his death-bed. He would obey it to the final
line.

That particular branch of the local unions which was represented in
the Bennington steel-mills met in the loft of one of the brick
buildings off the main street. The room was spacious, but ill
ventilated. That, night it was crowded. The men were noisy, and a haze
of rank tobacco-smoke drifted aimlessly about, vainly seeking egress.
Morrissy called the meeting to order at eight-thirty. He spoke briefly
of the injustice of the employers, locally and elsewhere, of the
burdens the laboring man had always borne and would always bear, so
long as he declined to demand his rights. The men cheered him. Many
had been drinking freely