his fangs with a wolfish smile. "We'll make the public
pay. Our store-houses are full of copper. Prices will jump when the
supply is reduced fifty per cent. We'll sell at an advance, and clean
up a few millions out of the shut-down. Meanwhile we'll starve this
patriotic State into submission."

It came to pass even as Harley had predicted. With the Consolidated
mines closed, copper, jumped up--up--up. The trust could sit still and
coin money without turning a hand, while its employees suffered in the
long, bitter Northern winter. All the troubles usually pursuant on a
long strike began to fall upon the families of the miners.

When a delegation from the miners' union came to discuss the situation
with Harley he met them blandly, with many platitudes of sympathy. He
regretted--he regretted exceedingly--the necessity that had been forced
upon him of closing the mines. He had delayed doing so in the hope that
the situation might be relieved. But it had grown worse, until he had
been forced to close. No, he was afraid he could not promise to reopen
this winter, unless something were done to ameliorate conditions in the
court. Work would begin at once, however, if the legislators would pass
a bill making it optional with any party to a suit to have the case
transferred to another judge in case he believed the bias of the
presiding judge would be prejudicial to an impartial hearing.

Ridgway was flung at once upon the defensive. His allies, the working
men, demanded of him that his legislature pass the bill wanted by
Harley, in order that work might recommence. He evaded their demands by
proposing to arbitrate his difficulties with the Consolidated, by
offering to pay into the union treasury hall a million dollars to help
carry its members through the winter. He argued to the committee that
Harley was bluffing, that within a few weeks the mines and smelters
would again be running at their full capacity; but when the pressure on
the legislators he had elected became so great that he feared they
would be swept from their allegiance to him, he was forced to yield to
the clamor.

It was a great victory for Harley. Nobody recognized how great a one
more accurately than Waring Ridgway. The leader of the octopus had
dogged him over the shoulders of the people, had destroyed at a single
blow one of his two principal sources of power. He could no longer rely
on the courts to support him, regardless of justice.

Very well. If he c