“Turn around,” commanded Cotton; and Hal turned, and the Jew went through his trouser-pockets. He took out in turn Hal’s watch, his comb and mirror, his handkerchief; after examining them and holding them up, he dropped them onto the floor. There was a breathless hush when he came to Hal’s purse, and proceeded to open it. Thanks to the greed of the company, there was nothing in the purse but some small change. Predovich closed it and dropped it to the floor.
“Wait now! He’s not through!” cried the master of ceremonies. “He’s got that money somewhere, boys! Did you look in his side-pockets, Jake?”
“Not yet,” said Jake.
“Look sharp!” cried the marshal; and everyone craned forward eagerly, while Predovich stooped down on one knee, and put his hand into one coat pocket and then into the other.
He took his hand out again, and the look of dismay upon his face was so obvious that Hal could hardly keep from laughing. “It ain’t dere!” he declared.
“What?” cried Cotton, and they stared at each other. “By God, he’s got rid of it!”
“There’s no money on me, boys!” proclaimed Hal. “It’s a job they are trying to put over on us.”
“He’s hid it!” shouted the marshal. “Find it, Jake!”
Then Predovich began to search again, swiftly, and with less circumstance. He was not thinking so much about the spectators now, as about all that good money gone for nothing! He made Hal take off his coat, and ripped open the lining; he unbuttoned the trousers and felt inside; he thrust his fingers down inside Hal’s shoes.
But there was no money, and the searchers were at a standstill. “He took twenty-five dollars from Mr. Stone to sell you out!” declared the marshal. “He’s managed to get rid of it somehow.”
“Boys,” cried Hal, “they sent a spy in here, and told him to put money on me.” He was looking at Apostolikas as he spoke; he saw the man start and shrink back.
“That’s him! He’s a scab!” cried Old Mike. “He’s got the money on him, I bet!” And he made a move towards the Greek.
So the camp-marshal realised suddenly that it was time to ring down the curtain on this drama. “That’s enough of this foolishness,” he declared. “Bring that fellow along here!” And in a flash a couple of the party had seized Hal’s wrists, and a third had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. Before the miners had time to realise what was happening, they had rushed their prisoner out of the cabin.
The quarter of an hour which followed was an uncomfortable one for the would-be check-weighman. Outside, in the darkness, the camp-marshal was free to give vent to his rage, and so was Alec Stone. They poured out curses upon him, and kicked him and cuffed him as they went along. One of the men who held his wrists twisted his arm, until he cried out with pain; then they cursed him harder, and bade him hold his mouth. Down the dark and silent street they went swiftly, and into the camp-marshal’s office, and upstairs to the room which served as the North Valley jail. Hal was glad enough when they left him here, slamming the iron door behind them.
XVI
It had been a crude and stupid plot, yet Hal realised that it was adapted to the intelligence of the men for whom it was intended. But for the accident that he had stayed awake, they would have found the money on him, and next morning the whole camp would have heard that he had sold out. Of course his immediate friends, the members of the committee, would not have believed it; but the mass of the workers would have believed it, and so the purpose of Tom Olson’s visit to North Valley would have been balked. Throughout the experiences which were to come to him, Hal retained his vivid impression of that adventure; it served to him as a symbol of many things. Just as the bosses had tried to bedevil him, to destroy his influence with his followers, so later on he saw them trying to bedevil the labour-movement, to confuse the intelligence of the whole country.
Now Hal was in jail. He went to the window and tried the bars—but found that they had been made for such trials. Then he groped his way about in the darkness, examining his prison, which proved to be a steel cage built inside the walls of an ordinary room. In one corner was a bench, and in another corner another bench, somewhat broader, with a mattress upon it. Hal had read a little about jails—enough to cause him to avoid this mattress. He sat upon the bare bench, and began to think.
It is a fact that there is a peculiar psychology incidental to being in jail; just as there is a peculiar psychology incidental to straining your back and breaking your hands loading coal-cars in a five foot vein; and another, and quite different psychology, produced by living at ease off the labours of coal-miners. In a jail, you have first of all the sense of being an animal; the animal side of your being is emphasised, the animal passions of hatred and fear are called into prominence, and if you are to escape being dominated by them, it can only be by intense and concentrated effort of the mind. So, if you are a thinking man, you do a great deal of thinking in a jail; the days are long, and the nights still longer—you have time
