The mayor telegraphed to the governor for troops. The governor responded promptly, and ordered the First Brigade to be in readiness, and to report at 5 A.M. next morning in Harrisville, with rifles, cannon, Gatling and Hotchkiss guns and ammunition. Orderlies went flying through the city with summons that must be obeyed. The signal corps flashed their green and red lights from the tower to distant armories. Ambulance corps hastened their preparation, packing saws, knives, lint, and bandages. Imperative orders from general to colonels, to majors, to captains, to corporals tracked the militia men to their homes, and to their places of amusement. By midnight every military organization in Harrisville was under arms. The general with his staff was at his headquarters and ready for action. Before sunset Colonel Harris had his steel mills enclosed by a high fortress-fence; many agents were dispatched to other cities to advertise for, and contract with, skilled labor for his mills. On his way home, he called again on the mayor, also at brigade headquarters, and satisfied himself that his property would be protected. In forty-eight hours five hundred new workmen had arrived, and in squads of from twenty-five to fifty they were coming in on every train. Colonel Harris, experienced in strikes, knew just what to do. A great warehouse in the board enclosure was converted into barracks and supplied with beds, and kitchens, and an old army quartermaster was placed in charge. The new men on arrival were taken under escort of the soldiers to the barracks, and were rapidly set to work under loyal foremen. In a single week Colonel Harris had secured over fifteen hundred new men. Smoke-stacks were again pouring forth huge volumes of smoke. The renewed and familiar hum of machinery was audible beyond the high board fence. This activity in the mills was to the old employees like a red flag flaunted before an enraged bull. Inflammatory speeches were the order of the hour. It was three o'clock on the eighth day of the strike, when three thousand of the old employees left their halls and marched directly to the steel mills. Hundreds of women and children joined the long procession. The strike leaders in advance carried the American flag, and their band played the "Star Spangled Banner." Most of the men, and some of the women, carried clubs and stones. Radicals concealed red flags and pistols within their coats. Detectives reported by telephone the threatening attitude of the strikers to Colonel Harris at his home, to Manager Thomas at the mills, and to the mayor who ordered more police in patrol wagons to proceed immediately to the steel works. Following the police rode the Harrisville Troop, one hundred strong. Gertrude would not let her father go to the steel plant, so he sat by the telephone in his own house.