Grout has been expecting.

"Company, attention!"

Two hundred Coal and Iron Police jump to their feet.

"Get back to Hazleton or I'll take you prisoners," shouts the sheriff.

But his words are lost. The miners are terror-stricken. The sight of the
police, armed with deadly rifles, has made the miners insensible to
every thought and impulse but that of self-preservation.

They scatter up and down the road.

"Don't let them escape to Harleigh," shouts the sheriff. Taking this as
an order, the police open fire on the men who have passed the sheriff.

Crack! crack! go the rifles.

Each shot fells a miner. They are practically at the muzzles of the
weapons.

A miner rushes up the bank on the left to get out of the range of the
police on that side. He is riddled by the bullets from the opposite
side.

Another dives into a snow bank; it affords him no protection. "Pot that
woodchuck," shouts Captain Grout to one of his men.

A bullet is sent into the hole. The miner springs to his feet; then
drops dead.

The line of carnage is now stretched out for two hundred yards.

There is no return fire. So the armed police come out from cover and
pursue their victims.

The police have lost all self-control. Each man is acting on his own
responsibility.

Of the ten miners who run toward Harleigh, not one is spared. Three lie
in the road; the snow about them tinged with their life's blood. Another
is clinging with a death grip to a stunted tree, which he caught as he
staggered forward, with three bullets in the back.

"Mercy! mercy!" cry several of the miners. But their wail is lost on the
ears of the Coal and Iron Police. The police are there to kill, not to
grant mercy.

Now a miner falls on his knees and prays to God for protection.

This attitude of submission is not heeded; a bullet topples him over.

With their hands above their head, some of the men walk deliberately
toward the deputies. Indians will recognize this as the sign of
surrender, and will give quarter. But the deputies, with unerring aim,
shoot down the voluntary captive.

It would not be so terrible if the miners were returning the fire, if
they were offering any resistance. But they are absolutely unarmed.
Their mission has been to present a petition to the miners of Harleigh.
The slaves of the South had enjoyed the right of petition. How could
these twentieth century miners anticipate that the sheriff would
massacre them on the highway for s