That was what they wanted. “Big union!”
“All right. I’ll do the best I can for you, and I’ll find some way to get word to you. And meantime you stand firm. The bosses will tell you lies, they’ll try to deceive you, they’ll send spies and troublemakers among you—but you hold fast, and wait for the big union.”
Hal stood looking at the cheering crowd. He had time to note some of the faces upturned to him. Pitiful, toil-worn faces they were, each making its separate appeal, telling its individual story of deprivation and defeat. Once more they were transfigured, shining with that wonderful new light which he had seen for the first time the previous evening. It had been crushed for a moment, but it flamed up again; it would never die in the hearts of men—once they had learned the power it gave. Nothing Hal had yet seen moved him so much as this new birth of enthusiasm. A beautiful, a terrible thing it was!
Hal looked at his brother, to see how he had been moved. What he saw on his brother’s face was satisfaction, boundless relief. The matter had turned out all right! Hal was coming away!
Hal turned again to the men; somehow, after his glance at Edward, they seemed more pitiful than ever. For Edward typified the power they were facing—the unseeing, uncomprehending power that meant to crush them. The possibility of failure was revealed to Hal in a flash of emotion, overwhelming him. He saw them as they would be, when no leader was at hand to make speeches to them. He saw them waiting, their lifelong habit of obedience striving to reassert itself; a thousand fears besetting them, a thousand rumours preying upon them—wild beasts set on them by their cunning enemies. They would suffer, not merely for themselves, but for their wives and children—the very same pangs of dread that Hal suffered when he thought of one old man up in Western City, whose doctors had warned him to avoid excitement.
If they stood firm, if they kept their bargain with their leader, they would be evicted from their homes, they would face the cold of the coming winter, they would face hunger and the blacklist. And he, meantime—what would he be doing? What was his part of the bargain? He would interview the superintendent for them, he would turn them over to the “big union”—and then he would go off to his own life of ease and pleasure. To eat grilled steaks and hot rolls in a perfectly appointed club, with suave and softly-moving servitors at his beck! To dance at the country club with exquisite creatures of chiffon and satin, of perfume and sweet smiles and careless, happy charms! No, it was too easy! He might call that his duty to his father and brother, but he would know in his heart that it was treason to life; it was the devil, taking him onto a high mountain and showing him all the kingdoms of the earth!
Moved by a sudden impulse, Hal raised his hands once more. “Boys,” he said, “we understand each other now. You’ll not go back to work till the big union tells you. And I, for my part, will stand by you. Your cause is my cause, I’ll go on fighting for you till you have your rights, till you can live and work as men! Is that right?”
“That’s right! That’s right!”
“Very good, then—we’ll swear to it!” And Hal raised his hands, and the men raised theirs, and amid a storm of shouts, and a frantic waving of caps, he made them the pledge which he knew would bind his own conscience. He made it deliberately, there in his brother’s presence. This was no mere charge on a trench, it was enlisting for a war! But even in that moment of fervour, Hal would have been frightened had he realised the period of that enlistment, the years of weary and desperate conflict to which he was pledging his life.
XV
Hal descended from his rostrum, and the crowds made way for him, and with his brother at his side he went down the street to the office building, upon the porch of which the guards were standing. His progress was a triumphal one; rough voices shouted words of encouragement in his ears, men jostled and fought to shake his hand or to pat him on the back; they even patted Edward and tried to shake his hand, because he was with Hal, and seemed to have his confidence. Afterwards Hal thought it over and was merry. Such an adventure for Edward!
The younger man went up the steps of the building and spoke to the guards. “I want to see Mr. Cartwright.”
“He’s inside,” answered one, not cordially. With Edward following, Hal entered, and was ushered into the private office of the superintendent.
Having been a workingman, and class-conscious, Hal was observant of the manners of mine-superintendents; he noted that Cartwright bowed politely to Edward, but did not include Edward’s brother. “Mr. Cartwright,” he said, “I have come to you as a deputation from the workers of this camp.”
The superintendent did not appear impressed by the announcement.
“I am instructed to say that the men demand the redress of four grievances before they return to work. First—”
Here Cartwright spoke, in his quick, sharp way. “There’s no use going on, sir. This company will deal only with its men as individuals. It will recognise no deputations.”
Hal’s answer was equally quick. “Very well, Mr. Cartwright. In that case, I come to you as an individual.”
For a moment the superintendent seemed nonplussed.
“I wish to ask four rights which are granted to me by the laws of this state. First, the right to belong to a union, without being discharged for it.”
The other had recovered his manner of quiet mastery. “You
