Serrano introduced them briefly: Jack Bowden, state agent of the miners; Ben Wilson and John McGue, of the strike committee. Dawson clenched each hand in a vast paw, then beckoned them away from his two grips. "Wait a minute." His alert eyes sieved the crowd. "See them two boys in gray hats? They've followed me all the way from Wilmington. Hope they've had a nice trip; I do love detectives...." He motioned them away. "Naw, I carry my own." Adjusting the two big valises carefully, he smiled, "Let's move." They went out through the truck entrance, and across the gusty avenue, clanging with cars filled with early workers. Depot idlers stared at the group; the tall heavy-loaded man in the center would hold attention anywhere. Serrano stopped half a block away, at a flamboyant entrance displaying "Mecca Hotel" in dirty white letters above. The clerk, a limp young man without a collar, shoved over the tobacco-stained page. Dawson signed it, forming each letter painstakingly. They walked up one flight to the room. Dawson looked around critically. "Biggest room they have. They'll put in the other two beds to-day." "Some of the boys may have to spend the night here. I'm glad it's near the station, if any quick getaway has to be made." The organizer smiled, his lips curling back over big front teeth; there was something disquieting and unsmiling in the look. Serrano got rid of the rest of the committee, and went into an elaborate detail of the situation. Dawson was able to help him out. "You'll find I know the land pretty well. I worked three years in the West Adamsville mines; they ran me out in the strike of '04. Who can you count on?" He listened attentively, checking certain names in a thick yellow notebook. "I know this Jack Bowden kind. We find 'em all over. In West Virginia we amputated a bunch like that. We've got 'em in Chicago, Indianapolis, New York.... Give 'em a few days, and they'll show yellow; then it's easy to fire 'em. Bowden looked fishy. These labor tin Jesuses make me sick! Better than anybody else, and sold out in advance. Who's this Judson?" The energetic bricklayer told of the recent convert, and the Arlington Hall meeting. "He can talk? We'll use him. But you can't trust them fellows too far. I'm not a socialist, you know; don't believe in voting worth a damn. Never got nowhere, never will get nowhere. But in a strike, they help." They went over the morning paper. "Mmm--only a few hundred out----What's the straight goods?" "Over five hundred from the Judson mines, six fifty from the Birrell-Florence, and about four hundred others from the mines on either side. We haven't touched West Adamsville yet, or Irondale. If only the furnaces could be called out...." "Won't come. We can try; but mine strikes don't get 'em. No organization. These men all joined?" "Joined or joining." "This says scabs from Pittsburgh.... No law to stop 'em?"