For a week there had been a strike of teamsters in the city and that
afternoon there had been a riot. Windows had been smashed and several
men injured. Now the evening crowds gathered and speakers climbed upon
boxes to talk. Everywhere there was a great wagging of jaws and waving
of arms. McGregor grew reminiscent. Into his mind came the little
mining town and he saw himself again a boy sitting in the darkness on
the steps before his mother's bake shop and trying to think. Again in
fancy he saw the disorganised miners tumbling out of the saloon to
stand on the street swearing and threatening and again he was filled
with contempt for them.
And then in the heart of the great western city the same thing
happened that had happened when he was a boy in Pennsylvania. The
officials of the city, having decided to startle the striking
teamsters by a display of force, sent a regiment of state troops
marching through the streets. The soldiers were dressed in brown
uniforms. They were silent. As McGregor looked down they turned out of
Polk Street and came with swinging measured tread up State Street past
the disorderly mobs on the sidewalk and the equally disorderly
speakers on the curb.
McGregor's heart beat so that he nearly choked. The men in the
uniforms, each in himself meaning nothing, had become by their
marching together all alive with meaning.
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