anger. "I'll get him good. You've done a bad thing for your friends and
your family to-day, Lily. I'll go the limit on getting back at them.
I've got the power, and by God, I'll use it."

He flung out into the hall, and toward the door. There he encountered
Grayson, who reminded him of his hat and gloves, or he would have gone
without them.

Grayson, going into the library a moment later, found Lily standing
there, staring ahead and trembling violently. He brought her a cup of
tea, and stood by, his old face working, while she drank it.

CHAPTER XXXVII

The strike had apparently settled down to the ordinary run of strikes.
The newspaper men from New York were gradually recalled, as the mill
towns became orderly, and no further acts of violence took place. Here
and there mills that had gone down fired their furnaces again and went
back to work, many with depleted shifts, however.

But the strikers had lost, and knew it. Howard Cardew, facing the
situation with his customary honesty, saw in the gradual return of
the men to work only the urgency of providing for their families, and
realized that it was not peace that was coming, but an armed neutrality.
The Cardew Mills were still down, but by winter he was confident they
would be open again. To what purpose? To more wrangling and bickering,
more strikes? Where was the middle ground? He was willing to give the
men a percentage of the profits they made. He did not want great wealth,
only an honest return for his invested capital. But he wanted to manage
his own business. It was his risk.

The coal miners were going out. The Cardews owned coal mines. The miners
wanted to work a minimum day for a maximum wage, but the country must
have coal. Shorter hours meant more men for the mines, and they would
have to be imported. But labor resented the importation of foreign
workers.

Again, what was the answer?

Still, he was grateful for peace. The strike dragged on, with only
occasional acts of violence. From the hill above Baxter a sniper daily
fired with a long range rifle at the toluol tank in the center of one
of the mills, and had so far escaped capture, as the tank had escaped
damage. But he knew well enough that a long strike was playing into the
hands of the Reds. It was impossible to sow the seeds of revolution
so long as a man's dinner-pail was full, his rent paid, and his family
contented. But a long strike, with bank accounts becoming exhausted and
credit c