inary reader
should read into the text. The fine hand of the Iron Heel was apparent
in every column. Glimmerings of weakness in the armor of the Oligarchy
were given. Of course, there was nothing definite. It was intended that
the reader should feel his way to these glimmerings. It was
cleverly done. As fiction, those morning papers of October 27th were
masterpieces.

The local news was missing. This in itself was a masterstroke. It
shrouded Chicago in mystery, and it suggested to the average Chicago
reader that the Oligarchy did not dare give the local news. Hints that
were untrue, of course, were given of insubordination all over the land,
crudely disguised with complacent references to punitive measures to be
taken. There were reports of numerous wireless stations that had
been blown up, with heavy rewards offered for the detection of the
perpetrators. Of course no wireless stations had been blown up. Many
similar outrages, that dovetailed with the plot of the revolutionists,
were given. The impression to be made on the minds of the Chicago
comrades was that the general Revolt was beginning, albeit with a
confusing miscarriage in many details. It was impossible for one
uninformed to escape the vague yet certain feeling that all the land was
ripe for the revolt that had already begun to break out.

It was reported that the defection of the Mercenaries in California had
become so serious that half a dozen regiments had been disbanded and
broken, and that their members with their families had been driven
from their own city and on into the labor-ghettos. And the California
Mercenaries were in reality the most faithful of all to their salt!
But how was Chicago, shut off from the rest of the world, to know? Then
there was a ragged telegram describing an outbreak of the populace in
New York City, in which the labor castes were joining, concluding with
the statement (intended to be accepted as a bluff*) that the troops had
the situation in hand.

* A lie.

And as the oligarchs had done with the morning papers, so had they done
in a thousand other ways. These we learned afterward, as, for example,
the secret messages of the oligarchs, sent with the express purpose of
leaking to the ears of the revolutionists, that had come over the wires,
now and again, during the first part of the night.

"I guess the Iron Heel won't need our services," Hartman remarked,
putting down the paper he had been reading, when the train