Hal turned again to the men; somehow, after his glance at Edward, they seemed more pitiful than ever. For Edward typified the power they were facing--the unseeing, uncomprehending power that meant to crush them. The possibility of failure was revealed to Hal in a flash of emotion, overwhelming him. He saw them as they would be, when no leader was at hand to make speeches to them. He saw them waiting, their life-long habit of obedience striving to reassert itself; a thousand fears besetting them, a thousand rumours preying upon them--wild beasts set on them by their cunning enemies. They would suffer, not merely for themselves, but for their wives and children--the very same pangs of dread that Hal suffered when he thought of one old man up in Western City, whose doctors had warned him to avoid excitement. If they stood firm, if they kept their bargain with their leader, they would be evicted from their homes, they would face the cold of the coming winter, they would face hunger and the black-list. And he, meantime--what would he be doing? What was his part of the bargain? He would interview the superintendent for them, he would turn them over to the “big union”--and then he would go off to his own life of ease and pleasure. To eat grilled steaks and hot rolls in a perfectly appointed club, with suave and softly-moving servitors at his beck! To dance at the country club with exquisite creatures of chiffon and satin, of perfume and sweet smiles and careless, happy charms! No, it was too easy! He might call that his duty to his father and brother, but he would know in his heart that it was treason to life; it was the devil, taking him onto a high mountain and showing him all the kingdoms of the earth! Moved by a sudden impulse, Hal raised his hands once more. “Boys,” he said, “we understand each other now. You’ll not go back to work till the big union tells you. And I, for my part, will stand by you. Your cause is my cause, I’ll go on fighting for you till you have your rights, till you can live and work as men! Is that right?” “That’s right! That’s right!” “Very good, then--we’ll swear to it!” And Hal raised his hands, and the men raised theirs, and amid a storm of shouts, and a frantic waving of caps, he made them the pledge which he knew would bind his own conscience. He made it deliberately, there in his brother’s presence. This was no mere charge on a trench, it was enlisting for a war! But even in that moment of fervour, Hal would have been frightened had he realised the period of that enlistment, the years of weary and desperate conflict to which he was pledging his life. SECTION 15.