The Walking Delegate Part 44

And so, day by day, Foley continued to undermine their confidence. So skillfully did he play his part, they never guessed that he was the insinuating cause of their failing courage; more, his constant encouragement made them ashamed to speak of their sinking spirit.

But on the fifth day, at a consultation in Connelly's office, it came out. There had been an hour of talk, absolutely without a touch of enthusiasm, when Connelly, who had been looking around at the men's faces for some time, said with an effort: "On the level now, boys, d'you think we've got any chance o' winnin'?"

Foley swore. "What's that?" he demanded. "Why o' course we're goin' to win!"

But Connelly's words had their effect; the silence broken, the men spoke hesitatingly of the growing doubts they had been trying to hide. Foley stood up. "Boys, if youse're goin' to talk this kind o' rot, youse've got to talk it without me," he said, and went out.

Foley gone, they spoke freely of their doubts; and they also talked of him. "D'you notice how the ring's all gone out o' his voice?" asked Brown.

"I bet he ain't got no more confidence than any o' the rest of us," said Pete.

"I bet so, too," agreed Connelly. "He talks big just to cheer us up.

Then it's mighty hard for Buck to give up. He'll always fight to his last drop o' blood."

The decline of the committee's enthusiasm had already begun to have a disquieting effect in the union. It now rapidly spread that the committee had little confidence of winning the strike, and that Foley, for all his encouraging words, believed at heart as did the rest of the committee.

The first meeting of the union after the resumption of negotiations was a bitter one. The committee made a vague report, in which Foley did not join, that made apparent their fallen courage. Immediately questioning men were on their feet all over the hall, Tom among them. The committee, cornered by queries, had to admit publicly that it had no such confidence as it had had a week before. The reasons for this were demanded. No more definite reason could be given than that the bosses were stronger in their position than the union had believed.

There were sneers and hot words for the four members who partic.i.p.ated in the report. Cries went up for Foley, who had thus far kept out of the discussion; and one voice, answering the cries, shouted: "Oh, he's lost his nerve, too, the same as the others!"

Foley was on his feet in an instant, looking over the excited crowd. "If any man here has heard me say I'm for givin' in, let him get up on his two feet!"

No one stood up. "I guess youse all know I'm for fightin' as long's there's anything worth fightin' for," he declared, and sank back into his seat.

But there had been no wrath in his eyes as he had looked over the crowd, and no ferocity in his words of vindication. The whisper ran about that it was true, he was losing his nerve. And if Foley, Foley the fighter, were losing confidence, then the situation must indeed be desperate.

The courage of a large body of men, especially of one loosely organized, is the courage of its leaders. Now that it was known the committee's confidence was well-nigh gone, and guessed that Foley's was going, the courage of the men ebbed rapidly. It began to be said: "If there's no chance of winning the strike, why don't we settle it at once, and get back to work?" And the one who spoke loudest and most often in this strain was Johnson.

Two days after the meeting Foley had a conference with Mr. Baxter, at which the other members of the union's committee were not present. And that same night there was another explosion in one of Mr. Baxter's buildings that chanced to be unguarded. The explosion was slight, and small damage was done, but a search discovered two charges of dynamite in the foundation, with fuses burned almost to the fulminating caps.

If the dynamite did not explode, the newspapers did. The perpetrators of this second outrage, which only fate had prevented, should be hunted down and made such an example of as would be an eternal warning against like atrocities. The chief of police should apprehend the miscreants at whatever cost, and the district attorney should see that they had full justice--and perhaps a little more.

The chief of police, for his part, declared he'd have the guilty parties if it took his every man to run them down. But his men searched, days pa.s.sed, and the waiting cells remained empty.

Mr. Baxter, interviewed, said it was obvious that the union was now determined to stop at nothing in its efforts to drive the contractors into submission. The union, at a special meeting, disclaimed any responsibility for the attempted outrage, and intimated that this was a scheme of the contractors themselves to blacken the union's character.

When a reporter "conveyed this intelligence to Mr. Baxter, that gentleman only smiled."

The chief result of this second explosion was that so much as remained to the union of public sympathy was lost in what time it took the public to read its morning paper. Had a feeling of confidence prevailed in the union, instead of one of growing doubt, this charge might have incited the union to resistance all the stouter. But the union, dispirited over the weakness of its cause, saw its cause had been yet further weakened, and its courage fled precipitately.

Three days after the explosion there was another joint meeting of the two committees. At this Mr. Baxter, who had before been soft courtesy, was all ultimatum. The explosion had decided them. They would not be intimidated; they would not make a single concession. The union could return to work on the old terms, if it liked; if not, they would fight till there was nothing more to fight with, or for.

Foley, with much bravado, gave ultimatum for ultimatum; but when his committee met, immediately after leaving the employers', to consider Mr.

Baxter's proposition, he sat in gloomy silence, hardly heeding what was being said. As they talked they turned constantly to Foley's somber face, and looking at that face their words became more and more discouraged.

Finally Pete asked of him: "Where d'you stand, Buck?"

He came out of his reverie with a start. "I'm against givin' up," he said. "Somethin' may turn up yet."

"What's the use holdin' on?" demanded Connelly. "We're bound to be licked in the end. Every day we hold out the men lose a day's pay."

Foley glanced sadly about. "Is that what youse all think?"

There were four affirmative answers.

"Well, I ain't goin' to stand out----"

He broke off, and his face fell forward into his palm, and he was silent for a long s.p.a.ce. The four watched him in wordless sympathy.

"Boys," he said, huskily, into his hand, "this's the first time Buck Foley's ever been licked."

Chapter XXVI

PETERSEN'S SIN

The first news of the committee's failing confidence that reached Tom's ears he discredited as being one of the rumors that are always flying about when large powers are vested in a small body of men. That the strike could fail was too preposterous for his belief. But when the committee was forced to admit in open meeting that its courage was waning, Tom, astounded, had to accept what but yesterday he had discredited. He thought immediately of treachery on Foley's part, but in his hot remarks to the union he made no mention of his suspicions; he knew the boomerang quality of an accusation he could not prove. Later, when he went over the situation with cool brain, he saw that treachery was impossible. Granting even that Foley could be bought, there was the rest of the committee,--and Pete, on whose integrity he would have staked his own, was one of its members.

And yet, for all that reason told him, a vague and large suspicion persisted in his mind. A few days after the meeting he had a talk with Pete, during which his suspicion got into words. "Has it occurred to you, Pete, that maybe Foley is up to some deep trick?" he asked.

"You're away off, Tom!" was the answer, given with some heat. "I ain't missed a single committee meetin', an' I know just where Foley stands.

It's the rest of us that're sorter peterin' out. Buck's the only one that's standin' out for not givin' in. Mebbe he's not above dumpin' us all if he had the chance. But he couldn't be crooked here even if he wanted to. We're too many watchin' him."

All this Tom had said to himself before, but his saying it had not dispelled his suspicion, and no more did the saying of it now by Pete.

The negotiations seemed all open and above board; he could not lay his finger on a single flaw in them. But yet the strike seemed to him to have been on too solid a basis to have thus collapsed without apparent cause.

At the union meeting following the committee conference where Foley had yielded, a broken man, the advisability of abandoning the strike came up for discussion. Foley sat back in his chair, with overcast face, and refused to speak. But his words to the committee had gone round, and now his gloomy silence was more convincing in its discouragement than any speech could have been. Tom, whose mind could not give up the suspicion that there was trickery, even though he could not see it, had a despairing thought that if action could be staved off time might make the flaw apparent. He frantically opposed the desire of a portion of the members that the strike be given up that very evening. Their defeat was not difficult; the union was not yet ready for the step. It was decided that the matter should come up for a vote at the following meeting.

While Tom was at breakfast the next morning there was a knock at the door. Maggie answered it, and he heard a thin yet resonant voice that he seemed to have heard before, inquire: "Is Mr. Keating in?"

He stepped to the door. In the dim hallway he saw indistinctly a small, thin woman with a child in her arms. "Yes," he answered for himself.

"Don't you remember me, Brother Keating?" she asked, with a glad note in her voice, shifting the child higher on her breast and holding out a hand.

"Mrs. Petersen!" he cried. "Come right in."

She entered, and Tom introduced her to Maggie, who drew a chair for her up beside the breakfast table.

"Thank you, sister." She sank exhausted into the chair, and turned immediately on Tom. "Have you seen Nels lately?" she asked eagerly.

"Not for more than two weeks."

The excitement died out of her face; Tom now saw, by the light of the gas that had to be burned in the dining-room even at midday, that the face was drawn and that there were dark rings under the eyes. "Is anything wrong?" he asked.

"He ain't been home for two nights," she returned tremulously. "I said to myself last night, if he don't come to-night I'll come over to see you early this morning. Mebbe you'd know something about him."

"Not a thing." He wanted to lighten that wan face, so he gave the best cheer that he could. "But I guess nothing's wrong with him."