PAGE.

CHAPTER XXIV. The Syndicate in Liquidation 256
" XXV. Big News in the Javelin Office 263
" XXVI. On to Wilkes-Barre 276
" XXVII. Sister Martha Averts a Calamity 284
" XXVIII. At the Dead Coal King's Mansion 298
" XXIX. Peace Hath Her Victories 309
" XXX. A Double Funeral 324
" XXXI. The New Era 333

BOOK I.

Hail to the Sheriff of Luzerne!

THE TRANSGRESSORS.

CHAPTER I.

CLOUDS GATHER AT WILKES-BARRE.

There are few valleys to compare with that of the Susquehanna. In point
of picturesque scenery and modern alteration attained by the unceasing
labor of man, the antithesis between the natural and the artificial is
pronounced in many respects; especially at that place in the river where
it runs through the steep banks on which is situated the thriving city
of Wilkes-Barre. Here may be seen the majestic hills standing as
sentinels over the marts of men that crowd the river edge. The verdure
of these hills during the greater part of the year is the one sight that
gladdens the eyes of the miners whose lives, for the most part, are
spent in the coal pits.

The picture would be perfect were it not for the presence of the
Coal-Breakers. These sombre, grizzly structures stand in a long line on
the west bank of the river, and appear to the eye of one who knows their
purpose, as the gibbets that dotted the shores of England and France
must have loomed up before the mariners of the Channel during the
Seventeenth Century, and when the supply of pirates exceeded the number
of gibbets, large as this number was in both lands.

The breaker is a truly modern invention, which, had it existed in the
days of the Spanish inquisition, would have placed in the hands of the
malevolent fanatics an instrument of exquisite torture. It is
constructed to effect a double purpose, the achievement of the maximum
of production and the expenditure of the minimum of human effort. It is
the acme of inventive genius. To work the breakers, a man need have no
more intelligence than the tow-mule that plods a beaten path; and such a
man is the ideal laborer from the standpoint of the owners of the
breakers.

But such men are not indigenous to America; they must be imported, and
that, too, from the most benighted lands of Europe.

What an incubator of warped humanity the breaker has become! It saps
even the a