By one o'clock we arrived at the town of Menlo, or, rather, at the

site of Menlo, for it was in ruins. Corpses lay everywhere. The
business part of the town, as well as part of the residences, had

been gutted by fire. Here and there a residence still held out;
but there was no getting near them. When we approached too closely

we were fired upon. We met a woman who was poking about in the
smoking ruins of her cottage. The first attack, she told us had

been on the stores, and as she talked we could picture that raging,
roaring, hungry mob flinging itself on the handful of townspeople.

Millionaires and paupers had fought side by side for the food, and
then fought with one another after they got it. The town of Palo

Alto and Stanford University had been sacked in similar fashion, we
learned. Ahead of us lay a desolate, wasted land; and we thought

we were wise in turning off to my place. It lay three miles to the
west, snuggling among the first rolling swells of the foothills.

But as we rode along we saw that the devastation was not confined
to the main roads. The van of the flight had kept to the roads,

sacking the small towns as it went; while those that followed had
scattered out and swept the whole countryside like a great broom.

My place was built of concrete, masonry, and tiles, and so had
escaped being burned, but it was gutted clean. We found the

gardener's body in the windmill, littered around with empty shot-
gun shells. He had put up a good fight. But no trace could we

find of the two Italian labourers, nor of the house-keeper and her
husband. Not a live thing remained. The calves, the colts, all

the fancy poultry and thoroughbred stock, everything, was gone.
The kitchen and the fireplaces, where the mob had cooked, were a

mess, while many camp-fires outside bore witness to the large
number that had fed and spent the night. What they had not eaten

they had carried away. There was not a bite for us.
We spent the rest of the night vainlywaiting for Dakon, and in the

morning, with our revolvers, fought off half-a-dozen marauders.
Then we killed one of Dakon's horses, hiding for the future what

meat we did not immediately eat. In the afternoon Collins went out
for a walk, but failed to return. This was the last straw to

Hanover. He was for flight there and then, and I had great
difficulty in persuading him to wait for daylight. As for myself,

I was convinced that the end of the general strike was near, and I
was resolved to return to San Francisco. So, in the morning, we

parted company, Hanover heading south, fifty pounds of horse-meat
strapped to his saddle, while I, similarly loaded, headed north.

Little Hanover pulled through all right, and to the end of his life
he will persist, I know, in boring everybody with the narrative of

his subsequent adventures.
I got as far as Belmont, on the main road back, when I was robbed

of my horse-meat by three militiamen. There was no change in the
situation, they said, except that it was going from bad to worse.

The I.L.W. had plenty of provisions hidden away and could last out
for months. I managed to get as far as Baden, when my horse was

taken away from me by a dozen men. Two of them were San Francisco
policemen, and the remainder were regular soldiers. This was

ominous. The situation was certainly extreme when the regulars
were beginning to desert. When I continued my way on foot, they

already had the fire started, and the last of Dakon's horses lay
slaughtered on the ground.

As luck would have it, I sprained my ankle, and succeeded in
getting no farther than South San Francisco. I lay there that

night in an out-house, shivering with the cold and at the same time
burning with fever. Two days I lay there, too sick to move, and on

the third, reeling and giddy, supporting myself on an extemporized
crutch, I tottered on toward San Francisco. I was weak as well,

for it was the third day since food had passed my lips. It was a
day of nightmare and torment. As in a dream I passed hundreds of

regular soldiers drifting along in the opposite direction, and many
policemen, with their families, organized in large groups for

mutual protection.
As I entered the city I remembered the workman's house at which I

had traded the silver pitcher, and in that direction my hunger
drove me. Twilight was falling when I came to the place. I passed

around by the alleyway and crawled up the black steps, on which I
collapsed. I managed to reach out with the crutch and knock on the

door. Then I must have fainted, for I came to in the kitchen, my
face wet with water, and whisky being poured down my throat. I

choked and spluttered and tried to talk. I began saying something
about not having any more silver pitchers, but that I would make it

up to them afterward if they would only give me something to eat.
But the housewife interrupted me.

"Why, you poor man," she said, "haven't you heard? The strike was
called off this afternoon. Of course we'll give you something to

eat."
She bustled around, opening a tin of breakfast bacon and preparing

to fry it.
"Let me have some now, please," I begged; and I ate the raw bacon

on a slice of bread, while her husband explained that the demands
of the I.L.W. had been granted. The wires had been opened up in

the early afternoon, and everywhere the employers' associations had
given in. There hadn't been any employers left in San Francisco,

but General Folsom had spoken for them. The trains and steamers
would start running in the morning, and so would everything else

just as soon as system could be established.
And that was the end of the general strike. I never want to see

another one. It was worse than a war. A general strike is a cruel
and immoral thing, and the brain of man should be capable of

running industry in a more rational way. Harrison is still my
chauffeur. It was part of the conditions of the I.L.W. that all of

its members should be reinstated in their old positions. Brown
never came back, but the rest of the servants are with me. I

hadn't the heart to discharge them - poor creatures, they were
pretty hard-pressed when they deserted with the food and silver.

And now I can't discharge them. They have all been unionized by
the I.L.W. The tyranny of organized labour is getting beyond human

endurance. Something must be done.
THE SEA-FARMER

"That wull be the doctor's launch," said Captain MacElrath.
The pilot grunted, while the skipper swept on with his glass from

the launch to the strip of beach and to Kingston beyond, and then
slowly across the entrance to Howth Head on the northern side.

"The tide's right, and we'll have you docked in two hours," the
pilot vouchsafed, with an effort at cheeriness. "Ring's End Basin,

is it?"
This time the skipper grunted.

"A dirty Dublin day."
Again the skipper grunted. He was weary with the night of wind in

the Irish Channel behind him, the unbroken hours of which he had
spent on the bridge. And he was weary with all the voyage behind

him - two years and four months between home port and home port,
eight hundred and fifty days by his log.

"Proper wunter weather," he answered, after a silence. "The town
is undistinct. Ut wull be rainun' guid an' hearty for the day."

Captain MacElrath was a small man, just comfortably able to peep
over the canvas dodger of the bridge. The pilot and third officer

loomed above him, as did the man at the wheel, a bulky German,
deserted from a warship, whom he had signed on in Rangoon. But his

lack of inches made Captain MacElrath a no less able man. At least
so the Company reckoned, and so would he have reckoned could he