The outlook, on the whole, was cheering.  Gabriel broke into a whistle, as he swung along the highway, and slashed cheerfully with his heavy stick at the dusty bushes by the roadside.  A vigorous, pleasing figure of a man he made, striding onward in his blue flannel shirt and corduroys, stout boots making light of distance, somewhat rebellious black hair clustering under his cap, blue eyes clear and steady as the sunlight itself.  There must have been a drop of Irish blood somewhere or other in his veins, to have given him that ruddy cheek, those eyes, that hair, that quick enthusiasm and that swiftness to anger—­then, by reaction, that quick buoyancy which so soon banished everything but courageous optimism from his hot heart.

Thus the man walked, all his few worldly belongings—­most precious among them his union card and his red Socialist card—­packed in the knapsack strapped to his broad shoulders.  And as he walked, he formulated his plans.

“Niagara for mine,” he decided.  “It’s there these hellions mean to start their devilish work of enslaving the whole world.  It’s there I want to be, and must be, to follow the infernal job from the beginning and to nail it, when the right time comes.  I’ll put in a day or two with my old friend, Sam Underwood, up in the Bronx, and maybe tell him what’s doing and frame out the line of action with him.  But after that, I strike for Niagara—­yes, and on foot!”

This decision came to him as strongly desirable.  Not for some time, he knew, could the actual work of building the Air Trust plant be started at Niagara.  Meanwhile, he wanted to keep out of sight, as much as possible.  He wanted, also to save every cent.  Again, his usual mode of travel had always been either to ride the rods or “hike” it on shanks’ mare.  Bitterly opposed to swelling the railways’ revenues by even a penny, Armstrong in the past few years of his life had done some thousands of miles, afoot, all over the country.  His best means of Socialist propaganda, he had found, was in just such meanderings along the highways and hedges of existence—­a casual job, here or there, for a day, a week, a month—­then, quick friendships; a little talk; a few leaflets handed to the intelligent, if he could find any.  He had laced the continent with such peregrinations, always sowing the seed of revolution wherever he had passed; getting in touch with the Movement all over the republic; keeping his finger on the pulse of ever-growing, always-strengthening Socialism.

Such had his habits long been.  And now, once more adrift and jobless, but with the most tremendous secret of the ages in his possession, he naturally turned to the comfort and the calming influence of the broad highway, in his long journey towards the place where he was to meet, in desperate opposition, the machinations of the Air Trust magnates.