ners, too. This
is important."

He hung up the receiver, took it down again, and called up Eaton.

"Hello! This you, Steve? Send for Trelawney and Straus right away. Get
them to call a mass meeting of the unions for ten o'clock at the
courthouse square. Have dodgers printed and distributed announcing it.
Shut down all our mines so that the men can come. I want Straus and
Trelawney and two or three of the other prominent labor leaders to
denounce Harley and lay the responsibility for this thing right at his
door. I'll be up there and outline what they had better say."

He turned briskly round to the young women, his eyes shining with a
hard bright light. "I'm sorry, but I have got to cut out breakfast this
morning. Business is piling up on me too fast. If you'll excuse me,
I'll go now."

"What are you going to do?" asked Virginia.

"I haven't time to tell you now. Just watch my smoke," he laughed
without mirth.

No sooner did the news of the tragedy reach Simon Harley than he knew
the mistake of his subordinates would be a costly one. The foreman,
Donleavy, who had directed the attack on the Taurus, had to be brought
from the shafthouse under the protection of a score of Pinkerton
detectives to safeguard him from the swift vengeance of the miners, who
needed but a word to fling themselves against the cordon of police.
Harley himself kept his apartments, the hotel being heavily patrolled
by guards on the lookout for suspicious characters. The current of
public opinion, never in his favor, now ran swiftly against him, and
threats were made openly by the infuriated miners to kill him on sight.

The members of the unions came to the massmeeting reading the story of
the tragedy as the Sun colored the affair. They stayed sullenly to
listen to red-hot speeches against the leader of the trust, and
gradually the wrath which was simmering in them began to boil. Ridgway,
always with a keen sense of the psychological moment, descended the
court-house steps just as this fury was at its height. There were
instant cries for a speech from him so persistent that he yielded,
though apparently with reluctance. His fine presence and strong deep
voice soon gave him the ears of all that dense throng. He was far out
of the ordinary as a public speaker, and within a few minutes he had
his audience with him. He deprecated any violence; spoke strongly for
letting the law take its course; and dropped a suggestion that they
send a committe