Hal saw Androkulos running to him. The Greek boy had been in the street back of the office, and had seen the committee carried off; nine people had been taken—Wauchope, Tim Rafferty, and Mary Burke, Marcelli, Zammakis and Rusick, and three others who had served as interpreters on the night before. It had all been done so quickly that the crowd had scarcely realised what was happening.
Now, having grasped the meaning of it, the men were beside themselves with rage. They shook their fists, shouting defiance to a group of officials and guards who were visible upon the porch of the office-building. There was a clamour of shouts for revenge.
Hal could see instantly the dangers of the situation; he was like a man watching the burning fuse of a bomb. Now, if ever, this polyglot horde must have leadership—wise and cool and resourceful leadership.
The crowd, discovering his presence, surged down upon him like a wave. They gathered round him, howling. They had lost the rest of their committee, but they still had Joe Smith. Joe Smith! Hurrah for Joe! Let the gunmen take him, if they could! They waved their caps, they tried to lift him upon their shoulders, so that all could see him.
There was clamour for a speech, and Hal started to make his way to the steps of the nearest building, with Edward holding on to his coat. Edward was jostled; he had to part with his dignity—but he did not part with his brother. And when Hal was about to mount the steps, Edward made a last desperate effort, shouting into his ear, “Wait a minute! Wait! Are you going to try to talk to this mob?”
“Of course. Don’t you see there’ll be trouble if I don’t?”
“You’ll get yourself killed! You’ll start a fight, and get a lot of these poor devils shot! Use your common sense, Hal; the company has brought in guards, and they are armed, and your people aren’t.”
“That’s exactly why I have to speak!”
The discussion was carried on under difficulties, the elder brother clinging to the younger’s arm, while the younger sought to pull free, and the mob shouted with a single voice, “Speech! Speech!” There were some near by who, like Klowoski, did not relish having this stranger interfering with their champion, and showed signs of a disposition to “mix in”; so at last Edward gave up the struggle, and the orator mounted the steps and faced the throng.
XIV
Hal raised his arms as a signal for silence.
“Boys,” he cried, “they’ve kidnapped our committee. They think they’ll break our strike that way—but they’ll find they’ve made a mistake!”
“They will! Right you are!” roared a score of voices.
“They forget that we’ve got a union. Hurrah for our North Valley union!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” The cry echoed to the canyon-walls.
“And hurrah for the big union that will back us—the United Mine-Workers of America!”
Again the yell rang out; again and again. “Hurrah for the union! Hurrah for the United Mine-Workers!” A big American miner, Ferris, was in the front of the throng, and his voice beat in Hal’s ears like a steam-siren.
“Boys,” Hal resumed, when at last he could be heard, “use your brains a moment. I warned you they would try to provoke you! They would like nothing better than to start a scrap here, and get a chance to smash our union! Don’t forget that, boys, if they can make you fight, they’ll smash the union, and the union is our only hope!”
Again came the cry: “Hurrah for the union!” Hal let them shout it in twenty languages, until they were satisfied.
“Now, boys,” he went on, at last, “they’ve shipped out our committee. They may ship me out in the same way—”
“No, they won’t!” shouted voices in the crowd. And there was a bellow of rage from Ferris. “Let them try it! We’ll burn them in their beds!”
“But they can ship me out!” argued Hal. “You know they can beat us at that game! They can call on the sheriff, they can get the soldiers, if necessary! We can’t oppose them by force—they can turn out every man, woman and child in the village, if they choose. What we have to get clear is that even that won’t crush our union! Nor the big union outside, that will be backing us! We can hold out, and make them take us back in the end!”
Some of Hal’s friends, seeing what he was trying to do, came to his support. “No fighting! No violence! Stand by the union!” And he went on to drive the lesson home; even though the company might evict them, the big union of the four hundred and fifty thousand mineworkers of the country would feed them, it would call out the rest of the workers in the district in sympathy. So the bosses, who thought to starve and cow them into submission, would find their mines lying permanently idle. They would be forced to give way, and the tactics of solidarity would triumph.
So Hal went on, recalling the things Olson had told him, and putting them into practice. He saw hope in their faces again, dispelling the mood of resentment and rage.
“Now, boys,” said he, “I’m going in to see the superintendent for you. I’ll be your committee, since they’ve shipped out the rest.”
The steam-siren of Ferris bellowed again: “You’re the boy! Joe Smith!”
“All right, men—now mind what I say! I’ll see the super, and then I’ll go down to Pedro, where there’ll be
