There was one ray of light in the darkness, however.  The municipal employees had refused to strike, and only by force would the city go dark that night.  It was a blow to the conspirators.  In the strange psychology of the mob, darkness was an essential to violence, and by three o’clock that afternoon the light plant and city water supply had been secured against attack by effectual policing.  The power plant for the car lines was likewise protected, and at five o’clock a line of street cars, stalled on Amanda Street, began to show signs of life.

The first car was boarded by a half dozen youngish men, unobtrusively ready for trouble, and headed by a tall youth who limped slightly and wore an extremely anxious expression.  He went forward and commenced a series of experiments with levers and brake, in which process incidentally he liberated a quantity of sand onto the rails.  A moment later the car lurched forward, and then stopped with a jerk.

Willy Cameron looked behind him and grinned.  The entire guard was piled in an ignoble mass on the floor.

By six o’clock volunteer crews were running a number of cars, and had been subjected to nothing worse than abuse.  Strikers lined the streets and watched them, but the grim faces of the guards kept them back.  They jeered from the curbs, but except for the flinging of an occasional stone they made no inimical move.

By eight o’clock it was clear that the tie-up would be only partial.  Volunteers from all walks of life were in line at the temporary headquarters of the Vigilance Committee and were being detailed, for police duty, to bring in the trains with the morning milk, to move street cars and trucks.  The water plant and the reservoirs were protected.  Willy Cameron, abandoning his car after the homeward rush of the evening, found a line before the Committee Building which extended for blocks down the street.

Troops had been sent for, but it took time to mobilize and move them.  It would be morning before they arrived.  And the governor, over the long distance wire to the mayor, was inclined to be querulous.

“We’ll send them, of course,” he said.  “But if the strikers are keeping quiet—­I don’t know what the country’s coming to.  We’re holding a conference here now.  There’s rioting breaking out all over the state.”

* * * * *

There was a conference held in the Mayor’s office that night:  Cameron and Cardew and one or two others of the Vigilance Committee, two agents of the government secret service, the captains of the companies of state troops and constabulary, the Chief of Police, the Mayor himself, and some representatives of the conservative element of organized labor.  Quiet men, these last, uneasy and anxious, as ignorant as the others of which way the black cat, the symbol of sabotage and destruction, would jump.  The majority of their men would stand for order, they declared, but there were some who would go over.  They urged, to offset that reflection on their organization that the proletariat of the city might go over, too.