"Is that you, Baxter?" he asked, and stretched out his hand with a mechanical movement.
"Why, bless my soul, Smith!" exclaimed Baxter, "who'd ever have believed it!"
"I've just got off the train," returned Ordway, feeling vaguely that some explanation of his presence was needed, "and I'm trying to find a place where I can keep warm until I take the one for the West at midnight. It didn't occur to me that you would be in your office. I was going to Mrs. Buzzy's."
"You'd better come along with me, for I don't believe you'll find a living soul at Mag Buzzy's—not even a kid," replied Baxter, "her husband is one of Jasper Trend's overseers, you know, and they're most likely down at the cotton mills."
"At the cotton mills? Why, what's the matter there?"
"You haven't heard then? I thought it was in all the papers. There's been a big strike on for a week—Jasper lowered wages the first of the month—and every operative has turned out and demanded more pay and shorter hours. The old man's hoppin', of course, and the funny part is, Smith, that he lays every bit of the trouble at your door. He says that you started it all by raisin' the ideas of the operatives."
"But it's a pretty serious business for them, Baxter. How are they going to live through this weather?"
"They ain't livin', they're starvin', though I believe the union is comin' to their help sooner or later. But what's that in such a blood-curdlin' spell as this?"
A sudden noise, like that of a great shout, rising and falling in the bitter air, came to them from below the slope of the hill, and catching Ordway's arm, Baxter drew him closer under the street lamp.
"They're hootin' at the guards Trend has put around the mills," he said, while his words floated like vapour out of his mouth into the cold, "he's got policemen stalkin' up an' down before his house, too."