Jurgis looked dumfounded.  He had never thought of that aspect of it before.  “I could be a Democrat,” he said.

“Yes,” responded the other, “but not right away; a man can’t change his politics every day.  And besides, I don’t need you—­there’d be nothing for you to do.  And it’s a long time to election day, anyhow; and what are you going to do meantime?”

“I thought I could count on you,” began Jurgis.

“Yes,” responded Scully, “so you could—­I never yet went back on a friend.  But is it fair to leave the job I got you and come to me for another?  I have had a hundred fellows after me today, and what can I do?  I’ve put seventeen men on the city payroll to clean streets this one week, and do you think I can keep that up forever?  It wouldn’t do for me to tell other men what I tell you, but you’ve been on the inside, and you ought to have sense enough to see for yourself.  What have you to gain by a strike?”

“I hadn’t thought,” said Jurgis.

“Exactly,” said Scully, “but you’d better.  Take my word for it, the strike will be over in a few days, and the men will be beaten; and meantime what you can get out of it will belong to you.  Do you see?”

And Jurgis saw.  He went back to the yards, and into the workroom.  The men had left a long line of hogs in various stages of preparation, and the foreman was directing the feeble efforts of a score or two of clerks and stenographers and office boys to finish up the job and get them into the chilling rooms.  Jurgis went straight up to him and announced, “I have come back to work, Mr. Murphy.”

The boss’s face lighted up.  “Good man!” he cried.  “Come ahead!”

“Just a moment,” said Jurgis, checking his enthusiasm.  “I think I ought to get a little more wages.”

“Yes,” replied the other, “of course.  What do you want?”

Jurgis had debated on the way.  His nerve almost failed him now, but he clenched his hands.  “I think I ought to have’ three dollars a day,” he said.

“All right,” said the other, promptly; and before the day was out our friend discovered that the clerks and stenographers and office boys were getting five dollars a day, and then he could have kicked himself!

So Jurgis became one of the new “American heroes,” a man whose virtues merited comparison with those of the martyrs of Lexington and Valley Forge.  The resemblance was not complete, of course, for Jurgis was generously paid and comfortably clad, and was provided with a spring cot and a mattress and three substantial meals a day; also he was perfectly at ease, and safe from all peril of life and limb, save only in the case that a desire for beer should lead him to venture outside of the stockyards gates.  And even in the exercise of this privilege he was not left unprotected; a good part of the inadequate police force of Chicago was suddenly diverted from its work of hunting criminals, and rushed out to serve him.