at each
moment grew larger and larger, despite the efforts of the police to
disperse it. These were strikers, angry strikers. They blocked the
traffic, halted the clanging trolleys, surged into the mouth of West
Street, booing and cursing at the soldiers whose threatening line of
bayonets stretched across that thoroughfare half-way down toward the
canal, guarding the detested Chippering Mill. Bordering West Street,
behind the company's lodging-houses on the canal, were certain low
buildings, warehouses, and on their roofs tense figures could be seen
standing out against the sky. The vanguard of the mob, thrust on by
increasing pressure from behind, tumbled backward the thin cordon of
police, drew nearer and nearer the bayonets, while the soldiers grimly
held their ground. A voice was heard on the roof, a woman in the front
rank of the mob gave a warning shriek, and two swift streams of icy water
burst forth from the warehouse parapet, tearing the snow from the
cobbles, flying in heavy, stinging spray as it advanced and mowed the
strikers down and drove them like flies toward Faber Street. Screams of
fright, curses of defiance and hate mingled with the hissing of the water
and the noise of its impact with the ground--like the tearing of heavy
sail-cloth. Then, from somewhere near the edge of the mob, came a single,
sharp detonation, quickly followed by another--below the watchmen on the
roof a window crashed. The nozzles on the roof were raised, their
streams, sweeping around in a great semi-circle, bowled down the rioters
below the tell-tale wisps of smoke, and no sooner had the avalanche of
water passed than the policemen who, forewarned, had sought refuge along
the walls, rushed forward and seized a man who lay gasping on the snow.
Dazed, half drowned, he had dropped his pistol. They handcuffed him and
dragged him away through the ranks of the soldiers, which opened for him
to pass. The mob, including those who had been flung down, bruised and
drenched, and who had painfully got to their feet again, had backed
beyond the reach of the water, and for a while held that ground, until
above its hoarse, defiant curses was heard, from behind, the throbbing of
drums.

"Cossacks! More Cossacks!"

The cry was taken up by Canadians, Italians, Belgians, Poles, Slovaks,
Jews, and Syrians. The drums grew louder, the pressure from the rear was
relaxed, the throng in Faber Street began a retreat in the direction of
the power plant.