“I see by a report of Mr. Pinkerton’s agent in Shenandoah—and we also have it from other good authority—that the strikers, including the Mollie Maguires and the members of the Miners’ and Laborers’ Union, are openly threatening the destruction of some of the company’s more expensive works in Schuylkill County, among the rest West Shenandoah Colliery, which is only defended by two private watchmen. Can your men occupy and hold that breaker?” “We can, or die in the attempt!” was the characteristic response. “I admire your courage, Mr. Linden,” said Gen. Pleasant, “but I am somewhat in doubt as to the result. However, there is no other course to pursue. Your men, headed by yourself, armed with the Winchester rifles and navy sixes, must make the trial!” “We will leave on the next train,” Linden answered. And they did go to Shenandoah, as was reported to McKenna by Gibbons and Hurley, arriving there the day following the one on which the first attack upon Thomas was to have been made. The militia-men were daily expected, but it was questioned in the minds of some whether its members were all to be depended upon in an emergency. That there were relatives of Mollies in the ranks was well known. Capt. Linden and eighteen men took charge of West Shenandoah Colliery, with the determination to defend and keep it working, preventing the miners from being driven away, if among the possibilities to do so. The second of June the Mollies and other strikers made great preparations for a dance at Number Three Hill. Word was sent by special messengers that all who could should assemble on the night of that day for a monster workingman’s parade, which was appointed for the third. Early in the morning the crowd began pouring in. There were delegates from Connor’s Patch, Loss Creek, Number Three, Raven Run, and Griscom’s Patch, as well as from Shenandoah. In the evening fires blazed from all the hillsides surrounding the collieries. There was the greatest and wildest excitement. The labor picnic at Number Three had seven or eight hundred persons in attendance. There was plenty of music, and drink, and dancing, but the principal work seemed to be organizing for the exercises of the next day, and the evident object of these was to frighten people, who were quietly at work, away from the mines. The presence of the roughest characters in the country, armed to the teeth—some having as many as three revolvers displayed ostentatiously in their belts—and the open talk of the crowd, was sufficient to tell Linden and his devoted band that the morrow boded no good for them. Still they stood manfully at their posts, guarding every point and keeping off the approach of and attacks from all stragglers. Capt. Heisler, with more men, came to the rescue, and the Militia were expected by every train. Telegraphic messages kept the wires busy and messengers hurriedly going and coming.