I tell you, comrades, this thing is close upon us, not as a theory, now, but as a terrible, an inconceivably ghastly reality! "Even as we talk this thing over, those devils in human form are at work impoverishing the atmosphere, the very basis of all life.

My oxymeter, today, showed a diminution of .047 per cent.

in the amount of free oxygen in the air right on this mountain.

And their plant is hardly running yet! Wait till they get it under full swing--wait till their pipe-lines and tanks and instruments and all their vast, infernal apparatus of exploitation and enslavement are in operation! Even in a week from now, or less, by the time you issue the call, Gabriel, you may see wretches gasping in vain for breath, in some dark alley of Niagara where the air is being drained!" "Oh, devilish and infernal plot against the world!" said Gabriel, bitterly.

"Yet in essence, after all, no different from the system of ten years ago, which kept food and shelter, light and fuel, under lock and key--and made the dollar the only key to fit the lock! Yet this seems worse, somehow; and though I die for it, my last supreme blow shall be against such unutterable, such murderous villainy! So then, comrades--" He paused, suddenly, as Kate laid a hand on his arm.
"Hark! What's that ?" she whispered.
Outside, somewhere, a sound had made itself heard.