was on top of the building. The immediate fighting had ceased, and I
was watching the balloon attack on the fortresses. Some one had an arm
around me and I was leaning close against him. It came to me quite as a
matter of course that this was Ernest, and I found myself wondering how
he had got his hair and eyebrows so badly singed.

It was by the merest chance that we had found each other in that
terrible city. He had had no idea that I had left New York, and, coming
through the room where I lay asleep, could not at first believe that
it was I. Little more I saw of the Chicago Commune. After watching the
balloon attack, Ernest took me down into the heart of the building,
where I slept the afternoon out and the night. The third day we spent
in the building, and on the fourth, Ernest having got permission and an
automobile from the authorities, we left Chicago.

My headache was gone, but, body and soul, I was very tired. I lay back
against Ernest in the automobile, and with apathetic eyes watched the
soldiers trying to get the machine out of the city. Fighting was
still going on, but only in isolated localities. Here and there whole
districts were still in possession of the comrades, but such districts
were surrounded and guarded by heavy bodies of troops. In a hundred
segregated traps were the comrades thus held while the work of
subjugating them went on. Subjugation meant death, for no quarter was
given, and they fought heroically to the last man.*

* Numbers of the buildings held out over a week, while one
held out eleven days. Each building had to be stormed like
a fort, and the Mercenaries fought their way upward floor by
floor. It was deadly fighting. Quarter was neither given
nor taken, and in the fighting the revolutionists had the
advantage of being above. While the revolutionists were
wiped out, the loss was not one-sided. The proud Chicago
proletariat lived up to its ancient boast. For as many of
itself as were killed, it killed that many of the enemy.

Whenever we approached such localities, the guards turned us back and
sent us around. Once, the only way past two strong positions of the
comrades was through a burnt section that lay between. From either side
we could hear the rattle and roar of war, while the automobile picked
its way through smoking ruins and tottering walls. Often the streets
were blocked by mountains of debris that compelled us to go ar