“It’s efficient,” said Bell. “I hear he’s putting the smaller coal yards out of business.”

“This point of land would have made a beautiful park.”

“I beg pardon, Jim?”

“Water on three sides, the way the river snakes around it. Just a short trolley ride from town. Imagine a great big Ferris wheel where the tipple is. Picnic grounds. Swimming pool. Carousel. Baseball diamonds. A racecourse. You could hold revival meetings. And Chautauqua assemblies.”

Isaac Bell looked up at the coal smoke matting the sky. “You would need a lot of imagination.”

“But imagine our tent city here instead of down in McKeesport. Winter’s coming. If we could occupy this place, we could shut it down. Industry’s furnaces will starve for fuel, and city dwellers freeze in their homes.”

“You sound like your sister,” said Bell.

“Maybe they’ll listen to us then . . .” He turned eagerly to Bell. “We wouldn’t have to shut it down. Once we were here and could shut it down, they would see our position and have to bargain. If we could threaten that shutdown, we’d settle a fair agreement and all go back to work.”

“That could happen,” Bell said neutrally. An Army general might see a certain raw genius to Higgins’s idea: Surrounded by water on three sides, the Amalgamated Coal Terminal’s point of land would be easier than most encampments to defend. A Navy admiral would see a trap, sitting ducks exposed to gunfire on three sides.

“But how do I move ten thousand miners from McKeesport to here with strikebreakers, company cops, and militia blocking the way?”

Bell was mindful of his orders not to take sides but concerned that Jim Higgins was turning a blind eye to the danger. He asked, “Would the men leave their families behind?”

Jim Higgins shook his head. “No . . . But, Isaac, this must be done. I have to find a way to move them here.”

“The risks are enormous. Women. Children.”

“It’s more risky leaving them where they are. The camp is a shambles at McKeesport. It’s just a trolley park. A bunch of picnic tables, a swimming hole, and some shuttered-up amusement rides. You know, for working people to ride out on Sunday and have fun in good weather.”

Bell nodded. All around the country, trolley companies were building parks at the ends of their lines to get paying passengers on their day off. “But how did the marchers get in?”