Comrades Part 30

"Do ye love me?" Tom fiercely inquired.

Joe struggled.

"Say it!" commanded the teacher.

"I love ye," he groaned.

Norman suddenly appeared on the scene followed by Barbara and the two miners leaped to their feet.

"Tom, old boy," the young leader cried, "you mean well, but we are told by the preacher that the kingdom of G.o.d cometh not of observation--it must be from within."

"Just goin' over his Sunday-school lesson with him, Chief."

Joe made a hostile movement, and Norman stepped between them.

"Come! You two big kids--enough of this now, shake hands and make up!"

The men both hung back stubbornly.

Norman turned to Tom.

"Were you not partners and friends before you joined the Brotherhood?"

"Yes," the old miner replied grudgingly. "We bin tergether twelve years an' we worked an' played tergether, starved an' froze tergether, lived tergether, an' slept under the same blanket--he's the only partner I ever had--an' he's my best friend"--Tom paused and choked--"but I don't like 'im!"

"Shake hands and make up!" Barbara laughed.

They hung back a moment longer until Barbara's smile became resistless.

Joe extended his hand, exclaiming:

"Shake, you old coyote!"

Norman gave Joe a serious talk--got a pledge from him to quit drink and stand by him in his efforts to bring order out of the confusion and chaos in which the colony was floundering.

"You think I can do anything to help you?" Joe asked incredulously.

"Of course you can. You and Tom are two men I've known all my life. I know where to find you if I get into trouble."

"Is there goin' ter be any trouble?" Tom broke in, eagerly.

"Not yet, but it's coming. When it does we'll fight it out and win.

I've set my life on the issue of this experiment."

Joe extended him his hand. "I'm sorry I got drunk. I won't do it again--we'll stand by ye!"

"Through thick an' thin," Tom added.

"And hereafter, Tom," Norman said with a smile, "I'd like to be consulted before you hold any more sessions of your court up the beach."

Tom started.

"You've heard about it?"

"Yes."

"By gum, I knowed I oughter licked that kid again!" the old miner observed, regretfully.

Norman, said gravely: "Tom, we are getting into deep water. I've begun to have some doubts about our safety. A leader must lead. And I'm going to do it. Can I depend on you to execute my orders and mine alone?"

"Every day in the year," was the firm reply.

"The same here," Joe echoed.

Barbara had drawn apart from the group of men and stood watching them with keen, suspicious interest as the two miners started homeward with restored good humour.

"What did you mean by saying that you were afraid of coming trouble?"

Barbara eagerly asked of Norman. "What have you heard? What do you suspect?"

"Nothing," he answered, thoughtfully. "But I've had the blues for a week. It's been growing on me that we are not getting on except into situations more and more impossible. There's a screw loose somewhere in our system. There's going to be a wreck unless we find and repair it."

"I have felt this, too, and I think I know the cause."

"What?"

"Liberty which has degenerated into licence. We lack authority and the power to enforce it."

"And this is the one thing we cursed in the old system--the law, power, authority."

"No," Barbara quickly objected. "We did not rebel against law or the exercise of authority. We rebelled against its unjust use."

"And what depresses me is that I am convinced that we must use the power of law with more stern, direct, and personal pressure than ever known under the system of capitalism, or we must fail."

"Is not such pressure desirable?"

"It depends on who applies the pressure--but it seems inevitable--and it depresses me."

Barbara broke into a joyous laugh.

"Away with gloomy forebodings! It's only a day's fog. It will lift.

The sun is shining behind it now."

Her laughter was contagious. Norman smiled in quick sympathy, and a response of hope and courage was just forming itself on his lips when he looked toward the house and saw an excited crowd packed in the doorway.

"What on earth is the matter?" Barbara gasped.

"Some accident has happened," he replied, quickly. "Come, we must hurry!"