The devil is credited with the power to raise a tempest. Certainly tempests are raised, but sometimes even the devil cannot quiet them. Such was the case with the strike. McSheen, Wringman and Co. had been completely successful in getting the strike of the Leigh employees under way: when it started, they privately took much pride in their work. Wringman received his wage and gratified his feeling of revenge for Mr. Leigh's cool contempt of him on the occasion when he called to demand terms of him. McSheen had a score of longer standing to settle. It dated back to the time when Mr. Leigh, looking with clear and scornful eyes at his work, gave him to feel that at least one man knew him to the bottom of his scoundrelly soul. For a while it appeared as though Mr. Leigh would be irretrievably ruined and McSheen and his friends and secret backers like Canter would secure easy possession of the properties his power of organization had built up; but suddenly an unlooked-for ally with abundant resources had come to Mr. Leigh's assistance in the person of an old friend, and the ripened fruit of their labors had been plucked from their hands outstretched to grasp it. And now having raised the tempest, these gamblers could not calm it. In other words, having started a strike among Mr. Leigh's operatives for a specific purpose, it had spread like a conflagration and now threatened to destroy everything. The whole laboring population were getting into a state of ferment. Demands were made by their leaders such as had never been dreamed of before. The leaders were working them for their own purposes, and were after a temporary raise of wages. But there was a graver danger. The people were becoming trained. A new leader was coming forward, and his writings were having a profound influence. He could not be bullied, and he could not be bought, this Jew, Wolffert. He was opening the eyes of the People. Unless the thing were stopped, there would be a catastrophe which would ruin them all. This was the judgment that McSheen and Canter and Co. arrived at. And this was the conclusion that Mr. Canter, Sr., announced to his son and heir, Mr. Canter, Jr., at the close of an interview in which he had discussed his affairs with more openness than he usually employed with that audacious young operator. "The fact is," he said, "that we have failed in the object of our move. We have not got hold of Leigh's lines--and his men are returning to work while ours are just beginning to fight--and instead of getting his properties, we stand a blessed good show of losing our own. McSheen couldn't deliver the goods and there is the devil to pay. Why don't you stop your ---- nonsense and settle down and marry that girl? She's the prettiest girl in town and--Well, you might go a good deal further and fare worse. There is a good property there if we don't destroy it fighting for it. If you are ever going to do it, now is the