re gave to his aspect an added quality of formidableness.
There were some who scattered as he drew near, and of the less timorous
spirits that remained only a few raised dark, sullen glances to encounter
his, which was unflinching, passionately contemptuous. Throughout the
countless generations that lay behind them the instinct of submission had
played its dominant, phylogenetic role. He was the Master. The journey
across the seas had not changed that. A few shivered--not alone because
they were thinly clad. He walked on, slowly, past other groups, turned
the corner of West Street, where the groups were more numerous, while the
number of those running the gantlet had increased. And he heard, twice or
thrice, the word "Scab!" cried out menacingly. His eyes grew redder still
as he spied a policeman standing idly in a doorway.

"Why in hell don't you do your duty?" he demanded. "What do you mean by
letting them interfere with these workers?"

The man flinched. He was apologetic. "So long as they're peaceable, Mr.
Ditmar--those are my orders. I do try to keep 'em movin'."

"Your orders? You're a lot of damned cowards," Ditmar replied, and went
on. There were mutterings here; herded together, these slaves were
bolder; and hunger and cold, discouragement at not being able to stop the
flow toward the mills were having their effect. By the frozen canal, the
scene of the onslaught of yesterday, the crowd had grown comparatively
thick, and at the corner of the lodging-house row Ditmar halted a moment,
unnoticed save by a few who nudged one another and murmured. He gave them
no attention, he was trying to form an estimate of the effect of the
picketing on his own operatives. Some came with timid steps; others,
mostly women, fairly ran; still others were self-possessed, almost
defiant--and such he marked. There were those who, when the picketers
held them by the sleeve, broke precipitately from their annoyers, and
those who hesitated, listening with troubled faces, with feelings torn
between dread of hunger for themselves and their children and sympathy
with the revolt. A small number joined the ranks of the picketers. Ditmar
towered above these foreigners, who were mostly undersized: a student of
human nature and civilization, free from industrial complexes, would from
that point of vantage have had much to gather from the expressions coming
within his view, but to Ditmar humanity was a means to an end. Suddenly,
from the cupolas