"Here, boss!" cried O'Donnell, "yez didn't plant yer name on the paper! Ain't yez goin' to give the hands their dues?" Then the superintendent turned and explained to the men that he could not sign any such agreement; had no authority to; only the directors in San Francisco and New York could authorize it; that the mine could not afford it; that the men had no complaint--it was only false sympathy with distant strikes which caused them to make this demand; that he would not sign such a document if he could. The men left in a rage. At the noon shift all the hands came up from the mine; not one went down. The machinery stopped; not a wheel turned, not even the pumps that were so necessary to keep the lower levels from being flooded. At one o'clock the men began to come for their pay, not one doing so in the morning. Each demanded a raise of twenty per cent. on his wages, and, when this was refused by Job, threw his money back on the shelf, and walked out without a word. Hour after hour it went on--a constant procession of determined men looking into Job's eyes, and each face growing harder, it seemed to him, than the one before. Some did not dare look him in the eye, but mumbled over the same well-learned speech which someone had taught them, and went away. They were the ones Job had befriended in distress. Dan came in with head high in air, and talked as if he had never seen Job; he demanded justice for such hard-worked fellows as himself and his father, and gave a long harangue about the oppressed classes, till the superintendent interposed and said: "Mr. Dean, if you have any personal grievance, come to me individually. Do not blockade that window; take your money and go." And Dan went off in a white rage, leaving the money behind him. At six o'clock Job put on his coat and cap, and followed the superintendent and cashier to the door. There they found armed sentinels pacing all about the stone office building, and O'Donnell and his crowd waiting. They would be obliged, they were sorry to say, to inform them that the men had decided the "boss and his crew" should not go home till the "twenty per cent." was paid; that some food from the men's boarding-house would be sent them, and they would have to stay in the office till they came to terms. There was no alternative. They were entrapped, and there was no escape. Grim faces looked at them from all sides. Back into the office they turned and locked the doors, to open them only when a huge quantity of poor food that looked like the remains of the miners' dinner was handed in. Again they swung the iron doors to, barred them, and sat down for the night, with the unpleasant fact staring them in the face that they were besieged and helpless. Apparently they had not a friend in all the crowd that surged to and fro in the narrow streets. There was no way of letting the outside world know their plight.