group, cornered in a side street, showed fight.

"We'll burn your dam' town!" cried a voice.

The sheriff swung from his horse and shouldered through the crowd. As he
did so, a light-haired, weasel-faced youth, with a cigarette dangling
from the corner of his loose mouth, backed away. The sheriff followed
and pressed him against a building.

"I know you!" said the sheriff. "You never made or spent an honest
dollar in this town. Boys," he continued, turning to the strikers, "are
you proud of this skunk who wants to burn your town?"

A workman laughed.

"You said it!" asserted the sheriff. "When somebody tells you what he
is, you laugh. Why don't you laugh at him when he's telling you of the
buildings he has dynamited and how many deaths he is responsible for?
Did he ever sweat alongside of any of you doing a day's work? Do you
know him? Does he know anything about your work or conditions? Not a
damned thing! Just think it over. And, boys, remember he is paid easy
money to get you into trouble. Who pays him? Is there any decent
American paying him to do that sort of thing? Stop and think about it."

The weasel-faced youth raised his arm and pointed at the sheriff. "Who
pays you to shoot down women and kids?" he snarled.

"I'm taking orders from the Governor of this State."

"To hell with the Governor! And there's where he'll wake up one of these
fine days."

"Because he's enforcing the law and trying to keep the flag from being
insulted by whelps like you, eh?"

"We'll show you what's law! And we'll show you the right kind of a
flag--"

"Boys, are you going to stand for this kind of talk?" And the sheriff's
heavy face quivered with anger. "I'd admire to kill you!" he said,
turning on the youth. "But that wouldn't do any good."

The agitator was taken to the jail. Later it was rumored that a machine
had left the jail that night with three men in it. Two of them were
armed guards. The third was a weasel-faced youth. He was never heard of
again.

As the cavalcade moved on down the street, workmen gathered on street
corners and in upper rooms and discussed the situation. The strike had
got beyond their control. Many of them were for sending a delegation to
the I.W.W. camp demanding that they disband and leave. Others were
silent, and still others voted loudly to "fight to a finish."

Out beyond the edge of town lay the I.W.W. camp, a conglomeration of
board shacks hastily erected, brush-covered hovels, and te