But Ridgway was not such a tyro at the game of politics as to depend upon speeches for results. His fine hand had been working quietly for months to bring the malcontents into one camp, shaping every passion to which men are heir to serve his purpose. As he looked down the table he could read in the faces before him hatred, revenge, envy, fear, hope, avarice, recklessness, and even love, as the motives which he must fuse to one common end. His vanity stood on tiptoe at his superb skill in playing on men’s wills. He knew he could mold these men to work his desire, and the sequel showed he was right. When the votes were counted at the end of the bitter campaign that followed, Simon Harley’s candidates went down to disastrous defeat all over the State, though he had spent money with a lavish hand. In Mesa County, Ridgway had elected every one of his judges and retired to private life those he could not influence. Harley’s grim lips tightened when the news reached him. “Very well,” he said to Mott “We’ll see if these patriots can’t be reached through their stomachs better than their brains. Order every mill and mine and smelter of the Consolidated closed to-night. Our employees have voted for this man Ridgway. Let him feed them or let them starve.” “But the cost to you—won’t it be enormous?” asked Mott, startled at his chief’s drastic decision. Harley bared his fangs with a wolfish smile. “We’ll make the public pay. Our store-houses are full of copper. Prices will jump when the supply is reduced fifty per cent. We’ll sell at an advance, and clean up a few millions out of the shut-down. Meanwhile we’ll starve this patriotic State into submission.” It came to pass even as Harley had predicted. With the Consolidated mines closed, copper, jumped up—up—up. The trust could sit still and coin money without turning a hand, while its employees suffered in the long, bitter Northern winter. All the troubles usually pursuant on a long strike began to fall upon the families of the miners. When a delegation from the miners’ union came to discuss the situation with Harley he met them blandly, with many platitudes of sympathy. He regretted—he regretted exceedingly—the necessity that had been forced upon him of closing the mines. He had delayed doing so in the hope that the situation might be relieved. But it had grown worse, until he had been forced to close. No, he was afraid he could not promise to reopen this winter, unless something were done to ameliorate conditions in the court. Work would begin at once, however, if the legislators would pass a bill making it optional with any party to a suit to have the case transferred to another judge in case he believed the bias of the presiding judge would be prejudicial to an impartial hearing.