The Transgressors Part 5

"What do you mean by saying that the widow has a thousand dollars to her credit?" the sheriff asks.

"I mean that she has this thousand dollars," and Trueman drew the check from his pocket. "It is to be placed to her credit. I have something to say about the company stores."

"I shall take this business direct to Mr. Purdy," the sheriff threatens as he walks off.

The miners and their wives who have witnessed the quarrel between Trueman and Marlin give expression to their feelings in whispered words of praise for the young lawyer who bid defiance to the Sheriff of Luzerne County, the most dreaded man in that part of Pennsylvania.

The widow grasps Harvey's hand and before he can withdraw it she covers it with kisses. Her tears of grat.i.tude fall on his hand. He appreciates that it is but tardy justice that he is doing to the poor woman.

"You need have no fear of being turned out of your home," he tells her.

Then he springs back into the saddle.

"Come, Ethel, let us start for home."

The ride is finished in silence. Neither Harvey nor Ethel feels in the mood to talk. On reaching the Purdy mansion the riders dismount, and go at once to the library, where Gorman Purely is waiting for them.

"Harvey, I am surprised that you should interfere with my orders," is Mr. Purdy's salutation. "Sheriff Marlin has just telephoned me. He tells me that you opposed his evicting the widow, and that the miners are now likely to make serious trouble. This is the second time to-day you have attempted to defeat my plans. I cannot understand what object you have in antagonizing me."

"You certainly misunderstand my motives," replies Trueman. "It is because I have your interests at heart that I cannot see you pursue a course that will lead to disastrous consequences."

"Do you put your judgment above mine?" asks the Coal King, sarcastically.

"In ordinary business matters, in affairs of finance and in the conduct of the mines I should not presume to dispute your judgment. But on the propriety of a.s.sembling the Coal and Iron Police and of evicting a woman who has the sympathy of the entire mining district I believe that I am better able to judge of the effect these acts will have than you are, for I come into close contact with the people."

"The sheriff tells me you have placed a thousand dollars to the credit of the widow at the Company's store. Is this so?"

"I intend to do so."

"It shall not be done, sir, not if I have the power to prevent it,"

declares the Coal King emphatically, rising and pacing the floor. "You must be out of your mind to make such a move, now, of all times, to offer encouragement to the lawless element."

"He did nothing wrong," interposes Ethel. "He prevented the sheriff and his men from injuring the woman and her child."

"Not another word!" Gorman Purdy speaks in a tone he has never employed when addressing his daughter.

"This matter must be settled, once and for all," he continues, addressing Harvey. "There can be but one head of the Paradise Coal Company. I wish to know if you will cease interfering with my orders?"

"I have never objected to carrying out any order of yours that was legal. As long as I am in your employ I shall continue to do as I have done. But to tell you that I will do your bidding, whether legal or not, that is something I cannot bring myself to do," Trueman replies, looking the Coal King squarely in the eye.

"I shall have no one in my employ who cannot obey me," Purdy says. He then rehea.r.s.es what he has done for Trueman; how he has advanced him to the position of counsel to the company. "And all the thanks I receive is your opposition, now that I need your support," he states, and without waiting for a reply hurries from the room.

When Ethel and Harvey go to the dining room they find that the irate Coal King has gone to his private apartment, where his dinner is being served.

Harvey spends the evening at the mansion.

As he and Ethel sit in the drawing room they discussed the events of the day, and speculate on the result that will follow the quarrel with her father.

"My father will regret his hasty words," Ethel says. "He admires you and places absolute confidence in you. Only yesterday he told me that there was not another man in the world to whom he would confide his business secrets as he has done to you."

The lovers go to the music room. Harvey's voice is a remarkably rich baritone. At Ethel's request he sings a ballad which he has recently composed.

Standing at her side as she plays the accompaniment, he sings.

"THE SEA OF DREAMS.

"Sing me of love and dear days gone; Sing me of joys that are fled; Strike no chord of the now forlorn; None of the future dread,

Ah, let thy music ring with tone That speaks the budding year; The Winter's blast too soon will moan Through the forest bleak and drear.

Then sing but a line from the dear old days We sang 'neath the moon's soft beams, When we were young, in those gladsome days, While we sailed on the sea of dreams.

There are no songs that reach the heart, Like those sung long ago.

New singers and their songs depart; The old ones ne'er shall go.

Nor is it strange that they should be As balm to the sad heart; They tell of love when it was young, And all its joys impart."

At eleven o'clock Trueman leaves the Purdy mansion and goes to his hotel. To him it is clear that an irreparable breach has been made in the relations between himself and Gorman Purdy. He knows the unrelenting character of the President of the Paradise Coal Company.

"It was a question of right and wrong," he muses. "I could not see a woman and her child thrown out in the highway, when I knew that it was through my skill as a lawyer that just damages were kept from them. The law was on the side of the company; but justice was certainly on the side of the widow.

"Every day I have some nasty work of this kind to perform. It is making a heartless wretch of me. A man can make money sometimes that comes too dear."

The next day, at the office, Purdy and Trueman have a long talk. It results in Trueman withdrawing his objections to the a.s.sembling of the Coal and Iron Police. As to the widow, a compromise is effected. She is to be set up in business in a neighboring town where her case is unknown.

The thought that to break with Purely would mean to lose Ethel, turns Harvey's decision when the moment comes to choose between duty and policy.

The work of preparing to defeat the pending strike is at once taken up, Purdy and Trueman working in perfect accord.

CHAPTER V.

AN UNQUIET DAY AT HAZLETON.

Nearly two months have pa.s.sed, and a mantle of snow covers the ground.

The rigorous December weather has come and is causing widespread distress among the mining population of Pennsylvania. Forty per cent of the operatives of the Paradise Coal Company have been laid off, as Purdy declared they would be. This means that starvation is the grim spectre in six thousand homes.

The anomaly of miners in one town working at full time, and those of an adjacent town shut out, must be explained as one of the insidious methods of the Trust to create an artificial coal famine.

Gorman Purdy, whose word is law in the Paradise Company, had determined to exact an advance of twenty-five cents a ton from the retail coal dealers. To do this he had to make it appear that the supply of coal was scarce. This led him to close the mines in Hazleton. The miners in the town sought to force the opening of the mines by bringing about a sympathetic strike in the neighboring towns. To prevent this, the Coal and Iron Police have been brought to Hazleton to intimidate the miners and to suppress them by force if they make any concerted move looking toward bringing on a strike.

Preliminary to enforcing the order that debars such an army of men of the means of support, the Coal Magnates, at Purdy's suggestion, have ma.s.sed three hundred of the Coal and Iron Police in the town of Hazleton. This mercenary force occupies the armory, built two years before by the benevolent multi-millionaire Iron King of Pennsylvania, whose immense mills and foundries are situated some two hundred miles distant.

Sheriff Marlin is in command of the Coal and Iron Police. He has sworn them in as deputies, and each bears on his breast the badge of authority.

The propinquity of Woodward and the other small towns to Wilkes-Barre saved them from suffering the effects of a close-down. The Magnates did not desire to have the scenes of distress brought too near their own homes. So Hazleton and the outlying districts were selected to be sacrificed to the arbitrary coal famine. Day after day the idle miners congregate in the Town Hall to discuss their situation and to devise some means of relieving the starving families. These meetings are under the strict surveillance of Sheriff Marlin. Every letter that is sent from the hall is subjected to his scrutiny.