Then the authorities had to take a hand. The law of the United States prohibited any interference with the carriage of its mails. The railway officials represented their tracks blocked by mobs and obstructed by overturned cars, spiked switches, and unspiked rails. A wrecking train, under guard of both police and deputy marshals, was pushed out to clear the way. The rioters jeered the deputies and cheered their friends among the police. The work was attempted, but was not done. Fifty deputies couldn't cover four miles of mob, and five hundred police winked at personal acquaintances in the shouting, seething throng, and contented themselves with occasional hustling of some manifestly friendless tramp or the vigorous arrest of some vagrant boy.
Prominent business men in a body went to the Mayor and demanded action. Others had already wired the Governor. The Colonels of the city regiments who had, of their own accord, warned their men to be in readiness, got their orders for service at 3.50 in the afternoon, and at 4.45 Corporal Fred came bounding in across the threshold of his home to kiss his mother and sisters good-by and hasten into town where, ready packed, was his knapsack with his blanket, uniform, arms, and ammunition, at the regimental armory.
The roar of the multitude at the yards only a block away rose hoarse and vibrant on the sultry air. The dust was sifting down in smothering clouds. Drawn thither by curiosity numbers of women and children had gathered at the upper end of the street, and were thronging the porches, windows, and even the roofs of the frame houses that covered the neighborhood. "What ever you do, mother," said Fred, "keep away from the crowd, and keep the girls at home. Has Jim been in?"
"No, he hasn't come back," was the almost tearful answer. "Your father said he would try to find him when he went to the shops after dinner. I wish he had kept away from those meetings. No good can ever come of such rioting."
"I haven't a moment to lose, mother," said Fred, kissing away the tears now brimming in her eyes, "but I must go across the tracks to get to the cable-cars, and he may be there. If so, I'll try to make him promise to come home."
It was a tearful group the gallant young fellow left behind him on the narrow porch, as he strode swiftly up the street. Some fifty yards away he turned and waved his hat to them, then disappeared among the groups of women excitedly, nervously watching the proceedings. The throng grew denser as he neared the white rod gates that were lowered to close the crossing with every sign of coming train or switch engine. Ordinarily they were rising and falling and their warning gongs trilling every other minute, but not once this long June day had their white fingers ceased to point straight to the zenith. At the crossing a solitary and perspiring policeman was swinging loosely his club and occasionally drawling "Come, get back out of this," and laying benevolent hand on the nearest spectator; but where one fell back a dozen surged forward, and the entire crossing was in the possession of a throng of strike sympathizers, among whom Fred failed to recognize more than three or four real railway men. Prominent among the more active and determined at the very front, however, he caught sight of a man named Farley, a brakeman, who was often one of Jim's own crew. He was shouting and gesticulating to friends in the second-story windows of a saloon across the tracks, a rendezvous of men who, at ordinary times, rarely drank a drop of liquor. The ground-floor was invisible to the throng. "Come out here, you fellers," he was saying. "I tell you they're going to try to clear these side-tracks, and we'll need every man of you."
Farley was right in his prophecy. The managers realized that it would take much longer to right the overturned freight-cars than to draw away the long trains of empty or half-loaded cars at the sides, and so clear a track or two for the mails and passengers. At the crossing of Allen Street there were ten parallel tracks, those in the middle—numbers five and six—being the through tracks. Freight-cars by the dozen on tracks four and seven had been toppled over so as to completely block all four, and, as Farley spoke, down the long vista towards the city and over the heads of the throng the smoke of locomotives could be seen puffing steadily towards them. With car-loads of such guards as they could command—deputy marshals picked up and sworn in anyhow—the railway officials were coming to make the attempt. Fred had reached the spot at the most exciting hour of the day. He should, perhaps, have pushed on through the crowd and hastened on to the cable road, but it occurred to him that an account of the situation up to the last moment might be of use to his officers, or that he might find a quicker way of getting to town on a switch engine. Then, too, he longed to speak with Jim and get him to go home. He determined, therefore, on a few minutes' delay. Ducking, dodging, and squeezing, he made his way through the crowd to Farley's side.
"Jerry," said he, "I hate to see one of Jim's men in this. Surely he and you ought to keep out of the yards. Where is he?"
"He has kept out of the yards so far," answered Farley, with an angry oath and glaring eyes. "But the time's come for them that are men to show it, and them that don't step out and fight for their rights now are skulkers and sneaks—skulkers and sneaks," he shouted, and the crowd roared approval. Out through the densely-packed mass of humanity across the tracks something came shoving and surging, and presently, welcomed by a cheer, a dozen burly men burst into view and came striding out upon the right of way, Jim Wallace among them. Pale with excitement and apprehension Fred sprang towards him.
