One day a cry went up.

“Here’s the scabs!  Here they come!”

Word was sent immediately to the union’s headquarters.

A body of twenty-odd men, carrying shovels and pickaxes and dinner-pails, moved toward the gates.  At their head was Bennington himself.  He placed the great key in the lock and swung the gates inward.  The men passed in quickly.  Bennington was last.  He turned for a moment and gazed calmly at the threatening faces of the strikers.  An impulse came to him.

“Men,” he said, “up to one o’clock this noon these gates will be open to you.  Each of you can take up your work where you left it, at the same wages, at the same hours.  This is the last chance.  Later you will learn that you have been betrayed.”

“How about Chittenden?”

“Chittenden will return at the same time you do.”

“The hell he will!  Let him show his British face here, and we’ll change it so his mother won’t know it.”

Bennington went inside and shut the gates.  There was nothing more to be done.  He did not slam the gates insolently, as some men would have done; he simply shut them.

This event was also reported at headquarters.  That afternoon all the strikers were out in force.  They congregated in groups and talked angrily.  Two policemen patrolled up and down.  Bennington had had some difficulty in securing even these.  The men waited for the first sign of smoke from the chimneys, but none came.  No one was lighting the furnaces; there was nothing but silence inside the shops.  There was no possible excuse as yet for deeds of violence, though many of the more turbulent element urged riot at once.  What was the use of waiting?  In the afternoon there appeared some fifty more strange men.  These carried tool-bags.  They were challenged.  They ignored the challenge and pushed on resolutely.  For the first time blows were struck.  The leader whirled around.

“Look here, men, you’re making a big mistake.  Your fists won’t help you.  We are going inside, and if we can’t go in peaceably, why, we’ll break some heads to get in.  We have all been sworn in legally as deputy police, and if we start in to break heads we promise to do it thoroughly.”

“What are you going to do in there?” demanded Morrissy.

“None of your business, for one thing,” answered the burly spokesman of the interlopers.  “I’ll add this much, if it will ease your minds:  nobody’s going to step into your jobs; when you went out you left your jobs behind.”

“So you fellows are what they call strike-breakers, are you?” asked Morrissy wrathfully.

“Oh, we aren’t going to break your strike, my friend.  You can call this a strike as long as you please, so far as we’re concerned.  We’ve got work to do here, though, and we are going to do it.”

“Are you union men?”

“Not so you’d notice it,” was the cool reply.

“All right.  You fellows won’t be here long.”