Hour after hour it went on—a constant procession of determined men looking into Job's eyes, and each face growing harder, it seemed to him, than the one before. Some did not dare look him in the eye, but mumbled over the same well-learned speech which someone had taught them, and went away. They were the ones Job had befriended in distress.
Dan came in with head high in air, and talked as if he had never seen Job; he demanded justice for such hard-worked fellows as himself and his father, and gave a long harangue about the oppressed classes, till the superintendent interposed and said:
"Mr. Dean, if you have any personal grievance, come to me individually. Do not blockade that window; take your money and go."
And Dan went off in a white rage, leaving the money behind him.
At six o'clock Job put on his coat and cap, and followed the superintendent and cashier to the door. There they found armed sentinels pacing all about the stone office building, and O'Donnell and his crowd waiting. They would be obliged, they were sorry to say, to inform them that the men had decided the "boss and his crew" should not go home till the "twenty per cent." was paid; that some food from the men's boarding-house would be sent them, and they would have to stay in the office till they came to terms.
There was no alternative. They were entrapped, and there was no escape. Grim faces looked at them from all sides.
Back into the office they turned and locked the doors, to open them only when a huge quantity of poor food that looked like the remains of the miners' dinner was handed in. Again they swung the iron doors to, barred them, and sat down for the night, with the unpleasant fact staring them in the face that they were besieged and helpless. Apparently they had not a friend in all the crowd that surged to and fro in the narrow streets. There was no way of letting the outside world know their plight.
What a night that was! At first the sound of excited voices and the distant harangues of saloon-steps orators, then all quieted down; there was not even the hum of the machinery—only the dull tramp of the guards without, and the far-away call, "Twelve o'clock and all's well," which told they had a picket line on the outer edge of the town.
Job at last fell asleep in a heap on the floor, with other sleeping forms about him. He dreamed of home and Jane, heard Tony shout "Bress de Lawd!" and awoke to find himself aching in every bone from the hard floor. The light had gone out. Outside all he could hear was tramp, tramp, tramp. Then he heard voices. They came nearer. He crept to the key-hole and listened.
"Let's burn the thing and kill 'em, and run the mine ourselves!" said one voice.