The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-16

affected but half hundred men, but it might as well have applied to the entire plant, for it was looked upon as but the beginning, and the strike was on and with no offer of compromise on either hand.
 Fremont promptly sent a telegram to a new power that had appeared in the in- dustrial field. A concern stood ready to deliver at short notice an army of pro- fessonal strike breakers for any line of trade or manufacture. They were the mercenaries of modern commercial war fare, and Fremont ordered all, up to 800, that could be sent him.
 Powell turned sick at heart as he saw the committee at the door of his shop. He knew their errand. They had come to stop him from work.
 Let's see that contraption, demanded Evans, the leader, pushing inside and the others followed him.
 There stood the majestic machine, monster affair, upon which Powell was just putting the loving last touches. The committee silently inspected it and listen- ed with cold interest while the inventor explained 1t to them.
 "Where are the drawings asked Ev- ans.
 Powell wonderngly pointed them out.
 Are there any duplicates?' Evans in- qulred, gathering them up.
 Powell shook his head.
 Evans deliberately crumpled them in a heap on the earthen floor and touched a match to them. Powell, with cry of horror sprang to save them, but O'Brian and Harley held him back, struggling like a madman.
 Whats the matter with you, Powell?' asked Evans, sharply, seeing that the drawings were well caught. You can easily make those things again once the strike is settled. Just think minute. You've always been a good union man. Eight hundred families depend on this action for living. Fremont intends to win his strike with this machine. We'll fool him"
 As he finished speaking Evans sudden ly swung a heavy sledge Into the most vital point of the machine, the miracle working cluster of cams that was the brains of the whole marvellous contriv- ance.
 A shriek burst from Powell. He had not heard. Tn a stupor he had watched the destruction of his drawings, but this crash aroused him. With a yell of fury he burst from his guards and threw him. self with appalling ferocity upon the man who had deliberately mangled this be- loved child of his brain and heart and hand A tiger defending his whelps could not have been more bloodthirsty, and
  them not a moment too soon to save Pow ell from having murder upon his soul They dragged him back, bruised and bat tered and crying like child. his face bleeding from a vicious blow that O'Brlan had felt compelled to give him, and then they grimly proceeded to reduce the pig
 They were just finishing this important strategic move when Underwood lhe tovial secretary of he company. came oaly Powell Fremont want ed to see him.
 Extras were out and the shrill tumult was waking the echoes along the barren yellow street within an almost incredible space of time. Women came running to their doors and listened to the jumbled cries in terror In every direction they could be seen scurrying across the street to exchange such consolation as they might with friendly neighbors. Some of them were already in tears. They realized better than their lords and masters this gaunt misery that hung over them. Theirs was not the confidence of victory, the ex- ultant thrill of defending their rights, the upholding interest of the battle. It was their portion merely to dumbly sui fer and to walt
 PowelIs wife hurried back into the house with a paper and shut the door. She wanted to be alone with her dead with the cold ashes of her hopes and arn- bitions-with the scattered fragments of all her crumbled, pretty air castles.
 And so it had come at last, this black doom that had menaced her for so long! There 1t was in big. blood-red letters be- fore her, both the fact of the strike itself and that nearer, more fatal blow ow the destruction of Powells machine. The paper she held had chosen that incident as the dramatic point upon which to faunt its sensation.
 It had come and she would go to join her baby, the lonesome baby that even on that further shore must yearn for the mother arms.
 She became curiously aware. presently, that her thoughts were not bent at all into the groove of heroic tragedy that she had planned for these last moments. With a strange perversion of ideas her memory flew to a gay night just before her we'd ding. They had taken trip on an ex- cursioni steamer, and had danced until 2 o'clock that morning. The lights and the music and the cool. fresh air and the laughter, even the spiced perfume of the