Thirty masked men sat around a long harvest mess-table. Two lanterns
furnished light enough to show a bare barnlike structure, the
rough-garbed plotters, the grim set of hard lips below the half-masks,
and big hands spread out, ready to draw from the hat that was passing.
The talk was low and serious. No names were spoken. A heavy man, at the
head of the table, said: "We thirty, picked men, represent the country.
Let each member here write on his slip of paper his choice of punishment
for the I.W.W.'s--death or deportation...."
The members of the band bent their masked faces and wrote in a dead
silence. A noiseless wind blew through the place. The lanterns
flickered; huge shadows moved on the walls. When the papers had been
passed back to the leader he read them.
"Deportation," he announced. "So much for the I.W.W. men.... Now for the
leader.... But before we vote on what to do with Glidden let me read an
extract from one of his speeches. This is authentic. It has been
furnished by the detective lately active in our interest. Also it has
been published. I read it because I want to bring home to you all an
issue that goes beyond our own personal fortunes here."
Leaning toward the flickering flare of the lantern, the leader read from
a slip of paper: "If the militia are sent out here to hinder the I.W.W.
we will make it so damned hot for the government that no troops will be
able to go to France.... I don't give a damn what this country is
fighting for.... I am fighting for the rights of labor.... American
soldiers are Uncle Sam's scabs in disguise."
The deep, impressive voice ended. The leader's huge fist descended upon
the table with a crash. He gazed up and down the rows of sinister masked
figures. "Have you anything to say?"
"No," replied one.
"Pass the slips," said another.
And then a man, evidently on in years, for his hair was gray and he
looked bent, got up. "Neighbors," he began "I lived here in the early
days. For the last few years I've been apologizing for my home town. I
don't want to apologize for it any longer."
He sat down. And a current seemed to wave from him around that dark
square of figures. The leader cleared his throat as if he had much to
say, but he did not speak. Instead he passed the hat. Each man drew
forth a slip of paper and wrote upon it. The action was not slow.
Presently the hat returned round the table to the leader. He spilled its
contents, and with steady hand picked up the first slip of paper.
"Death!" he read, sonorously, and laid it down to pick up another. Again
he spoke that grim word. The third brought forth the same, and likewise
the next, and all, until the verdict had been called out thirty times.
"At daylight we'll meet," boomed out that heavy voice. "Instruct
Glidden's guards to make a show of resistance.... We'll hang Glidden to
the railroad bridge. Then each of you get your gangs together. Round up
all the I.W.W.'s. Drive them to the railroad yard. There we'll put them
aboard a railroad train of empty cars. And that train will pass under
the bridge where Glidden will be hanging.... We'll escort them out of
the country."
* * * * *
That August dawn was gray and cool, with gold and pink beginning to
break over the dark eastern ranges. The town had not yet awakened. It
slept unaware of the stealthy forms passing down the gray road and of
the distant hum of motor-cars and trot of hoofs.
Glidden's place of confinement was a square warehouse, near the edge of
town. Before the improvised jail guards paced up and down, strangely
alert.
Daylight had just cleared away the gray when a crowd of masked men
appeared as if by magic and bore down upon the guards. There was an
apparent desperate resistance, but, significantly, no cries or shots.
The guards were overpowered and bound.
The door of the jail yielded to heavy blows of an ax. In the corner of a
dim, bare room groveled Glidden, bound so that he had little use of his
body. But he was terribly awake. When six men entered he asked,
hoarsely: "What're you--after?... What--you mean?"
They jerked him erect. They cut the bonds from his legs. They dragged
him out into the light of breaking day.
When he saw the masked and armed force he cried: "My God!... What'll
you--do with me?"
Ghastly, working, sweating, his face betrayed his terror.
"You're to be hanged by the neck," spoke a heavy, solemn voice.
The man would have collapsed but for the strong hands that upheld him.
"What--for?" he gasped.
"For I.W.W. crimes--for treason--for speeches no American can stand in
days like these." Then this deep-voiced man read to Glidden words of his
own.
"Do you recognize that?"
Glidden saw how he had spoken his own doom. "Yes, I said that," he had
nerve left to say. "But--I insist on arrest--trial--justice!... I'm no
criminal.... I've big interests behind me.... You'll suffer--"
A loop of a lasso, slung over his head and jerked tight, choked off his
intelligible utterance. But as the silent, ruthless men dragged him away
he gave vent to terrible, half-strangled cries.
The sun rose red over the fertile valley--over the harvest fields and
the pastures and the orchards, and over the many towns that appeared
lost in the green and gold of luxuriance.
In the harvest districts west of the river all the towns were visited by
swift-flying motor-cars that halted long enough for a warning to be
shouted to the citizens, "Keep off the streets!"
Simultaneously armed forces of men, on foot and on horseback, too
numerous to count, appeared in the roads and the harvest fields.
They accosted every man they met. If he were recognized or gave proof of
an honest identity he was allowed to go; otherwise he was marched along
under arrest. These armed forces were thorough in their search, and in
the country districts they had an especial interest in likely
camping-places, and around old barns and straw-stacks. In the towns they
searched every corner that was big enough to hide a man.
So it happened that many motley groups of men were driven toward the
railroad line, where they were held until a freight-train of empty
cattle-cars came along. This train halted long enough to have the I.W.W.
contingent driven aboard, with its special armed guard following, and
then it proceeded on to the next station. As stations were many, so were
the halts, and news of the train with its strange freight flashed ahead.
Crowds lined the railroad tracks. Many boys and men in these crowds
carried rifles and pistols which they leveled at the I.W.W. prisoners as
the train passed. Jeers and taunts and threats accompanied this
presentation of guns.
Before the last station of that wheat district was reached full three
hundred members of the I.W.W., or otherwise suspicious characters, were
packed into the open cars. At the last stop the number was greatly
augmented, and the armed forces were cut down to the few guards who were
to see the I.W.W. deported from the country. Here provisions and
drinking-water were put into the cars. And amid a hurrahing roar of
thousands the train with its strange load slowly pulled out.
It did not at once gather headway. The engine whistled a prolonged
blast--a signal or warning not lost on many of its passengers.
From the front cars rose shrill cries that alarmed the prisoners in the
rear. The reason soon became manifest. Arms pointed and eyes stared at
the figure of a man hanging from a rope fastened to the center of a high
bridge span under which the engine was about to pass.
The figure swayed in the wind. It turned half-way round, disclosing a
ghastly, distorted face, and a huge printed placard on the breast, then
it turned back again. Slowly the engine drew one car-load after another
past the suspended body of the dead man. There were no more cries. All
were silent in that slow-moving train. All faces were pale, all eyes
transfixed.
The placard on the hanged man's breast bore in glaring red a strange
message: _Last warning_. 3-7-77.
The figures were the ones used in the frontier days by vigilantes.