STRIKE TROUBLES SPREADING
It was a sultry afternoon, one of those clammy days when flies stick
and become victims of the drink habit, striving to quench unnatural
thirst at patches of spilled liquor on bar-room counters, and, in a
final frenzy, endeavor to commit suicide in the dregs of warm tumblers
left by their human fellow-sufferers.
Lionel K. Sharpe, the proprietor of the Russell Hotel at Everton, was
propped behind his counter, smiling with amiable idiocy at the vagaries
of two drunken flies scrambling about the inner sides of a tumbler,
which contained the dregs of what was alleged to be port wine. Abe
Hopkinson, and Josh Taylor, the bullet-headed butcher, watched them
from the other side of the bar.
"Guess I'd say it's hereditary in flies," said Abe, feeling scientific.
"Wot's hered--hereditry?" demanded the butcher.
"Why--drink," explained Abe.
"Seems it's here--her--hereditry in most folk," smiled Lionel K.,
chewing the stump of his cigar vigorously to conceal his difficulty
with such scientific terms.
The butcher nodded.
"I'd say some thirsts couldn't be brought on any other way," he said.
"Well, not to say--easy."
Abe grinned.
"Guess you ain't a believer in that guy Darwin's highbrow theory?"
"Don't know what it is," replied the butcher, lifting the glass, and
tilting it so as to put the ruddy liquid within reach of the volubly
buzzing insects. "Anyway, I don't believe in it. Say--I'll swar' them
two sossled microbes is holding a concert to 'emselves. See, one of
'em's doing the buzzin', and blamed if the other feller ain't just
wavin' a leg to beat the band, keepin' time. Say, ain't they havin' a
hell of a time?"
Lionel K. Sharpe struck a match, tried to light his cigar stump, burned
his mustache, and abandoned the attempt.
"Hell!" he cried in disgust. Then he pointed at the flies. "Say, Josh,
jest think of it. Guess that splash of port's well-nigh a
sea--leastways a lake to them. How'd you fancy standin' around a sea of
port wine?"
"Guess I'd rather be settin' in a boat and paddlin' around in it--jest
as long as it wasn't your port. On second thought, I'd rather be in a
sailin' craft. You see, I'd have more hands free." He pointed at the
flies. "Say, that feller's quit buzzin'. I've a notion he's sung
hisself hoarse. Mebbe he's got the hiccups. Wal, say, get that! They're
kissin' each other."
"They're sloshed to the gills, sure," grinned Sharpe.
"Ain't it queer?" said Abe. "Blamed if it ain't jest the same with
folks. They git a drink under their belts, an' it sets 'em foolish.
They get blowin' their horns, an' doing things. Then they start
singing, an' finish up shootin'--or kissin' each other."
Josh desisted from his efforts at plying the flies with more drink, and
stared round at his companion.
"I'd jest like to know how drink takes you, Abe," he cried in pretended
alarm, "fightin' or kissin'. 'Cause if it's the amorous racket, I quit
you right here. I just ain't kissin' a thing. I quit it years ago. It's
a fool trick, anyway, an' physic dopers all sez it's full to death of
disease." Then he added speculatively: "Makes you sort o' wonder what
kind o' disease your kisses 'ud hand around. You don't look as if you'd
got a spavin, or a spring halt. What 'ud you guess, Lionel?"
"Guess?" Mr. Sharpe helped himself to a fresh cigar. "Ther' ain't no
guessin' to it. Jest consumption. That's all."
He blew a cloud of smoke on the drunken flies, and sent them tumbling
headlong into the liquor. Then he picked up the glass and washed it.
"Ah, yes," said Josh. "That's it--consumption--generly of liquor."
"Which you ain't never bustin' to pay fer," cried Abe, with a laugh.
"Pay? Wal, I'd smile. Pay? Guess I gone right on strike payin'. My
union don't let its members pay oftener than they're obliged. But we
don't stop non-unions payin'. Oh, no. We jest boost 'em right on an'
help 'em pay."
"Strike?" said Abe. "Guess it's a kind o' fashion goin' around
strikin'. Everybody's worrying to quit somethin'--an' it's most generly
work. But that ain't no use to you, Josh. You got to do work 'fore you
ken quit it."
The bullet-headed butcher smiled benignly.
"Work? Say, you ain't heard o' work. Guess you're one o' them all-fired
capitalists, wot sets around makin' profit out o' us pore fellers who
kill the meat what fills the tins you poison your customers with, by
reason you've bought up a job line o' throw outs. Work?" he went on,
throwing out his arms in ridiculous burlesque of a strike orator. "We
are the fellers who do the work. We make your profit for you.
We--we--we are the people wot sets the old world wobblin' around every
day. We--us down-trods who have to drink Sharpe's rot-gut whisky while
you amuse yourself settin' flies drunk on port wine!"
At that moment the swing door was thrust open, and Pete Farline, the
drug-store keeper, and Sid Ellerton pushed their way in.
"Drink, Lionel," demanded Peter wearily.
But the hotel proprietor shook his head and winked at Josh.
"I gone on strike--sure," he said.
Pete looked around at Josh and Abe for enlightenment.
"Strike?" he inquired. "Guess I don't get you."
"Why every feller's strikin' now," grinned Josh.
"Oh."
"Quit servin' drinks?" asked Sid, supporting himself on the bar.
Lionel K. Sharpe shook his head and laughed.
"Nope," he said, amid a cloud of smoke. "Just quit chalkin' up Pete's
score."
He obtained the laugh he required, and set glasses before the newcomers.
"Seein' it's that way, Lal, I'll have to go on strike sousin' your
poison," Farline retorted. Then he turned to the others. "Say, fellers,
let's strike for decent liquor, an' when we get it let's strike for
havin' it free. If we get that, we'll have pipes laid on over our beds,
and strike again if we don't get 'em."
"Why, yes," laughed Josh. "Then we'll strike cos the rats we see ain't
spiders."
"Sure," nodded Abe. "An' strike like hell if they grow wings."
Lionel K. Sharpe held out his hand for Pete's money.
"Then when you wake up--you'll strike anyway," he said.
Pete handed him a dollar bill, and Josh's face purpled with laughter.
"Get it, boys," he cried. "Look at that!" he went on, pointing at
Sharpe. "There he is, fellers. Ther's the capitalist. Money for
nothin'. That's what it is. That's the feller we're on to. Down with
Capital, sez I! Up with Labor, or any other old thing. Say, we're right
on strike, an' I'm goin' out to get a banner, an' form a parade. I'm
jest goin' to make speeches to the populace 'bout things. I'm full up
o' Capital. We're sweated, that's wot we are. We won't stand for it,
neither. Down with 'em. We want their blood. We want the world--with a
fence round it. Say, fellers, ef I git busy that way will you ante up
an automobile, an' drink, an' boost me into the government so I ken rob
folks right, an' keep out of the penitentiary?"
"Boost you to hell!" cried Sharpe, as the swing doors were pushed open,
and a stranger made his way in.
All eyes were turned upon the newcomer. He was a powerfully built man
of medium size. The gray in his dark hair showed beneath his soft felt
hat, and his eyes were narrow and keen. His dress was the ordinary
dress of the city man, and quite unpretentious.
The men in the bar eyed him covertly as he made his way to the counter
and called for a "long lager."
Lionel K. Sharpe served him as though strangers were an everyday
occurrence in that bar, but he was speculating as to who he might be.
"Hot," said the man, after a long pull at his schooner of beer.
"Some," observed Sharpe, handing him his change.
"Bad road from Calford," the stranger said, after another journey into
his beer.
"Hellish," returned Sharpe, wiping glasses.
"How far to Deep Willows?" asked the other, presently.
"Nigh seven," replied Sharpe.
"Across the river?"
"You don't need to. Keep to the right bank."
"Good. Thanks."
The stranger finished his drink, and made his way out of the place.
In a moment the "strikers" were crowding at the window watching his
departure. They saw him walk across the road to a large automobile
waiting for him. They saw him speak to the driver, and then jump into
the seat beside him. Then the machine, with a heavy snort, rolled away.
"Another all-fired capitalist," laughed Josh.
"Friend of Hendrie's," murmured Abe.
"Didn't seem Hendrie's class," protested Pete.
Lionel K. Sharpe shook his head.
"I seen him before," he said reflectively. "Seems to me I see him at
Calford some time back. Yes. That's it. He--say, gee!" He broke into a
loud guffaw, and turned to Josh. "Say, he's the man for you. I mind
hearing him shouting down with capitalists to a lot of bum railroaders.
That's when I saw him."
"You're on your back, man. You got a nightmare," cried Josh scornfully.
"Him drivin' about in an automobile."
Abe grinned.
"That's what they're out for," he cried contemptuously. Then he turned
back to the bar. "Guess we'll have another drink--anyway."
*****
Alexander Hendrie was leaving Angus Moraine's office, where he had
spent the early hours of the afternoon discussing matters of business
and receiving reports. The two men had also spent some time considering
the conditions prevailing on the railroad, conditions threatening to
affect them considerably. That a big strike was imminent was
sufficiently apparent to them both, and each understood the disastrous
possibilities to the harvest if it should occur at that time.
There had been strikes before, but, from Hendrie's confidential
sources, it had been learned that the forthcoming strike would be of a
particularly comprehensive nature. There was big talk of sympathetic
strikes on the part of all transport workers, and among those who were
required to handle goods ultimately intended for transport on the
railroad.
The Scot was troubled. But Hendrie seemed to revel in the contemplation
of a great struggle with Labor. Truth to tell, he was actually pleased
that all his energies would be involved in the forthcoming fight. He
would have less time to think, and he had no desire to think just now.
He left the office by the outer door, and walked leisurely round to the
front of the house, intent upon the threatened struggle, and those
things which would be affected by it. He was calmly considering every
point, every detail in the great game in which his life was spent,
which might be brought into contact with it.
At the entrance porch of the house he paused, and drew a bundle of
cipher messages from his pocket. He read them carefully. Each one
represented a financial transaction with some well-known Chicago wheat
speculator, the completion of which would place his interests beyond
the reach of disaster through any strikes. He had only to wire an
affirmative to any one of them to set all doubts at rest.
However, he finally returned them to his pocket and shook his head. No,
it was too easy. It would rob him of all place in the fight to come--if
such fight really were coming. Besides, there would be that loss of
profit for the speculator's risk; a loss which his keen, financial mind
begrudged. No, not yet. There was time enough. He would only yield to
the temptation of safeguarding the affairs of the Trust when it became
absolutely necessary.
He thrust his hands deeply into his coat pockets, as though to
emphasize his decision, and his gaze wandered toward the fair woodland
picture of the river banks, crowded with virgin growth. Acres and acres
of ripening grain lay beyond, and here and there, through breaks in the
foliage, he could discern the tint of yellow amid the paling carpet of
green. The sight of it further hardened his decision.
To a man of lesser caliber the responsibility of that wheat world must
have been a burden to tax the nerves to the uttermost. But to Hendrie
it was scarcely a labor. He loved this world he had made his, and it
weighed far less upon him than did the more trifling worries adding
friction to the routine of daily life. But for Monica's illness, and a
curious sort of nightmare haunting the back cells of this man's memory,
Alexander Hendrie must have been a perfectly happy man, reveling in a
success which had been his life-long ambition.
Finally he turned from the pleasant scenes his thoughts were conjuring.
He was about to pass into the house to visit the woman who was the
choicest jewel in his crown of success. He moved toward the doorway,
but paused abruptly. The sweep of the private trail on the north bank
of the river had come within his view, and he beheld a powerful
automobile rapidly approaching the house.
For the moment he believed it to be the visit of one of his associates
in business, perhaps from Calford, or even Winnipeg. Then he doubted.
He was expecting no one. Anyway he would have been notified of their
coming.
He left the porch and stood out in the open, watching the vehicle
curiously. It came swiftly on, its soft purr humming upon the still,
hot air. It was a large touring car, and two people were occupying the
front seat. The rest was empty.
A few moments later it drew up sharply abreast of him. A pair of keen
eyes were staring at him from the other side of the chauffeur. Hendrie
caught their stare, and a quick, deep breath filled his lungs.
For a while, it seemed quite a long time to the millionaire, no word
was spoken. Then he saw the man on the other side of the driver jump
out of the car. Then he heard him speak.
"You can go back up the trail," he said to his man. "I'll walk out and
meet you when I want you."
Then the car moved off. It turned about, and finally rolled away.
Hendrie saw all this without taking any interest. For some reason his
thoughts had been abruptly carried back into a dim past, to a vision of
a land of lofty, barren hills, a land of drear woods and shadowed
valleys, a land where fierce cold ate into the bones, and strangled the
joy of living.
And all the while his eyes were fixed upon the back of the powerful
figure that remained turned toward him until the car had passed out of
sight. Then the stranger swung about. His narrow eyes were alight with
a passion that seemed unaccountable. He raised one hand, and his
forefinger pointed a deadly hatred.
"You! Leo!" he cried.
The dreary scenes of the Yukon heights faded abruptly from the
millionaire's mind. He looked into that narrow, evilly expressive face
with a cold, hard stare.
"Yes," he said. "Well?"
There was no flinching. There was no surprise even. He spoke utterly
without emotion, like the echo of those ruthless hills which only a
moment before he had contemplated.
"So--I've come up with you at last!" cried Austin Leyburn. "Oh, I knew
I should do so some day. It was not possible for it to be otherwise.
I've searched. I've sounded every corner of this continent. Some day, I
guessed I'd turn the stone under which you were hiding."
For an instant Hendrie's eyes lit. Then they smiled with a contempt for
the mind that could suggest his hiding.
"Guess that's my name--has always been my name." said, with an
expressive lifting of the shoulders. "Your search sounds better than it
could have been in fact. I allow the world has known just where to set
its finger on Alexander Hendrie for many years now. Say, p'raps you're
not interested in wheat, and so missed finding me."
"You? Alexander Hendrie?" Leyburn cried incredulously.
"Guess that's my name--has always been my name." Hendrie smoothed his
mane of hair with one steady hand. "Folks used to call me Leo,
because--of this. By the way, you apparently came to see me?"
The face of Austin Leyburn expressed a devilish hatred no words could
have told. It was a hatred nursed and fostered through long years when
his mind and energies were wholly turned upon profit extracted through
the ignorance and passion of fellow-creatures of inferior mentality. It
was an atmosphere in which such passionate bitterness might well be
fostered.
But the calmness of his intended victim, for the moment, had a
restraining effect. He felt the need for coolness.
So he laughed. There was no mirth in his laughter. It was a hollow
sound that jarred terribly.
"Yes, I came here to find Alexander Hendrie, and not--Leo. I came to
find the millionaire wheat grower, and challenge him with the
injustices he is handing out to white agricultural labor, whose
representative I am. I came to warn him that it was impossible for men
of our union to work side by side with black labor, which earns white
man's pay. I came to tell him that if he persisted, there is not a
white man in the country will work for him, and that he must dismiss
all black labor at once. I came to tell Alexander Hendrie these things,
and I find--Leo."
Hendrie smiled into his face.
"You came to tell him all this, and you found, in his stead --Leo, the
feller I guess you're not particularly well disposed toward. In fact,
whom you--rather dislike. Well?"
Years of self-discipline had given Austin Leyburn a fine control of
himself. But before that control had been acquired he had been robbed
of all he possessed in the world by a man named Leo. He had been made
to suffer by this man as few men are made to suffer, and after facing
trials and hardships few men face successfully. These sufferings had
ingrained into his heart a passionate hatred and desire for revenge no
acquired control could withstand, and now the torrent of his bitter
animosity broke out.
"Whom I hate better than any man on earth," Leyburn cried, in a low,
passionate tone. "Listen to me, Leo. You're a great man now. You're
among the rich of this continent, and so you're the more worth
crushing. We both find ourselves in different positions now. Very
different positions. You are powerful in the control of huge capital,
founded upon the gold you stole from me twenty years ago on the Yukon
trail. I--I control hundreds of thousands of workers in this country.
That is no mean power. Hitherto my power has been exercised in the
legitimate process of protecting that labor from men of your class. But
from this moment all that is changed. Before all things in my life I
have a mission to fulfill. It is my personal vengeance upon the man who
robbed me twenty years ago, and left his mistress, bearing her unborn
child, to starve on the long winter trail."
"It is a lie! She was not left to starve. She was provided for."
Hendrie was driven to furious denial by the taunt.
"Ah, that's better!" cried Leyburn. "Much better. I've cut through your
rough hide. I say you left her to starve--for all you cared. And I've
set myself up as the champion of her cause as well as my own. I'm going
to carry it through with all the power at my command. Oh, I know no law
will help me to my vengeance. That highway robbery is just between
ourselves. Well, I guess I don't need any one's help to avenge it."
Hendrie had himself well under control again. He nodded as the man
paused.
"Go on," he said.
"I intend to," Leyburn cried, his face livid and working with the fury
that drove him. "I'm going back now to Toronto to set the machinery
working. And that machinery will grind its way on till you are reduced
to the dust I intend to crush you into. It will not be Labor against
Capital. But Labor against Alexander Hendrie."
"And what shall I be doing?" Hendrie's eyes were alight with something
like amusement.
"You--you? I'll tell you what you'll be doing when I've finished.
You'll be wishing to God you had never stolen a dead man's gold."
Hendrie started. His eyes grew tigerish. But he remained silent.
Leyburn saw the change and understood it.
"Oh, God, it was a low-down game, something about parallel to the ghoul
on the battlefield stealing money and accouterments from the dead
soldiers. Now you are going to pay for it as you deserve. Don't make
any mistake. By God, Leo, I'm going to smash you!"
Austin Leyburn turned away and hurried down the trail.