Adams's face, would have said nothing of the
hell-scorched face of Tom Van Dorn. Yet for all its lines, youth still
shone from Grant Adams's countenance. His wide, candid blue eyes were
still boyish, and a soul so eager with hope that it sometimes blazed
into a mad intolerance, gazed into the world from behind them. Even his
arm and claw became an animate hand when Grant waved them as he talked;
and his wide, pugnacious shoulders, his shock of nonconforming red hair,
his towering body, and his solid workman's legs, firm as oak
beams,--all,--claw, arms, shoulders, trunk and legs,--translated into
human understanding the rebel soul of Grant Adams.

Yet the rebellion of Grant Adams's soul was no new thing to the world.
He was treading the rough road that lies under the feet of all those who
try to divert their lives from the hard and wicked morals of their
times. For the kingdoms of this earth are organized for those who devote
themselves chiefly, though of course not wholly, to the consideration of
self. The world is still vastly egoistic in its balance. And the
unbroken struggle of progress from Abel to yesterday's reformer, has
been, is, and shall be the battle with the spirit that chains us to the
selfish, accepted order of the passing day. So Grant Adams's face was
battle scarred, but his soul, strong and exultant, burst through his
flesh and showed itself at many angles of his being. And a grim and
militant thing it looked. The flinty features of the man, his coarse
mouth, his indomitable blue eyes, his red poll, waving like a banner
above his challenging forehead, wrinkled and seamed and gashed with the
troubles of harsh circumstance, his great animal jaw at the base of the
spiritual tower of his countenance--all showed forth the warrior's soul,
the warrior of the rebellion that is as old as time and as new as
to-morrow.

Working with his hands for a bare livelihood, but sitting at his desk
four or five days in the week and speaking at night, month after month,
year after year, for nearly twenty years, without rest or change, had
taken much of the bounce of youth from his body. He knew how the money
from the accumulated dues was piling up in the Labor Union's war chest
in the valley. He had proved what a trade solidarity in an industrial
district could do for the men without strikes by its potential strength.
Black powder, which killed like the pestilence that stalketh in
darkness, was gone. Electric lights had sup