THE hot days dragged on. Dan and his father moved down to the shops. Two cots were placed in the pattern-room, where they slept, and where Roger Oakley spent most of his time reading his Bible or in brooding over the situation. Their meals were brought to them from the hotel. It was not that Dan suspected the men of any sinister intentions, but he felt it was just as well that they should understand the utter futility of any lawlessness, and, besides, his father was much happier in the solitude of the empty shops than he could have been elsewhere in Antioch. All day long he followed McClintock about, helping with such odd jobs as were necessary to keep the machinery in perfect order. He was completely crushed and broken in spirit He had aged, too.

At the office Dan saw only Holt and McClintock. Sick of Kerr's presence, and exasperated at his evident sympathy for the strikers—a sympathy he was at no pains to conceal—he had laid him off, a step that was tantamount to dismissal. Miss Walton was absent on her vacation, which he extended from week to week. It was maddening to him to have her around with nothing to do, for he and Holt found it difficult to keep decently busy themselves, now the shops had closed.

Holloway, the vice-president of the road, visited Antioch just once during the early days of the strike. He approved—being of an approving disposition—of all Oakley had done, and then went back home to Chicago, after telling him not to yield a single point in the fight.

“We've got to starve 'em into submission,” said this genial soul. “There's nothing like an empty stomach to sap a man's courage, especially when he's got a houseful of hungry, squalling brats. I don't know but what you'd better arrange to get in foreigners. Americans are too independent.”

But Oakley was opposed to this. “The men will be glad enough to accept the new scale of wages a little later, and the lesson won't be wasted on them.”

“Yes, I know, but the question is, do we want 'em? I wish Cornish was here. I think he'd advise some radical move. He's all fight.”

Oakley, however, was devoutly thankful that the general was in England, where he hoped he would stay. He had no wish to see the men ruined. A wholesome lesson would suffice. He was much relieved when the time arrived to escort Holloway to his train.

All this while the Herald continued its attacks, but Dan no longer minded them. Nothing Ryder could say could augment his unpopularity. It had reached its finality. He never guessed that, indirectly at least, Constance Emory was responsible for by far the greater part of Ryder's present bitterness. She objected to his partisanship of the men, and this only served to increase his verbal intemperance. But, in spite of the antagonism of their views, they remained friends. Constance was willing to endure much from Ryder that she would have resented from any one else. She liked him, and she was sorry for him; he seemed unhappy, and she imagined he suffered as she herself suffered, and from the same cause. There was still another motive for her forbearance, which, perhaps, she did not fully realize. The strike and Oakley had become a mania with the editor, and from him she was able to learn what Dan was doing.

The unpopularity of his son was a source of infinite grief to Roger Oakley. The more so as he took the burden of it on his own shoulders. He brooded over it until presently he decided that he would have a talk with Ryder and explain matters to him, and ask him to discontinue his abuse of Dan. There was a streak in the old convict's mind which was hardly sane, for no man spends the best years of his life in prison and comes out as clear-headed as he goes in.

As he pottered about the shops with McClintock, he meditated on his project. He was sure, if he could show Ryder where he was wrong and unfair, he would hasten to make amends. It never occurred to him that Ryder had merely followed in the wake of public opinion, giving it definite expression.

One evening—and he chose the hour when he knew Antioch would be at supper and the streets deserted—he stole from the shops, without telling Dan where he was going, as he had a shrewd idea that he would put a veto on his scheme did he know of it.

With all his courage his pace slackened as he approached the Herald office. He possessed unbounded respect for print, and still greater respect for the man who spoke in print.

The door stood open, and he looked in over the top of his steel-bowed spectacles. The office was dark and shadowy, but from an inner room, where the presses stood, a light shone. While he hesitated, the half-grown boy who was Griff's chief assistant came from the office. Roger Oakley placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Is Mr. Ryder in, sonny?” he asked.

“Yes, he's in the back room, where you see the light.”

“Thank you.”

He found Ryder busy making up, by the light of a single dingy lamp, for the Herald went to press in the morning. Griff gave a start of surprise when he saw who his visitor was; then he said, sharply, “Well, sir, what can I do for you?”

It was the first time the old convict and the editor had met, and Roger Oakley, peering over his spectacles, studied Ryder's face in his usual slow fashion. At last he said: “I hope I am not intruding, Mr. Ryder, for I'd like to speak with you.”

“Then be quick about it,” snapped Griff. “Don't you see I'm busy?”

With the utmost deliberation the old convict took from his pocket a large red-and-yellow bandanna handkerchief. Then he removed his hat and wiped his face and neck with elaborate thoroughness. When he finally spoke he dropped his voice to an impressive whisper. “I don't think you understand Dannie, Mr. Ryder, or the reasons for the trouble down at the shops.”

“Don't I? Well, I'll be charmed to hear your explanation.” And he put down the rule with which he had been measuring one of the printed columns on the table before him.

Without being asked Roger Oakley seated himself in a chair by the door. He placed his hat and handkerchief on a corner of the table, and took off his spectacles, which he put into their case. Ryder watched him with curious interest.

“I knew we could settle this, Mr. Ryder,” said he, with friendly simplicity. “You've been unfair to my son. That was because you did not understand. When you do, I am certain you will do what you can to make right the wrong you have done him.”

A vicious, sinister smile wreathed Ryder's lips. He nodded. “Go on.”

“Dannie's done nothing to you to make you wish to hurt him—for you are hurting him. He don't admit it, but I know.”

“I hope so,” said Ryder, tersely. “I should hate to think my energy had been entirely wasted.”

A look of pained surprise crossed Roger Oakley's face. He was quite shocked at the unchristian feeling Griff was displaying. “No, you don't mean that!” he made haste to say. “You can't mean it.”

“Can't I?” cynically.

Roger Oakley stole a glance from under his thick, bushy eyebrows at the editor. He wondered if an apt quotation from the Scriptures would be of any assistance. The moral logic with which he had intended to overwhelm him had somehow gone astray-He presented the singular spectacle of a man who was in the wrong, and who knew he was in the wrong and was yet determined to persist in it.

“There's something I'll tell you that I haven't told any one else.” He glanced again at Ryder to see the effect of the proposed confidence, and again the latter nodded for him to go on.

“I am going away. I haven't told my son yet, but I've got it all planned, and when I am gone you won't have any reason to hate Dannie, will you?”

“That's an admirable idea, Mr. Oakley, and if Dannie, as you call him, has half your good-sense he'll follow your example.”

“No; he can't leave. He must stay. He's the manager of the road,” with evident pride. “He's got to stay, but I'll go. Won't that do just as well?” a little anxiously, for he could not fathom the look on Ryder's dark face. Ryder only gave him a smile in answer, and he continued, hurriedly:

“You see, the trouble's been about me and my working in the shops. If I hadn't come here there'd have been no strike. As for Dannie, he's made a man of himself. You don't know, and I don't know, how hard he's worked and how faithful he's been. What I've done mustn't reflect on him. It all happened when he was a little boy—so high,” extending his hand.

“Mr. Oakley,” said Ryder, coldly and insultingly, “I propose, if I can, to make this town too hot to hold your son, and I am grateful to you for the unconscious compliment you have paid me by this visit.”

“Dannie don't know I came,” quickly.

“No, I don't suppose he does. I take it it was an inspiration of your own.”

Roger Oakley had risen from his seat.

“What's Dannie ever done to you?” he asked, with just the least perceptible tremor in his tones.

Ryder shrugged his shoulders. “We don't need him in Antioch.”

The old man mastered his wrath, and said, gently:

“You can't afford to be unfair, Mr. Ryder. No one can afford to be unfair. You are too young a man to persevere in what you know to be wrong.”

To maintain his composure required a great effort. In the riotous days of his youth he had concluded most arguments in which he had become involved with his fists. Aged and broken, his religion overlay his still vigorous physical strength but thinly, as a veneer. He squared his massive shoulders and stood erect, like a man in his prime, and glowered heavily on the editor.

“I trust you have always been able to make right your guiding star,” retorted Ryder, jeeringly. The anger instantly faded from the old convict's face. He was recalled to himself.

Ordinarily, that is, in the presence of others, Ryder would have felt bound to treat Roger Oakley with the deference due to his years. Alone, as they were, he was restrained by no such obligation. He was in an ugly mood, and he proceeded to give it rein.

“I wish to hell you'd mind your own business,” he said, suddenly. “What do you mean by coming here to tell me what I ought to do? If you want to know, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am going to hound you and that precious son of yours out of this part of the country.”

The old man straightened up again as Ryder spoke. The restraint of years dropped from him in a twinkling. He told him he was a scoundrel, and he prefaced it with an oath—a slip he did not notice in his excitement.

“Hey! What's that?”

“You're a damned scoundrel!” repeated Roger Oakley, white with rage. He took a step around the table and came nearer the editor. “I don't know but what I ought to break every bone in your body! You are trying to ruin my son!” He hit the table a mighty blow with his clinched fist, and, thrusting his head forward, glared into Ryder's face.

“You have turned his friends against him. Why, he ain't got none left any more. They have all gone over to the other side; and you done it, you done it, and it's got to stop!”

Ryder had been taken aback for the moment by Roger Oakley's fierce anger, which vibrated in his voice and flashed in his dark, sunken eyes.

“Get out of here,” he shouted, losing control of himself. “Get out or, damn you, I'll kick you out!”

“When I'm ready to go I'll leave,” retorted the old man, calmly, “and that will be when I've said my say.”

“You'll go now,” and he shoved him in the direction of the door. The shove was almost a blow, and as it fell on his broad chest Roger Oakley gave a hoarse, inarticulate cry and struck out with his heavy hand. Ryder staggered back, caught at the end of the table as he plunged past it, and fell his length upon the floor. The breath whistled sharply from the old man's lips. “There,” he muttered, “you'll keep your hands off!”

Ryder did not speak nor move. All was hushed and still in the room. Suddenly a nervous chill seized the old convict. He shook from head to heel.

“I didn't mean to hit you,” he said, speaking to the prostrate figure at his feet. “Here, let me help you.”

He stooped and felt around on the floor until he found Ryder's hand. He released it instantly to take the lamp from the table. Then he knelt beside the editor. In the corner where the latter lay stood a rusty wood-stove. In his fall Griff's head had struck against it.

The lamp shook in Roger Oakley's hand like a leaf in a gale. Ryder's eyes were open and seemed to look into his own with a mute reproach. For the rest he lay quite limp, his head twisted to one side. The old man felt of his heart. One or two minutes elapsed. His bearing was one of feverish intensity. He heard three men loiter by on the street, and the sound of their footfalls die off in the distance, but Ryder's heart had ceased to beat. Fully convinced of this, he returned the lamp to the table and, sitting down in the chair by the door, covered his face with his hands and sobbed aloud.

Over and over he murmured: “I've killed him, I've killed him! Poor boy! poor boy! I didn't goto do it!”

Presently he got up and made a second examination. The man was dead past every doubt. His first impulse was to surrender himself to the town marshal, as he had done once before under similar circumstances.

Then he thought of Dan.

No, he must escape, and perhaps it would never be known who had killed Ryder. His death might even be attributed to an accident. In his excitement he forgot the boy he had met at the door. That incident had passed entirely from his mind, and he did not remember the meeting until days afterwards.

He had been utterly indifferent to his own danger, but now he extinguished the lamp and made his way cautiously into the outer room and peered into the street. As he crouched in the darkness by the door he heard the town bell strike the hour. He counted the strokes. It was eight o'clock. An instant later and he was hurrying down the street, fleeing from the ghastly horror of the white, upturned face, and the eyes, with their look of mute reproach.

When he reached the railroad track at the foot of Main Street, he paused irresolutely.

“If I could see Dannie once more, just once more!” he muttered, under his breath; but he crossed the tracks with a single, longing look turned towards the shops, a black blur in the night a thousand yards distant.

Main Street became a dusty country road south of the tracks. He left it at this point and skirted a cornfield, going in the direction of the creek.

At the shops Dan had waited supper for his father until half-past seven, when he decided he must have gone up-town, probably to the Joyces'. So he had eaten his supper alone. Then he drew his chair in front of an open window and lighted his pipe. It was very hot in the office, and by-and-by he carried his lamp into the pattern-room, where he and his father slept. He arranged their two cots, blew out the light, which seemed to add to the heat, partly undressed, and lay down. He heard the town bell strike eight, and then the half-hour. Shortly after this he must have fallen asleep, for all at once he awoke with a start. From off in the night a confusion of sounds reached him. The town bell was ringing the alarm. At first he thought it was a fire, but there was no light in the sky, and the bell rang on and on.

He got up and put on his coat and hat and started out.

It was six blocks to the Herald office, and as he neared it he could distinguish a group of excited, half-dressed men and women where they clustered on the sidewalk before the building. A carriage was standing in the street.

He elbowed into the crowd unnoticed and unrecognized. A small boy, who had climbed into the low boughs of a maple-tree, now shouted in a perfect frenzy of excitement: “Hi! They are bringing him out! Jimmy Smith's got him by the legs!”

At the same moment Chris. Berry appeared in the doorway. The crowd stood on tiptoe, breathless, tense, and waiting.

“Drive up a little closter, Tom,” Berry called to the man in the carriage. Then he stepped to one side, and two men pushed past him carrying the body of Ryder between them. The crowd gave a groan.