nificently simple. Officers and men alike
wore the drab slouch hat of the regulars in the field, and the sombre
blouses of dark blue, the broad drab ammunition belt, crammed with
copper cartridges, the brown equipments, haversacks, leggings, etc., all
without an atom of show or tinsel. Even the popular idea of glittering
bayonet and gleaming musket seemed rebuked, for the sloping Springfields
were brown and businesslike as the belts and leggings. Out they strode
with steady swinging step, and the heart of the great city seemed to
leap to its throat, the spray of the eastward billows to its blinking
eyes, for riot, insurrection, defiance to law and order, peace and
security, had again burst forth, and were raging every instant nearer
and nearer its very vitals. Police and sheriff had grappled or cajoled
in vain, and here at last was its right arm--the hope and strength and
pride of house and home, the pet regiment of the Western metropolis was
being sent to check the torrent where it raged its maddest, through that
mile-long reach of the Great Western yards. "Eight hundred strong with
more a-coming," as the papers put it, the --th went swinging down the
applauding avenue to face far more than ten times its weight in foes. No
wonder women wept and waved their hands, and strong men prayed as they
said God-speed and good-by.

Out to the rioters flashed the news of the muster. Trainmen, switchmen,
one and all, knew the coming force. Many a time had they carried them to
the summer encampments in the interior of the State. More than once
within the year had they hurried them away to the scene of some mad
outbreak among the mines and iron-works. The masses of the mob might
hoot and jeer and cry derision and boast of the reception they would
give the "dudes," the "tin soldiers"; but these railway men, schooled
themselves in lessons of order and discipline, knew the stern stuff of
which the regiment was really made. Already the thinking men among them
had begun to edge away, leaving only an occasional crack-brained
enthusiast like Farley in the crowd. Long since had the promoters of the
row, such restless agitators as Steinman and Frenzal, slipped off to
shelter, where neither bullet nor bayonet could reach them, but where
they could dictate further violence and plan madder schemes. Over about
the deserted shops, away from the mad tumult of the yards, numbers of
the strikers stood in gloomy contemplation of the wreck, but taking n