It appeared that someone had torn up a rail in the night, evidently for the purpose of wrecking the train; so there came a detective to Jimmie, while he was working in the field, to cross-question him. They had Jimmie's record, and suspected him of knowing more than he would tell. “Aw, go to hell!” exclaimed the irate Socialist. “D'you suppose, if I'd wanted to smash anything, I'd done it on the place where I work?” And then, when he went home to dinner, he found that they had been after Lizzie, and had frightened her out of her wits. They had threatened to turn them out of their home; Jimmie saw himself hounded here and there by this accursed war--until it finished by seizing him and dragging him to the trenches! II The new Congress had met, and declared a state of war with Germany, and the whole country was rushing into arms. Men were enlisting by hundreds of thousands; but that was not enough for the militarists--they wanted a conscription-law, so that every man might be compelled to go. If they were so sure of themselves and their wonderful war, why weren't they satisfied to let those fight it who wanted to? So argued the rebellious Jimmie and his anti-militarist associates. But no! the militarists knew perfectly well that the bulk of the people did not want to fight, so they proposed to make them fight. Every energy of the Socialist movement was now concentrated on the blocking of this conscription scheme. Local Leesville hired the Opera-house again, organizing a mass-meeting of protest, and the capitalist papers of the city began clamouring against this meeting. Was the patriotism and loyalty of Leesville to be affronted by another gathering of sedition and treason? The Herald told all over again the story of the gallant old Civil War veteran who had risen in his seat and shouted his protest against the incitements of “Jack” Smith, the notorious “red” editor. The Herald printed a second time the picture of the gallant old veteran in his faded blue uniform, and the list of battles in which he had fought, from the first Bull Run to the last siege of Richmond. Some farmer passing by handed a copy of this paper to Lizzie, adding that if there was any more treason-talk in this locality there was going to be a lynching bee. So Jimmie found his wife in tears again. She was absolutely determined that he should not go to that meeting. For three days she wept and argued with him, and for a part of three nights.