e satanic work of
ejecting the tenement dwellers went on that day. Ames's hirelings,
with loaded rifles, assisted the constables and city police in the
miserable work, themselves cursing often because of the keen blasts
that nipped their ears and numbed their well-cased limbs. More than
one tiny, wailing babe was frozen at the breast that dull, drab
afternoon, when the sun hung like a ghastly clot of human blood just
above the horizon, and its weird, yellow light flitted through the
snow-laden streets like gaunt spectres of death. More than one aged,
toil-spent laborer, broken at the loom in the service of his
insatiable master, fell prone in the drifts and lay there till his
thin life-current froze and his tired heart stopped. More than one
frenzied, despairing father, forgetful for the moment of the divine
right of property, rushed at a guard and madly strove with him, only
to be clubbed into complaisance, or, perchance, be left in a welter of
crimson on the drifting snow. Carmen saw it all. She had been to see
Pillette that same morning, and had been laughed from his presence.
She did not understand, she was told, what miserable creatures these
were that dared ask for bread and human rights. Wait; they themselves
would show their true colors.

And so they did. And the color was red. And it spurted like fountains
from their veins. And they saw it with dimming eyes, and were glad,
for it brought sweet oblivion. That night there were great fires
built along the frozen creek. Shacks and tents were hastily reared;
and the shivering, trembling women and babes given a desperate
shelter. Then the men, sullen and grim, drew off into little groups,
and into the saloons and gambling halls of the town. And when the
blizzard was spent, and the cold stars were dropping their frozen
light, these dull-witted things began to move, slowly at first,
circling about like a great forming nebula, but gaining momentum and
power with each revolution. More than a thousand strong, they circled
out into the frozen streets of the little town, and up along the main
thoroughfare. Their dull murmurs slowly gained volume. Their low
curses welled into a roar. And then, like the sudden bursting of
pent-up lava, they swept madly through the town, carrying everything
to destruction before them.

Stores, shops, the bank itself, burst open before this wave of
maddened humanity. Guns and pistols were thrown from laden shelves to
the cursing, sweating mo