IV (continued 2)

"There were the 'freedom-loving Englishmen'...."

"Jamestown, settled by gold-hunting, venturesome gentlemen of King James' Court! So Maryland, and the Carolinas; with Georgia merely to give an opportunity for homeland failures to build a younger England, casted as the old. Plymouth, all of New England, except Rhode Island, wanted merely State Puritanism, under the old feudal system. Roger Williams was an exception; Penn's inner light saw a vision of ultimate democracy. But—two out of thirteen!"

"No, it wasn't planning that made democracy and freedom our spreadeagle catchwords," she agreed.

"It was the land," he took up the thread. "The land has expressed itself, and will express itself more magnificently in the future, in the achieved reality of those Fourth of July slogans. Pioneer hardships develop men equal in their labors and their needs; crude democracy thrives along civilization's frontiers. The restless Arabs, the migratory Israelites, grew brotherhood as self-protection. Europe's cramping strait-jackets could not fit empty miles of prairie, or stream and mountain and farm-land ready to mint gold when man's labor was poured on them."

"The idea helps clear history," she helped on the mood. "Protected Egypt and Babylon, guarded by desert and sea and swamp, grew a hot-housed tyranny because of their over-fertile rivers; somewhat as New Orleans here."

"To show the influence another way, I've often thought of this parallel. Compare the languages of Europe and America. The Eskimo, harshly explosive and guttural, corresponds to the Russian; the freezing air chops off the final syllable into a bark or cough. The dialects of the Iroquois and northern Algonquins are similar to the harshness of Teutonic and Scandinavian countries; the soft melodiousness of Spanish, French, Italian, is found in words like 'Miami,' 'Appalachicola,' 'Tuscaloosa,' 'Monongahela,' with their easy liquids and lazy final vowels. The country itself creates the language, the facial expressions, the bodies and habits of men."

"That's true—and new, to me. Of course it's a platitude that the little fragments of Greece, locked apart by mountain and sea, were themselves the cause preventing Greece from uniting into a great nation——"

"Just as the long western field of Italy fitted her to be a unifying world power."

She confessed, "I've since found the same idea expanded charmingly by Fairgrieve. Phœnicia and Israel were important because they were on the way connecting the Nile to the twin rivers——"

"The earth's hand is in it all. Great cities follow the rivers, or the newer streams of iron we call railroads; civilizations grow where differing cultures touch, as at the meeting of Asia, Europe, and Africa. Think what its location—sea-walled and sea-warmed—has made of the island miles of England!... Mountains breed freedom-lovers; my mountain made me."

"My thanks to it! It has stirred up trouble——"

"Yes." He continued slowly, "All we have been through in Adamsville—that was only the mountain speaking through its human mouthpieces. Our country's first democracy was squabbling competition; then came selfish coöperation, for the few on top: trusts and monopolies. The hill's rich heart expresses that in the mining companies ... in my father. But it gives enough worth to the plain man to allow him to unite with his fellows, and mold this destructive selfishness into saner brotherhood, wider coöperation—the labor movement, groping after democracy; I and the others are the mountain speaking in that. It is the prime mover, the hero and the villain, shifting us about at its will to express all that lies hidden in its rich interior."

"We must make it join the local.... I hope it favors suffrage."

"Joyful joker!"

"I like what you say about the vastness of America," she repeated.

"More than vastness. It has the proper balance of material that yields not too easily, so that an Egyptian race of slaves must follow; nor with such difficulty that it must remain like the backward Eskimos. Its men and women will be self-sure, mentally able to build democracy in industry, in government, in everything. What a world, when we grow up to our words—when classes blend into one class of worthy men and women——"

"Supermen?"

"Another way of saying it.... When exploitation is ended, when we produce for need and not profit, when a man's highest selfishness will be to serve all, not pile up a backyard hoard of gold. Call it socialism or what you please, it will come; it is self-planted by and in our soil. The mountain will win, in the long run, not for its despoiler, but for all of its red-handed, ore-stained children. Work will be distributed, life lengthened, wealth and joy evened——"

"A big program cut out for Mr. Pelham Judson!"

"Not for me, heavens, no! I can only do my little part. It will use me ... just as it has used poor Babe Cole, dead on the railroad track, or his brothers, dead in the explosion and the shooting; just as it uses even Dick Sumter, Henry Tuttle, incredible little Roscoe Little, whose judicial rompers are merely a materialization of the greed of the corporations. All of their rich thefts will be taken from them, when the scales have finally adjusted themselves...."

"Nice old earth!" She patted the post beside her affectionately. "Just like a big brown doggie! We think, and bother; and to it we are no more than irritations on its skin, or little insects bred of it there. Our stirring annoys it: Vesuvius and Pelé, or an earthquake.... The old world sniffs and snuffles down the fenced sky, leashed to the sun, its rope always a little shorter.... And a good warm sleep to it at the end, before cold night sets in."

Pelham shook his head in despair. "You say it so much better than I—the final word...."

"Come on, if we're to take that trip to Lake Pontchartrain before night." She prodded him off the bale, linking a comradely arm within his. "You notice that woman's 'final' word, as always, is followed by man's lament that she says the last thing. No," as he sought to answer, "it needs no footnote. At least I have you to myself this week, before the mountain woos you from me again."

Tired by the flat miles of rice-fields, swamp-land, and bayou, they returned to the haven of the hotel. Pelham had the elevator wait while he secured an armful of local papers.

"Nothing from Adamsville," scanning the pages rapidly, unaware how the mountain still held him. "Nothing.... Here it is. Another fight, with the invariable demand for the militia."

"You don't think they'll——"

"I certainly hope not. That would cause a smash-up."

The week ended; the return began. Just above Lower Peachtree, they secured an early edition of the Times-Dispatch, and found that the strike shared first-page headlines with the elaborate plans for the iron city's semi-centennial. The attack was more serious than the out-of-town papers had reported. Two guards, three strike-breakers, and an uncertain number of strikers had been killed; John Dawson's indignant statement that the deputies had fired first, and without provocation, was smothered in the body of the story; while the front page heading quoted Judge Florence to the effect that the company saw no other way to stop bloodshed than by immediate presence of the soldiers. A hurried meeting of the Commercial Club backed up this demand.

"They'll try to wipe the boys out," groaned Pelham, bitterly. "They may have planted this fight, for an excuse. We must have won too many strike-breakers."

An inside page held an account of the conviction of Nils Jensen, Benjamin Wilson, Lafe Puckett and a negro named Moses Pike for attempting to dynamite the ramp opening.

"They're out for blood now," Pelham commented somberly, after reading the brief announcement.

"They won't get you for anything, dear?" she queried quickly.

"I don't believe so.... You never can tell."

On their arrival, he sent Jane home by taxi, and went at once to strike headquarters. Two men lay sleeping on a rug thrown into the corner, their faces gray and exhausted. A young miner, his arm bandaged, sat at the table with Spence and several others.

"Hello, Judson. Just in time for the big round," the lawyer greeted grimly.

They walked over to the window. "Two companies arrive to-night," Spence continued. "By to-morrow they'll proclaim martial law for the entire mountain district...." His tone grew shrilly significant. "That includes the place where the boys live now."

"What can we answer?"

The lawyer lifted wearied shoulders. "Do what we can. We won't quit, but——I saw what they did in '04, remember."

"No chance for justice from the soldiers? I know some of the boys in the local company——"

"My dear man, the company gave 'em new brass buttons, new rifles, new bullets! Where will they put those bullets, do you suppose? It's irony for you: most of the soldiers were once laborers; labor's money pays for their food and their rifles; and labor receives their fire. Of course, if we can avoid trouble——It's our only hope; we can win, if we can prevent a smash-up."

"What about Jensen?"

"I'm appealing; that'll tie it up for a year. But the cards are marked, and they are dealing."

Pelham escaped from the headquarters of suffering for a hurried trip out to the miners' tent settlement. On the way back, he saw in the state road ahead a familiar boyish figure; as he reached it, fourteen-year-old Ned turned and saw him.

"Hey, give us a lift, Pell!" The brother climbed in impetuously. "Didn't expect to see me, did you? Father's going to let me be a deputy, next year! Does the company let you use these roads?"

"This is a state road, Ned; it's as much mine as the company's."

"Gee, I thought they all belonged to the company! What do you know, Pell—Sue's getting married Friday!"

"So I read," rather crudely. "Is he a nice chap?"

"Fine as silk! His father's in the insurance business at Hartford—he has two yachts and an aeroplane—I'm going to visit them next summer——"

"You've gotten thick already, I see. I'm glad she's getting married."

"And what do you suppose!" Ned's eyes grew round and mysterious. "Tom Cole's really dead at last! He got pneumonia, and died in three days. The funeral was in Lilydale—Nell 'n' me went!"

"Nell and I."

"Anyhow, mother sent the most wonderful bunch of white roses you ever saw—all that were growing on the mountain. I helped pick 'em. And we're living in a wonderful big house in Glen Kenmore! Gee, you ought to see it!"

"Old Peter's still on the mountain?"

"Yes, an' he's going to teach me how to fiddle! Father said I could learn."

"Here's your company road, now," as they reached the Fortieth Street gap road. "Give my love to mother and the girls."

Another death occurred, announced by a simple wire to Pelham signed "Grandma." Thoughtfully he pulled out of a desk compartment the slim file, regretting the unanswered note on top. He studied soberly the careful letters, the slight tremble in the curves and capitals. To think that that deep-channeled hand could never form another line!

The Barbour homestead came back to him, a richly scented recollection. His little room, peach-petal sprays rubbing their silken invitation on the rain-specked panes ... the teetering climb on unsteady branches, to the succulent prize just within fingers' reach ... the shaded colonnade of the oak avenue before ... the smell of flowers: pansies and roses, begonias and the white sweetness of magnolia fuscata....

His nose breathed in the memory of the fragrance; and of the indescribably musty odor he associated with old age, a compound of pungent pennyroyal pillows, of kerosene, which grandfather always rubbed in his hands to warn off the mosquitoes, of lavender and rose leaves in sachet pads on the bureau.... A scent unmistakable, anciently sweet. All day his office was full of it.

He took the telegram home to Jane at supper. They were staying at the Andersons', until their own home, a small two-story house on Haviland Avenue, was ready to accept them.

Jane reread the brief message. "Of course, we'll both go, Pelham. I'd wanted so to meet your grandfather! He meant so much to you...."

"I thought we could go this spring to see them...."

He stopped with Jane at the Jackson Hotel, over-shadowed now by the new Lomax House; although Uncle Derrell had long ago sold his interest, to move out on the Greenville Road. Alf Barbour, who had been elected to the legislature, was as glad to see him as his uncle and aunt; and Lil, who had been married two years, proudly displayed her fat six-months-old bundle of joy for Jane's appreciation. These were all Barbours, Pelham thought in curious detachment, as he was; he was at home with them. He imagined the cold formality of Pratt Judson's big house, and rejoiced again at the kinder heritage predominant in his own blood.

Why, the grandparents had been almost a second father and mother to him. Undisturbed he went through the old house again—Paul was stopping at Pratt's—reliving the old days; grandmother's dear frail hands clutched tremulously at his sleeve. "You were always such a comfort to him, Pell...."

She fell in love with Jane, too. The girl set herself out to be sweet and considerate—to say nothing that might jar or ruffle the kindly unprogressiveness of the people.

"You have a lovely wife, Pell; like one of the Barbours," grandmother whispered lovingly.

When he repeated this to Jane, she answered, "And that is her highest praise.... It means a lot to me."

At the graveyard, his mother's black figure stumbled heavily beside her husband's stiff preoccupation. Son and father did not look once at each other; there was no recognition. But Mary came over beside her brother, and his quietly sobbing family, and held Pelham to her breast. "Mother's own big boy.... He was always so fond of you."

Then she did an unexpected thing. With a quick motion she turned to the younger woman beside him, and kissed her cheek. "I pray God you make my son happy," she whispered. "May he never be unhappy...." She cast a half-broken look back to where she had been. Sobbing heavily, she left them.

The slow echoes of "The Sweet By-and-By" ceased; the simple service ended. The horses stepped down the dirt road to their next task. Jane packed to return on the morning train.

Pelham, in answer to Uncle Jimmy Barbour's questions, went into a restrained discussion of his new beliefs.

"I don't understand all about socialism," the uncle finally decided, "but it seems to be, as you say, for the brotherhood of man. And surely that is following in the Master's footsteps."

"And I know Mary's boy wouldn't do anything we could be ashamed of," said Aunt Lotta, in soft certainty.

The simple trust moved him.

As he was leaving, Pelham took his aunt aside. "Don't let grandmother worry too much over—it," he said softly. "It's all so beautiful, and natural. If you believe in a heaven, you know he is happier there than here. Just as flowers blossom and die, just as the leaves stretch out their green leaves and then grow bare under winter skies, grow old, and die, while their place is taken by the younger saplings—it is all natural, and beautiful. We wouldn't want an endless day, or an eternal spring; there must come night and winter, that the new blossoming may follow."

"It is a lovely idea," Aunt Lotta said brokenly. "It will comfort mother."

Then he and Jane turned north again, to take up the unfinished labors at Adamsville—the hazard of losing the strike, and the delight of building their home together.

XXIII

The iron city interrupted its bitter struggle for an event of local magnitude. January 17th, 1917—Adamsville celebrated its semi-centennial! Fifty years since the first farm-shack had been built on the farm beside Ross's Creek: ten years of sleepy and indeterminate farm growth, with a forty year waking that had made it the third largest city in the oldest quarter of the country! Fifty years between old Thaddeus Ross's unhitching his single horse to begin plowing, and the creation of the billion-dollar Gulf Iron and Steel Corporation, with his great-grandson Sam Ross as president, and Judge Florence and Paul Judson on the board.

A "White Way" had been opened up both sides of the four main avenues, with five great white globes every thirty feet. Streamers of patriotic tri-colored lights lined the side streets, converging to a tapering pole in the center of Main Park—a vast pyramid of glitter and sparkle. Two new bandstands flashed back the twinkle from their shining woodwork; an ornate speakers' stand lifted above between them. Bunting draped the thoroughfares, the national emblem interwoven with the flags of France, England, Belgium, Russia, Japan, thickest over the court house and jail, the big retail houses, the offices of the mining and furnace companies, and the rambling cotton mills. Here the gay cloth framed the faces of women and children, busily bending, in the half gloom, above vast black machines—noisily weaving, in the human silence, cloth for more bunting.

The new Commercial Club building, a transplanted Greek temple, marble white, was to be dedicated, as part of the celebration. The gleaming symbol of adamantine prosperity was christened with champagne; the punch bubbled for gay members and wives, who applauded the eloquence of Dudley Randolph, the retiring president, as he relinquished the gavel to Paul Judson.

"This is the man who has saved Adamsville. I may be giving away a secret, but—we all know Paul Judson's backbone. But for it, we might have union miners swaggering down our avenues and boulevards. Instead, we have the militia, our sons under the waving banners of red and white and blue——" Frantic cheers submerged the rest of the sentence. "Mark my words: the time's coming when these law-defying strikers will feel the militia's iron insistence upon the majesty of the law!

"We can handle Adamsville; but that is not enough." His pulsing tones shook and trembled above their heads. "I want to see those same boys marching under that same flag, side by side with the tricolor of France and the Union Jack, against another autocracy greater than the domestic tyranny of the labor union carpet-bagger!" The shouts were whole-hearted, one veteran attempting the yodelled "Coo-ee" of the rebel yell.

"Let the rest of the South hang back," his strident tones shouted, "because of the loss of its cotton trade with Germany. We've got the iron and steel here to lay the rails straight down Unter den Linden, to forge the 42-centimeter guns that will blast the hated house of Hohenzollern into its home, the reddest sub-cellar of Hell! We demand that our country avenge the Lusitania—avenge the rape of Belgium—avenge the foul assault on the soul of civilization. And when her citizens speak, Columbia will not lag behind!"

There was a riot of joy as Paul Judson echoed the vigor of the old iron-master. "We have strangled the foe within," his clearly enunciated syllables stretched forth. "This undemocratic, anti-American principle of union-labor slavery, of a socialism sired by Prussian autocracy, and damned by all the forces of law and order throughout the world——" The reporters could not catch his next words.

"It is a time of prosperity for Adamsville. From the marble palaces of East Highlands to the poorest hovel in Scrubtown or Jones' Hill, we find a united citizenry stepping forth, 'Boost Adamsville' the motto shown on the button on every coat. Let us be united, to lead into the time when democracy has established its universal sway, under the flag that shines with the very stars of Heaven...."

"The old-time eloquence of the South," observed the editor of the Times-Dispatch approvingly, "has not left its gifted sons of to-day."

In the packed stuffiness of Arlington Hall, the miners' union held its meeting the same night, to hear the report from the strike committee and act on it. One matter came up first—the motion for the expulsion of Ed Cole from the union. It was John McGue's quick mind that had suspected the negro's treachery, it was he who had seen the actual transfer of the roll of bills from the covetous hands of Jim Hewin to the greedy negro's. Ed Cole, feeling behind him the hidden support of Jack Bowden and the old union crowd, defended himself with schooled dignity. But he could not explain away the money, and McGue's word was not doubted by the members. John Dawson, more age-scarred and mountain-like than ever, led the weary fight to purge the movement. The balloting was four to one for expulsion.

One ugly side-glance of hatred shot out of the negro's face as he left the hall, a look directed toward the corner where the radical unionists bunched. Then he disappeared.

And now, the real fight. The committee's report was short and definite. The company had refused to accede to the demands for unionization, even with a waiver of all other claims. The committee recommended that the strike be abandoned as lost, or fought out on the same plan, with the additional difficulty caused by the presence of the soldiers.

Bowden was on his feet, a vindictive snarl in his whole bearing. His eyes swept the crammed benches confidently. He was sure of this crowd.

"I ain't sayin' nothin' against John Dawson, and his runnin' of this strike. But it's failed. Even a blind man can see that. I been in conference—Bob Bivens, John Pooley an' me—with Mr. Kane, the company's adjustment man. He has given me this offer direct from headquarters." His look drove this remark straight at Dawson. "The company is willing to settle the matter"—every attention was frozen to the twisted frown of the weak figure erect in the center of the room—"take the men back, on the same terms as before, with the promise of a raise if there is any profit to make it from, laying aside the question of recognition for the future. And I move that resolution, and that the strike committee be discharged—instead of that bull the committee handed us."

"Second the motion!" Pooley's voice blended with a dozen others.

The floor swirled with demands for recognition. The chairman picked out the brawny bulk of Dawson, imperatively calling for the chance to reply. He understood the crisis, and strove to meet it.

"I've been a union man twenty-three years, and I never laid down on a fight yet!"

There was tumultuous applause from the Socialists and the more aggressive of the miners; but it came from a bare half of the hall.

"I'd lie down and die before I'd give up to a gang like that! Accept this dirty proposition which Jack Bowden brings to you—he offered the same thing six months ago, and you wouldn't listen to him—and you set back the union movement in Adamsville ten years. You'll admit you are licked off the map. I don't care whether you call the strike ended, and get into other work here or elsewhere, or keep on fighting—I'll stay here as long as there's any hope, I'll make the national keep me here....

"But don't lie down! They're licked now, and they know it, if you sit steady and don't let them provoke you to violence. You've won, unless——

"You know," he thundered suddenly, his hairy arm out-stretched toward the shrinking form of the local agent, "all of you know, that the curse of the American labor movement is the white-livered skunk that sells it out!"

There was wild applause at this, even from the other side of the house.

"I ain't namin' no names, but I say that self-appointed committee that's always runnin' in with offers from the company is treadin' slippery ground ... just like that nigger we fired out of here for takin' money from company men. It looks rotten—and, by God, no man can say that anything I ever did looks rotten! I call on you men to show 'em that Adamsville miners haven't a drop of quitters' blood in their veins!"

Ben Spence was on his feet, tightening his lips nervously. To keep in the good graces of the Socialists and radicals, and at the same time continue to represent the union in its legal affairs, required all of the tact that he possessed.

"Here, brothers, there ain't no use in calling names or showing hard feelings. All of us know what John Dawson's done for us—all of us know that Jack Bowden's been a faithful union man for more years than a horse has teeth."

There was a grin at this, and a weak rattle of applause, which encouraged him.

"If we can win by agreement, there's no use turning anything down cold. This offer from Mr. Kane may be just a feeler; maybe the company's ready now to do more. Why not instruct the strike committee, working with brothers Bivens, Pooley, and Bowden, to get in touch with the office again, and see if we can't get more out of them? I believe in using sense at all times. I move that."

There was a scowl on the faces of the Voice of Labor crowd as the motion was put, but, after all, Bowden reflected, it was at least a half victory. The motion was carried overwhelmingly, and the committee was instructed to act at once.

When he got to his room at the Mecca Hotel, tired and down-hearted, John Dawson stretched at once on the bed. The phone rang abruptly.

"It's for you, Mac," he called to McGue, who sat scratching his head over a game of solitaire on the greasy wash-stand top.

The shorter man hung up the receiver, puzzled. "It's from Mr. Brant, of the Register, he says—and he wants me to go over to Mr. Judson's office right away to see him on something important."

"I'm goin' to bed. See you when you come back." He skidded the huge shoes toward the side of the cheap oak bureau.

There was a knock on the door, a scant six minutes later. John Dawson, brain half asleep, his head screwed into the pillow, grumbled a "Come in!" and turned over slowly.

He sat up quickly, flinging his feet over the edge of the bed to the floor, as Ed Cole's ingratiating face came around the corner of the door.

"Well?" He sat up tensely. He wondered whether to reach for the pistol under his pillow, cursing the fact that McGue had gone. Then he reflected that this negro would never have courage enough to plan any harm.

"What do you want, Cole?"

"You ain' treat me right, Mr. Dawson," said the negro, who kept his hands in a shabby overcoat reaching to the ground. "Ah ain' took no money f'um dat Jim Hewin."

"Come around and see me to-morrow at headquarters. I'm in bed now." He pretended a yawn, still keenly alert.

"You done me dirt, Mr. Dawson. Ah ain' stan' fer dat f'um no man, white or black."

Dawson rose to his feet, and swayed menacingly on his bare toes. "I don't let nobody disturb me after I've gone to bed, Cole. Git out of here." His hand started working its way back along the sheeting.

The negro's startled eyes saw the slow motion; Dawson heard the chatter of his teeth.

"Ah'm—Ah'm gon'ter fix you, Mr. Dawson"—he raised the right hand, weighted with an ugly forty-five.

Dawson acted with all his speed. He threw himself toward the floor sideways, grasping his pistol as he fell. The gun in the hands of the negro roared, flamed; the smoke blinded Dawson's eyes, stung his nostrils. He fumbled with the trigger of his pistol.

Cole's foot shot out; the chair between them bounded grotesquely at him, crashing into his arm, spoiling his aim. He heard the pistol click again. He rose, aiming.

As he saw the direct flare of the hot breath toward him, his own pistol clicked impotently. At dizzy speed his mind traveled—should he try again, or swing the cylinder to the next shell?

How had the negro missed him at that distance?

Then came the sense of the terrific blow caving in his ribs, gutting its way throughout his inside. His huge face, which seemed to the negro to reach almost to the ceiling, gasped into a wrenched grimace of pain; the eyes closed, the mouth popped oddly open, like a frog's. An explosive intake of breath shivered horribly.

Ed Cole retreated in terror, aiming the pistol again, his eyes fascinated by the dark dampness spilling over the crumpled white nightgown. Then his eyes came back to the face.

Steadied against the wall, the wounded mountain that had been a man fumbled at the weapon. His fingers edged open spasmodically. The pistol clattered against the fallen chair.

The great paws reached out toward the negro's face; Cole could imagine their wide clutch rounding his neck. Then they doubled up abruptly, the big form swayed, the knees collapsed, the body crumpled upon the stained floor.

Throwing his pistol out of the window, Ed Cole ran for the stairs. Halfway down he stumbled, crashing noisily into the wooden railing. The clerk dozed, half-awake, trying to make up his mind whether the noise he had heard above called for an investigation or not. He jerked to his feet, his hand aimed for the drawer where his automatic was kept. Before he had reached it, the negro was in the street.

The clerk ran to the doorway, shouting unintelligibly.

Half a block away, two policemen lounging before the station had straightened at the first shot. They saw the running form almost as soon as they started for the hotel. A negro! "Hai! Stop there, you damn' nigger, or we'll shoot you——"

Ed halted, hands in the air. "Ah ain't done nothin'."

The second officer searched him, while the other kept the big automatic rubbed against his stomach. "Nothin' doin', Jim."

"What was that shot back there?"

Ed Cole's wits came back to him. "A white gen'lman, suh, he shot me, an' Ah shot back at him."

"I've a mind to kill you now. Let's give him twenty feet, Jim, then let him have it!"

Cole's arteries seemed frozen. "It was—it was dat union feller, suh—Mr. Dawson. He drawed a gun on me fu'st."

A peculiar look passed from one policeman to another, an expression significant with doubt. There was more in this than mere murder. "Come with us, nigger. If you try any tricks——" The pistol bored into his back.

"Lawd knows, boss," the whites of his eyes tumbled in desperation, "Ah ain' gwinter do no tricks."

The policemen, with two others who had come up, examined the room carefully. One phoned for the wagon, another located the pistol thrown into the littered lot beside.

"Ah was so scared," Cole admitted, his shifty eyes reassured by the attitude of the police, "Ah jus' th'owed dat gun anywhar."

The first officer picked up the weapon beside the chair, sprung the cylinder, and revealed the dented shell. He threw out the charge; each shell had been emptied.

"You say he shot at you first? Don't lie to me, nigger."

"Dat's de Lawd's trufe, sir. Ah ain' lie to no policeman."

Ed Cole was hurried off to the city lock-up, to await removal to the county jail, charged with murder in the first degree.

XXIV

Pelham and Jane came back from their trip to Jackson in a gentle mood. Death quiets the footfall and lowers the voice instinctively; their joy in the final preparation of the house on Haviland Avenue was unconsciously hushed.

He had his word about the various purchases; but his haphazard taste began to defer regularly to her sense of artistic home-making. The little clashes that came smoothed themselves away.

While she was superintending the unpacking of a treasured dinner set, her aunt's contribution, Pelham volunteered to hang the pictures on the living-room and study walls. She edged out to watch him, and interrupted at once, "Oh, never, never, Pelham! Pictures must be hung at eye-level."

Perturbed eyes met hers. "Ours hang near the ceiling, at home."

"They were probably larger. Mrs. Anderson taught me that. There.... And don't you agree now that my taste in wall paper is excellent? This gray oatmeal, as a background——"

"It is cool and lovely. I've grown up among flowers and curlicues."

They did not buy many things, Pelham's uncertain income being a chief cause. While with the company, he had lived up to his salary; from the few pay checks as state inspector he had not been able to lay aside a great sum. This, with a legacy kept untouched from college days, and an income that Jane had from her father's estate, put them beyond immediate worry; but there was no idle surplus for expensive furnishings. The election, as well as the wedding trip, had cut into his savings; and his present potboiling work—statistical researches for the United Charities reports—did not go very far, nor promise a future.

Remembering these facts, Jane's natural economy sought the less pretentious stores. The dining-room set and the bedroom furniture were substantial, but inexpensive for the taste they showed; the piano and bookcases were paid for on what Lily, the cook and maid-of-all-tasks, called "de extortion plan."

As she approved of the final placing of the pictures, Jane reflected with satisfaction on the fine showing their funds had made; and Pelham, his mind rather on the total shown by the bank's balance slip the first of the month, was glad that the bulk of the buying was ended.

Thoughtfully she studied the room. "That couch could stand two or three pillows.... I saw some ruby cretonne that would go wonderfully with that cover."

When she had purchased it and made it up, he had to admit that it was the most colorful spot in the house.

And what a colorful time those first days were! Many of the ordinary achievements toward the joint home brought positive ecstasy.

The puffed pride of those ruby cushions marked the end of the metamorphosis of the house into a home. "It's really presentable, now," she sighed contentedly, as she sat in their own chair, on their own porch of their own dwelling.

Pelham lounged back against her knee, studying the dark countenance of the mountain; somehow its spell had drawn toward it the face of the house, and the unlidded gaze of its blind-less front eyes. There was a pleasant rustle in his ears, as his wife bent over her sewing; Jane could not resist an occasional tingle of embarrassment at this preoccupation, in his presence, with the intimate mends in her garments. Would she ever dare mend his! What shameless and delightful publicity marriage entailed!

Abstractedly he thought over the outstanding raptures of these days. What simple stuff made the enduring pleasures! There was the thrill, for instance, when he had, with studied casualness, pulled out of his pocket the signed lease, for her inspection. What an unimportant thing, yet wearing somehow the grace of man's protecting, shelter-building rôle! Then the zest of standing beside her while they chose furniture ... rugs, table, bedroom furniture.... The emotional exaltation had been immense. And the first meal they had had in the dining-room, with matter-of-fact Lily in and out in matter-of-fact fashion, and Jane across the white and silver expanse, her face softened by the soft lighting—these moments might become habitual, but the ecstasy of their first tasting had welded a permanent bond connecting the two. Added to this delight in things was the growing joy in each other—the day's cordial comradeships, the splendor of cool nights sacred to love, and reverent gray dawns in which he woke to watch the loveliness of her calm face asleep on the pillow's rumpled primness—these shook him with their intimate beauty.

"Tired, dear?" He put up his hands and caught hers.

"Not a bit. I sighed through sheer animal comfort, I think."

"You've earned a holiday—busy since morning with the house. Get your wraps; you don't choose the club—let's go up to the crest, and watch for Canopus.... If we're in luck, he'll be visible in a quarter of an hour."

They reached the vantage place; despite the fitful waverings of the horizon air, they saw the star's golden torch drag fierily over the tree-fretted heights of Shadow Mountain. There was a sullen reddish smolder over the face of this alien sun; but the brief glimpse of the burning visitant from southern skies was an unforgettable experience.

"If we could only watch it from the old top of the mountain."

"The old top, Pelham?"

He traced Nathaniel Guild's idea of the mighty sky-piercing ridge that had once united the iron strata of this crest and the West Adamsville one, with an overlap of sandstone whose grayed relics still crumbled in the small hills flanking the two iron ranges.

"It shrivels our puny importance, doesn't it, dear, to think of the former majesty of these hills!"

"We're as important to ourselves, Pelham."

Together in spirit they climbed the airy darkness that had been the old mountain; their fancies winged back to the shaken ages before man's weak restlessness hid in trees and caves, and came out into the open, to clear away and shape the forests, and split apart the everlasting hills for the malleable wealth hid within them.

But the ecstatic moods could not last forever. The graying embers of the strike re-won their efforts; the inevitable selfishnesses and littlenesses of life came in, to break the filmy web of romance and delight. Man can stay on the high peaks, whether of spirituality or intellect, of surging emotion or unstrung sentiment, but a little while; their rarefied atmosphere, the height of man's upward groping, will not sustain vigorous animal life. When such moments come, if we are in tune we pass into their magnetic sway whole-heartedly; let the little daily frets, the appetites and prejudices, be in control, and the height is unclimbed, the high emotion lifting another passes unnoticed over our stooping backs.

The two differing personalities found life together a perpetual welter of adjustment. Insofar as they were adaptable, these adjustments were easy; but neither his training, as a favored first son, nor her self-sure nature, helped cushion the continual shocks. Neither had reached the opinionated thirties, when inconsiderate habits have rutted too deeply to permit habitual considerateness; but the two determined wills had no easy task to come to agreement upon even small details of the home life.

Pelham's "picturesque" pipes, as he reminded her the unmarried Jane had always described them, showed a depraved tendency to roost wherever their master finished with them.

"But, darling, you must remember," she insisted, in affectionate exasperation. "Lily found one on the piano this morning; I barely moved the sugar bowl, and look at this table cloth! Your old ashes have made it simply filthy. The hall table's marked; your bureau——"

"I always mean to put 'em on the rack," he urged in contrition.

She sniffed distastefully, holding out the offender at the end of dainty fingers. "Here it is."

Again, he would become unreasonably exasperated when she insisted upon asking what meat he would prefer for dinner, when she had him to shop with her. "Mm-hmm, it's a lovely steak," he would agree abstractedly. "Yes, I like ham, too.... Or a roast. Darling, I don't care. Get anything."

She felt aggrieved at his callousness upon the momentous topic.

Upon other matters connected with eating he was not so unopinionated. "Just look here, Jane! Lily's douched the potatoes in fat again. You know that fried starch——"

"Yes, dear, I know ... by now. You needn't eat any; she'll bring some mashed ones for you."

He grinned surlily. "I'll try a few, Jane; I like them, though they're not good for me.... Another spoonful, please."

The country club was another viand of contention. Jane had never enjoyed the inconsequential chatter and watery flirtations that were its chief offer; Pelham found in them a forgetfulness from strike worries and the increasing financial problem.

The week after their sight of Canopus, he announced a determination to drop by for tennis with Lane Cullom, and the dinner afterwards.

"You may see Hollis; it's his spring holiday," his wife observed without inflection.

"I saw he was back. I don't mind, if he doesn't.... Sure you don't want to come? For dinner, or afterwards for a few minutes?"

"Dances are so boring, Pell."

"Once in a while I like 'em."

"I'll go next week, if you go then.... Don't make a scene with Hollis."

He jerked with needless viciousness at his belt. "Why make such an assumption? I'm not going to make a scene."

Her pen scratched raspingly over the businesslike letter-heads of the State Suffrage Association. "You almost had a fight with John Birrell, at the bowling tournament."

"You exaggerate everything, Jane. There was nothing like it——"

"You told me——"

"I told you, very plainly, that there would have been a fight, if we hadn't held in our tempers. He's a decent fellow; he's still sore about my mining report. The State is again investigating them."

She did not look up.

"Good-night, dear," planting an indecisive kiss on her hair.

"Good-night."

Probably Hollis would be in uniform, he reflected. The boy hadn't lost any time in joining the Yale Battery, when the President's initial break with Germany foreshadowed war.

Just after dinner, his brother Ned charged up. "Hell-o, Pell! Didn't expect to see me, did you? Father let me come, because Hollis was here."

"Aren't we the young sport!"

"There he is—Hey, Hollis! Here's Pell!"

The brother, fine-looking in his well-pressed khaki, came over unhurriedly. "Hello, Pelham. How you making out?"

"Oh, all right. I'm working for the United Charities, you know—Labor Legislation Committee."

"Still fooling with that socialist crew?"

"I'm still a member of the party, Hollis."

"You aren't a foreigner; why don't you get out?"

Pelham's eyes snapped. "Why not learn something about the movement, before you pass judgment on it?"

"You'll wake up soon. The heads of the movement are all pro-German; everybody says so. The government's liable to arrest 'em any minute."

The older brother grinned. "We won't quarrel about it."

"I don't care. I think it's outrageous, agitating against the government, when we may have war——"

Ned's bright eyes went from one to the other. "Pell's right, you don't know much about socialism, Hollis. I've been reading books at the library—it's great stuff!"

"Let father catch you!"

"I'm glad to see you back, anyhow," Pelham smiled. "Drop by the Charities building some morning and we'll talk over Sheff."

Hollis called, and the brothers had lunch together. Although the younger said nothing of it, Pelham could not help feeling the other's distaste at the dingy side-office in the Charities building where the older did his work now. And Pelham observed with a twinge of envy his brother's lavish order for the meal, his excessive tipping. Hollis planned nothing for the good of the world; money was his without asking; while in his own case....

Well, he did not need to worry yet. He was not making enough to support himself and Jane; but their fund was still sizable; and as soon as the strike uncertainty was over, he could get into something permanent. There was more cause for worry in the stagnation of the mine struggle. Thanks to the men's dogged persistence, production on the mountain was less than half normal. The companies could not hold out forever. Still, the inaction was wearing; he felt a restlessness against the whole fettering situation ... including the pestering details of the house on Haviland Avenue.

Other causes, unknown to him, egged on this unrest. The years of affection absorbed in his mother had so accustomed him to her that in his later loves he constantly looked for her characteristics, her most trifling traits. Jane was like her, in many ways; but he was discovering more ways in which she was dissimilar. Her directness, for one thing, was not the Barbour sweetness. And since she was not a reincarnation of Mary, and the door to the mountain was shut, not only by the present situation but by the rooted inhibition which forever banned his mother as the object of his man's affections, the deep imperative urged him forth again. He would be finally content, although he did not phrase it this clearly, with no less than perfection in woman—perfection to him meaning Mary; which is another way of saying that he could not be content. Thus he must still seek. The headstrong wildness of the mountain intensified the gipsying urge. Sooner or later, he felt vaguely, these forces would push him to some definite move. The uncertainty lay as to when, and in what direction, the outbreak would occur.

Opportunity never delays, when the strong heart demands it. A note from Louise told of her arrival in the city, and gave her phone number. First impulse was to ring her up at once; he had not realized how much he wanted to see her. He thought over the matter; there was no harm in one last ride.

He called up both women, alleging a visit to strike headquarters to one, and preempting the other for the afternoon. Just before three he claimed the New Orleans girl.

"Come on," he told her delightedly, holding her cool hands hidden in his. "It's too fine an afternoon to rust indoors."

A short while later he experimented diffidently. "You know, I'm married."

"Yes, Mr. Lover; I suppose I saw the lady in my city."

"Well?"

She mimicked his uncertainty. "Well?"

After all, what was the harm? Louise set certain strings in his nature ringing in response to her obvious lure, strings that Jane's finer person did not touch. Why should he cripple himself by denying a rounded development, a full self-expression to his nature?

The fresh majesty of these thoughts quite persuaded him; how could they have escaped mankind so long? He had never been taught that desire is the parthenogenetic parent of logic, the shaper of all intellectual decisions.

They swung aimlessly into the country club grounds, almost deserted this early in the afternoon. Up to the big billiard garret, the rough beams above, the window-seats in the gables, he took her.

"With a few more cushions——"

He lugged over an armful, and bent to nest them around her. The intangible sheath of the lilas surrounding her enwrapped him, mingled with the delicately acrid breath of her body, that unmistakable exhalation of feminine pores which summons the man as the drowsy odor of sweet clover draws the boisterous flight of the bee.

His throat choked, a tingling warmness washed throughout him.

"Don't ... you're——" Provocative fingers pushed him back.

The conventional protest died away. He kissed her fiercely, with a passionate brutality strange to his experience. Her fervor matched his; she gave herself enough to increase his desire, yet withheld wilfully with that simulation of the chase which blows up the flame to its maddest height. At length, the racking storm quiescent for a moment, he knelt weakly beside her, spin-drift battered by the inner surge of the tempest.

"I'm married," he parroted his earlier statement.

"I know——"

The stored-up frenzy shook him in restless helplessness, overcoming all restraints. "I'll leave Jane to-morrow, if you say.... Anything you want—There's nothing you can't have from me. Just say it—now—Hurt me some way——"

"I don't want to hurt you, you dear big silly boy. I love you."

He brought her head down until he could feel her parted teeth lightly touching his neck. "Hurt me ... kill me...."

An icy shiver of rapture gripped him as the tiny teeth tightened; as if the fangs of the serpent of forbidden love tentatively touched him, gloating in their power ... saving him for further sacrifice.

"There.... Are you satisfied, Mr. Lover?"

Curbing the tumult in his blood, he drew up a chair and faced her. "I ... we mustn't let this happen again, Louise ma cherie. Kisses ... and all ... I once said—do you remember?—are only the preludes to the finale of love. I am married; it won't hurt me; but you're—you're not."

Her hand rested lightly on his. "You aren't the first man who has ... loved me. You needn't worry about ... me."

Uncertainly his eyes searched the liquid deeps of hers. "Not the first?..."

She flushed unconsciously, returning his level look. Her words came slowly. "Why, no, inquisitive Mr. Lover. There was another man ... we intended to marry.... I'm glad, anyhow." The last three sentences came in soft haste; such frankness embarrassed her. She covered it, changing the theme. "It isn't fair to Jane——"

"Life isn't fair to any of us." His compelling gaze was put on to hide the fleeting emotion of inner timidity. "Where shall we...."

"Lydia Hasson isn't nearly as ... careful as the Tollivers. They're away a lot...."

She readjusted the pillows swiftly, as steps and scraps of conversation floated up the hollow shaft of the circular stairway. "Hadn't we better go?"

The Hassons were not at home, when he called two nights later; but their car might roll up any minute. "This is tantalizing, heart-love," he complained.

"It's something to have you here, anyway," as she cuddled deeper into the wide couch-swing behind the ferns on the wide railing. "We must be careful. If Lydia suspected——" Expressive eyes capped the meaning.

Jane had the Cades in for dinner, the next night; when Pelham arrived from the office, Harvey was entertaining the women with a nasal rendition of Judge Roscoe Little's mannerisms while enunciating a decision for both sides at once. The lawyer's welcome contrasted with some hidden constraint beneath Jane's tempered greeting. Throughout the meal and the talk afterwards he sensed that something was wrong. He could not quite make out what it was; perhaps it lay in his imagination.

His wife swished quickly inside, as the guests chugged away, leaving him to rearrange the porch chairs and follow more slowly. Something was up, that was clear.

She sat at her living-room desk, a litter of letters hurriedly pulled out before her. At his entrance, she raised frosty eyes to his. Without words she observed him. Disquieted by the confident, almost hostile stare, he sat heavily, clutching a handy magazine from the fresh pile beneath the reading lamp.

She did not speak. He exhaled noisily, and turned to the opening story.

"I met Lane Cullom this afternoon," she began in a moment, her voice leveled and restrained.

"What did he have to say?"

"He told me about ... about your driving with that Richard woman yesterday afternoon."

"Mmm.... Yes, she is a friend of Lane's. He introduced me, I believe."

Her eyes fired. "You said you were at strike headquarters."

"So I was, until I took a little run out Hazelton way. Then I came back and finished up my work," he lied recklessly.

"He saw you at Catawba. That's ten miles beyond Hazelton.... You didn't get back until midnight last night, Pelham."

"Why, I was here for supper! Then I had to go down town...."

"You were with Miss Richard again." She ventured a chance shot.

His jaw stiffened, the occasional look of childish petulance smoldering around his eyes. "What if I was? Do you expect me to be locked in by a keeper every night?"

"You never mentioned her ... except meeting her."

His mind squirmed. "We have so much else to talk about."

She pushed the disorder of letters backward with a gesture of irritation. "It was a risk marrying you. Every one said so; you had been splendid with me, but before that—you told me yourself—you'd switched from this girl to that.... You had something up with 'Thea Meade, I never asked what.... And the girls while you were in college, Nellie Tolliver and the rest. I never minded them; that was before I knew you. But this.... Do you think I have no shame, even if you haven't?"

"What a lot of side about nothing! Here I merely meet a young lady, take her riding, drop by to see her—what's wrong in that?"

Her low, tense indictment went on, partly to herself. "I always promised myself that I wouldn't marry a ladies' man. It isn't so much what you've done in this case, as the tendency," she continued illogically. "If everything was above-board, why didn't you tell me that you were with her yesterday afternoon and night?"

"Because it was my business, and not yours." His tones rose angrily. "Must I render an account to you for every minute of my time? Can't I have some self-respect left? Do you expect to keep me tied to your apron-strings all my life?"

"You needn't tell me, Pelham Judson, that you took her riding to show her the scenery. I know you better—by now. She made a few large eyes at you; you thought at once that you saw your soul-mate. Told her you were misunderstood at home, of course—that she could understand you." He failed completely to detect the scorn, intended to wither his defense.

"What if I did? It's true, isn't it? We get along finely on lots of things, Jane; but there are some things in which we can't agree."

"We both agree, I suppose, that the marriage agreement doesn't call for you to make love to other girls, when you are married to me. Of course, you kissed her——"

"What if I did?" His retort slipped from his lips too quickly; he wished at once that he had held it back. "There's surely no harm——"

"I won't dare hold up my head in her sight!"

"We're grown men and women, Jane. We're not old fogies. We realize, surely, that love can't be bought and sold, to be locked up forever in a marriage license. Love must be free; and when it comes——"

"You can have your 'love' as free as you wish, Pelham. Only, count me out of it." She rose, the commotion stirred by her quick motion setting the loose sheets flying, drifting to the new carpet they had been so proud of a week ago. Furious, she stooped to pick them up, her ire mounting as the unexpected enormity of his conduct became apparent.

"You talk like a fool, Jane. I haven't done anything——"

"I'll tell you what you've done. You've let a passing fancy for a woman make you forget that you're my husband. I won't share you with another woman, even if she will."

"Why, last night, when I came home, you were as loving——"

Her glance bayoneted him. "I've told you before of that Allie Durfield, the poor girl who'd ended up on Butler's Avenue. I've told you the bitterness with which she said, 'You engaged girls cause us the trouble. After your man's spent an evening with you, we pay for it.' I didn't understand her then; I do now. You spend the evening with this woman, then come home ... you call me loving! I wonder you can look me in the face!"

"You exaggerate everything, as usual. We haven't done a thing——"

"You've kissed her."

"That was nothing."

"It's this much. Either you give me your word now that you will not see her again, or—see only her ... and whoever else your fancy dictates. I'm through. I'll go back to Mrs. Anderson's and let you ... let you...." Her voice broke; she tumbled weakly, weeping and distraught, against the couch.

He was at her side in an instant. She rose, flinging the tears flying. "Keep away! How dare you touch me! I suppose you thought I'd cry and make up?... Will you give me your word?" There was a plaintive affection even through the sternness. "Dearest, we can't have our marriage on a rotten foundation."

He fumed to the front door and back, the discarded magazine rustling unnoticed upon the scattered letters. "I'll do anything in reason, Jane. But this is unreasonable, and you know it. You mustn't carry your penchant for running away from situations too far." She flushed at the reference. "I'll agree, of course, not to be unfaithful; but you can't choose whom I may and may not speak to. Common decency——It's ridiculous."

"We can't have a half-way marriage. This has gone too far.... Make your choice. You can't burn both ends of your candle...."

"Anything within reason, Jane."

"You'll promise, then?"

"No." The cruel monosyllable crushed the joy rising in her voice. "It's too ridiculous," he repeated.

There was a dangerous hush in her voice. "You understand the alternative? I leave to-morrow."

"If you're bound to be foolish, I can't stop you. I won't force you to stay here."

"I should say not!"

"You'll come to your senses soon enough. A good night's sleep will cure your tantrum."

Casually he jerked a match against the sole of his shoe. The sputtering head spun smokily into the carpet. He stamped it out, and lit another. Shielding the flame from the night breeze, he relit his pipe. When he looked up, she had left the room.

He knocked considerately on her door at breakfast time. A muffled voice told him that she had a headache, and was not coming out. Well, if she was going to act that way! She was bound to see the matter more reasonably. Probably she was ashamed now to admit that she had been wrong.

He was glad that he had only admitted one kiss....

Disturbed at the thought of the unfinished quarrel, he ran out unannounced to the house for lunch. Voluble Lily, her eyes rolling, informed him that Miss' Jane had left an hour before, and that her trunk had gone too. "An' she said dat you'ud know whar she had gone, Mr. Judson."

"That's all right, Lily. You needn't have supper for me to-night."

Angry with himself, with the inquisitive negro, with the fascination of Louise, which had precipitated this, most of all with headstrong Jane, he shot past the traffic policeman into the swirl of the city. He would show his wife that she couldn't keep him under her little finger!

XXV

The next day began the trial of Ed Cole, for the killing of John Dawson. Militia, equipped by profits from the mountain's wealth, guarded the courthouse; the strikers, realizing that their salvation lay in preventing an armed clash, ignored the provocative slurs and taunts of these guardians of order; but the glint of guns followed wherever they were, a continuing menace. Ben Spence had finally twisted a half-hearted consent from the county prosecutor to let him act with the State. "But they double-cross me every chance they get, Judson," he said as they walked to the county courthouse together. "That young Chippen, who is about as much of a lawyer as I am a South Sea Islander, is to handle the State's case—the youngest and poorest hanger-on around the county attorney's office. And against him, Dick Mabry, and Hilary, Leach, Pugh and Garfunkel!"

"They're a good criminal firm——"

"Best in the South. Darned fools, three of them; Tipton Leach is a lawyer. Darned crooks, all four. The company will do anything to get the nigger off. And 'Willy' Hawkes, Tuttle's old partner, holds this term!"

Spence took his seat beside Chippen, Pelham with a row of socialists just behind. Judge Hawkes entered with his usual nervous jerk, twitching his apologetic way to the raised bench. Richard Mabry, smiling in velvety assurance, bowed ostentatiously to His Honor; the defendant's table was otherwise empty. Deputies escorted in the negro, his face bright with a frightened interest, mixed with delight at his sudden importance, and confidence in the last whispered instructions of his lawyers, given half an hour before. The court-room filled rapidly; there was an uneasy rustle, a half-restrained chatter.

"Is the State ready to proceed?" came the case-weary accents from the bench.

"We are ready." Chippen's young voice wobbled uncertainly.

"The defendant ready?"

"If the Court please," in Mabry's meticulous accents, "my colleagues—in a moment——"

The judge leaned back, closing his eyes.

A sudden hush at the door. A stretching of necks from all the fringes of the room. Walking daintily, with a glaze of dignity which never lost its underwash of the furtive, came Meyer Garfunkel, youngest of the firm. Spence leaned forward to Pelham. "Biggest crook in six states! Does all their dirtiest jobs.... They always come in this way; it impresses the courthouse crowd."

The door swung again; a succession of breathless "There he is!"-es, as Colonel Lysander G. Pugh stamped heavily in, with his invariable atmosphere of busied haste, bowing affably left and right, his weathered broad-brim clutched beside his brief case.

Another shifting of interest. Tipton Leach, narrow-eyed, a permanent sneer around his mouth, walking slowly, speculatively. "He is the brains," continued Spence. "The corporations fear him like sin, in damage cases. He bleeds them and his clients indiscriminately. But he knows more law than all the local bench."

Last of all, preceded by his law clerk, Zebulun Hilary himself, his little red face, under the thinned mop of white hair, sticking out of his wide collar like a turtle's. "Over eighty, and indestructible! Even his conscience is asbestos."

There was a leisurely deliberation among the five counsel for the defendant. Five heads came together, five brains bent their scheming toward freeing the accused negro, ten eyes quivered with satisfaction at the prospect.

"Defendant ready?" The jaded judge roused himself to make this interjection.

Colonel Pugh rose in sallow majesty, his vulture eye sweeping the front half of the room in indiscriminate defiance of the court, the State, and, if necessary, the whole United States. Catch Lysander G. Pugh unready? Impossible! In precise affability his round tones rolled out. "The defendant is ready, if it please Your Honor." He sat down in complacent vindication.

An irrepressible ripple of appreciation quivered through the place. Here was a lawyer who knew how to law!

The plea of "not guilty" was entered; the panel of talesmen called from the jury room.

Spence leaned over to Pelham again. "First case since the Whitney scandal when all four have appeared together. They have the perfect system, Judson. Garfunkel does the second-story work; Leach knows enough law for all four of them; Zeb Hilary and Colonel Pugh get the business. They belong to everything—there isn't a lodge of any kind that they don't flock to. These two go into every political fight, one on one side, one on the other; they get 'em coming and going. It'll be a treat to hear them address the jury." He closed his eyes expressively. "Whew!"

Two men lounged in from the clerk's office and took their places at the defendant's table, as the selection of the jury began. Pelham watched their activity in bewilderment; as each name was called, they bent over long lists, and consulted with the lawyers while the talesmen were being examined. He noticed the deference with which their whispers were received.

At the first chance, he spoke to Spence again. "Who are those—more lawyers?"

Ben flashed him a sudden glance. "Don't you know 'Chicory' Jasper, and Bill Letcher? They're two of the company's 'jury strikers'—'jury fixers.' They have the dope on each man; interview them in advance, and all. If a man's ever said anything against a corporation, off he goes."

"But is that ... legal?"

"Supreme Court has ruled that it is." He turned back, to insist on Chippen's challenging a venireman who had worked in the company's office before getting state employment.

Three panels were exhausted, before twelve good men and true could be found who knew, Pelham judged from their answers, nothing whatever about unions or strikes; who had never heard of this strike; who did not read the papers. Eight were farmers from distant edges of the county, one was a bookkeeper as anemic as prosecutor Chippen himself, two were small business men, and the last a nondescript nonagenarian who called himself a "watchman."

Once the jury was chosen, the trial went swiftly enough. The State called the policemen, and made out a prima facie case against the negro. In answer to old Hilary's glib questions, the officers confessed that the negro had claimed self-defense; that Dawson's discarded pistol had an indented shell in it. McGue's evidence as to the fake telephone call helped; but the case for the State could have been stronger.

The defense evidently intended to take no risks. First they put on several of those present at the mass meeting when Dawson had denounced the negro, sympathizers with the Voice of Labor machine. Invariably these swore to the big strike leader's unreasonable anger against the expelled member. The radical union men in the room could hardly be restrained from hissing; but the testimony went in, and, Pelham noted, Spence's attack lacked some of his usual vigor. At last Cole himself was called. He gave his evidence with that easy circumspection that told to the initiated that he had been thoroughly coached. Nor could cross-examination twist any of his statements.

In rebuttal several of the sincerer strikers were put on; but this last minute recourse did not impress the jury.

The final speeches for the defense were masterly. Colonel Pugh led off, and in vulture-like gyrations pictured the incursion of this carpet-bagger from the North who had thrown good Adamsville men out of their jobs, and damaged all the business of the district; of his senseless persecution of this negro; of Cole's loyalty to the miners' union, and the death of his brothers on the mountain; and finally, of the negro's own act, a simple defense of the life which God gave him.

"They claim that this defendant received a bribe from a man then an ex-employee of the company. Who says so? One John McGue, who admits he is now under indictment in connection with this strike. There is no corroboration; Cole denies it, Jim Hewin, a deputy sheriff, denies it. Believe a jail bird against two witnesses like that? Why, they cannot even invent a motive to account for the fictitious presence of this fictitious money!...

"Are we to have it written down forever in the annals of Adamsville that a black man comes into our courts, and does not get justice? Will you make Ed Cole swing because of the color which his Creator imposed on him? Will you gentlemen be connivers at the legal lynching of an innocent man? Will your decision be that a white scoundrel can attempt to murder a negro, and that the negro must die for a man's first duty, self-protection?"

He ended with oratorical sky-rockets, and sank, seemingly exhausted, into the considerate arms of his legal twin brethren, Garfunkel and Leach.

Spence came next. When he reached the cause of the strike, his words rang convincingly; but the jury were unsympathetic to this. As he proceeded to the case before him, he tried to tear the careful web of evidence which backed up the negro's claim; the talesmen seemed impressed.

Zebulun Hilary's concluding speech for the negro found him in his most telling mood. He had been a leading pleader at the bar sixty years before; and the momentum of that stretch of time had multiplied his powers of persuasion until even Pelham had to confess his weird mastery of the emotions of men. He riddled the case for the State; there was no evidence to contradict the defendant's candid story. He pictured the desolate Cole home, now sought to be robbed of its last bread-winner; he wrung the hearts and the consciences of each juryman with powerful emotional onslaughts. When he finished, an acquittal, unless the last speaker could change the trend, seemed inevitable.

Chippen's lame summing up only made the case worse for the memory of John Dawson.

Pelham went out into the sunlight, Harvey Cade joining him. "It's sheer mockery of justice," came the lawyer's outraged outburst. "Lies, lies, lies! And Ben Spence soldiering on the job.... He represents the official union movement, remember."

"You don't think he would——" Pelham's honest horror was written all over his face.

"He could have done better. As for that Chippen, it's the rare case where he's smart enough to know that a 'not guilty' will help him more than a conviction. This is justice—in Adamsville!"

"And always so bad?"

"Why, our Supreme Court," went on the other bitterly, "has granted a new trial, because the letter 's' was left off the word 'defendants,' and again because an 'i' was omitted from 'malice.' In another case, where the indictment charged that 'A did embezzle from B his money,' the case was reversed, because the Court could not determine who the 'his' referred to. 'To make it refer to B,' said the learned court, 'would imply that the Grand Jury intended to charge A with a crime.' What an implication!... A leading magazine recently said that the criminal administration in this state is more scandalous than in any state in the union. It's unspeakable!"

The first edition of the Register was hot with headlines promising war. Pelham took a copy back to his desk in the Charities' Building, and, after navigating through excited cables of submarine sinkings, and profound announcements from minor Washington officials, found the brief mention of the local case. The jury had rendered the expected verdict of acquittal, after being out less than half an hour.

Pelham fumbled away the afternoon at his desk, self-disgusted and dispirited. The country was being sucked into the red whirlpool of war—a self-inflicted wounding of the white race amounting almost to race suicide. Labor everywhere had fought, before the conflict, to prevent its coming; but it was inherent in the spread of world-wide capitalism. Prussian militarism was a hateful contributing factor; but, if the Germans had been merely imperialists like the British, the conflict would have come just the same: labor's dumb impotence prevented the one saving force from effective prevention. The German socialists had been traitors to the international, except for scattered heroes like Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg; long local schooling in servitude had been too strong. The Allied comrades had not been much better, despite the facts that the British Labor Party promised continued agitation, and Italy and France were hopeful. Russia alone seemed firm: although the amazing news of the March Revolution had been followed by information that the new government contained more bourgeois than revolutionary elements....

And now the United States would come in. There would be defections among the socialists, of course; but Pelham prayed that the mass of the movement would stand untouched. "I'll stick," he muttered to himself. "If I'm alone.... But it won't be that bad."

His mind turned to the local situation. There was hope still, in the nucleus of fighting strikers—this latest judicial outrage would only increase their determination to defeat the company. But the election ... the death of Dawson ... the militia ... this decision ... Jane's leaving.... Things were in a mess.

Most bitterly of all he felt the strike situation. This conflict with his father had called out all the fighting vigor in his blood; win that, and he would have achieved something.... If only his mother could have seen the justice of the strikers' side, and come with him! That would have been a happy household, just he and his dear mother; no uncertain-tongued Jane, to scold at him for nothing, and embarrass his tangled affairs still further by leaving him without any cause,—certainly without any cause that she knew of. She was utterly unlike his mother, his turbulent wrath told him; cold, unsympathetic, un-understanding.... Sweet in a way, but not what he needed....

Well, he would see Louise to-night.

XXVI

On the way to the Hassons', he sought to solve the tangle of his domestic affairs.

He could not quite account for the errant streak in his blood, that drove him so joyfully toward the soft arms awaiting him. Surely he had an overplus of idealism.... Perhaps this was a part of it: of his endless search for perfection in woman ... for some woman, say, who held the magnificent sweetness his mother had received as the dear Barbour heritage. Louise had something of the understanding mother-spirit, that was the mountain's, that was his own mother's. And in turn the mountain wildness coursed in his blood; these had been his emotions, before he became its prodigal child.

The girl met him at the door, wide-eyed, a little wistful. "Well, Mr. Lover, you did come! Yesterday was lonely.... I have bad news; the folks have changed their plans; they'll be back, to-night.... We can take a ride, though."

His smiling lips straightened, but there was a dancing glow in his eyes. "Get your coat, girl," he said with affectionate curtness.

He turned from Highland Boulevard, the glitter of its lights reflected in the suave luster of the rain-damp pavement, into quieter, less-lighted Haviland Avenue. Into a darkened garage ran the car. Her eyes queried his. He pressed off the lights.

Over the cropped grass to the stone steps; inside the darkened porch he pulled out his keys, opened the door, led into the expectant hallway.

"Your ... home?"

"Jane is away," he said briefly.

The shades were pulled down carefully, a light lit. She sat, her eyes wide, on the hall couch, adjusting her skirts in the light. The dull gray paper brought out all of her ripe rosy loveliness; he paused, struck by the picture.... It was the couch on which he had last seen Jane sitting; a sardonic inner smile disturbed him.

"I don't feel that this is right, Pell—in her house——" Her deep eyes puckered in uncertainty.

Dominant lips closed her protest; she rested for a fleeting moment against him.

On the steps' landing he paused to point out tennis trophies gleaming against the dark woodwork.

Then they turned again, hand in hand, up the carpeted rounds to the dim silence above....

Before midnight he told her good-bye on the Hasson porch.

There were times, in the two weeks which followed, when Pelham viewed himself from without, with a definite disgust; when he realized that a furtive fraction of love could never make up for the big gap caused in the day's doings by the absence of Jane. Once Louise had to tease him out of this mood.

"I'm leaving you, Mr. Lover, on Wednesday.... Make my last three days pleasant."

He took her to the station. As they entered it, two cars disgorged another increment of the militia.

He rode to the first stop with her.

"You were a good lover," was her final praise. "Run down to the coast and see me sometime.... If you still want me."

XXVII

It was just after ten, in the dry heat of a July day six weeks later, when four of the deputies appeared on the road at the entrance to the miners' shack village, and started to enter. They were backed by a squad of the new Home Guard, who had come to help out the militia, now in process of gradual federalization.

"What d'ye want?" called out John McGue, the only committeeman at the moment in the informal town. Pelham, Joe Mullins, the new national organizer, and a committee were visiting the governor, to protest against two exceptionally brutal clubbings by the restlessly inactive guards. It was a hopeless trip, except as a protest.

"You hold things down, McGue," Mullins had told him. "It's coming, by God! They'll consent to arbitrate before the middle of August, or the federal government'll step in! Four new camps, man, in three weeks—they can't get any more men, either, for love or money. We've got 'em!"

Things were looking serious for the company. The Ed Cole verdict had reacted against it; defections from the ranks of the strike-breakers were frequent, and the output was hardly a third of that of the summer before the strike.

McGue wondered if the visit of the guards and militiamen had been timed to fit in with the absence of most of the strike leaders in Jackson. "What d'ye want?" he repeated.

"We got warrants for six men." The deputy—it was Huggins—started to walk on in; McGue kept his place.

"Get out of the way, there," Huggins warned him shortly.

"Gimme the names; we'll git the men fer you. No need to go trampling through people's houses and gardens, as you guards did last week."

"I'll give you nothin'."

The voices in dispute resounded down the vacant roads. Men, hungry men, their natures warped with the long unequal struggle, massed in a shifting background behind the rugged committeeman.

"Get out of my way, or I'll jug you too."

Silently McGue stepped aside. The crowd flattened back against the flimsy walls. The armed guards, grinning at one another, jostling and joking, penetrated deeper and deeper into the straggly irregularity of the settlement.

All at once Huggins caught sight of an undergrown, misshapen boy scowling from the back of the men and women. Pushing them aside, he shoved to the spot, the guards close behind. His hand gripped the boy's arm, until he winced.

"Hey—whatcher——"

"What's your name?"

"Aw, you lemme 'lone! I ain't done a thing."

"Take him, there." He shook the boy savagely. "Your name's McGuire, ain't it? Frank McGuire—I know you."

McGue came up again, holding in his irritation. "What do you want this boy for?"

"None of your damn' business! We got a warrant for him, see? You keep out, or——"

Several of the deputies in the rear clicked their hammers suggestively, snickering at the one-sided joke. A disturbed buzz wavered up and down the massed strikers. As Huggins turned up the wider road again, it grew in volume into a subdued stream of boohs, catcalls, hisses, low threats. He turned incautiously, facing them.

"Don't you follow me, you gutter trash, or I'll jug the lot of you!"

A weak satiric voice came from behind a house. "Aw, will you, though!"

McGue's eyes grinned; but his face remained set, as he doggedly kept pace with the head of the marching guards.

Two more men were taken in the same methodical fashion. The surging procession was now near the open center of the location, where a square had been left as a common, with the artesian well at one end.

Girls and women quietly replaced the men in the front line, jeering and cursing at the flushed faces of the soldiers, occasionally stumbling awkwardly against them. There was a scream as a soldier turned suddenly on a pretty red-haired girl, and caught her wrist. An old Irish virago beside clutched his shoulder and flung him sideways.

"Touch my daughter, you dirty bastard, and I'll tear your heart out!"

Huggins re-formed his men at the entrance to the square. There were only fifty soldiers in line; there were already several hundred of the tenters, and their number swelled constantly. Of course, they couldn't do anything.... He had his orders.

The stage was set for trouble. Over the heads of the women and girls, from the shelter of the nearest house, a rock whished—an apple-sized ore boulder from the iron heart of the hill. It crunched into one of the guards, square on his cheek. He grunted. An uncertain hand patted his dazed face. When he drew it away, it was smeared with blood; the stain widened over his collar and breast.

A second stone came from the opposite side. Then another ... another....

Two deputies fired wildly in the direction of the hidden throwers.

Out of the dissolving panorama of frightened strikers came a spurted crack, a spit of smoke. One of the deputies screamed, was supported, writhing terribly, by the men on either side of him. His head hung limp.

"Back to that building, there," boomed Huggins, pointing to the distributing store at the mountain end of the square.

The retreat began. The strikers eddied backward from the cleared place. From houses along the way unexpected bursts of rocks, an occasional shot, crashed into the close ranks of the law-enforcers.

Four or five revolvers puffed off to the left. A guard dropped his gun, shaking his hand in agony. The left third of the soldiers at a command raised their rifles, and blazed away at the infuriated welter of retreating humanity. A madhouse of screams, men and women running, two bodies settling onto the stained July grass....

Another volley, this toward the right.

"Take that, you——" screamed a deputy, as the startled face at a window was met by the blaze of a rifle. The woman hung swaying over the ledge; choking horribly, she trembled further and further out, dropped hideously upon the ground.

At the storehouse now. "Hey, you, get out of that," Huggins commanded the strikers' distributors.

"This is our——"

The sight of the rifles settled the matter. The two dead guards were stretched on the floor, the wounded were roughly bandaged. Huggins phoned the facts to the militia headquarters on the mountain.

"Said for us to wait here," he explained to the army lieutenant in charge. "It 'ud be suicide, trying to get out. For all we know, all them houses is full of strikers. There'll be two companies here inside of an hour. By God, we'll do for 'em this time!" His tone shook in fierce rapture—the man hunt was on!

The main bulk of the rifles covered the big open field in front; small parties watched toward west, south and north, to warn if any activity showed in the houses fifty feet away.

There was no water; the wounded cursed continually for it. Huggins sent a party, well protected, over to the well, seventy feet away, to bring back two bucketfuls. One of the detail was shot in the collar bone, but managed to make his way back with the bearers of the precious drink.

There was a shouting from in front. "Hey," came a voice, waving a white towel raised high on a clothes-pole. "Can we talk with your man in charge?"

It was Edward McGuire, the father of little hump-backed Frank, who had been arrested, but had slipped away in the disorderly retreat to the store. He had been selected as one of the older, more law-abiding of the miners, to bring the flag of truce.

"What d'ye want?" Huggins demanded belligerently. "Ain't no use to talk; I got a regiment comin' in half an hour, will clean up this whole damned nest of rats."

"Can I come closer?" called McGuire.

There was no answer. He came over to where the lieutenant of the guard stood, clutching the pole with its white symbol high above his head.

"Well?"

"Can we pick up those bodies out on the field? You can get any of your men there. We'll carry this flag, sir—one of 'em 's my son, I think."

The deputy beside Huggins stepped two feet forward. His revolver reversed, he brought it down with all his force on the undefended grizzled head. McGuire dropped in a heap.

All the while, down the dusty July road, Major Grinnell, of the State Guards, had double-quicked his men. They reached the railroad spur just out of sight of the shack village. Here he divided his force. The company automobiles, equipped with searchlights and machine guns, had gone by the county road to the eastern end of the colony, behind the sand ridge, to cut off possible retreat. The motley mass of deputies, mine guards and special police cut in after them, to work back with the machines. The militia marched above the camp, close to the store held by Huggins. After a fifteen minutes' wait, they proceeded in open formation, converging toward the common.

The strikers, stunned by the brutal killing of McGuire, swirled together beyond the well, hidden by the jerry-built shacks.

"We gotter rush 'em," "Micky" Ray insisted, weaving in and out of the perturbed herd, followed by several adherents as violent. "Damn it, why doncher rush 'em, before they sneak out?"

McGue confronted him again. "Still at it, you fool? They'd shoot us down like dogs——"

"They'll shoot us anyway. 'Fraid of 'em, are you, Johnny?" another taunted.

"We gotter rush 'em. Get your guns ready," commanded Ray. "All that aren't afraid, line up behind Bill there."

He turned his back to round up others. The line doubled on him, an excited commotion shaking it. He tried to break his way clear, to understand what they were saying.

"What the——"

"Aincher heard her?"

"Nellie seed 'em!"

"All the soldiers is come! They're right behind the store!"

"They're everywhere!"

"You see?" stormed McGue, shoving Ray to the side. "Everybody below the common."

They made the change. The militia assembled before the storehouse, extended their wings, beat down the open space and the lanes parallel with it. Undetermined, the strikers waited, poorly armed, but sheltered behind friendly walls.

Huggins' big voice came faintly. "Lay down your guns," he shouted. "The first man who shoots, we'll fire. Do you surrender?"

There was no answer.

"We'd better," insisted McGue, perspiring from heat and excitement. "They ain't got anything on us. You can't fight rifles with bare hands."

"Hell, no! You saw what they did to Ed McGuire. Let's kill the uglies——"

"Kill 'em!" Ray adopted a new slogan. "Kill 'em! Kill 'em, I says."

They wavered. The blistering sun beat fiercely on the metallic barrels of the menacing rifles.

A dreadful tumult of shots, shouts, indescribable noises, broke out in the rear. The shuddering sound of machine guns pelted whistling hail through the sparse tree leaves above.

Out of the blind turmoil came running figures, blaspheming in horrible rage. "They're there too!"

"It's another regiment!"

"They're killing everybody!"

The noise grew louder.

Major Grinnell halted at the head of his men. McGue, surrounded by a cowed hundred of the strikers, walked quietly out. "Do you want to arrest us?"

Methodically the houses and alleys were combed, until close to five hundred men, women and children had been herded into the trampled square. One by one they were marched before the guards and deputies; a hundred and nine were pointed out largely at random, as having had some part in the attack. The rest who were involved had slipped away between the two lines of attackers. Wailing and lamenting, the former were herded away into the overcrowded jails.

That night the militia encamped in the remains of the settlement. Fire had destroyed the western third of the houses, a fire which the soldiers made no attempt to put out.

Not a striker was permitted to enter the barred area.

Jim Hewin, back on duty as a sheriff's deputy, led one of the squads that scoured the surrounding woods the next morning for fugitives and bodies. "Hey, 'Red,'—they pipped somebody here," he explained.

It was the rocky road behind the settlement, which led above the wet-weather falls of the brook that eased away into Shadow Creek. The oasis of grass in the middle of the sandy road was darkly muddied by a mixture of dirt and blood. A cap, crumpled, the visor torn loose, lay in the clawed sand beside it.

"Red" Jones ran up. Hewin's quick eyes zigzagged eagerly. "Look, 'Red'—he went here!"

The trail of blood began again a few feet beyond the road. A heavy body had been dragged over succulent pokeberry plants: moist pithy leaves swung crushed, oozing their thick sap; dark berries lay mashed upon a soil purple with their blood.

They parted the sumach and haw bushes screening the falls.

The slimed slope of gray rocks was darkened by a muddy reddish trickle of water. It was a broken stretch of seventy feet to the green stagnancy below.

"Hey, 'Red'——" Jim's voice dropped; his shaking hand pointed to an awkward mass half way down the incline.

They slid cautiously, clutching the rough crag edges beside the water.

Caught in one of the shelf-flaws of the rock, his miner's shirt coagulated with blackened blood, his stained overalls soggy with the water, lay a dead negro.

Hewin turned the body over; his fingers shrank and slipped at the moist unpleasantness.

They peered into the dead face of Ed Cole. A clinging mould of leaves half obscured the deputy's badge on his greasy lapel.

Jim's eyes expanded. "Cole, you know—he shot John Dawson."

They regarded the face for a few minutes.

"Got any terbaccer, Jim?"

"Red" lit up his pipe.

"Guess we'll tote 'im back—down that way, huh?"

The dank and dripping bundle was carried and dragged through the scratching underbrush. When they reached the road at last, they rested it on a scaly-bark's littered knees.

Jim rubbed the sweat off from his forehead with his soaked sleeves. "Hell, he's heavy, ain't he? This'll do.... You see Huggins; he'll send a wagon." His hands pushed throughout his trousers pockets. "Did you gimme them matches back?"

XXVIII

Governor Tennant—his pet name among friends and enemies alike was "Whiskey-barrel Tennant"—dismissed the committee with a few curt platitudes about law and order. When they reached Adamsville, they found the shack colony sacked, the strikers and their dependents either jailed or scattered. The militia had done a thorough job.

Wearily Pelham dragged himself to the meeting at Arlington Hall.

Jack Bowden, of the local miners' organization, who always came like a bird of carrion at evil news, secured the floor, and moved that the strike committee be discharged and the strike settled on whatever terms could be secured. "They've bashed in our heads," he said vigorously. "Do we want 'em to cut our throats as well?"

There was no John Dawson to reply to him. From many groups of the strikers came discouraged support for the motion. Most of the old tried unionists saw nothing to be gained in wasting energy on a dead struggle.

"Makes mighty little difference now," Pelham whispered hopelessly to Serrano, seated in explosive agitation beside him.

"You'll never quit!"

"Not quit.... But start a newer fight, with some chance of winning it."

One violent industrial unionist demanded the floor, and pounded out that the strike must continue, with a general tie-up of every trade, organized and unorganized, in Adamsville.

"One big union!" he continued to shout, even after the ready ushers had pushed him into his seat.

"That's the sort of fool advice," Jack Bowden said, "that's lost this strike. For it is lost; and I'll tell you who's lost it. Not the company, nor Paul Judson's money, not his murdering gunmen; but——" and his lean arm pointed straight to Pelham, "but crazy radicals in and out of the union movement; lounge Socialists, lemonade trade-unionists, men who claim to be with us, but were born with scab hearts. It's them and their kind have led to this smash-up. And the sooner we reckernize it, the better!"

There was a tossing roar of applause at this. The crowd, Pelham grasped at once, was ready to quit, and only wanted someone to blame for the failure.

Nils Jensen, still under bond pending the decision of his case by the Supreme Court, answered the charge at once. "Men, brothers," his voice rang out, "I've been a miner, and a member of this local, for thirteen years. I don't know who is to blame, but I know who isn't—and that's the Socialists among us. We've fought, in the union and at the polls, day in, day out, while your old-fashioned unionists have been pulling down fat jobs under Democratic sheriffs,——" a hit at Pooley, who had been first deputy under the previous official. "I'm not in favor of going on now, if the crowd's ready to stop. I can get work, here or somewhere else, in or out of jail,——" There was a friendly smile at this. "I know that the war between our class and the Paul Judson class will go on until classes are ended. If you're to blame anybody, blame ignorant laborers, who can't see that scabbing against their fellows cuts their own throats, and betrays their wives and children. Blame the labor fakers, the crooked bunch who 'lead' you so that their pockets are lined for delivering your votes to the old parties, while you get nothing. And when Jack Bowden says that Comrade Pelham Judson, as good a socialist as any one of us, is a lounging lemonade socialist, with a scab heart, he lies, and he knows he lies!"

The chair's rappings were lost in the outcries. "Order!" "Order!" broke all over the hall. An uproar circled around Jensen and also Bowden; for a minute the meeting threatened to break into a riot.

Jack Bowden jumped up to the platform, a document waving over his head. "Brothers!... Brothers!... Let me answer him!" He paused, while they quieted. "I'll answer him. When I moved that the committee be discharged without thanks, I knew what I was doing. When I charged that 'Mister'" (with an ugly sneer) "Pelham Judson, son of the vice-president of the Birrell-Florence-Mountain Iron and Steel Company, was born with a scab heart, I knew what I was doing!"

Cries of "Shame!" "Shame!" "Throw him out!"

He kept his place. As he waved the mysterious document before their faces, the cries weakened; curiosity hushed them.

"One member of that committee, a man who had no right on it, for he had no union card——"

"As Paul Judson has!" Jensen cut in sharply, amid indignant demands to keep quiet.

"One member of that committee has been—a scab! As he may be a scab again, when he pleases to. I have here," he opened the paper, so that the large red seals were displayed to all, "—affidavits from Connecticut, proving that 'Mister' Pelham Judson, 'Comrade' Judson if brother Jensen wants to call him that, in October, 1913, in New Haven, acted as a scab during a strike of conductors and motormen on the New Haven Electric Company, and helped to break that strike. He's kept quiet about it; I can't. And I say that such a man should be kicked out of all affiliation with the labor movement, here or elsewhere!"

"It's not true," shrieked Jensen and a score of fervid socialists. One brawny Norwegian started for the platform. "I'll tear out dat dam' liar's tongue." The sergeant-at-arms pulled him back.

Pelham rose, pale and trembling.

The chair picked him out. "Does brother Judson desire the floor?"

There was an intent silence, as he stood, alone, surrounded by the hostile hundreds of the men and women he had fought for. He tried to begin.

Bowden walked across the platform, toward him. "Is it true, or not?"

Pelham's swollen tongue licked his lips. At length he spoke, quietly, yet so penetratingly that every syllable reached his audience. "I can explain——" he began.

"Is it true?" Bowden led the demand of hundreds of angered throats.

He faced them unflinchingly. "It is true. I can explain——"

The hooting and jeering broke with savage, almost bestial fury. Doggedly Pelham kept to his feet, in spite of the efforts of Serrano and others to drag him down. "This is terrible, comrade," whispered Serrano. "You'd better leave——"

At length Bowden got the eye of the chair again. "I move that we give five minutes to Mr. Judson to 'explain', as he calls it, his scabbing."

In simple language Pelham told of his training in a home dedicated to the fight against labor; of his acts at New Haven, while a college student; of his conversion to socialism and the cause of labor. He did not mention what it had cost him; a few remembered this. When he came to his New Haven experiences, the hissing began, swelled in volume. All of the chair's entreaties could not stop it.

"If you think, comrades, that my usefulness on this committee is over, I hereby resign. But I can assure you that nothing will shake my efforts in the cause for which I have fought, am fighting, and will continue to fight."