agreed to leave town within twenty-four hours, and agents of the packers were in the courtrooms to ship them right.  And meantime trainloads of supplies were coming in for their accommodation, including beer and whisky, so that they might not be tempted to go outside.  They hired thirty young girls in Cincinnati to “pack fruit,” and when they arrived put them at work canning corned beef, and put cots for them to sleep in a public hallway, through which the men passed.  As the gangs came in day and night, under the escort of squads of police, they stowed away in unused workrooms and storerooms, and in the car sheds, crowded so closely together that the cots touched.  In some places they would use the same room for eating and sleeping, and at night the men would put their cots upon the tables, to keep away from the swarms of rats.

But with all their best efforts, the packers were demoralized.  Ninety per cent of the men had walked out; and they faced the task of completely remaking their labor force—­and with the price of meat up thirty per cent, and the public clamoring for a settlement.  They made an offer to submit the whole question at issue to arbitration; and at the end of ten days the unions accepted it, and the strike was called off.  It was agreed that all the men were to be re-employed within forty-five days, and that there was to be “no discrimination against union men.”

This was an anxious time for Jurgis.  If the men were taken back “without discrimination,” he would lose his present place.  He sought out the superintendent, who smiled grimly and bade him “wait and see.”  Durham’s strikebreakers were few of them leaving.

Whether or not the “settlement” was simply a trick of the packers to gain time, or whether they really expected to break the strike and cripple the unions by the plan, cannot be said; but that night there went out from the office of Durham and Company a telegram to all the big packing centers, “Employ no union leaders.”  And in the morning, when the twenty thousand men thronged into the yards, with their dinner pails and working clothes, Jurgis stood near the door of the hog-trimming room, where he had worked before the strike, and saw a throng of eager men, with a score or two of policemen watching them; and he saw a superintendent come out and walk down the line, and pick out man after man that pleased him; and one after another came, and there were some men up near the head of the line who were never picked—­they being the union stewards and delegates, and the men Jurgis had heard making speeches at the meetings.  Each time, of course, there were louder murmurings and angrier looks.  Over where the cattle butchers were waiting, Jurgis heard shouts and saw a crowd, and he hurried there.  One big butcher, who was president of the Packing Trades Council, had been passed over five times, and the men were wild with rage; they had appointed a committee of three to go in and see the superintendent, and the committee had made three attempts, and each time the police had clubbed them back from the door.  Then there were yells and hoots, continuing until at last the superintendent came to the door.  “We all go back or none of us do!” cried a hundred voices.  And the other shook his fist at them, and shouted, “You went out of here like cattle, and like cattle you’ll come back!”