The maid assented, but, after he had waited, it was again she that spoke to him. "Miss Forbes asks you please to excuse her. She’s very busy. She says to tell you Mr. Forbes was a little dizzy and had to lie down. He thinks he can get to his office late in the day." Luke felt the mortification that it was patently intended he should feel; but he lost no time over it. He turned at once to Whitaker and the clerks, and secured from them what verification he could of the newspaper’s story. Then he sent for the brawny, flannel-shirted Breil and learned what remained for him to know. "You think there’ll be more trouble?" he asked, after he had sent Whitaker and his assistant from the room. "Sure there will," said Breil cheerfully, "but not before to-night." "When’ll the soldiers get here?" "’Long about noon, I guess." "How many police have they given us?" "Half a dozen. I couldn’t beg more." "Better send some of them out to have that coal cleared away." "I tried to, but they said it wasn’t their duty, an’ I couldn’t get any satisfaction at City Hall. You know how these cops are." "Couldn’t you have a detail of your own men do it?" "I’d like to first-rate; but it’d mean a fight, an’ we don’t want to put ourselves in the position, to the public, of courtin’ that. Mr. Forbes said Saturday——" "He was right. How many men have you in good shape?" "Seventy-two. I’d send for more, but they’re on a job at Hazleton." "Will City Hall send more police if there’s trouble?" "Not till they can’t help doin’ it." The hours passed slowly. Luke made the rounds of the mill as the commander of a fortress inspects it before an attack. He saw that the strike-breakers, an anxious lot of men, were stationed at the vulnerable places, and he talked again with Breil. Forbes did not appear, and Luke was too proud to try a second time to question Betty about him; but reporters came and sent in urgent requests for a statement from the company. Luke refused to see them. It was his turn to refuse the newspapers. "Better feed ’em a little pap," Breil advised. "I won’t so much as look at them," said Luke. "They’ll knock us if you don’t." "That can’t hurt us. I won’t see them and you’re not to talk to them either, Breil." He began to chafe under the delay. He made the rounds of the mill again and smoked incessantly at cigars that he found in a box in Forbes’s desk. He bolted a cold lunch sent in at noon, and he wondered why the soldiers were late. The soldiers came at two o’clock. Out in the street there were some derisive shouts, and then the regular tramp of marching feet. Luke hurried to an office above Forbes’s, a room furnished with a small desk at one side, a large table in the center, and a few chairs, and there, from a window, saw the column of men in khaki, advancing four abreast, down the street.