ured at the work of organising and disciplining the
various factions and parties in the ranks of labour into a single
compact body of fighting men under a single command. McNish was in the
grip of one of the mightiest of human passions. Since that day in the
Perrotte home, when he had seen the girl that he loved practically offer
herself, as he thought, to another man, he had resolutely kept himself
away from her. He had done with her forever and he had torn out of his
heart the genuine friendship which he had begun to hold toward the man
who had deprived him of her love. But deep in his heart he nourished a
passion for vengeance that became an obsession, a madness with him. He
merely waited the opportunity to gratify his passion.

He learned that the Maitland Mills were in deep water, financially. His
keen economic instinct and his deep study of economic movements told
him that a serious financial crisis, continent-wide, was inevitable and
imminent. It only needed a successful labour war to give the final touch
that would bring the whole industrial fabric tumbling into ruin. The
desire for immediate revenge upon the man toward whom he had come to
cherish an implacable hatred would not suffer him to await the onset of
a nation-wide industrial crisis. He fancied that he saw the opportunity
for striking an immediate blow here in Blackwater.

He steadily thwarted Maitland's attempts to get into touch with him,
whether at the works or in his own home, where Maitland had become
a frequent visitor. He was able only partially to allay his mother's
anxiety and her suspicion that all was not well with him. That shrewd
old lady knew her son well enough to suspect that some untoward
circumstance had befallen him, but she knew also that she could do no
more than bide her time.

With the workers of the Maitland Mills circumstances favoured the plans
of McNish and the Executive of the allied unions. The new manager was
beginning to make his hand felt upon the wheel. Checks upon wastage in
labour time and in machine time were being instituted; everywhere there
was a tightening up of loose screws and a knitting up of loose ends,
with the inevitable consequent irritation. This was especially true in
the case of Tony Perrotte, to whom discipline was ever an external force
and never an inward compulsion. Inexact in everything he did, irregular
in his habits, irresponsible in his undertakings, he met at every turn
the pressure of the fir