"
I had hard work to get away from them, and I am as sure as can be
that they would have found supper and a bed for me if they had
known I needed either.
"Come agin," Healy shouted after me, "we're glad to see a farmer
any toime."
My way led me quickly out of the well-groomed and glittering main
streets of the town. I passed first through several blocks of
quiet residences, and then came to a street near the river which
was garishly lighted, and crowded with small, poor shops and
stores, with a saloon on nearly every corner. I passed a huge,
dark, silent box of a mill, and I saw what I never saw before in
a city, armed men guarding the streets.
Although it was growing late--it was after nine o'clock--crowds
of people were still parading the streets, and there was
something intangibly restless, something tense, in the very
atmosphere of the neighbourhood. It was very plain that I had
reached the strike district. I was about to make some further
inquiries for the headquarters of the mill men or for Bill Hahn
personally, when I saw, not far ahead of me, a black crowd of
people reaching out into the street. Drawing nearer I saw that an
open space or block between two rows of houses was literally
black with human beings, and in the centre on a raised platform,
under a gasolene flare, I beheld my friend of the road, Bill
Hahn.
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