It will be our duty to-night to decide upon the means by which the plan
we have been considering may be carried into execution, or abandoned,"
states the chairman of this impromptu meeting in a perfunctory tone. "If
there is any preliminary matter to be discussed, I am ready to entertain
it."

This brings three of the men to their feet.

Coleman, the delegate from California, is recognized.

"Mr. Chairman, I am opposed to allowing any man to take part in this
work who is not in thorough sympathy with the rest of the committee. It
would be a manifest impossibility for this very dangerous and
unprecedented undertaking to be launched with the possible danger of
there being a spy in our company.

"I am not prepared to say that there is such a spy here, yet until it is
satisfactorily demonstrated that we are all of us true friends of the
laboring men of the country, I shall be against proceeding to the
further outlining of the plan.

"It is not enough that a man profess friendship. He must be able to show
by his acts that he has done something for his fellow-men besides
theorize."

These views are quickly seconded. Then follows a talk among the men as
to what each of them has done to establish a record as a friend of the
masses. From the statements and the corroborating testimony of
dissenters, all of the members, with the exception of Nevins, pass
satisfactorily. He has no acts to his credit. No one admits knowing of
him outside of his work as a committeeman. Not one of those in
attendance at this special meeting will speak a word in his behalf.

At this juncture, when it looks as though he is to be ruled out of the
committee and his plan repudiated, Hendrick Stahl asks to be heard.

As Stahl is a member of high standing and the leader of a strong labor
party in Minnesota, he is permitted to speak. In a few forceful words he
denounces the men for their ungenerous suspicion; he tells them that he
has known Nevins as a friend and co-worker for years.

Not without a visible degree of dissatisfaction the objecting members
accept the situation and agree to attend the meeting to hear the reading
of the list of proscribed. The men present do not know that Nevins had
planned the seeming rebellion to test the sincerity of the men whom he
is to take into his full confidence; that he has Professor Talbot and
Hendrick Stahl working as his lieutenants.

Nothing now standing in the way of the plan, the men await the hour for