_A Divided House_
In her little alcove at the Blue Goose Elise was gaining information
every day of the progress of affairs, but in spite of impatience, in
spite of doubt, she had seen nothing, heard nothing that seemed to
demand immediate action on her part. She had made up her mind that a
crisis was approaching. She had also determined with whom she would cast
in her lot.
It was late when Hartwell's team pulled up at the Blue Goose. A crowd of
excited men surrounded it, but the driver and his companions made no
reply to loud questions as they sprang from the wagon and entered the
door. Morrison was the first to halt them. The driver broke out with a
string of oaths.
"It's so. Jack Haskins's gang is coming. Hartwell is taken care of all
right. If his crowd try to make it through the canon, there won't a
hundred show up, to-morrow." He ended with a coarse laugh.
Morrison listened till the driver had finished. Then he turned toward
Pierre. Pierre was standing just in front of the alcove, hiding Elise
from Morrison. Morrison advanced, shaking his fist.
"Now you've got it, you trimmer. What are you going to do? I told you
they were coming, and I've fixed for it."
Pierre stood with his hands in his pockets. There was the old oily smile
on his face, but his eyes were dangerous. Morrison did not observe them.
"Why don't you speak? You're called." Morrison glanced over his shoulder
at the silent crowd. "He's got a frog in his throat! The last one he
swallowed didn't go down."
Morrison was very near death. He noticed the crowd part hurriedly and
turned in time to look into the muzzle of Pierre's revolver. The parting
of the crowd was explained.
An unlighted cigar was between Pierre's teeth. They showed gleaming
white under his black moustache. Only bright points of light marked his
eyes between their narrowed lids. Still holding his revolver
point-blank, with thumb and finger he raised and lowered the hammer. The
sharp, even click pierced Morrison's nerves like electric shocks. It was
not in man to endure this toying with death. Surprise gave place to
fear, and this in turn to mortal agony. His face paled. Great drops
stood out on his forehead, gathered and streamed down his face. He
feared to move, yet he trembled. His legs shook under him. There was a
final stagger, but his terrified eyes never left Pierre's face. With a
shuddering groan, he sank helpless to the floor. Pierre's smile
broadened horribly. He lowered his weapon and, turning aside, thrust it
in his pocket.
Morrison had died a thousand deaths. If he lived he would die a thousand
more. This Pierre knew. For this reason and others he did not shoot.
Pierre also knew other things. Morrison had refused to take heed to his
words. He had gone his own way. He had made light of Pierre before the
men. Last of all, he had gained courage to taunt Pierre to his face with
weakening, had bitterly accused him of using Elise as a means of
ingratiating himself with the Rainbow crowd. Pierre was not above taking
a human life as a last resort; but even then he must see clearly that
the gain warranted the risk. Morrison had been weighed and passed upon.
A dead Morrison meant a divided following. A living Morrison, cowed and
beaten and shamed before them all, was dead to Pierre. This was Pierre's
reasoning, and he was right. The first step had been taken. The next one
he was not to take; but this fact did not nullify Pierre's logic. Given
time, Pierre knew that Morrison would be beaten, discredited, do what he
would.
Luna helped the fallen Morrison to his feet. The first thing Morrison
noticed was Pierre walking away toward the private office. Luna again
approached Morrison with a brimming glass of brandy.
"Take this down. Lord! That was a nerve-peeler! I don't blame you for
going under."
Morrison swallowed the liquor at a gulp. The pallor died away and a hot
flush mounted his face.
"I've got him to settle with, too. I'll make him squeal before I'm
done."
The crowd had surged to the door to meet a swarm of howling men who had
just come down from the mine. Three or four remained with Luna around
Morrison. His voice was hoarse and broken.
"He's thrown us over. You see that? It's up to us to play it alone. He's
put it up to your face that he's with you, but he's playing against you.
He can't stop us now. It's gone too far. The first tug is coming,
to-morrow. We'll win out, hands down. The Rainbow first, then Pierre."
He ended with a string of profanity.
Luna took up Morrison's broken thread.
"There's fifty men with rifles in the canon. Hartwell's gang will never
get through. The boys are going to shoot at sight."
"Where's Firmstone?" Morrison's face writhed.
"Up to the mine. He's getting in his work." Luna looked over his
shoulder at the crowd of miners.
"That's so. The foreman's fired. So am I. He is going to die boss." The
man grinned, as he held out a time check.
"He'll die, anyway." Morrison's jaws set. "You're sure he's at the
mine?"
"Dead sure. He's got his work cut out to-night. Lots of scabs held out.
He's put the night boss in foreman." The man grinned again.
Morrison laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You're game?"
"You bet I am!"
"Go back to the mine to-night----"
"And miss all the fun down here?" the man interrupted.
Morrison's hand rested more heavily on the shoulder.
"Don't get flip. Have some fun of your own up there. The supe will hear
the racket down here early. He'll start down with his scabs to help out.
Two men can start a racket there that will keep him guessing. If he's
started it will fetch him back. If he hasn't he won't start at all."
"What kind of a racket, for instance?"
Morrison swung impatiently on his foot.
"What's the matter with letting off a box or two of powder under the
tram?"
"Nothing. Is that our job?"
"Yes. And see that it's done."
"That's me. Come on, Joe. Let's have a drink first."
These two were the penitents whom Firmstone had taken back.
The greater number of the men were crowded around the gilded bar,
drinking boisterously to the success of the union and death to scabs and
companies. A few, more sober-minded, but none the less resolute,
gathered around Morrison. They were the leaders upon whom he depended
for the carrying out of his orders, or for acting independently of them
on their own initiative, as occasion might demand. With logic fiendish
in its cunning, he pointed out to them their right to organise, laid
emphasis on their pacific intentions only to defend their rights, and
having enlarged upon this, he brought into full play Hartwell's fatal
error.
"You see," he concluded; "right or wrong, the company's gone in to win.
They ain't taking no chances, and the law's at their backs. You know
Haskins's gang. You know what they're here for. They're here to shoot,
and they'll shoot to kill. Suppose you go out like lambs? That won't
make no difference. It'll be too tame for them, unless some one's
killed. What if it is murder and one of the gang is pulled? They've got
the whole gang at their back and the company's money. Suppose we go out
one by one and shoot back? Self-defence?" Morrison snapped his fingers.
"That's our chance to get off. We've got to pull together. In a general
mix-up, we'll be in it together, and there ain't no law to string up the
whole push. Stick together. That's our hold. If Haskins's gang is wiped
out to-morrow, and that glass-eyed supe with them, who'll get jumped? If
the mine and mill both get blowed up, who's done it? The fellows who did
it ain't going to tell, and it won't be good medicine for any one else
to do it, even if he wants to."
"Who's going to open up?" one of the men asked, soberly.
Morrison turned carelessly.
"That's a fool question. Folks that ain't looking for trouble don't put
caps and powder in a bag to play foot-ball with. Both sides are putting
up kicks. Who's to blame?"
The man looked only half convinced.
"Well, we ain't, and we don't want to be. If we keep quiet, and they
open up on us, we've got a right to defend ourselves. Unless," he added,
meditatively, "we get out beforehand, then there won't be any questions
to ask."
Morrison turned fiercely.
"How much did you get?"
"Get for what?"
"How much did the company put up to stand you off?"
"I haven't been bought off by the company," the man answered, fiercely;
"and I ain't going to be fooled off by you."
Morrison lifted his hand, palm outward.
"That's all right. Go right on, first door right. Go right in. Don't
knock. You'll find Pierre. He's scab-herding now."
Morrison passed among the thronging men, giving suggestions and orders
for the morning's struggle. His manner was forced, rather than
spontaneous. Pierre's leaven was working.
To Elise at her desk it seemed as if the revel would never end. She had
made up her mind what to do, she was awaiting the time to act. She did
not dare to leave her place now; Morrison would be certain to notice her
absence and would suspect her designs. There was nothing to do but wait.
It was after one o'clock when, slipping out from the alcove, she
ostentatiously closed the office-door and, locking it, walked through
the passage that led to the dining-room. Her footsteps sounded loudly as
she went upstairs to her room. She intended they should. In her room,
she took down a dark, heavy cloak, and, throwing it over her shoulders,
drew the hood over her head. A moment she stood, then turned and
silently retraced her steps.
As the outside door closed noiselessly behind her, there was a momentary
tightening around her heart. After all, she was leaving the only friends
she had ever known. They were crude, coarse, uncouth, but she knew them.
She knew that they would not remain ignorant of her actions this night.
It would cut her off from them forever, and what was her gain?
Only those she had known for a day, those whose very words of kindness
had shown her how wide was the gulf that parted her from them. How wide
it was she had never realised till now when she was to attempt to cross
it, with the return for ever barred. She recalled the easy grace of Miss
Hartwell, considerate with a manner that plainly pointed to their
separate walks in life. And Firmstone? He had been more than kind, but
the friendly light in his eyes, the mobile sympathy of his lips, these
did not come to her now. What if the steel should gleam in his eyes, the
tense muscles draw the lips in stern rebuke, the look that those eyes
and lips could take, when they looked on her, not as Elise of the Blue
Goose, but Elise, a fugitive, a dependant?
The colour deepened, the figure grew rigid. She was neither a fugitive
nor a dependant. She was doing right; how it would be accepted was no
concern of hers.
The shadow of the great mountain fell across the gulch and lay sharp and
clear on the flank of the slide beyond. Overhead, in the deep blue, the
stars glinted and shone, steely hard. Elise shivered in a hitherto
unknown terror as she crept into the still deeper shadow of the stunted
spruces that fringed the talus from the mountain. She did not look
behind. Had she done so she might have seen another shadow stealing
cautiously, but swiftly, after her, only pausing when she passed from
sight within the entrance to the office at the mill.
Zephyr had despoiled the Blue Goose of its lesser prey. He had no
intention of stopping at that.
Elise had gained her first objective point. It was long before the light
in Miss Hartwell's room over the office descended the stairs and
appeared at the outer door. Her face was pale, but yet under control.
Only, as she clasped the hand that had knocked for admission, she could
not control the grasp that would not let go its hold, even when the door
was relocked.
"It was very good of you to come."