“Scab! scab!” shouted Lee and the others.
“Scab yourself!” shrieked Sadie Peel. Her father was one of the opposing party, and that gave her perfect audacity. “Look out you don't hit me, dad,” she cried to him. “I'm goin' to get my nearseal cape. Don't you hit your daughter, Tom Peel!” She raced on with a sort of hoppity-skip. She caught a young man near her by the arm and forced him into the same dancing motion.
They were at the foot of the stairs, when Robert, watching, saw Lee with a pistol in his hand aim straight at Ellen. He sprang before her, but Risley was nearer, and the shot struck him. When Risley fell, a great cry, it would have been difficult to tell whether of triumph or horror, went up from the open windows of the other factories, and men came swarming out. Lee and his companions vanished.
A great crowd gathered around Risley until the doctors came and ordered them away, and carried him in the ambulance to the hospital. He was not dead, but evidently very seriously injured.
When the ambulance had rolled out of sight, the Lloyd employés entered the factory, and the hum of machinery began.
Fanny and Andrew stood together before the factory after Ellen had entered. Andrew had started when he had seen his wife.
“You here?” he said.
“I rather guess I'm here,” returned Fanny. “Do you s'pose I was goin' to stay at home, and not know whether you and her were shot dead or not?”
“I guess it's all safe now,” said Andrew. He was very pale. He looked at the blood-stained place where Lyman Risley had lain. “It's awful work,” he said.
“Who did it?” asked Fanny, sharply. “I heard the shot just before I got here.”