XXXIV

THE ABYSS

Raymer's prediction that the real trouble would begin when the attempt
should be made to start the plant with imported workmen was amply
fulfilled during the militant week which followed the opening of
hostilities.

The appearance of the first detachment of strike-breakers, a trampish
crew gathered up hastily by the employment agencies in the cities in
response to Griswold's telegrams, was the signal for active resistance.
Promptly the Iron Works plant and the approaches to it were picketed,
and of the twenty-five or thirty men who came in on the first day's
train only a badly frightened and cowed half-dozen won through the
persuading, jeering, threatening picket line to the offices of the
plant.

Other days followed in which the scenes of the first were repeated--with
the difference that each succeeding day saw the inevitable increase of
lawlessness. From taunts and abuse the insurrectionaries passed easily
to violence. Street fights, when the trampish place-takers came in any
considerable numbers, were of daily occurrence, and the tale of the
wounded grew like the returns from a battle. By the middle of the week
Raymer and Griswold were asking for a sheriff's posse to maintain peace
in the neighborhood of the plant; and were getting their first definite
hint that some one higher up was playing the game of politics against
them.

"No, gentlemen; I've done all that the law requires and a little more,"
was the sheriff's response to the plea for better protection. Then came
the hint. "You can take it as a word from a friend that this private
scrap of yours with your men is making everybody pretty tired. First and
last, it's only a question of whether you'll pay out a little more
money, or a little less money, not to a lot of imported hoboes, but to
certain citizens of Red Earth County,"--to which was added
significantly--"citizens with votes."

"In other words, Mr. Bradford, you've got your orders from the men
higher up, have you?" rasped Griswold, who was by this time lost to all
sense of expediency.

"I don't have to reply to any such charge as that," said the chief peace
officer, turning back to his desk; and so the brittle little conference
ended.

"All of which means that we shall lose the plant guard of deputies that
Bradford has been maintaining," commented Raymer, as they were
descending the Court House stairs; and again his prediction came true.
Later in the day the guard was withd