as generally hostile to the strikers. The Sphere
published the facts briefly, as a matter of journalistic principle; The
Ledger published them with violent bias, as a matter of journalistic
habit; the other papers, including The Patriot, suppressed or minimized
to as great an extent as they deemed feasible.

That the troubles of some thousands of sweated wage-earners, employed
upon classes of machine-made clothing which would never come within the
ken of the delicately clad women of her world, could in any manner
affect Io Eyre, was most improbable. But the minor fate who manipulates
improbabilities elected that she should be in a downtown store at the
moment when a squad of mounted police charged a crowd of girl-strikers.
Hearing the scream of panic, she ran out, saw ignorant, wild-eyed girls,
hardly more than children, beaten down, trampled, hurried hither and
thither, seized upon and thrown into patrol wagons, and when she reached
her car, sick and furious, found an eighteen-year-old Lithuanian blonde
flopping against the rear fender in a dead faint. Strong as a young
panther, Io picked up the derelict in her arms, hoisted her into the
tonneau, and bade the disgusted chauffeur, "Home." What she heard from
the revived girl, in the talk which followed, sent her, hot-hearted, to
the police court where the arrests would be brought up for primary
judgment.

The first person that she met there was Willis Enderby.

"If you're on this strike case, Cousin Billy," she said, "I'm against
you, and I'm ashamed of you."

"You probably aren't the former, and you needn't be the latter," he
replied.

"Aren't you Mr. Vanney's lawyer? And isn't he interested in the strike?"

"Not openly. It happens that I'm here for the strikers."

Io stared, incredulous. "For the strikers? You mean that they've
retained you?"

"Oh, no. I'm really here in my capacity as President of the Law
Enforcement Society; to see that these women get the full protection of
the law, to which they are entitled. There is reason to believe that
they haven't had it. And you?"

Io told him.

"Are you willing to go on the stand?"

"Certainly; if it will do any good."

"Not much, so far as the case goes. But it will force it into the
newspapers. 'Society Leader Takes Part of Working-Girls,' and so-on. The
publicity will be useful."

The magistrate on the bench was lenient; dismissed most of the prisoners
with a warning against picketing; fined a few; sent