But to return to the people of the abyss.  My experiences were confined to them.  They raged and slaughtered and destroyed all over the city proper, and were in turn destroyed; but never once did they succeed in reaching the city of the oligarchs over on the west side.  The oligarchs had protected themselves well.  No matter what destruction was wreaked in the heart of the city, they, and their womenkind and children, were to escape hurt.  I am told that their children played in the parks during those terrible days and that their favorite game was an imitation of their elders stamping upon the proletariat.

But the Mercenaries found it no easy task to cope with the people of the abyss and at the same time fight with the comrades.  Chicago was true to her traditions, and though a generation of revolutionists was wiped out, it took along with it pretty close to a generation of its enemies.  Of course, the Iron Heel kept the figures secret, but, at a very conservative estimate, at least one hundred and thirty thousand Mercenaries were slain.  But the comrades had no chance.  Instead of the whole country being hand in hand in revolt, they were all alone, and the total strength of the Oligarchy could have been directed against them if necessary.  As it was, hour after hour, day after day, in endless train-loads, by hundreds of thousands, the Mercenaries were hurled into Chicago.

And there were so many of the people of the abyss!  Tiring of the slaughter, a great herding movement was begun by the soldiers, the intent of which was to drive the street mobs, like cattle, into Lake Michigan.  It was at the beginning of this movement that Garthwaite and I had encountered the young officer.  This herding movement was practically a failure, thanks to the splendid work of the comrades.  Instead of the great host the Mercenaries had hoped to gather together, they succeeded in driving no more than forty thousand of the wretches into the lake.  Time and again, when a mob of them was well in hand and being driven along the streets to the water, the comrades would create a diversion, and the mob would escape through the consequent hole torn in the encircling net.

Garthwaite and I saw an example of this shortly after meeting with the young officer.  The mob of which we had been a part, and which had been put in retreat, was prevented from escaping to the south and east by strong bodies of troops.  The troops we had fallen in with had held it back on the west.  The only outlet was north, and north it went toward the lake, driven on from east and west and south by machine-gun fire and automatics.  Whether it divined that it was being driven toward the lake, or whether it was merely a blind squirm of the monster, I do not know; but at any rate the mob took a cross street to the west, turned down the next street, and came back upon its track, heading south toward the great ghetto.