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“How many men own it all?” Mary had joined him at the door “Two? Three? How many workers? A hundred thousand? Five hundred thousand? Millions?”

They passed banks of gigantic blast furnaces, the heart of the Homestead Steel Works, which spread over hundreds of acres on both sides of a bend in the river

“Fort Frick,” Mary said, bitterly “That’s what the workers called it Frick built a fence around it to shield his Pinkerton gunmen We shot it out with the detectives Dozens were killed The governor sent uns They arrested the entire Strike Committee Thank God, juries refused to convict But they broke the union”

Isaac Bell did know of the Homestead Battle The whole nation did Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnegie’s ht the strikers to a standstill in a long-ago hen Bell was a schoolboy Mary must have been in school then, too But she told it as if she had witnessed it yesterday

“Since then, they’ve kicked the union out of every steel mill in Pennsylvania”

They rolled past the Ho up soon Bell said, “We’ve got to juineer slon Stick close They won’t go easy on you just because you’re a woman”

Mary didn’t hear hin so neas not yet stained by soot

AMALGAMATED COAL TERMINAL

Froiant tipple that looe wharf on a point of land that jutted into the river It was the latest innovation in the transport of coal to ahela barges up to the tipple The tipple rained it down in two directions, filling hundred-car trains, headed east to the seaboard cities, and big, ainst the western-river rigors of the Ohio and the Mississippi

Mary was exasperated by its naamated’? Why can’t they just call a combine a combine?”

Bell grinned “Would you settle for ‘united’?”

She did not return his grin But he saw some smile in her eyes when she fired back, “If you’ll settle for ‘monopoly’”

“Shake on it?” They touched fingertips and stood looking at each other, balanced against the motion of the train, until Bell swept Mary into his arms and kissed her on the mouth

At length, Mary asked, “Weren’t we supposed to jump?”

They were still rolling too fast to ju eht did not have to slow until shortly before it stopped