's principles.

When finally the officers reached the two men Mr. Winter was nearly dead
from the fright. Philip was badly bruised, but not seriously, and he
helped Mr. Winter back to the house, while a few of the police remained
on guard the rest of the night. It was while recovering from the effects
of the night's attack that Philip little by little learned of the facts
that led up to the assault.

There had been a growing feeling of discontent in all the mills, and it
had finally taken shape in the Ocean Mill, which was largely owned and
controlled by Mr. Winter. The discontent arose from a new scale of wages
submitted by the company. It was not satisfactory to the men, and the
afternoon of that evening on which Philip had gone down to the hall a
committee of the mill men had waited on Mr. Winter, and after a long
conference had gone away without getting any satisfaction. They could
not agree on the proposition made by the company and by their own labor
organization. Later in the day one of the committee, under instructions,
went to see Mr. Winter alone, and came away from the interview very much
excited and angry. He spent the first part of the evening in a saloon,
where he related a part of his interview with the mill-owner, and said
that he had finally kicked him out of the office. Still later in the
evening he told several of the men that he was going to see Mr. Winter
again, knowing that on certain evenings he was in the habit of staying
down at the mill office until nearly half-past nine for special
business. The mills were undergoing repairs, and Mr. Winter was away
from home more than usual.

That was the last that any one saw of the man until, about ten o'clock,
some one going home past the mill office heard a man groaning at the foot
of a new excavation at the end of the building, and climbing down
discovered the man who had been to see Mr. Winter twice that afternoon.
He had a terrible gash in his head, and lived only a few minutes after
he was discovered. To the half-dozen men who stood over him in the
saloon, where he had been carried, he had murmured the name of "Mr.
Winter," and had then expired.

A very little adds fuel to the brain of men already heated with rum and
hatred. The rumor spread like lightning that the wealthy mill-owner had
killed one of the employees who had gone to see him peaceably and
arrange matters for the men. He had thrown him out of the office into
one of the new mill excava