r. Heron used his influence, and got Stephen work in Los Angeles as a
reporter on a newspaper, when he was only eighteen. He was tall and
handsome, and could pass for two years older at least. I was very
unhappy at this time, for I'd begun to worry about Stephen. I was sure
he was keeping some secret from me. But I found out nothing till the
crash came. Oh, Roger, it was horrible. He'd fallen under the influence
of those anarchists--those dynamiters, who had been terrorizing all
America for years. They'd persuaded him that they were noble reformers.
Poor Stephen was a useful tool. He never did any of the dynamiting with
his own hands, but he used to make bombs, and carry them from place to
place, and take letters it wasn't thought safe to send through the post.
It was the blowing-up of the _Times_ buildings in Los Angeles and all
those innocent men being killed that sickened him, he confessed
afterward, when at last he opened his heart to me. But he was too deep
in to free himself. It's now two years ago that the break happened, and
all our life collapsed--Stephen's and mine.

"Some of the old lot he'd worked with were left--men who had managed to
keep clear and never be suspected when William Burns, the detective, was
fighting the Macnamaras and their gang. Only one or two who'd been under
suspicion wriggled out from Burns' clutches. A man named Carl Schmelzer
was the cleverest. He went abroad, and was supposed to die in Germany.
But he didn't die. By that time they were engaged in new enterprises, as
the old ones were too risky; but they always pretended to be working for
Labour against Capital. John Heron was their target two years ago. The
war cry was that he was the master, a tyrant, a plutocrat, ruthlessly
crushing the weak. The Comrades knew our history--Stephen's and
mine--and they tried to inflame Stephen against Mr. Heron because he'd
failed to do for us what our father's services and death merited. But
they made a big mistake when they ordered my brother to dynamite a
railway bridge, just as a train with Heron's private car was due to pass
over it. He refused, and threatened to warn Heron unless they abandoned
all their schemes against him. That gave the gang a fearful fright. They
thought their one chance of safety was to suppress Stephen. A friend of
his who lived at Home Colony warned him that there was a plot to kill
him. He came straight to me and told me the whole story. Neither of us
had much hope. We t