The Way of the Strong Part 69

Leyburn saw the change and understood it.

"Oh, G.o.d, it was a low-down game, something about parallel to the ghoul on the battlefield stealing money and accouterments from the dead soldiers. Now you are going to pay for it as you deserve. Don't make any mistake. By G.o.d, Leo, I'm going to smash you!"

Austin Leyburn turned away and hurried down the trail.

CHAPTER XI

LEYBURN'S INSPIRATION

Feverish activity was going forward in all the labor controls which acknowledged Austin Leyburn's leadership. Everywhere was agitation and ferment among the rank and file of the workers, while controlling staffs worked night and day.

Austin Leyburn had projected the greatest coup ever attempted in the country. At one stroke he intended to paralyze all trade. East and west, north and south, it was his purpose to leave the moving world at a standstill.

There were many nominal causes for the upheaval. They could be found every day, in almost every calling, each one, in itself, of a trivial nature, perhaps, but, collectively, an expression of tyranny and injustice on the part of the employers that he, Leyburn, and those others interested in the labor movement, declared could not be borne by the worker. So the latter awoke to learn of the many injustices he had been enduring, and of which, before, he had been utterly unaware.

The real cause of the forthcoming struggle lay far deeper. It found its breeding ground in the fertile realms of human nature, the human nature of the men who led the movement. They required self-aggrandizement and profit, and beneath the cloak of Principle they hid their unworthy desires from the searchlight of publicity. Principle--since democracy had struggled from beneath the crushing heel of the oppressor the word had become enormously fashionable. Its elasticity had been its success.

It could be molded by the individual to suit every need. But in these days, it had become far more the hall-mark of hypocrisy than the expression of lofty ideals.

Years ago Austin Leyburn had declared his belief that some of the overflow from the world's pockets could be diverted into his own, by methods far less strenuous than those of the great Leo. Since then he had endeavored to prove his a.s.sertion.

That he had been successful there could be no doubt. He was far better equipped with this world's goods than he would have cared to proclaim from the platform to one of his labor audiences. He kept his private life hidden by a very simple process, and so much noise and bustle did he contrive in his calling that no one gave him credit for possessing any--private life.

But herein the world was mistaken. The life he displayed to his colleagues was simple and unpretentious. He lived in a cheap suite of apartments in the humbler quarters of Toronto. He ate in restaurants where he rubbed shoulders with men of the labor world. In his business he walked, or rode in the street cars. To carry added conviction his clothes were always of the ready-made order, and he possessed a perfect genius for reducing the immaculateness of a low, starched collar.

But there was another Austin Leyburn when the claims of his business released him for infrequent week-ends. He was an affluent sort of country squire. A man who reveled in the possession of an ample estate and splendid mansion, hidden away in the remotenesses of a natural beauty spot some twenty-five miles outside Toronto. Here he enjoyed the luxuries and comforts which in others were anathema to him. His cellar was well stocked with wines of the choicest vintages. His cigars were the best money could buy. He possessed a modest collection of works of art, and his house was furnished with all those things valued for their age and a.s.sociations.

To this place he would adjourn at long intervals. And at such times even his name would be left behind him in the city, in company of his ready-made clothing, his scarcely immaculate collar, and the memory of fly-ridden restaurants, lest there should be a jarring note to his enjoyment as he lounged back in his powerful automobile, which was never permitted to cross the city limits.

All these things were bought and paid for by a method of making money almost devilish in its inception. Leyburn was a gambler on the stock market. He gambled in Labor strikes.

This was the great final coup he now contemplated. He cared not one jot for the injustices meted out to labor. He cared nothing for the sufferings, the privations it had to endure. Long ago he and many others of his a.s.sociates had learned the fact that all strikes more or less affected the financial market. Nor were they slow to take advantage of it.

A general transport strike would send shares crashing to bed-rock prices; would send them tumbling as they had never fallen before, as even international war would not affect them. And when they had fallen sufficiently, when, in his own phraseology, the bottom had dropped out of the market, then he and his fellow-vultures would plunge their greedy beaks into the flesh of the carca.s.s and gorge themselves. Then, and not till then, the starving worker might return to his work.

Just now he was in Calford and hard at work. While his subordinates lived in a whirl of organization, his it was to contrive that the news of the labor troubles reached the world at large in a sufficiently alarming type. And his gauge of the alarm achieved would be the state of the financial markets.

He had only that morning returned from Deep Willows, and it was not until long after his mid-day meal that he found leisure to turn his thoughts definitely to the fresh plans he had decided upon, on his journey back to Calford.

Now, as he sat before his desk, he picked up the receiver of the telephone and spoke sharply.

"Is Frank Smith in the office?" he demanded. "Yes. I said Smith. Oh!

Then tell him to come to me at once."

He replaced the instrument and leaned back in his chair. He felt that Fate had played an extraordinarily pleasant trick upon him. In his cynical way he admitted grudgingly that for once she had been more than kind. The chance of it. A loose end. Yes, he had actually found himself with a loose end, and had promptly decided to fill up the time with a visit to the greatest wheat grower in the country in the interests of his new toy, the Agricultural Labor Society. It had led him--whither?

His narrow eyes smiled. But the smile died almost at its birth, lost in a bitter hatred for the man who had robbed him upon the Yukon trail twenty years ago.

The door of his room opened and Frank hurried in. His manner was nervous, quite unlike his usual manner. He was changed in appearance, too. Nor was it a change for the better. He looked older. His eyes were painfully serious. His dress wore an air of neglect. Whatever else the work of a labor organizer had done for him there was no outward sign of improvement.

"You sent for me?" he demanded, a look of nervous expectation in his serious eyes.

"Sure." Leyburn nodded. His manner was final. It was also the manner of an employer to a subordinate. The intimacy between these two had somehow died out.

Leyburn gazed at him thoughtfully, and the superiority of his position was displayed therein. Frank experienced a feeling of irritation.

Leyburn frequently irritated him now. When they had first met, the boy's enthusiasm had made him regard this leader as something in the nature of a G.o.d. Since then he had discovered a good deal of clay about the feet of his deity.

"Guess I'm going to hand you a change of work, boy," Leyburn said at last, his manner deliberately impressive. "Say, you weren't a big hit with the railroaders." Frank winced perceptibly, and the other saw that his thrust had gone home. "Oh, I don't blame you a h.e.l.l of a lot," he went on patronizingly. "You've never been a railroader--that's where it comes in. I'd say the feller that talks to those boys needs to be one of 'em. We got plenty without you, and--so I'm going to hand you a change, to the farming racket." Then he smiled. "Guess you're a bit of a mossback yourself. You'll understand those boys, and be able to talk 'em their own way."

Frank's face had flushed with the poignancy of his feelings over his failure. He felt even more the crudeness of this man's manner.

"I'll do my best," he said briefly.

There was none of his earlier enthusiasm in his a.s.surance. Truth to tell, something of his enthusiasm had died on the night of his failure at the railroaders' meeting, and it had died after Alexander Hendrie had left him.

"That's right," said Leyburn, with some geniality. "I don't like your 'c.o.c.ksures.' Give me the man out to do his d.a.m.nedest. You'll make good, lad--this time. Say, I'm going to set you chasing up the work among the farms. See it's going ahead. Ther's men out to do the ga.s.sing. You'll just have to see they gas right. Get me? There's going to be a strike around harvest--this year. It's going to happen along with the transporters."

Frank was startled. There was to have been no serious movement this year on the agricultural side. Only preparations. Why this sudden change of plans?

"This year?" he said.

"That's how I said," returned Leyburn dryly.

"But I thought----"

"I'll do the thinking, boy," said Leyburn quickly. Then he grinned.

"Guess I've done most of it already. You're on?"

"Why, yes." Frank was perplexed. Nor had he any definite objection.

"Good." Leyburn picked his teeth with a match. Then he went on: "You'll make your headquarters at Everton. That's where Hendrie's place is.

I've got men at work there. They've been there quite a while. We're taking up that n.i.g.g.e.r question there, and punching it home for all we're worth. It's a good lever for running up wages on. The wheat men will be easy--their crops are perishable. If Hendrie don't squeal quick, he's got miles of wheat growing," he said significantly. "Of course he's only one. But he's good to work on. Now, just watch around there. Don't do a heap of big talk. The other'll do that. You'll go around the farms, the smaller ones, and do some private talk. You'll superintend the whole of that section. Guess there's a hundred and more farms in it. I'll hand you a schedule of 'em."

As Leyburn finished speaking, Frank stirred uneasily.

"Must I go on this work?" he asked hesitatingly.

Leyburn looked up sharply. There was a sparkle in his eyes.

"Sure," he said coldly.

"Couldn't you hand me another section?" Frank asked, after an awkward pause, while Leyburn regarded his averted face closely.

"Why?" The demand rapped out. It was full of a sudden, angry distrust.

Leyburn was not in the habit of having his orders questioned in his own office.