The Man in the Twilight Part 46

Bat nodded. A deep satisfaction stirred him.

"I reckoned that way, ever since--Say, I'm glad."

But Bull's mood had sobered.

"She's in the enemy camp though," he demurred.

"It'll hand you another sc.r.a.p--haulin' her out."

"Yes."

Bat rose from his chair and stretched his trunk-like body.

"Well," he said, "it's me for the blankets." Then he emitted a deep-throated chuckle. "You get at it, boy," he went on. "An' if you're needin' any help I can pa.s.s, why, count on it. If you mean marryin' I'd sooner see you hook up team with that red-haired gal than anything in the world I ever set two eyes on. Guess I'll hand you my stuff in the morning if the storm quits."

The dynamos were revolving at terrific speed. There were some eighteen in all, and their dull roar was racking upon ears unused. Bat was regarding them without enthusiasm. All he knew was the thing they represented. Skert Lawton had told him. They represented the harnessing of five hundred thousand horse power of the Beaver River water. The engineer had a.s.sured him, in his unsmiling fashion, that he had secured enough power to supply the whole Province of Quebec with electricity.

All of which, in Bat's estimation, seemed to be an unnecessary feat.

Bull was gazing in frank wonder on the engineer's completed work. It was his first sight of it. The place had been long in building. But the sight of it in full running, the sense of enormous power, the thought and labour this new power-house represented, filled him with nothing but admiration for the author of it all.

Bat hailed one of the electricians serving the machines.

"Where's Mr. Lawton?" he shouted.

"He went out. He ain't here," the man shouted back.

Bat regarded the man for a moment without favour. Then he turned away.

He beckoned Bull to follow, and moved over to the sound-proof door which shut off the engineer's office. They pa.s.sed to the quiet beyond it.

It was quite a small room without any elaborate pretensions. There was a desk supporting a drawing board, with a chair set before it. There was also a rocker-chair which accommodated the lean body of Skert Lawton at such infrequent moments as it desired repose. Beyond that there was little enough furniture. The place was mainly bare boards and bare walls. Bat sat himself at the desk and left Bull the rocker-chair.

"I'd fixed it so Skert was to meet us here," he said. "All this is his stuff. I couldn't tell you an' amp from a buck louse."

Bull nodded.

"That's all right," he said. "Maybe he's held up down at the mill. He'll get--"

"Held up--nuthin'!"

The lumberman was angry. But his anger was not at the failure of his arrangements. Back of his head he was wondering at the thing that claimed the engineer. He felt that only real urgency would have kept him from his appointment. And he knew that urgency just now had a more or less ugly meaning.

"Lawton's a pretty bright boy--" Bull began. But the other caught him up roughly.

"Bright? That don't say a thing," Bat cried. "Guess he's a whole darn engineering college rolled into the worst shape of the ghost of a man it's been my misfortune ever to locate. He's a highbrow of an elegant natur'. He calls this thing 'co-ordination,' which is another way of sayin' he's beat nigh a hundred thousand dollars out of our bank roll to hand us more power than we could use if we took in Broadway, New York, at night. But it's elegant plannin' and looks good to me. Your folks over the water'll maybe see things in it, too. It's them blast furnaces we set up for him last year made this play possible. Them, and the swell outfit of machine shops he squeezed us for. He figgers to raise all sorts of h.e.l.l around. An' his latest notion's to build every darn machine from rough-castin' to a shackle pin, so we don't have to worry with the world outside. He's got a long view of things. But--"

He pulled out his timepiece, and the clouds of volcanic anger swept down again upon his rugged brow. But it was given no play. The door of the office was thrust open, and the lean figure of the engineer, clad in greasy overalls, came hurriedly into the room.

Bat challenged him on the instant.

"What's the trouble, boy?" he demanded in his uncompromising fashion.

"Trouble?" Skert's eyes were wide, and his tone was savage. "That's just it. I reckoned to show Sternford all this stuff," he went on, indicating the machine hall with a jerk of his head. "But we'll have to let it pa.s.s. Say," he glanced from one to the other, his expression developing to something like white fury. "They started. It's business this time. I got a message up they were stopping the grinders. It's the 'heads' gave the order. Oh, they're all in it. They got a meeting on in that darn recreation parliament place of theirs, and every mother's son on the machines was called to it. They've shut down! You get that? There isn't even a greaser left at the machines. It's set me with a feeling I'm plumb crazy. I've been down, and they're right there crowding out that hall. And--"

"I guessed something that way," Bat interrupted with ominous calm. He turned to Bull, who was closely regarding his lieutenants.

"It's mutiny first and then a sheer strike," he said. "Here, listen.

I'll hand you just what's happenin'. There's been Bolshie agitators workin' the boys months, and I guess they got a holt on 'em good. It started with us openin' the new mill on this north sh.o.r.e. We were forced to collect our labour just where we could. An' they got in like the miser'ble rats they are. Gee! It makes me hot--hot as h.e.l.l! The leaders of this thing ain't workers. I don't guess they done a day's work with anything but their yahoo mouths in their dirty lives. They're part of the crowd that's paid from Europe to get around and heave up this blazin' world of ours just anyway they know. The only thing I don't get is their coming along here, which is outside most all the rest of the world. If Labrador can hand 'em loot I'd like to know the sort it is.

And it's just loot they're out for. If I'm a judge there's one h.e.l.l of a sc.r.a.p comin,' and if we're beat it looks like leaving Sachigo a thing forgotten."

Bull stood up. He laughed without the least mirth.

"It's the Skandinavia," he said decidedly. "War's begun. I'm going right down to that meeting."

Bat leapt to his feet.

"No," he said. "This is for Skert an' me--"

"Is it?"

Bull brushed his protest aside almost fiercely. Then he turned as the door opened and a small man hurried in. The fellow s.n.a.t.c.hed his cap from his head and his eyes settled on Skert Lawton, the man he knew best.

"It ees a doc.u.ment," he cried, in the broken English of a French Canadian. "They sign him, oh, yes. You no more are the boss. They say the mill it ees for the 'worker.' All dis big mill, all dis big money.

Oh, yes. Dey sign him."

"Who's this?" Bull demanded.

"One of my machine-minders. He's a good boy," the engineer explained.

Bull nodded.

"That's all right We want all we can get of his sort." He turned to Bat.

"Are there others? I mean boys we can trust?"

"Quite a bunch."

"Can we get them together?"

"Sure."

"Right. This is going to be the real thing. The sort of thing I'd rather have it."

He turned to Skert who stood by, watching the light of battle in his chief's eyes.

"Here, shut down the dynamos. Set them clean out of action. Do you get me? Leave the machines for the time being so they're just so much sc.r.a.p.

Then, if you got the bunch you can rely on, leave 'em guard. We'll get on down, an' sign that d.a.m.ned doc.u.ment for 'em."