“How protected?  Have you got those bomb-proof overhead nets on, yet?”

“Not yet, sir.  That is, not over all the lines of tanks.  We ran short of steel wire, last week, and have only got eight of the tanks under netting.  But the work is going on fast, sir, and—­”

“Rush it!  At all hazards, get nets over the rest of the tanks.  If anything happens, through this delay, remember, Herzog, I shall hold you personally responsible, and it will go hard with you!”

“Yes, sir; thank you, sir,” murmured the servile wretch.  “Anything else, sir?”

Flint thought a moment, glaring at Herzog with angry eyes, then shook his head in negation.

“Very well, sir,” said Herzog, withdrawing.  “I’ll go to work at once.  By tomorrow, everything will be safe, I guarantee.”

He closed the door softly—­as softly as he had spoken—­as softly as he always did everything.

Flint glared at the door.

“The sneaking whelp!” he murmured.  “He makes my very flesh crawl.  I wish to heaven he weren’t so essential to us; we’d let him go, damned quick!”

“You forget,” put in Tiger, “that he knows too much to be let go, ever.  No, he’s a fixture.  And now, dismiss him from your mind, and let’s go over those telegrams and radiograms again.  If there is a new Socialist revolt under way—­and I admit it certainly begins to look like it—­we’ve got to understand the situation.  Slade will have some more reports for us, in an hour or so.  Till then, these must suffice.”

Flint, curbing his agitation, sat down at the big table and turned on the vacuum-glow light, for the October afternoon was foggy—­a fog that mingled with the spray of the vast Falls and hung heavy over the world—­and already daylight was beginning to fail.

“Fools!” he muttered to himself.  “Fools, to think they can rebel against us!  Ants would have just as much show of success, charging elephants, as they have against the Air Trust!  By tomorrow they’ll be wiped out, smeared out, shattered and annihilated, whoever and wherever they are.  By tomorrow, at the latest.  Again I say, blind, suicidal fools!”

“Right you are,” assented Waldron, drawing up his chair.  “They don’t seem to realize, even yet, that we own the whole round earth and all that is in it.  They don’t understand that their rebelling is like a tribe of naked savages going against a modern army with explosive bullets.  Ah, well, let them learn, let them learn!  It takes a whip to teach a cur.  Let them feel the lash, and learn!...”

At this same hour, in the last retreat, near Port Colborne, in the State of Ontario—­once a province of Canada—­half a dozen grim and determined men were gathered together.  We already recognize Craig, Grantham and Gabriel.  The other three, like them, all wore the Socialist button and the little tab of red ribbon that marked them as members of the Fighting Sections.