It turned out that Vee and Dad had been putting their heads together. Vee wanted a vacation, also; they would go up to Canada to complete Dad’s business, and then they would find a camp, and instead of tiresome gym work, she and Bunny would tramp the forests and swim in a beautiful lake. So Dad sent a telegram to President Alonzo T. Cowper, D.D., Ph. D., LL.D., explaining that urgent business compelled his son to remain in the east, and could it be arranged that Bunny might return and take his examinations in the fall? Dr. Cowper wired that the authorities would be very pleased indeed to grant this favor.
And then, the very morning after it was all settled, a telegram came for Bunny, and he opened it and read the signature. Ruth Watkins. With swiftly flying eyes he took in the sense of it—Paul and Eddie Piatt and Bud Stoner and Jick Duggan and four others of their group had been arrested, charged with “suspicion of criminal syndicalism,” and were lodged in the San Elido county jail with ten thousand dollars bail demanded for Paul and seventy-five hundred for each of the others. “They have done nothing and everybody knows it,” declared the telegram, “merely scheme to lock them up during strike. Jail is horrible place Paul’s health will not stand it implore you for sake our old friendship obtain needed bail for all surely no need assure you no money will be lost on our boys.”
VIII
At first Bunny had a cruel suspicion—that his father had known of this arrest, or at any rate that it was pending, before his latest effort to keep Bunny away from California. But he realized, it was enough to believe that Vernon Roscoe, intending to break up the “nest of Bolshevism” in the Rascum cabin, had made plans to get both Dad and Bunny away and keep them away. Anyhow, the scheme would not work, for Bunny was not going to permit his friend to be treated in that crude fashion!
Dad happened to be out, and Bunny showed the telegram to Vee, and talked it out with her. She wanted to know what he meant to do, and he answered that Dad would have to put up the bail for Paul, at least.
“But Bunny, you know he can’t do that—he wouldn’t cross Verne in regard to the strike.”
“He’s simply; got to do it, Vee! I’d be a dog to let a man like Paul be locked up in that filthy hole.”
“But suppose Dad won’t, Bunny?”
“Then I’ve got to go back, that’s all there is to it.”
“What could you do when you got there?”
“I’ll hunt around till I find somebody that’s got a sense of decency and also a little cash.”
“The combination isn’t so easy to find, dear—I know, because I’ve tried it. And it’s going to make Dad dreadfullly unhappy, to say nothing of spoiling our vacation. I have just learned of the loveliest place—a camp that Schmolsky bought up in Ontario, and he’s never been there, he’s too busy. And, oh, Bunny, I thought we were going to have such a marvelous time.”
She put her arms about him, but he hardly knew she was there, so cruelly was his spirit wrung by the vision of Paul in jail. And he, Bunny, running away from the trouble, loafing about and pretending it was a vacation! He that thought he understood the social problem, and had an ideal, at least a glimpse of what was kind and fair! He broke loose from Vee’s arms and began to pace the floor, storming half at himself for a renegade and half at the dirty crooks that ran the government of San Elido county, and stole the funds that were supposed to keep the jail clean and feed the prisoners. Bunny was twisting his hands together in his misery, and Vee watched him, startled; it was a new aspect of her Bunny-rabbit, that she had thought so sweet and soft and warm!
“Listen, dear!” she broke in, suddenly. “Stop a minute and talk to me quietly. You know, I don’t know much about these things.”
“What is it?”
“How can you be sure that Paul hasn’t broken any law?”
“Because I know him. I know all his ideas. I’ve talked the thing out with him from A to Z—all about this strike, and how it’s to be handled, the importance of getting the men to stand as a unit, how everything else must be subordinated to that. That’s what he’s been doing, and that’s why Verne has thrown him into jail.”
“You’re quite sure Verne has done it?”
“Of course—he and the rest of the operators’ committee. What are those officials in San Elido, but office-boys for the oil men? Before Verne came in there, Dad ran that county; I’ve seen him pay the money with my own eyes, and more times than one.”
“And you don’t think they may have evidence that Paul has been conniving at violence?”
“I don’t know what evidence they’ve got. Verne as good as told me he had spies on that bunch, and I don’t know what those spies may have planted—and neither does Verne know, for that matter. That’s one of the damnable things about it. Another is—you see that charge, ‘suspicion of criminal syndicalism’! What they call ‘criminal syndicalism’ means that you advocate overthrowing the government, or changing the social system by force; but you notice they don’t arrest you for that—they arrest you for ‘suspicion’ of it! In other words, you advocate some idea that some ignorant cop or some crook in office chooses to think may be dangerous, and then they throw you into jail, and there you stay—the courts are crowded, and they can keep you a year without a trial or any chance at all.”
“Oh,
