soldiers whose threatening line of bayonets stretched across that thoroughfare half-way down toward the canal, guarding the detested Chippering Mill.  Bordering West Street, behind the company’s lodging-houses on the canal, were certain low buildings, warehouses, and on their roofs tense figures could be seen standing out against the sky.  The vanguard of the mob, thrust on by increasing pressure from behind, tumbled backward the thin cordon of police, drew nearer and nearer the bayonets, while the soldiers grimly held their ground.  A voice was heard on the roof, a woman in the front rank of the mob gave a warning shriek, and two swift streams of icy water burst forth from the warehouse parapet, tearing the snow from the cobbles, flying in heavy, stinging spray as it advanced and mowed the strikers down and drove them like flies toward Faber Street.  Screams of fright, curses of defiance and hate mingled with the hissing of the water and the noise of its impact with the ground—­like the tearing of heavy sail-cloth.  Then, from somewhere near the edge of the mob, came a single, sharp detonation, quickly followed by another—­below the watchmen on the roof a window crashed.  The nozzles on the roof were raised, their streams, sweeping around in a great semi-circle, bowled down the rioters below the tell-tale wisps of smoke, and no sooner had the avalanche of water passed than the policemen who, forewarned, had sought refuge along the walls, rushed forward and seized a man who lay gasping on the snow.  Dazed, half drowned, he had dropped his pistol.  They handcuffed him and dragged him away through the ranks of the soldiers, which opened for him to pass.  The mob, including those who had been flung down, bruised and drenched, and who had painfully got to their feet again, had backed beyond the reach of the water, and for a while held that ground, until above its hoarse, defiant curses was heard, from behind, the throbbing of drums.

“Cossacks!  More Cossacks!”

The cry was taken up by Canadians, Italians, Belgians, Poles, Slovaks, Jews, and Syrians.  The drums grew louder, the pressure from the rear was relaxed, the throng in Faber Street began a retreat in the direction of the power plant.  Down that street, now in double time, came three companies of Boston militia, newly arrived in Hampton, blue-taped, gaitered, slouch-hatted.  From columns of fours they wheeled into line, and with bayonets at charge slowly advanced.  Then the boldest of the mob, who still lingered, sullenly gave way, West Street was cleared, and on the wider thoroughfare the long line of traffic, the imprisoned trolleys began to move again....

Janet had wedged herself into the press far enough to gain a view down West Street of the warehouse roofs, to see the water turned on, to hear the screams and the curses and then the shots.  Once more she caught the contagious rage of the mob; the spectacle had aroused her to fury; it seemed ignominious, revolting that human beings, already sufficiently miserable, should be used thus.  As she retreated reluctantly across the car tracks her attention was drawn to a man at her side, a Slovak.  His face was white and pinched, his clothes were wet.  Suddenly he stopped, turned and shook his fist at the line of soldiers.