THE AWAKENING
AT Wadsworth, the day had passed quietly enough, so far, at least, as
appearances went. The strikers gathered in groups in the neighbourhood
of the station, and watched the trains go in and out, with the new
engineers and firemen in the cabs, but they made no attempt to interfere
with them, beyond an occasional jeer. Simpson, the special delegate from
the grand lodge, had established his headquarters in the lodge room, and
a little group of men was constantly about him, talking over the
situation. It was noticeable that this group was composed of the older
and more experienced men, and it was evident that whatever Simpson had
to say had a great deal of weight with them.
Simpson, as has been said, was a very different man from Nixon. There
was nothing flashy or loud about him, his voice was low, but cool and
decisive, and his gray eyes gave one the impression that their owner was
a fighter—an impression which was further deepened by the long, cloven
chin. In a word, the grand secretary had picked out the very best man at
his disposal when the demand had come for a delegate to succeed Nixon,
for he felt that there must be no possibility of the situation at
Wadsworth being bungled a second time.
“There’s one thing sure, however,” he had said to Simpson, at parting;
“they’re bound to have a strike down there now, and there’s probably no
way to stop it.”
And Simpson had found this to be true. To have attempted to withstand
the white-hot fervour for a strike would have been worse than foolish,
and he had yielded to it and called the strike. Now he was bending every
effort to make the strike a success; or, at worst, to get out of the
situation with as little loss of prestige as possible.
But the strike had not tied up the road as he had hoped it would.
Conductors and brakemen had refused to go out without instructions
from headquarters; switchmen and operators had not even asked for such
instructions. And trains were running regularly, manned by a lot of
new men who seemed fairly efficient. If the strike had started out
with a mistake, Simpson was resolved that no others should be
committed—especially not the fatal mistake of violence. And so he was
taking care to establish himself in the liking and confidence of the
older and more conservative men. If it came to a fight, he must be
certain of his backing.
Over at the freight-house, the new men had got settled in their quarters
and seemed fairly contented with them. If truth were told, sordid and
unattractive as the surroundings were, most of the men had been
accustomed to much worse. The food, too, however carelessly served, was
at least clean and wholesome, and only a person unused to anything but
china and snowy linen would have quarrelled with the tin dishes and
oil-cloth covered tables.
It was evident that the principal source of disturbance had been removed
when Hummel had been compelled to leave the place; and yet there was no
telling when a second Hummel might arise and leaven the entire group of
men with discontent. Indeed, it was evident that many of them were not
wholly at ease. In the midst of these unusually comfortable
surroundings, they perhaps felt the same sense of disquiet which Jean
Valjean felt in the Bishop’s bed; they were accustomed to a plank and
could not sleep well upon springs and a mattress; but this was not the
sort of disquiet which would lead to any serious results.
And yet Reddy, who kept a keener eye than ever upon events in Stanley’s
absence, was not altogether satisfied. Indeed, Stanley’s absence of
itself puzzled him. Orders had been given that the adventure of the
abandoned train was to be kept quiet as long as possible, and no word
concerning it had been breathed inside the freight-house. So, as the day
wore on, Reddy grew more and more uneasy, especially when he noted that
Allan was also away. He suspected that something was wrong somewhere,
and it annoyed him that he should be shut up like this, away from all
communication with his fellow creatures. Certainly, he did not consider
the cook a fellow creature, and, in spite of himself, he could not help
feeling a sort of pitying contempt for the strike-breakers. For Reddy
was honest, was industrious, was temperate, and he felt that few of the
strike-breakers were any of these things.
“An’ a fine figger you cut here, don’t you,” he went on, following this
train of thought, “washin’ dishes an’ makin’ beds an’ waitin’ on table,
like a saloon loafer, instead o’ doin’ an honest man’s work! I’m goin’
t’ throw up the job. I ain’t doin’ no good here. These fellers are as
contented as a lot o’ hogs in the sunshine. I’ll jest tell Allan—”
“Say!” suddenly bawled a voice in his ear, “air ye goin’ t’ sleep on yer
feet? Wake up, an’ git a move!” and a heavy hand struck him a hard blow
on the shoulder.
Reddy turned with a start, and the dish he was wiping slipped from his
hands to the floor. Of course it did not break, as it was made of tin,
but it made a tremendous clatter.
“Stoopid!” yelled the cook, sticking his red face within a few inches of
Reddy’s and waving his arms violently. “Awkward! I never saw nothin’ to
beat you! You’re the limit!”
“Aw, shut up,” growled Reddy, not yielding an inch.
“An’ you calls yerself a dish-washer—”
“No, I don’t,” broke in Reddy. “An’ I never will now that I’ve seen
you!”
“What!” shouted the cook, growing purple. “I’ll show you—” and his arm
was drawn back to strike.
But at that instant, Reddy’s fist was raised with seeming slowness and
gentleness under the other’s jaw, and the cook, lifted by some
mysterious force cleanly off his feet, struck the floor with a thud.
“Good for you, turnip-top!” yelled one of the strike-breakers, as they
came crowding around, attracted by the noise of the altercation.
“Get up, cookie, get up!” yelled another. “You ain’t out yet—don’t show
yellow!”
And Reddy, fairly dancing with rage, added his insults to the others’.
“Strike a gentleman, would ye!” he cried. “Don’t lay there blinkin’ like
that! Stand up an take yer medicine like a man. Here, I’ll bring ye
around!” and snatching the pan of dirty dish water from the table, he
dashed it over his recumbent foe.
A roar of laughter arose from the spectators; this was the sort of thing
most of them delighted in; but their merriment acted on Reddy like a
cold shower. He took one glance at them and then fiercely tore off the
ragged piece of burlap he had been using as an apron.
“An’ now I’ll bid ye good-bye,” he said. “I was jest thinkin’ o’
quittin’—this job don’t suit me,” and catching up his hat, he plunged
through the door and past the astonished guard on the platform outside.
“Stop me if ye dare!” cried Reddy, and took off his hat and threw it
high in the air, but the guard, recognizing him, turned away with a
grin. “My, but it does feel good t’ be out in the air again an’ away
from them dishes. I never knew before how good air smelt.”
He filled his lungs to the limit and exhaled slowly, feeling as though a
great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Then he stopped and
looked about the yards.
“Not much doin’,” he added, seeing the empty sidings; and, indeed, for
fear it could not fulfil its engagements, the road was routing all the
freight business possible through Columbus by way of the Midland
division, instead of through Wadsworth, and was even handing some of it
over to competing lines. “Why, hello, Jack!” he cried, as Jack Welsh
suddenly turned the corner of the freight-house.
Jack stared at him in astonishment.
“Is it you, Reddy?” he asked. “When did you get out?”
“Faith,” said Reddy, his eyes twinkling, “it sounds like I’d been in the
workhouse an’ me niver arrested in me life! I’ve throwed up me job.”
“Throwed up your job?”
“Since when have ye turned into an echo?” demanded Reddy.
Jack laughed.
“I was too surprised t’ say anything original. What was the trouble?”
“I couldn’t stand it—I couldn’t stand them vermin, nor washin’ dishes
nor makin’ beds fer ’em—nor I couldn’t stand that varmint of a cook. He
got smart,” went on Reddy, growing angry again at thought of it, “so I
jest upper-cut him an’ throwed some dish water on him an’ come away.”
“But,” protested Jack, “what will Allan say?”
“I don’t care what he says,” retorted Reddy, doggedly. “I ain’t needed
in there—them fellers is like a flock of sheep—feed ’em an’ water ’em
an’ they’ll never give any trouble. Besides, where _is_ Allan—an’
where’s Stanley? Is there trouble somewheres, Jack?”
“Ain’t you heard about extra west last night?”
“Nary a word—a felly might as well be in his grave as in that
freight-shed. What about extra west?”
So Jack told him the story of the abandoned train and missing crew,
while Reddy stood listening with starting eyes and open mouth.
“Well, if that don’t beat anything I ever heard!” he said, when Jack had
finished. “But Allan and Stanley wasn’t there—”
“No; they went out this mornin’ t’ look over the ground. They was
expectin’ t’ come back this arternoon.”
A sudden shadow seemed to pass across Reddy’s face.
“What’s the matter?” asked Jack, noticing it.
“I was jest thinkin’,” said Reddy, speaking with some difficulty, “that
I’d ’a’ liked to gone along.”
“So would I, but I wasn’t asked.”
“Well, good-bye,” Reddy said, turning away. “I’ve got t’ go home an’ see
my missus, an’ git a decent meal. Jack,” he added, stopping and looking
back, “if they don’t come back, let’s go out ourselves in the mornin’.”
“Oh, they’ll be back,” said Jack, confidently. “Allan, anyway. He knows
he’s needed here.”
But the cloud had not lifted from Reddy’s face, as he walked away across
the yards in the direction of his home.
* * * * *
The afternoon passed, and nothing was heard from either Allan or
Stanley; evening fell, and still no sign of them. The disappointed
reporters champed and swore and tried to inveigle the story out of some
of the other employees of the office, but in vain; and finally, driven
to desperation, they concocted such accounts of the affair as their
several imaginations were capable of.
One thing they knew. The road’s chief dispatcher and detective were
absent. From an absence to a disappearance is but a step, and it was
with a certain satisfaction that they played up this feature of the
case. At least, they would get even with West for trying to keep the
news away from them. They described his career, his appearance, dwelt
upon Stanley’s well-known prowess and fearlessness, and drew the
conclusion that something extraordinary must have occurred to get the
best of him. It made a good story, and the public read and was
interested and mystified and wondered languidly how it would all turn
out—and passed on to the next sensation.
But in one home, at least, as the weary hours of the night wore on,
there was something more than languid interest and wonder. From her
snowy bed, Mamie Welsh lay staring up into the darkness, her face
flushed and feverish, her eyes red with weeping, striving to suppress
the sobs which shook her, so that her mother might not hear and
understand.
For she knew, by a sort of clairvoyance, as though his spirit called
through space to hers, that Allan West lay somewhere in great peril.
* * * * *
It was dark when Allan struggled back to consciousness,—not dark in the
ordinary sense, but pitch dark,—a blackness that oppressed and chilled
with the sense of some unknown and unspeakable peril. He lay for a long
time without moving, without thinking, just conscious in a dim way that
he existed. Gradually he became aware of an all-pervading pain, which
finally resolved into an aching head and an aching shoulder and cramped
legs and arms. Then, in a flash, life surged in on him and he remembered
the old stone house, the barn, the shadow, the blow which he had tried
to avoid.
He struggled to get to his feet, only to fall back with a groan of
anguish; for his hands were tied behind him and his feet were lashed
together. Even had he been free, his whirling, aching head would have
chained him down.
But his head grew clearer after a while and he could think connectedly.
Where was he? Not in the barn, that was certain, for he could feel
beneath him a floor of boards, instead of the wet and clammy dirt upon
which he had fallen. In the house, then—his unknown assailant had
carried him into the house, tied him hand and foot and left him.
For what purpose?
But that was a question for which he could find no reasonable answer;
nor could he even guess at his assailant’s identity. This murderous
assault had made the mystery more puzzling than ever, for he could guess
at no motive for it. Certainly he was not the victim of personal enmity,
for he knew that he had no enemies—Dan Nolan’s death had delivered him
from the only one he ever had who was capable of resorting to such
methods as this. Nor could he see how his being held a prisoner here
could possibly be of any benefit to anyone. Indeed, there was certain to
be a hue and cry after him if he was held a prisoner long. Stanley would
know where to look for him—and there were Jack and Reddy.
Allan’s eyes filled with tears as he thought of the anxiety they were
doubtless suffering. And Mamie—was she suffering, too? Somehow, the
thought of her was a very dear and moving one, and he whispered her name
over and over to himself. If only—
He felt singularly weak and helpless; he could do nothing but lie where
he was and await the will of his captors. He wondered vaguely what they
would do with him, and he turned the thought over in his mind with a
kind of impersonal interest as though it were not at all himself, but
someone else entirely who was principally concerned. It seemed almost as
though he were watching a drama in which he himself was an actor.
The cramped posture in which he lay became insupportable at last, and he
managed, with infinite suffering, to turn himself over on his side.
Then, finding himself somewhat easier, he at last dropped off to sleep.
He was awakened by a flash of light in his eyes. For a minute, he saw
only a dim figure holding a lantern, then, with clearing vision, he
found himself staring into a face which sent a chill of horror through
him. Never before had he seen a face so repulsive. The round head, set
low between the shoulders, was crowned by a dirty towsel of hair which
fell over the low forehead almost into the eyes. These, bloodshot and
venomous, were sunk deep into the head and ambushed under bristling
eyebrows. The nose, a mere unformed lump of flesh, overhung a mouth
whose pendulous, blackened lips were parted in a malicious grin. The
figure was squat and heavy, telling of great strength and even of a
certain agility; but to the figure Allan gave only a single glance, for
the face fascinated him as only superlatively ugly things can.
For a moment, this being stood shading his eyes from the lantern light
with a great, hairy hand, and staring down at his prisoner. Then, with a
hoarse grunt of satisfaction, he turned toward the door.
But Allan, mustering all his courage, shouted after him.
“Hold on!” he cried. “Hold on!”
The fellow hesitated for an instant, and then turned back, and stood
regarding Allan with that diabolical leer still upon his lips.
“What’s all this about?” demanded Allan, steeling himself to endure the
gaze of those crafty and threatening eyes. “How long am I going to be
kept here?”
His captor laughed, or rather emitted a low rumble.
“Not long,” he croaked, hoarsely. “Not long.”
“My friends will be after me in the morning.”
“Let ’em!” and again came that rumbling laughter.
“It will go hard with you if they find me here.”
“Don’t worry; they won’t find you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
But the other only laughed again by way of answer.
“Was it you who struck me out there in the stable?”
“It surely was.”
“What had I done?”
A spasm of hate crossed the ferocious face.
“You hadn’t no business out there nor around here.”
“Maybe not,” Allan admitted. “Let me go and I’ll clear out.”
The words were greeted by a burst of laughter, so wild that Allan was
suddenly convinced that he had to do with a wild man, a lunatic wholly
irresponsible for his actions. The thought sent a deeper chill through
him.
“Let me go,” he urged more gently. “I have done you no harm.”
“Ain’t you, though!” retorted his strange companion. “Well, you’ll never
do nobody else no harm, neither.”
And without heeding the entreaties Allan sent after him, he went out and
closed the door.
Allan heard his footsteps die away along the hall outside, and then,
after a moment, came that queer murmur of voices which he had heard from
the back door, only louder and clearer. And a sudden conviction leaped
into his mind.
The missing train crew was imprisoned here also.
He listened with bated breath as the murmur grew and grew, and finally
died away as though it had spent itself. He judged that his captor had
visited the other prisoners to make sure they were all safe, and had
then departed.
But who was this wild man? What sort of monster was this which had been
let loose upon the world? How, single handed, had he been able to
capture five men? And what was his object in doing so?
Here were three questions to which no reasonable answer seemed possible.
Allan felt almost as though he were living through some terrible
nightmare, from which he must presently awaken. Surely such things as
this could not happen here in Ohio, in the midst of a thickly populated
country! In the Middle Ages, perhaps; but not here in the twentieth
century!
The pain of his position had become excessive, and he rolled over on his
back, and sought to ease himself a little. He could feel that his hair
was clotted with blood, and from the pain in his shoulder he was
convinced that a bone had been broken—his collar-bone, probably. His
head grew giddy after a while and a deathly sickness came upon him. The
close and fetid atmosphere of the room seemed to stifle him. He shrieked
aloud, but there was no response, and presently he lapsed into a sort of
half-consciousness.
He fancied that he was stretched upon the rack, that black-hooded
inquisitors were advancing to the torture. He could feel the bonds about
hands and feet slowly tighten and stretch, and a pang of agony shot
through him. What was it they wanted him to confess? Something involving
Jack—something involving Mamie. No, he would never confess—after all,
there was nothing to confess—it was a lie they were trying to wring from
him. Again the cords tightened and stretched; he was being torn asunder,
but he clenched his teeth and crushed back the groan which would have
burst from him. Again—and this time there was no resisting, and he cried
aloud—
Cried aloud and opened his eyes, and, after a moment, realized where he
was. He was panting for breath, for the air was thick with smoke. Afar
off, he could hear a frantic shouting, which beat in upon his brain and
turned him faint, so agonized it was. They were torturing some one
else—they had left him for the moment to regain some measure of
strength. No, they had decided to suffocate him; they had started a fire
under him—it was to be the trial of flame! Mamie, Mamie—he would never
tell!
Then, suddenly, he understood. The house was on fire—that madman had
fired it—that shouting was from the other prisoners, who were perhaps
already being roasted alive! Roasted alive!
He wrenched frantically at his bonds, but they held as though of iron.
He struggled to a sitting posture, but could rise no further. By an
effort almost superhuman, he dragged himself to the door, and turning
his back to it, tore at it with his fingers. Then he managed to raise
himself so that his fingers clutched the latch; the door swung open and
he fell backward into the hall.
That fall racked him with agony, but, with sweat running down his face
in little rivulets, he managed to grovel forward, inch by inch, pushing
himself along by his legs, sparing his injured shoulder as much as he
could. One foot, two feet, three feet. Then, suddenly, he realized that
his head was hanging over an abyss—his shoulders were over—and in an
instant he had pitched forward wildly, and fell shrieking into the
darkness.
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