ciation of the
liberty that our Constitution vouchsafes to all mankind. They have been
brought here by the agents of the Trusts, because they are willing to
work for pauper wage.

"I can tell you, Mr. Trueman, that in the strike that I feel will follow
the lock-out, there will be bloodshed. It may not be at the initiative
of the miners. But the fear of the magnates is now aroused and they will
not hesitate to employ force. Once the appeal to force is made, where is
it to end?"

"All that you have told me, I shall report to Mr. Purdy," Trueman says,
as he extends his hand to grasp that of the plain, earnest miner.

Metz departs, well satisfied with the progress he has made in advancing
the cause of the miners.

Harvey Trueman goes at once to the private office of the President of
the Paradise Coal Company.

He brings the strike matter up for consideration at once; and also the
case of a widow who is bringing suit against the company for the
recovery of damages for the loss of her husband who had been killed in
the mines.

"You are to press the defence of this case for damages to a successful
termination for the company," are Mr. Purdy's last words, supplemented
by the remark, "I shall attend to the strike in person."

CHAPTER II.

HARVEY TRUEMAN, ATTORNEY.

Harvey Trueman steps from the County Clerk's office into the corridor,
on the second floor of the Court House at Wilkes-Barre, with the
absolute knowledge that the case in hand is won.

As he pushes his way down the stairway to the first floor where the
courtroom is located, he elbows through a throng of rough dressed
miners--Polaks, Magyars, and here and there a man of half-Irish
parentage, whose Irish name is all that is left from the Molly Maguire
days to indicate the one-time ascendency of that race in the lands of
the coal region.

Certain victory within his grasp--a minor victory in the long line of
legal fights he has conducted for the Paradise Coal Company--he does not
smile. It is a cruel thing he is about to do. Cruel? He asks himself if
the sanctity of the law does not make the contemplated move right.
Harvey Trueman has a code of morals, an austere code, that has made him
enemies even among the people whose champion he has grown to be in three
years' practice of the law in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

He is a tall, slender, square-jawed man of thirty-six. His forehead is
high and broad and his hair is worn longer than that of othe