“You say you’ve been trying legal means’,” M’Tosh put in.  “Can’t we down them some other way?  I believe you could safely count on the help of every man in the service, barring the politicals.”

Loring smiled.

“I don’t say we should scruple to use force if there were any way to apply it.  But the way doesn’t offer.”

“I didn’t know,” said the train-master, rising to close the interview.  “But if the time ever comes, all you or Mr. Kent will have to do will be to pass the word.  Maybe you can think of some way to use the strike.  It hasn’t been declared yet, but you can bet on it to a dead moral certainty.”

It was late in the afternoon of the same day that the Federative Council sent its committee, chairmaned by Engineer Scott, to interview the ex-general manager at his rooms in the Clarendon.  Scott acted as spokesman, stating the case with admirable brevity and conciseness, and asking the same question as that propounded by the train-master, to wit, if there were any prospect of a return of the road to its former management.

Loring spoke more hopefully to the committee than he had to Durgan and M’Tosh.  There had been a little more time for reflection, and there was the heartening which comes upon the heels of unsolicited help-tenderings, however futile.  So he told the men that the stockholders were moving heaven and earth in the effort to recover their property; that until the road should be actually sold under an order from the court, there was always room for hope.  The committee might rest assured that no stone would be left unturned; also that the good will of the rank and file would not be forgotten in the day of restitution, if that day should ever dawn.

When Loring was through, Engineer Scott did a thing no union man had ever done before:  he asked an ex-general manager’s advice touching the advisability of a strike.

“I can’t say as to that,” was the prompt reply.  “You know your own business best—­what it will cost, and what it may accomplish.  But I’ve been on the other side often enough to be able to tell you why most strikes fail, if you care to know.”

A broad grin ran the gamut of the committee.

“Tell us what to do, and we’ll do it; Mr. Loring,” said Scott, briefly.

“First, then, have a definite object and one that will stand the test of public opinion; in this case we’ll say it is the maintenance of the present wage-scale and the removal of incompetent officers and men.  Secondly, make your protest absolutely unanimous to a man.  Thirdly, don’t give the major time to fortify:  keep your own counsels, and don’t send in your ultimatum until the final moment.  And, lastly, shun violence as you would a temptation of the devil.”

“Yon’s a man,” said Angus Duncan, the member from the Amalgamated Machinists, when the committee was filing out through the hotel corridor.

“Now you’re shouting!” said Engineer Scott.  “And you might say a man and a brother.”