From two to five in the afternoon Wahaska, figuratively speaking, held its breath. At half-past three, young Dahlgren, of the _Daily Wahaskan_, spoiled a good story for his own paper by spreading the report that most of the men had sullenly drawn their pay, but as yet not a man of them had signed on for further employment. At four o'clock the _Daily Wahaskan's_ windows bore a bulletin to the effect that a mass indignation meeting was in progress in front of the Pottery Flat saloon; and at half-past four it was whispered about that war had been declared. Raymer and Griswold were telegraphing for strike-breakers; and the men were swearing that the plant would be picketed and that scabs would be dealt with as traitors and enemies. It was between half-past four and five that Miss Grierson, driving in the basket phaeton, made her appearance on the streets, evoking the usual ripple of comment among the gossipers on the Winnebago porch as she tooled her clean-limbed little Morgan to a stop in front of the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank. Since it was long past the closing hours, the curtains were drawn in the bank doors and street-facing windows. But there was a side entrance, and when she tapped on the glass of the door an obsequious janitor made haste to admit her. "Yo' paw's busy, right now, Miss Mahg'ry," the negro said; but she ignored the hint and went straight to the door of the private room, entering without warning. As the janitor had intimated, her father was not alone. In the chair at the desk-end sat a man florid of face, hard-eyed and gross-bodied. His hat was on the back of his head, and clamped between his teeth under the bristling mustaches he held one of Jasper Grierson's fat black cigars. The conference paused when the door opened; but when Margery crossed the room and perched herself on the deep seat of the farthest window, it went on in guarded tones at a silent signal from the banker to his visitor. There was a trade journal lying in the window-seat, and Miss Grierson took it up to become idly immersed in a study of the advertising pictures. If she listened to the low-toned talk it was only mechanically, one would say. Yet there was a quickening of the breath now and again, and a pressing of the white teeth upon the ripe lower lip, as she turned the pages of the advertising supplement; these, though only detached sentences of the talk drifted across to her window-seat.