They were still talking when the telephone rang. It was Hartman’s secretary in Sheridan, reporting that he had just heard from the kidnapped committee. The entire party, eight men and Mary Burke, had been taken to Horton, a station not far up the line, and put on the train with many dire threats. But they had left the train at the next stop, and declared their intention of coming to Pedro. They were due at the hotel very soon.
Hal desired to be present at this meeting, and went downstairs to tell his brother. There was another dispute, of course. Edward reminded Hal that the scenery of Pedro had a tendency to monotony; to which Hal could only answer by offering to introduce his brother to his friends. They were men who could teach Edward much, if he would consent to learn. He might attend the session with the committee—eight men and a woman who had ventured an act of heroism and been made the victims of a crime. Nor were they bores, as Edward might be thinking! There was blue-eyed Tim Rafferty, for example, a silent, smutty-faced gnome who had broken out of his black cavern and spread unexpected golden wings of oratory; and Mary Burke, of whom Edward might read in that afternoon’s edition of the Western City Gazette—a “Joan of Arc of the coal-camps,” or something equally picturesque. But Edward’s mood was not to be enlivened. He had a vision of his brother’s appearance in the paper as the companion of this Hibernian Joan!
Hal went off with Jerry Minetti to what his brother described as a “hash-house,” while Edward proceeded in solitary state to the dining-room of the American Hotel. But he was not left in solitary state; pretty soon a sharp-faced young man was ushered to a seat beside him, and started up a conversation. He was a “drummer,” he said; his “line” was hardware, what was Edward’s? Edward answered coldly that he had no “line,” but the young man was not rebuffed—apparently his “line” had hardened his sensibilities. Perhaps Edward was interested in coal-mines? Had he been visiting the camps? He questioned so persistently, and came back so often to the subject, that at last it dawned over Edward what this meant—he was receiving the attention of a “spotter!” Strange to say, the circumstance caused Edward more irritation against Peter Harrigan’s regime than all his brother’s eloquence about oppression at North Valley.
XX
Soon after dinner the kidnapped committee arrived, bedraggled in body and weary in soul. They inquired for Johann Hartman, and were sent up to the room, where there followed a painful scene. Eight men and a woman who had ventured an act of heroism and been made the victims of a crime could not easily be persuaded to see their efforts and sacrifices thrown on the dump-heap, nor were they timid in expressing their opinions of those who were betraying them.
“You been tryin’ to get us out!” cried Tim Rafferty. “Ever since I can remember you been at my old man to help you—an’ here, when we do what you ask, you throw us down!”
“We never asked you to go on strike,” said Moylan.
“No, that’s true. You only asked us to pay dues, so you fellows could have fat salaries.”
“Our salaries aren’t very fat,” replied the young leader, patiently. “You’d find that out if you investigated.”
“Well, whatever they are, they go on, while ours stop. We’re on the streets, we’re done for. Look at us—and most of us has got families, too! I got an old mother an’ a lot of brothers and sisters, an’ my old man done up an’ can’t work. What do you think’s to become of us?”
“We’ll help you out a little, Rafferty—”
“To hell with you!” cried Tim. “I don’t want your help! When I need charity, I’ll go to the county. They’re another bunch of grafters, but they don’t pretend to be friends to the workin’ man.”
Here was the thing Tom Olson had told Hal at the outset—the workingmen bedevilled, not knowing whom to trust, suspecting the very people who most desired to help them. “Tim,” he put in, “there’s no use talking like that. We have to learn patience—”
And the boy turned upon Hal. “What do you know about it? It’s all a joke to you. You can go off and forget it when you get ready. You’ve got money, they tell me!”
Hal felt no resentment at this; it was what he heard from his own conscience. “It isn’t so easy for me as you think, Tim. There are other ways of suffering besides not having money—”
“Much sufferin’ you’ll do—with your rich folks!” sneered Tim.
There was a murmur of protest from others of the committee.
“Good God, Rafferty!” broke in Moylan. “We can’t help it, man—we’re just as helpless as you!”
“You say you’re helpless—but you don’t even try!”
“Try? Do you want us to back a strike that we know hasn’t a chance? You might as well ask us to lie down and let a load of coal run over us. We can’t win, man! I tell you we can’t win! We’d only be throwing away our organisation!”
Moylan became suddenly impassioned. He had seen a dozen sporadic strikes in this district, and many a dozen young strikers, homeless, desolate, embittered, turning their disappointment on him. “We might support you with our funds, you say—we might go on doing it, even while the company ran the mine with scabs. But where would that land us, Rafferty? I seen many a union on the rocks—and I ain’t so old either! If we had a bank, we’d support all the miners of the country, they’d never need to work again till they got their rights. But this money we spend is the money that other miners are earnin’—right now, down in the pits, Rafferty, the same as you and your old man. They give us
