As Bull snatched up the document and held it aloft, a deathly silence reigned throughout the hall, and every eye was turned angrily upon the intruders.  Bull yielded not a moment for those witless minds to recover from their shock.  His voice rang out fiercely.

“Here,” he cried, “d’you know what you’re doing, listening to that fool guy I’ve thrown through that window, and signing this crazy paper he’s set out for you?  No.  You don’t unless you’re just as crazy yourselves.  You’re declaring war.  You’re starting a great fight to steal the property that hands you your living.  You reckon you’ve got all you need of our brains, and your own brute force and darnation foolishness can run these great mills which are to hand you the big money you reckon it hands us.  That means war.  Maybe you fancy it’s the one-sided war you’d like to have it.  Maybe you fancy there’s about a dozen of us, and we’re going to be made to work for the wage you figger to hand us.  You’re dead wrong.  It’s going to be a hell of a war if you swallow the dope these fellows hand you.  You’ve begun it, and we’re taking up the challenge.  We’ve fired the first shot, too.  It’s not gun-play yet.  No.  Maybe it’ll come to that and you’ll find we can hand you shot for shot.  No.  We’re quicker than that.  The mill’s closed down!  Wages have ceased!  And all power has been cut off!  There’s not a spark of light or heat, for the whole of Sachigo.  The vital parts of the power station have been removed, and you can’t get ’em back.  I’ve only to give the word and the penstocks on the river will be cut so you can’t repair them.  It’s forty degrees below Zero out there, where I’ve shot that crazy Bolshie, and so you know just how you stand here on Labrador with no means of gettin’ away until the thaw comes.  You and your wives and kiddies’ll have to pay in the cold for the crime of theft you reckon to put through.  We’re ready for you, whether it’s gun-play or any other sort of war you want to start.  That’s the thing I’ve come here to tell you.”

He paused for a moment to watch the effect of his words.  It was there on the instant.  A furious hubbub arose.  There was not a man in the room who did not understand the dire threat which the coup of the master mind imposed.  Power cut off!  Light!  Heat!  Power!  Forty degrees below Zero!  The terror of the Labrador winter was in every man’s mind.  Life would be unendurable without heat.  There were the forests.  Oh, yes.  They could get heat of sorts.  The sort of heat which the men on a winter trail were accustomed to. Their electrically-heated houses were without stoves in which they could burn wood.

Bull listened to the babel of tongues while his men watched for any act that might come.  Every man on the platform was armed ready.

“Here!”

Bull’s voice rang out again, but he was interrupted.

A man shouted at him from the back of the hall.