Crack! crack! go the rifles.
Each shot fells a miner. They are practically at the muzzles of the weapons.
A miner rushes up the bank on the left to get out of the range of the police on that side. He is riddled by the bullets from the opposite side.
Another dives into a snow bank; it affords him no protection. "Pot that woodchuck," shouts Captain Grout to one of his men.
A bullet is sent into the hole. The miner springs to his feet; then drops dead.
The line of carnage is now stretched out for two hundred yards.
There is no return fire. So the armed police come out from cover and pursue their victims.
The police have lost all self-control. Each man is acting on his own responsibility.
Of the ten miners who run toward Harleigh, not one is spared. Three lie in the road; the snow about them tinged with their life's blood. Another is clinging with a death grip to a stunted tree, which he caught as he staggered forward, with three bullets in the back.
"Mercy! mercy!" cry several of the miners. But their wail is lost on the ears of the Coal and Iron Police. The police are there to kill, not to grant mercy.