Mountain Part 25

Jack Bowden rose, spit carefully into the s.h.i.+ny bra.s.s cuspidor, placed there to preserve the long-haired red carpet, and began. "Men, the strike is won! We've been in consultation with Mr. Judson and Mr. Kane, and the whole thing is to be called off to-morrow morning! They agree to consider every one of our demands, provided only we don't insist on the demand for unionization. We can't win, with this trainload of detectives and workers from up north; I think we're lucky to beat 'em this way." He turned to Dawson. "You've done mighty fine work, John Dawson; and the state treasury of the mining union will be glad to foot your bill comin'

here and goin' back."

Dawson was out of the chair, his throat palpitating, almost too choked to get out a word. "I've been waiting for you and your kind to show your hands, Bowden. I'm glad you've done it this soon. Did Mr. Judson say he would grant all demands, except unionization?"

Pooley s.h.i.+fted his lame leg, and spoke up. "Mr. Kane it was we talked to to-night."

Dawson's clear-thrown tones fired the next question at him. "Did Mr.

Kane promise to grant every demand, except only unionization?"

"He said they'd consider 'em. It's the best----"

"It's nothing, and you know it! Fire me and the real union men who are making the trouble, and turn the whole thing over to you yellow-livered double-dealers--a fine way to run a strike! With us gone, and the strike broken, _then_ your Mr. Kane, who isn't even a boss, would agree to _consider_ the demands. Are you d.a.m.ned fools, or plain ordinary crooks?"

He paused for a moment. Bowden started to reply, but was checked by fear of injury, as Dawson took one tremendous step toward him. Pelham Judson, seated to the right, caught his eye. "If that there Judson's son had spilled this soft-soap, I could get it; you might expect it from he and his cla.s.s." Pelham winced at the scorn. "But you--a union card dirtied in your pocket, you, a Judas to your kind--you got no place in a room with decent men."

Pooley tried to bolster up Bowden's pallid protest, bl.u.s.tering, "You look here, Dawson. The State Federation of Labor----"

"d.a.m.n the State Federation of Labor! If any organization, labor or otherwise, stands in the way of our beatin' a fight, we'll smash it!

We're going to win, do you get me? You keep out. As for you, Bowden----"

He came close to the local agent, bending down from his towering six feet and a half to bring his face near the other's. "You better get out, before I have the national office down on your neck. This is final: from now on, you stay out. We'll run the strike without any talk from you. Go back and tell your Mr. Kane that there's a bunch here he can't double cross, or buy out! Now git!"

Three times the suave agent started to speak. His fingers wandered uncertainly up and down the s.h.i.+ny b.u.t.tons of his fancy vest, his eyes glanced away from the brutal dominance in the huge face before him. At last he turned to Pooley. "Goin', John?"

Pooley noted the cringe, and his nostrils lifted slightly. He spoke definitely. "There's no hard feelin' about this, Dawson? You understand that----"

"Yes, I understand." The sudden burst of anger had gone; there was a vast patience in every syllable. "I understand; you needn't explain." He turned dispa.s.sionately to the others. "Now, boys, what's the reports for to-day?"

The work was finally done; they started out. At the door they were stopped by half a dozen newspaper men, who had been held up by the doorman until the conference was over. "Anything special for to-morrow, Mr. Dawson?"

The big miner grinned amicably. "You might say everything's coming our way. With twenty two hundred men out, and five of the mines stopped, things are lookin' up."

The reporter for the _Advertiser_ pushed out a question. "Did you advise violence in stopping these workers from the North?"

"Good G.o.d, no, man! That's the very thing I'm fighting against. You heard me--in every speech. We're law abiding. If there's any lawbreaking to be done, let the companies do it." He smiled grimly. "They're itching for us to give 'em an excuse to bring on the militia, as they did in '04, when they ma.s.sacred the miners. They'll fail; we'll fight within the law."

He scribbled vigorously. "Is it true you were driven out of Montana and West Virginia, and almost lynched in Michigan?"

Dawson's neck swelled, his eyes smouldered. "Yes, it's true, every bit of it. And I was driven out of this state in '04. I expect it in my business. You might say things is changing, and it may be Mr. Paul Judson who's driven out next time."

There was a chorus of appreciation from the committee.

"I guess that's all."

One reporter--it was Charley Brant, of the _Register_--called Pelham aside. "Gotten any word from the mountain recently ... to-night?"

"No; why?"

"That trainload of workers is arriving; there's trouble, rioting or something."

"Are you sure?" Excitement blazed in his face. "Tell John Dawson so."

He called him over at once.

"We got a phone message from a man on the ground. It's on the mineral line, halfway between Mr. Judson's house and the viaduct, if you know where that is. Our man said it was serious."

"I'm going." Dawson sliced his words off briskly.

"Use my car; it's quicker," snapped Pelham.

Jensen, McGue, Dawson, and the reporter got inside; two others of the committee hung to the running boards.

Pelham drove at top speed out the Thirty-Eighth Street road, and circled around the crest. "I know the place," he explained. "We'd better come up from behind, if anything's doing. They might stop us."

He turned from the county road to a cool country lane cutting through tall long-leaf pine, in the middle of Shadow Valley. The car's lights danced unreally on the crowding trunks ahead, the wheels slipped and skidded over the sprinkling of carpeting needles. He whisked to the right, and took the hill toward the mountain. They had heard no noise as yet.

Up a gravelly hogback to a level a hundred feet from the tracks,--and they were in the midst of it. The uncertain rumble from men ma.s.sed blackly in front of and all around the stalled engine's headlight, broke over them; they saw the train, somber and illy lit, stopped midway of the deep cut through the next chert hill--an ideal place for an ambuscade.

They heard single voices, broken by the spurty wind. Then the men in front of the car dissolved, into the blackness on both sides of the track. Now they could see the piled mound of huge stones, cross ties, tree trunks, which had stopped the engine. Close below the headlight was a moving shadow they finally made out as company men, they could not tell how many. The red gleam of the headlight on dull metal shone on the far side. Before the mound of rocks and stumps two men still stood.

"Get off that track," the words came clearer now, from one of the men just below the headlight. "Or we shoot."

It happened so quickly that they hardly had time to get out of the car.

A voice came from one of the two upon the track, the pleasant, velvety richness of a negro voice. "Ah reckon Ah kin walk on dis track ef Ah wants to."

"You black----"

He did not finish. From the deeper shadow below the tender, two rifles popped together, with a thin hollow noise, like playthings. There was a shrieking medley from all sides. For one instant, etched black against the light thrown by the unwinking eye of the engine, the two figures stood. One of the negroes plunged wildly to the side, clattering and tumbling down the seventy foot fill to the bottom of the sharp declivity. The other stood alone, a black break on the lighted area. He screamed once like a kicked dog. He slid to the ground. His body huddled across a rail.

"G.o.d!" Dawson exploded. Tumbling out of the car, they started pelting toward the track.

They stopped, still thirty feet from the lighted area, as half a dozen men plunged toward them, scattering to the safety of the woods. One came at them--Ben Wilson, who should have been with the committee.

"For G.o.d's sake, don't go there--they're shooting to kill----"

Dawson caught him by the collar, shook him bitterly. "What h.e.l.l of a mess is this! We've got to stop it----"

Wilson made a gesture of hopeless exultation, touched with something sublime. "You can't stop it now!"

Dawson stared at him in amazement.

The cries became louder, from all around the motionless train; they looked back. Protected by the guns under the headlights, a line of hesitating men were cursed forward to where the obstacle lay crudely across the tracks. The leader of the guards, rifle cached on his left forearm, pointed this way and that.

The reluctant line of workers burrowed into the mound. Boulders of ore, a broken wagon, old cross-ties were pulled out and sent bounding into the seventyfoot gulley, each starting a rocketing train of pebbles and rocks after it. The front row of gunmen had moved silently forward, and menaced the threatening darkness.

Suddenly there was a shock of breaking gla.s.s, and a herd scream from the front car just behind the tender. A cloudburst of stones rained against the length of the train from the gap's crests on both sides. Windows were caved in, rocks bounced noisily off the roof, there were gulped outcries from the penned men inside the cars. At a command, the rifles flared wildly toward the tops of the cut.

Wilson pulled out a pistol, dropped to his knees, aimed carefully at the leader of the gunmen, standing awkwardly in the exposing glare.

Dawson jerked the pistol from his hand, and sent the man tottering sideways. "Not that way."