Mountain Part 36

"Drop it, I say," rang out Jim's ugly voice, as he balanced his pistol tentatively. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, burnin' down the house, to steal the stuff!"

"That's a lie," Will called, shortly. Others took up the cry.

The guards raised menacing pistols.

A striker, his temper on fire from continuing irritations, dropped behind the nearest steps, levelled his pistol, and shot toward the armed group.

Diana ran out flying, shielding Will. "Don't shoot my brother, you scoundrels----"

Jim's pistol, carefully aimed at the black striker, crackled viciously.

Tongues of flame spoke from the armed deputies.

"You plugged the gal," Huggins grinned casually, aiming again. "We got both c.o.o.ns."

The astounded citizens ran between the sudden murderous combatants.

"This won't do!"

"The house is burning, while you're killing each other!"

The chemical engine swung around the southern curve of the road, jetting ineffectually against the greedy insanity of the flames. The strikers took up the four bodies, and carried them somberly to Hewintown, Stella Cole following, dry-eyed and shivering with uncomprehending hatred.

Pelham and Jane walked among the smouldering ruins the next day, their hearts bitter at the headlines which blamed the strikers for the burning. "There's no dirtiness they won't stoop to," he raged.

"Hanging's too good for those editors."

When Paul Judson arrived, to what had been home, in answer to Mr. Kane's wire, it was to find that Tom Hewin, whose sub-contract still controlled this part of the estate, had begun removing the rich outcrop where the north end of the cottage had rested.

"This is outrageous, Hewin! We don't want this touched----"

"It's the contract, Mr. Judson. In section seven. I supposed----"

Paul left him, agonized at heart.

An injunction the next day stopped the theft of the outcrop, and removed the Hewins from their connection with the property and the strike.

Only Ed was left to his mother to arrange for the burial of Diana and Will. Neither of them knew, although Stella suspected, that there were three dead in the two graves.

XIX

Life at the Hernandez home had its definite compensations, Pelham found.

A nearby garage held the indispensable car; and there was now no one to censor his comings and goings. As long as he slept on the mountain, Mary clung to this role; the relief of the lifted restraint was immediate.

His mining inspector's badge gave him the run of the mountain property, although he was careful not to use it in direct union propaganda.

One afternoon late in August, Jim Hewin came up to him on a downtown avenue. "Howdy, Mr. Judson. Say," and the shifty eyes nervously agitated toward Pelham's face, "I could do you a good turn if I wanted to."

"What's that?"

"I got some dope you'd give a heap to know."

The other regarded him with suspicion. "What about, Hewin?"

"I know what the company's got up its sleeve. I can put you wise, all right. What's in it for me?" He waited, expectant.

Pelham choked down his disgust. "Not a cent. If you'd sell out my father, you'd sell us out as quickly." He walked off in impotent anger against the go-betweens seeking to fatten on the bitter struggle.

The local mining board a.s.signed Pelham to the property he was most familiar with: either for that reason, or through a grim irony. As mining inspector, he secured access to all the books of the company.

This gave him needed statistics for his report on the strike situation, and kept him busy, and, against his will, away from Jane, and the solace and spur of the hours with her.

The problem began to shape itself more clearly, now that he had become to a greater extent weaned from mountain and family. The whole opposition to the miners' demands was summed up and centered, in his mind, in that dominant personality of Paul Judson. Similarly he felt that he embodied the opposing forces. Without his presence, his thinking told him, the strike would have come just the same; but he knew that his cordial efforts had stiffened the fight of the workers more than they imagined.

It was a stake worth fighting for, that vast p.r.o.ne bulk overshadowing Adamsville, rich with the congealed essence of the ages. His father fought for himself, and for the group of spoilers who sought to bleed it for their selfish sakes. The son's cause was the cause of the people--of the toiling, inarticulate herd fettered by ignorance and immemorial adjustment to serfdom. Democracy against oppression--it was the real fight which the Adamsville press short-sightedly claimed was being waged over sea and sky and land against the war-mad encroachment of autocracy.

The warring causes abroad were cloudy; the local situation was clear. So he told himself; and the parallel spoke strongly in his stirring speeches to the patient union fighters.

A new masterfulness radiated in his utterances. As a servant of the State, as well as a contender for the people, he was close to the tangled heart of the intricate struggle. He felt surer of himself than ever.

The mood of restrained audacity found itself cabined and confined in the irritation of mining statistics. The card for the University Club summer dance came opportunely; he went, too, through a perverse joy in embarra.s.sing the good people of Adamsville by his disconcerting presence, and in studying their varied reactions to his new role.

He joined the group in the grill, a little diffident as to his reception. Lane Cullom, unchanging adherent of old, caught him by both hands. "You darned stranger! What'll it be?"

Lane led him and Hallock Withers, a clubman Pelham knew casually, to one of the cosy benched tables. "Never forget that you're in the presence of His Honor the State Mining Inspector, Hal. He's a nut in politics, but he can play tennis."

"Haven't lifted a racket in four months."

The friend laid an affectionate hand on Pelham's flannels. "I brought a girl you've just got to meet, Pell! She's from New Orleans, and she is some trotter! Visiting the Tollivers----"

Pelham grimaced.

"Nothing like Nellie, don't worry! Her name is Louise Ree-sharr----"

"What in the world!"

Lane grunted defensively. "Something like that. Old New Orleans family, and all the rest----"

The prospect did not attract; but the girl did. She had an opulent fulness that stopped distinctly short of being plump. Her large eyes reminded him at once of Jane's, and then of his mother's; but there was an artistry about their seeming candor that seduced his fancy. The burst of red roses at her waist did not outshine the glow of her complexion; vivid dark brown hair sparkled with brilliants set in a quaint tortoise sh.e.l.l comb. Each of the unimportant details a.s.sumed significance as contributing to the totality of full-blown charm.

She laid a proprietary arm in his, as they pa.s.sed through the rainbow glimmer of Oriental lanterns swaying between the lawn trees. "Is Adamsville always as deadly as this? New Orleans is bad enough--but this!"

His throaty chuckle answered her. "I a.s.sure you I don't know."

"You live here?"

"I'm not a clubman. Life's too busy."

"Sounds imposing. What do you do, besides dance and use those serious eyes?"