“I’d see that they got their train, if this was my station,” asserted Banneker.

“Yes, you would!  With that gang of strong-arms against you.”

“Chase ’em,” advised Banneker simply.  “They’ve got no right keeping your passengers off your trains.”

“Chase ’em, ay?  You’d do it, I suppose.”

“I would.”

“How?”

“You’ve got a gun, haven’t you?”

“Maybe you think those guys haven’t got guns, too.”

“Well, all I can say is, that if there had been passengers held up from their trains at my station and I didn’t get them through, I’d have been through so far as the Atkinson and St. Philip goes.”

“This railroad’s different.  I’d be through if I butted in on this mill row.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, for one thing, old Vanney, who’s the real boss here, is a director of the road.”

“So that’s it!” Banneker digested this information.  “Why are the women so anxious to get away?”

“They say”—­the local agent lowered his voice—­“their children are starving here, and they can get better jobs in other places.  Naturally the mills don’t want to lose a lot of their hands, particularly the women, because they’re the cheapest.  I don’t know as I blame ’em for that.  But this business of hiring a bunch of ex-cons and—­Hey!  Where are you goin’?”

Banneker was beyond the door before the query was completed.  Looking out of the window, the agent saw a fat and fussy young mother, who had contrived to get through the line, waddling at her best speed across the open toward the station, and dragging a small boy by the hand.  A lank giant from the guards’ ranks was after her.  Screaming, she turned the corner out of his vision.  There were sounds which suggested a row at the station-door, but the agent, called at that moment to the wire, could not investigate.  The train came and went, and he saw nothing more of the ex-railroader from the West.

Although Mr. Horace Vanney smiled pleasantly enough when Banneker presented himself at the office to make his report, the nature of the smile suggested a background more uncertain.

“Well, what have you found, my boy?” the financier began.

“A good many things that ought to be changed,” answered Banneker bluntly.

“Quite probably.  No institution is perfect.”

“The mills are pretty rotten.  You pay your people too little—­”

“Where do you get that idea?”

“From the way they live.”

“My dear boy; if we paid them twice as much, they’d live the same way. 
The surplus would go to the saloons.”

“Then why not wipe out the saloons?”

“I am not the Common Council of Sippiac,” returned Mr. Vanney dryly.

“Aren’t you?” retorted Banneker even more dryly.

The other frowned.  “What else?”

“Well; the housing.  You own a good many of the tenements, don’t you?”