Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/675

Rh feeing in close touch with Mr. Grant had helped them considerably, and both felt secure and contented in their positions, when a new disturbing element appeared.

For several days there had been trouble on both the Great Northern and the Midland Central. As Ralph understood it, the discharge of an irresponsible engineer on the latter line of railroad had led to a demand for his reinstatement. This the railway officials refused. A strike was at once ordered.

Two days later a man named Delmay, a strike agent, came to Stanley Junction. He demanded that the men on the Great Northern engage in a sympathetic strike until the other road was brought to terms. The older, wiser hands laughed at him. Jim Evans had returned to Stanley Junction, and at once joined in a movement to disrupt the local union by favoring the strike in question.

Evans had done a good deal of swaggering and threatening around the roundhouse that day, Ralph had just learned, and had intimidated some of the new hands into joining in the strike movement. He had left word that, as men came in from their runs, they were to report at a hall where the strikers met and announce which side of the contest they favored.