iness and political cabal, that knew no
party and no creed but dividends and still more dividends, impersonal,
automatic, soulless--the materialization of the spirit of commerce.

And strangely enough, just as Tom Van Dorn worshiped the power that
bought him, so the old spider, peering through the broken, rotting
meshes of what was once his web, felt the power to which it was
fastened, felt the power that moved him as a mere pawn in a game whose
direction he did not conceive; and Dan'l Sands, in spite of his silent
rage, worshiped the power like a groveling idolater.

But the worm never lacks for a bud; that also is a part of God's plan.
Thus, while the forces of egoism, the powers of capital, were
concentrating in a vast organization of socialized individualism, the
other forces and powers of society which were pointing toward a
socialized altruism, were forming also. There was the man in the
exquisite gray twill, harnessing Judge Van Dorn and Market Street to his
will; and there was Grant Adams in faded overalls, harnessing labor to
other wheels that were grinding another grist. Slowly but persistently
had Grant Adams been forming his Amalgamation of the Unions of the
valley. Slowly and awkwardly his unwieldy machinery was creaking its way
round. In spite of handicaps of opposing interests among the men of
different unions, his Wahoo Valley Labor Council was shaping itself into
an effective machine. If the shares of stock in the mills and the mines
and the smelters all ran their dividends through one great hopper, so
the units of labor in the Valley were connected with a common source of
direction. God does not plant the organizing spirit in the world for one
group; it is the common heritage of the time. So the sinister power of
organized capital loomed before Market Street with its terrible threat
of extinction for the town if the town displeased organized capital; so
also rose in the town a dread feeling of uneasiness that labor also had
power. The personification of that power was Grant Adams. And when the
young man in exquisite gray twill had become only a memory, Tom Van Dorn
squarely faced Grant Adams. Market Street was behind the Judge. The
Valley was back of Grant. For a time there was a truce, but it was not
peace. The truce was a time of waiting; waiting and arming for battle.

During the year of the truce, Nathan Perry was busy. Nathan Perry saw
the power that was organizing about him and the Independent m