: 'Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Mavor is--' but I got no
further, for at the mention of her name the men stood on the chairs and
yelled until they could yell no more. There were over two hundred and
fifty of them, and the effect was overpowering. But I got through my
speech. I remember it well. It began--

'Mrs. Mavor is greatly touched by this mark of your love, and she will
wear your ring always with pride.' And it ended with--

'She has one request to make, that you will be true to the League, and
that you stand close about the man who did most to make it. She wishes
me to say that however far away she may have to go, she is leaving her
heart in Black Rock, and she can think of no greater joy than to come
back to you again.'

Then they had 'The Sweet By and By,' but the men would not join in the
refrain, unwilling to lose a note of the glorious voice they loved to
hear. Before the last verse she beckoned to me. I went to her standing
by Craig's side as he played for her. 'Ask them to sing,' she entreated;
'I cannot bear it.'

'Mrs. Mavor wishes you to sing in the refrain,' I said, and at once the
men sat up and cleared their throats. The singing was not good, but at
the first sound of the hoarse notes of the men Craig's head went down
over the organ, for he was thinking I suppose of the days before them
when they would long in vain for that thrilling voice that soared high
over their own hoarse tones. And after the voices died away he kept
on playing till, half turning toward him, she sang alone once more the
refrain in a voice low and sweet and tender, as if for him alone. And
so he took it, for he smiled up at her his old smile full of courage and
full of love.

Then for one whole hour she stood saying good-bye to those rough,
gentle-hearted men whose inspiration to goodness she had been for five
years. It was very wonderful and very quiet. It was understood that
there was to be no nonsense, and Abe had been heard to declare that he
would 'throw out any cotton-backed fool who couldn't hold himself down,'
and further, he had enjoined them to remember that 'her arm wasn't a
pump-handle.'

At last they were all gone, all but her guard of honour--Shaw, Vernon
Winton, Geordie, Nixon, Abe, Nelson, Craig, and myself.

This was the real farewell; for, though in the early light of the next
morning two hundred men stood silent about the stage, and then as it
moved out waved their hats and yelled madly, th