“To Harleigh,” replies Metz.

“Who gave you permission to parade?”

“We are exercising our rights as freemen.”

“Well, you cannot march in a body on the highways of Pennsylvania.”

“Then we can break up our procession and walk individually.”

“In the direction of Hazelton,” Sheriff Marlin says, significantly.  “I know what you are up to; do you think that I am going to let you cause a sympathetic strike in Harleigh because you are locked out?  Not if I know myself.”

When the miners come to a halt, the men in advance cluster about Metz and the sheriff.

Now thirty men surround the sheriff.

Some of them are, of course, in advance of him.

“Get back to Hazleton,” Sheriff Marlin cries, at the same time raising his arms above his head and waving them.

He pushes his way through the crowd of miners to the edge of the road.

Off comes his hat

It is the signal which Captain Grout has been expecting.

“Company, attention!”

Two hundred Coal and Iron Police jump to their feet.

“Get back to Hazleton or I’ll take you prisoners,” shouts the sheriff.

But his words are lost.  The miners are terror-stricken.  The sight of the police, armed with deadly rifles, has made the miners insensible to every thought and impulse but that of self-preservation.

They scatter up and down the road.

“Don’t let them escape to Harleigh,” shouts the sheriff.  Taking this as an order, the police open fire on the men who have passed the sheriff.

Crack! crack! go the rifles.

Each shot fells a miner.  They are practically at the muzzles of the weapons.

A miner rushes up the bank on the left to get out of the range of the police on that side.  He is riddled by the bullets from the opposite side.

Another dives into a snow bank; it affords him no protection.  “Pot that woodchuck,” shouts Captain Grout to one of his men.

A bullet is sent into the hole.  The miner springs to his feet; then drops dead.

The line of carnage is now stretched out for two hundred yards.

There is no return fire.  So the armed police come out from cover and pursue their victims.

The police have lost all self-control.  Each man is acting on his own responsibility.

Of the ten miners who run toward Harleigh, not one is spared.  Three lie in the road; the snow about them tinged with their life’s blood.  Another is clinging with a death grip to a stunted tree, which he caught as he staggered forward, with three bullets in the back.

“Mercy! mercy!” cry several of the miners.  But their wail is lost on the ears of the Coal and Iron Police.  The police are there to kill, not to grant mercy.

Now a miner falls on his knees and prays to God for protection.

This attitude of submission is not heeded; a bullet topples him over.