I hardly realized I was praying at the time. But Davis demanded menacingly that the strike be called off. He told the miners to return to work, then said that if they would not accede, the citizens would protect the owners. He said they would bring in other workers to take their jobs. My fear was so great that I could actually hear my lips mumbling incoherent, beseeching words. A shot rang out! The sharp noise seemed to rend my heart in two. I hardly dared take my eyes from the balcony to glance around for fear of missing a falling figure among that intrepid group. But Tabor and his friends were straight and unconcerned. Their belief in law and order made them brave. The cut-throat mob must have sensed that. No figure fell from their midst. Whatever the shot was, it had not been fired at them. I sighed with relief. Colonel Bohn of the Committee of Safety was trying to urge a horse he was mounted on through the mob, and was brandishing a drawn sword to emphasize his right. It was a very foolish thing to do at a time like that. “Somebody must be trying to shoot the old fool,” the teamster next to me in the crowd remarked. “Maybe a signal for the miners to start firing,” the man with him offered as a counter-suggestion. I was terrified—not for myself—but because of Tabor’s exposed position. My hands flew to my throat. “Oh, don’t say that!” I almost screamed. The teamster turned around and stared at me. “You’re all right—they won’t shoot you. It’s them damned slave-driving millionaires they’re after.” And Tabor was the one they were after most! But nothing happened. A policeman pulled Colonel Bohn off his horse and rushed him to the jail “for disturbing the peace,” although it was more likely for safe-keeping. Finally, both sides of the fray began to split up in little groups, then to disperse and go home. The immediate danger was over. But I knew now what it was like to be in love with a prominent man in an important political office. It meant helpless fear of an assassin’s bullet. And fear was a new emotion to me—that’s where love had brought me. I shuddered and turned inward to the Clarendon. Martial law was declared some hours later and slowly the miners went back to work, having lost their cause. There was covert grumbling in the saloons and on the streets for some time, but at last, life got back to normal, and the regular hum of the pumps at all the mines around filled the night again.