greyness by three o'clock in the afternoon, the time set for the meeting.

Another strike was imminent in the factories at Manitou and in the
railway-shops at Lebanon, due to the stupidity of the policy of Ingolby's
successor as to the railways and other financial and manufacturing
interests. If he had planned a campaign of maladroitness he could not
have more happily fulfilled his object. It was not a good time for
reducing wages, or for quarrelling with the Town Councils of Manitou and
Lebanon concerning assessments and other matters. November and May
always found Manitou, as though to say, "upset." In the former month,
men were pouring through the place on their way to the shanties for their
Winter's work, and generally celebrating their coming internment by
"irrigation"; in the latter month, they were returning from their
Winter's imprisonment, thirsty for excitement, and with memories of
Winter quarrels inciting them to "have it out of someone."

And it was in October, when the shantyman was passing through on his way
to the woods--a natural revolutionary, loving trouble as a coyote loves
his hole--that labour discontent was practically whipped into action, and
the Councils of the two towns were stung into bitterness against the new
provocative railway policy. Things looked dark enough. The trouble
between the two towns and the change of control and policy of the
railways, due to Ingolby's downfall, had greatly shaken land and building
values in Lebanon, and a black eye, as it were, had been given to the
whole district for the moment.

So serious had the situation been regarded that the Mayor of Lebanon,
with Halliday the lawyer and another notable citizen, all friends of
Ingolby, had "gone East"--as a journey to Montreal, Toronto, or Quebec
was generally called--to confer with and make appeal to the directorate