CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
PS 1378 C C 77G7 niVerS,,y Ubrary 
 Th ^iBPi!fH.„S,to, of * he Illinois coal 
 
 3 1924 022 013 712 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022013712 
 
THE GRAPPLE 
 
Works of 
 
 Alice MacGowan 
 
 and 
 
 Grace MacGowan Cooke 
 
 The Last Word $1.50 
 
 Return J.50 
 
 The Grapple 1.50 
 
 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 New England Building 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
" 'But to one of these questions her mirror answered no. 
 
 (.See page bf) 
 
THE GRAPPLE 
 
 A Story of the Illinois Coal Begion ; Being 
 the History of a Man Who, Having Him- 
 self Come up from the Miner's Pick, Hav- 
 ing the Profoundest Sympathy for the Men, 
 the Union, and All It Stands For, and Has 
 Done for Labour, yet Single-handed and 
 Alone, Successfully Withstood the En- 
 croachments of the Mine Workers' Union, 
 and the Unjust Demands of Its Leaders. 
 
 By 
 
 Grace Mac Go wan Cooke 
 
 Author of "The Last Word," "Return," etc. 
 
 With a frontispiece in colour from a drawing by 
 
 ARTHUR W. BROWN 
 
 Boston ♦ L. C. PAGE 
 
 & COMPANY ♦ Mdccccv 
 m6 
 
 ►fH« 
 
 ►W-M 
 
 ►♦+H 
 
Copyright, igog 
 
 By L. C. Page & Company 
 
 (incorporatbd) 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Published August, 1905 
 
 7 3 
 
 Third Impression 
 
 COLONIAL PRESS 
 
 Electrotype J and Printed by C. H. Stmonds A* C<?. 
 
 Boston, U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 There are two courses open to the writer of to- 
 day who loves to chronicle a good, rousing fight: 
 he may take to the pages of history and the swash- 
 buckling romance, or he may study the economic 
 warfare of our own day, which has its equivalent 
 for every detail of that earlier strife. 
 
 The author of " The Grapple " has tried her hand 
 at the writing of historical fiction. In discussing 
 some literary material with a young friend who 
 wished to have her opinion upon it, the story which 
 follows made itself. Mr. Vond Reed, who has 
 been with the army in Porto Rico, and writes 
 military stories, had also served three years with 
 a wing of the big industrial army which fights its 
 war in the coal district of a Middle Western State. 
 Employed in the clerical department, his attention 
 was continually attracted by the humourous, pa- 
 thetic, and tragic aspects of existence among the 
 men who delve in the dark and cold that others may 
 sit warm in the light. 
 
 Whatever feature of that life was under discus- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 sion, we usually came around to a certain dauntless 
 mine owner who did all that Mark Strong does in 
 the course of this story, — and perhaps a little 
 more. It was also owing to Mr. Reed's sharp sense 
 of humour that the goat would butt his way into 
 the narrative, and the folding bed gyrate for the 
 diversion of such as may read these pages. 
 
 So, along with this hearty acknowledgment of 
 the obligation which " The Grapple " owes to 
 Vond Reed, as a playing if not a working partner 
 in its construction, his practical and personal infor- 
 mation upon the subject permits me to offer my 
 readers the satisfactory assurance that Mark Strong 
 is yet successful, the Captain still telling funny 
 stories, and Iroquois occupying the exact spot upon 
 the map — which has a dot with another name to it ! 
 If, recently, that district has been rent by another 
 coal miners' war which has usurped a fairly large 
 space in the newspapers, it was not our war, and 
 does not concern us. Mark Strong's dead-line still 
 holds, and there is peace within it. 
 
 Grace MacGowan Cooke. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. A Bar of Light 
 
 II. Mark Strong . 
 
 III. The Committee 
 
 IV. Julia Llewellyn 
 V. A Meeting of the Local 
 
 VI. War! 
 
 VII. A Morning Call 
 
 VIII. A Chapter of Accidents 
 
 IX. The Strike 
 
 X. Mark Strong's Dead-line 
 
 XI. The Guests from Alabama 
 
 XII. An Omelet and a "Tin Roof" 
 
 XIII. The Warning . 
 
 XIV. In the Sign of the Goat 
 XV. An Ugly Compact . 
 
 XVI. Fire and Tow . 
 
 XVII. The Spark Is Struck 
 
 XVIII. Labour at Play 
 
 XIX. A Very Particular Job 
 
 XX. A Proposition Turned Down 
 
 XXI. The Descent of the Goddess 
 
 XXII. The Goddess Intervenes 
 
 XXIII. Children of the Tides . 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 13 
 
 29 
 
 45 
 64 
 78 
 86 
 
 95 
 121 
 132 
 148 
 168 
 184 
 200 
 213 
 230 
 244 
 256 
 272 
 281 
 299 
 320 
 333 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Sucked Down 347 
 
 "Mark's Way" 364 
 
 Tulley Van Dorn Sets Forth . .374 
 
 The Only Son 384 
 
 Aftermath 400 
 
THE GRAPPLE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A BAR OF LIGHT 
 
 It was thrown upon the deep, wet darkness of 
 the street, an oblong of muddy illumination, shin- 
 ing out from the front window of Gus Yount's 
 saloon. An airy, unwalled stage, this, upon which 
 the passing, repassing, meeting faces and figures 
 for one little moment played their parts. 
 
 Within the saloon itself, there was the usual 
 medley of sounds and movements. From the pool- 
 room in the rear came the click of balls, the thump- 
 ing of cues upon the floor, punctuated from time 
 to time with an oath as a player missed some easy 
 shot. In the front room, whence the light shone, 
 there was the rattle of glasses, the shuffling of 
 feet, loud voices and louder laughter; and the air 
 
THE GRAPPLE 
 
 was thick with tobacco smoke from stubby pipes 
 and cigars of doubtful authenticity. 
 
 Yount's place was the unofficial headquarters of 
 the Union ; and above was the Union hall itself. One 
 could read, as upon a barometer, the condition of 
 the Union's affairs, by bending a sympathetic ear 
 to the dominant note any evening at Gus Yount's. 
 And by that same token the intelligent listener, upon 
 this gusty black night in the early summer of 1900, 
 might have guessed that the Union had things on 
 its mind. 
 
 Apart from the general crowd, there was a small 
 group drawn together at a table which stood not far 
 from the window through which shone the oblong 
 of light. They were shut off from the bar and 
 pool-room by a small partition that extended half- 
 way to the ceiling. This group, which consisted 
 of four men and a boy apparently about seventeen, 
 spoke together with lowered voices and heads bent 
 far forward over the table. Plainly some point 
 was definitely settled among the five; and now the 
 young fellow rose and strolled toward the front 
 door, while two of the four men left the table and 
 crouched upon their knees at the window, bending 
 so low that no shadow of their heads fell upon the 
 oblong of light. 
 
 The young fellow, standing at the door, kept his 
 
A BAR OF LIGHT 
 
 eyes fixed upon these two. His right hand, behind 
 his back, hid something underneath his short coat. 
 
 Occasionally the swing door was pushed inward 
 — or outward — by an entering or emerging figure. 
 At these times the boy would draw back and look 
 away unconcernedly. 
 
 When the door swung open, the increased light 
 in the street showed the dim outlines of a man who 
 lounged beside the window-frame, out of which 
 shone the bar of light. The figure, dimly con- 
 jectured, was tall ; and when this glimmer from the 
 open door touched hat, and shoulder, and side, one 
 might have perceived that this was an elderly man, 
 who smoked an ancient pipe. The thing which 
 made his lounging beside Yount's window-frame 
 to-night singular was, that there was a drizzling 
 rain, and everybody not already within doors was 
 hurrying with all speed to be there. 
 
 Across the bar of light a dissatisfied cat skulked. 
 Chilled, disconsolate, avoiding the mud and tiny 
 puddles with feline distaste, she made her transit — 
 and as the creeping small figure came within the 
 light, the two men kneeling inside the window 
 peered forth eagerly. 
 
 The spark in the old pipe glowed dully ; a gush of 
 smoke rose from it and drifted vaguely within 
 the lighted space. At the same moment there was 
 
THE GRAPPLE 
 
 a shuffle of quick footsteps, and a child, a shambling 
 boy of ten, appeared against the light ; he was carry- 
 ing a bucket of beer, and was muttering and sniffling 
 as he went, knuckling his eyes with his free hand, 
 then shaking his head doggedly from side to side. 
 A little behind him followed a younger child, a 
 girl, who also cried, but mutely, so that one only 
 became aware of her grief when the little pinched 
 face had its moment in the bar of light. 
 
 The man in the shadow straightened up, leaned 
 forward, and silently proffered a small coin, which 
 the child took also in amazed silence, and, drying 
 the tears, moved on. 
 
 Next there limped across the light a stray dog, 
 who wagged his stump tail and sniffed appealingly 
 around the man's ankles. A softly dropped hand 
 encouraged these deprecating doggish advances. 
 A man who is not afraid of being bitten by a strange 
 cur is apt to deserve a whole skin. 
 
 What the watchers inside next saw was a portly 
 woman in a checked gingham wrapper, with a mar- 
 ket-basket upon her arm. After her the lighted 
 space was long vacant; the gusty, black wind, 
 which was dancing uncertainly beneath a night 
 sky, drove the fine rain in under the ragged awning, 
 filling the place with discomfort. 
 
 Every figure — were it man, woman, cat, dog, or 
 
A BAR OF LIGHT 
 
 child — which had appeared within the bar of light, 
 had for an instant silenced the tense murmuring 
 voices at that little table inside the window ; the two 
 men upon their knees had bent forward eagerly ; the 
 young fellow at the swing door had raised a hand 
 to its frame, his eyes fixed upon the kneeling men. 
 Then, as each creature passed on its way, low ex- 
 cited murmurs had burst forth afresh from that 
 group, with carefully guarded violence; the young 
 fellow at the door had dropped again into a wait- 
 ing posture, still watching the men at the window. 
 
 After the woman in the gingham wrapper had 
 gone by, one of the kneeling men had turned to 
 the other, questioning, half-angrily : 
 
 " Shoot ! How's he going to shoot — or any- 
 thing else — when Bob knocks him senseless the 
 first clatter out of the box? " 
 
 A quieter tone answered the question; it came 
 from one of the men at the table back of them; 
 yet it was not so quiet but that the lounging man 
 outside heard every word. 
 
 " His gun is in the little grip he carries. The 
 thing opens of itself — opens with a spring — the 
 minute he sets it down or drops it ; and there's his 
 gun right to his hand. He can grab it quicker than 
 any move you ever see made — and he's lightning 
 on the trigger." 
 
THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " An' he don't never need but one," added the 
 other man at the table; " 'cause that one he carries 
 is a magazine gun — shoots ten shots. All you've 
 got to do is to press the trigger, and she keeps on 
 shootin' till you turn 'er loose." 
 
 " Yes, I know ; one of them things that's plenty 
 easy to start, but you've got to throw it in the crick 
 to get it stopped," murmured one of the men kneel- 
 ing at the window. 
 
 " Hell ! guns ! " grunted the first speaker ; but he 
 uttered the words too loud, for his companion 
 interrupted in a sharp whisper: 
 
 " Hsh-h-h-h ! You needn't beller it to the whole 
 street!" 
 
 The young fellow who had been standing at 
 the door all along edged over toward his com- 
 panions. 
 
 "What's he goin' to know 'bout guns?" he 
 broke in, fiercely. " What's a gun goin' to do fer 
 him — when he's knocked half-acrost the street?" 
 
 " Well, you'll have to be damn swift about it," 
 returned the man who had last spoken. "And 
 we'll have to get hold of him quick after he's down. 
 If we're more'n two seconds doin' it, the Union 
 will have some funerals on its hands." 
 
 " Then it's your business not to give him the two 
 seconds when he's down," muttered the boy. " All 
 
A BAR OF LIGHT 
 
 I want of you fellows is to run in quick when I've 
 got him down, and grab him." 
 
 One of the kneeling men at the window — the 
 one who had not been speaking — turned sharply 
 upon the lad now. 
 
 "You better get back to that door, Bob," he 
 whispered, waving an impatient finger, " or you'll 
 miss the whole thing." 
 
 Thus admonished, the boy once more returned to 
 the door. 
 
 Now for some time the voices in the saloon and 
 from the pool-room rose and fell. In the street no 
 creature strayed upon the little stage of the lighted 
 space. Within the window there was heavy breath- 
 ing and nervous, restless movements. The man out- 
 side had noiselessly knocked the tobacco from his 
 pipe against the palm of his hand, and put it in his 
 pocket. Now he also stood in an attitude of tense 
 expectancy. Finally, in perfect silence, and with 
 evident precaution, he drew himself away from the 
 wall against which he had been leaning. There was 
 about him a definite air of going somewhere. 
 
 But, as though his movement had been a signal, 
 a quick, light step approached ; the heavy breathing 
 inside grew louder, and was punctuated by one or 
 two hissing whispers. Suddenly the upper part of 
 a man's figure was projected upon the bar of light; 
 
8 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 a slight man, carelessly dressed, with a soft hat 
 turned back from a pleasant face, whose only dis- 
 tinguishing mark was a pair of wonderfully piercing, 
 penetrating gray eyes. 
 
 The tall form in the shadow started forward 
 without a sound — but too late. The man whose 
 face had so suddenly leaped into life out of the 
 surrounding blackness was the one who had been 
 stayed for. Here, at last, was the protagonist. 
 Between his appearance and what followed, there 
 was scarce time to draw a breath. The faces of 
 the two kneeling men were pressed close against 
 the pane. Their eyes met; there was an affirmative 
 nod ; then the one nearest the door raised his hand, 
 and shook it sharply toward the young fellow they 
 called Bob. 
 
 The swing door moved outward with a sudden 
 impulse. Within the aperture an arm was lifted, 
 and a beer bottle — hurled with wonderful precision, 
 considering the nature of the shot — struck the new- 
 comer while yet his face was within the bar of light, 
 with such lightning quickness had all been done. 
 
 He went down as an ox is felled with the pole- 
 axe. The little grip fell from his nerveless hand, 
 rolled wide, nor stopped until it had dropped off the 
 curb into the street. 
 
 There was a sudden crash of overturned chairs 
 
A BAR OF LIGHT 
 
 and hurrying feet, as the boy's voice, shrill with 
 nervousness, cried out: 
 
 " Come on, quick ! I've got him ! " 
 
 The door swung wide, discovering within the 
 doorway a compact body of men. 
 
 " Keep together ! Keep together ! " some one 
 admonished, in a deep, guttural tone. 
 
 " Out of my place — the lot of you ! " cried old 
 Yount's voice. (Gus plainly meant to clear his 
 skirts, in a more or less conventional manner. And 
 in the broad avenue of light from the open door five 
 men came pell-mell, thrust on by the angry saloon- 
 keeper. With snarls like nothing human, they 
 made for the prostrate and motionless form. 
 
 They were almost within arm's reach of him 
 when they pulled up short, those in the lead recoil- 
 ing so violently that they trod upon their friends in 
 the rear. An instant they remained, nonplussed. 
 For the figure in the shadow had come out, and 
 now stood over the victim on the sidewalk. 
 
 The five saw him plainly, a tall, old man, in a big, 
 flapping overcoat; his slouched hat dripped down 
 over his ears (one can use no better word) like 
 rain-soaked eaves. A pair of curious light eyes 
 looked out from under bushy brows at the new- 
 comers, and a peculiar drawling voice inquired : 
 
 " D' you boys want anything ? " 
 
io THE GRAPPLE 
 
 The silence was absolute. 
 
 " Any of you lost a small article, 'bout the size 
 of a beer bottle, for instance ? " 
 
 He was one man, and they were five. But they 
 cowered together, drew back, and their faces were 
 pale, their lips made no sound. 
 
 The old fellow stopped and raised the unconscious 
 figure, dexterously loosing tie and collar, passing 
 his hand over brow and temple where the blow had 
 fallen. He recognized that the hurt was not serious, 
 that the man was but stunned. When he glanced 
 up again, no living soul was in sight. 
 
 A moment later he lifted his head with the inten- 
 tion of shouting for help, when, without any warn- 
 ing sound of footsteps, a woman's face suddenly 
 appeared beside him in the area of light. She 
 touched him on the arm, eagerly yet timidly, and 
 inquired, in a deep, rich, shaken voice: 
 
 "Is — is he — dead, Captain McClintock ? " 
 
 The old man looked keenly in her eyes. 
 
 " No, Mrs. Llewellyn," he answered, quietly; " I 
 don't think he's bad hurt at all." 
 
 At the first sound of the woman's voice the in- 
 jured man had moved and shivered within the 
 hands that supported him ; the eyelids twitched and 
 quivered — but did not open. 
 
A BAR OF LIGHT n 
 
 " Did you — did you see who — what did you 
 see ? " she now faltered. 
 
 " I didn't rightly see anything but a beer bottle 
 fly out of that door and take Mr. Strong side of the 
 head. What I seen was a beer bottle," continued 
 the old man, argumentatively. " But yet, you know 
 beer bottles can't take wings to themselves in that 
 fashion. There must have been a man to throw 
 it." 
 
 " But you didn't see who — nor after — Oh — " 
 
 She ended with a cry that was almost a shriek, 
 and, drawing her shawl convulsively around her 
 shoulders, disappeared into the darkness. 
 
 The injured man opened his eyes and sat up. 
 " Give me a hand, Cap," he said, quietly. " I guess 
 I can stand." 
 
 He rose, groped for and reclaimed the small 
 valise, then lifted his fingers to his head. 
 
 " It's just a little cut," he commented, reflectively. 
 " That bottle must have struck the edge of the door, 
 or slipped in the fellow's hand. Thank you, Cap- 
 tain ; good-night. I'm a little shaky on my pins, but 
 I guess I'll do." 
 
 He was stepping quietly into the dark when the 
 man he had called Captain laid a detaining hand 
 on his shoulder. 
 
 " I'm going your way," he said, remonstrantly, 
 
12 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " and I reckon you won't object to my walking 
 alongside of you. It looks plumb foolish for you 
 to be plugging around in the dark this way, after 
 what's just happened." 
 
 They had drawn back into the square of light 
 now, and the smaller man looked up with a quick 
 smile, which made his face very pleasant. 
 
 " It wasn't being in the dark that made the 
 trouble," he said. " It seems to have been passing 
 across this light here, where I was recognized. 
 Jeff didn't come down to the office with the buggy, 
 and I was going up to the livery-stable to see what 
 was the matter with him." 
 
 " Gosh ! " said the tall old man, shaking his big 
 shoulders. " If I had as much pluck to the ounce 
 as you've got, what a scrapper I'd be ! " 
 
 And the two laughed together in the gusty black 
 night, as they set off in a companionship which 
 was to be longer than either of them guessed. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MARK STRONG 
 
 It was a very plain office; everything in it was 
 strictly for use, and, having been used much, showed 
 the marks thereof. The man behind the desk was 
 a slender little fellow, who sat with a studious 
 droop. Afoot, you would have found that he had 
 an indolent, halting gait that was almost like a 
 limp. That, when he was indifferent. Those who 
 had seen him in action knewj however, that he was 
 as quick on his feet as a cat, and as dexterous and 
 alert as one. 
 
 The face was unremarkable except for its eyes. 
 Gray, large-pupiled, with a bullet-like directness of 
 gaze intolerable to an opponent, these eyes were 
 overhung by a slight fulness at the corners beneath 
 the brows, which gave a slanting, almost plaintive 
 line; one that is, curiously enough, to be found in 
 the faces of many inveterate fighters when they 
 fight upon the mental plane. The terrible gray eye 
 of Bismarck furnishes an example of this. The 
 
 '3 
 
14 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 man wore glasses, for he was near-sighted ; and even 
 when these were off, his eyes were often filmed and 
 introspective, as is the habit of persons with a 
 mighty power of concentration. But let something 
 arouse him, and the quick, expanding pupils of 
 those eyes made them suddenly black — points of 
 black fire they seemed, and the man had yet to be 
 found who could " look down " their steady gaze. 
 
 His voice was low, his speech scanty and in- 
 frequent. You would have said that he was often 
 at a loss for a word, or dreamily indifferent to mak- 
 ing his meaning clear. But challenge him, let him 
 face an antagonist, and he spoke as one of old, with 
 the gift of tongues. 
 
 The story is still told in and about Iroquois of a 
 meeting at the town hall, to hear a labour agitator, 
 Robert Emmet Patterson, speak. Patterson was 
 always an injudicious man ; and he said some things 
 which made the minority, who had wanted to in- 
 vite the mine owners to be present, glad they had 
 refrained from doing so. After the speaking came 
 the general hand-shaking and the introducing of the 
 miners to Mr. Patterson. 
 
 '"Twas a grand speech — a grand speech," said 
 the big Irishman Cassiday, shaking Patterson's 
 hand. "I only wish Mark Strong could 'a' 
 heard it." 
 
MARK STRONG 15 
 
 It was just at the opening of Mark Strong's 
 career as a mine owner. He had organized the com- 
 pany, arranged the purchase of nearly a thousand 
 acres of land, and had the Twin Brothers in profit- 
 able operation. There are two words to be said 
 as to the advantage a man has in ruling that class 
 from which himself sprung. Strong met envy and 
 jealousy, as well as a feeling of good-fellowship 
 among the men who knew he had risen, by way of 
 self-education, from the pick and shovel. Mostly 
 the old men were with him and " wished their sons 
 might do as well." Often the young men, who felt 
 that they were not progressing toward any such 
 goal, opposed him bitterly. 
 
 " You wish Mark Strong could 'a' been here to 
 listen to Bert Patterson? Well, I don't," chimed in 
 a young check-weighman. " It isn't the likes of that 
 that'll turn Mark Strong. He thinks he knows it 
 all. He's got the big head. And he's got to go 
 on — damn him — till he learns better." 
 
 Talley Self, Gord Bosang, and some other young 
 fellows near at hand, applauded the check-weigh- 
 man, and Strunk added: 
 
 " Huh ! Mark Strong wouldn't last longer in this 
 meeting than a snowbank in hell." 
 
 " Aw, come off ! " remonstrated the big Irishman 
 who had first spoken. " You kids make me tired. 
 
1 6 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 This ain't no Clan-na-gael meetin' — the little boss 
 would be as safe here as settin' in his own parlour." 
 
 There was a bellow of laughter from the older 
 men. 
 
 " Well, you notice he don't think so," came the 
 sneer from Strunk. 
 
 " You'll notice he keeps away," added Self. " He 
 ain't a-wanting to stand up ag'in Robert Emmet 
 Patterson in argyment." 
 
 These were the jeers that came from various 
 portions of the room. Suddenly there was a little 
 disturbance at the front of the platform, as the 
 surface of a fluid is disturbed when it reaches the 
 boiling point and begins to throw up bubbles. Out 
 of the centre of this stir shot a small man, who 
 leaped upon the platform without appearing to 
 lay hand on it. He was facing his audience as 
 he went up, and he was talking as he lit. It was 
 Mark Strong. He dropped his head and looked at 
 his auditors from under lowered brows. 
 
 " Now I've got a mine," he began ; " the Twin 
 Brothers. Some say it got its name from the two 
 old shafts that used to be out there. Some say the 
 original grant of the main tract was made to a 
 couple of men, twin brothers. I don't know. To 
 me the name has always stood for the two powers 
 that work in a mine — capital and labour. Twin 
 
MARK STRONG 17 
 
 brothers they are — the dollar and the sweat that 
 earns the dollar — born at one birth, of one mother, 
 heirs to one destiny. God send that in this mine 
 the twin brothers learn to work in harmony to- 
 gether, each doing his part. 
 
 " This question is as big as the world ; capital 
 without labour is sterile. Look at the Oriental 
 Jew, forced to keep his wealth in the form of money 
 and jewels. What do these produce for the body 
 politic, and his fellow men? Nothing. They 
 fester — they form sores — they breed disease, in a 
 financial sense. They are in a shape that a man 
 may be murdered for their possession; they are 
 ready to be lent to the spendthrift who will make ill 
 use of them. Look at such a fellow ; he may have 
 thousands of dollars carried around on his wife's 
 head and neck and fingers, but he's poorer than any 
 one of you. He lives in a filthy hole ; he eats what 
 your dogs wouldn't touch ; and some day his wife's 
 knocked on the head in a dark alley for her jewels ; 
 and what he called wealth ends in poverty and 
 crime. Capital must be married to labour before 
 its product is what this modern, civilized world 
 needs. 
 
 " Labour, on the other hand, can produce what 
 the individual requires, as the farmer raises meat 
 and bread, and the wool and cotton that his wife 
 
1 8 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 spins for coarse clothing. But if labour wants to 
 produce better things, to develop and become in- 
 dustrially important to the world, it must be married 
 to capital ; its blind productiveness must be system- 
 atized, its course directed. Labour is represented 
 by many individuals, and its rewards are subdivided 
 until they are proportionately small. Capital is 
 represented by fewer individuals, — sometimes by 
 one, — and the rewards, being less divided, become 
 proportionately greater. Yet, if the man who pays 
 the bills stands to make more, he also carries upon 
 his shoulders a responsibility which the others do not 
 wish to assume. He is the man who has dared, who 
 has come to the front in the industrial battle; he 
 wears the shoulder-straps and the gay uniform — 
 and at him all his adversaries point their Gatling 
 guns. 
 
 " It's a hard thing for him when the men in his 
 own ranks are ready to fight him, too. 
 
 "You don't fight me? You don't want to run 
 the Twin Brothers ? " In answer to a protest from 
 the back of the hall! " Well, the Local keeps a list 
 of Union men who want to work in my mine. 
 When there is a vacancy the committee goes to my 
 pit-boss and tells him where he can find a man for 
 the place — and he'd better find that man where 
 they tell him to look. The Twin Brothers has never 
 
MARK STRONG 19 
 
 been a Union mine. But from the first there 
 have been more Union than non-Union men in the 
 mine, and you are always expecting to make your 
 point, to make of it a Union mine, and get the 
 privilege of telling my non-Union men that they 
 can join the Local or quit work. That's what you've 
 been reasoning with me about ; sending this one and 
 that to me ; getting Van Dorn to plead ; threaten- 
 ing, begging, and getting always the same answer. 
 
 " The Union's a good thing. I give you full 
 swing to push the Union in the Twin Brothers. I 
 hope you'll have a good Local. I don't think there's 
 anything that will do you men more good than a 
 flourishing branch of the Union. It stands for 
 many good things ; but it can't run the Twin Broth- 
 ers. No. Never. I'll give you a hall; I'd keep 
 my membership in your association if your regula- 
 tions permitted me to. I'll cooperate with you in 
 any good work you take up, — but the Union will 
 never help me to run my mine. The Union can have 
 no control of its workings. Not while my head's 
 hot. When I can't run my own business I'll be 
 dead." 
 
 The quiet, emphatic voice ceased suddenly, and 
 Strong walked out amid a respectful silence. And 
 that speech is yet referred to in Iroquois, when new- 
 
20 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 comers find the owner of the Twin Brothers " a say- 
 nothing chap." 
 
 Now, an old man sauntered into the office and 
 looked questioningly down at the slender figure 
 behind the desk. 
 
 " Feelin' kinder seedy this mornin' ? " he in- 
 quired, genially; and one recognized the tones of 
 last night's rescuer. 
 
 " No. Thanks to you, Captain, I think I'm all 
 right, except this," raising a forefinger to a strip 
 of plaster across his temple beneath the gold rim 
 of his glasses, which showed where the beer bottle 
 from Yount's saloon had broken the skin. 
 
 " Guess that didn't have anything to do with the 
 Union," said the Captain, finally. " A lot of fool 
 boys was talking by the window as I passed, and I 
 heard your name. I stopped a minute — because 
 Yount's is a sort of Union headquarters, and I'm 
 like the rest of folks, I don't think you ought to 
 go on foot past such a place as that at night, when 
 there's any trouble with the men." 
 
 " And yet you don't think this was the Union ? " 
 observed Strong, smilingly. 
 
 " It was one boy," asserted the old man. " That 
 boy belongs to the Local, and he works in your 
 mine, and he'd persuaded four or five of the other 
 
MARK STRONG , 21 
 
 fellows to stand in. with him — but I have one or 
 two good reasons for thinking it was a personal 
 matter." 
 
 " Don't tell them to me," hastened Strong, put- 
 ting up an impulsive hand as though to ward off 
 a blow. "I — I think I can guess who it was, and 
 why it was." 
 
 The Captain regarded him for some time in 
 silence. Finally, — 
 
 " I know just as much or just as little about this 
 business as you want me to, Mr. Strong," he said. 
 " I didn't want to meddle, but to do some good. 
 Many a fool man's in the penitentiary because his 
 tongue was too long." And he chuckled whim- 
 sically. 
 
 Strong reached a hand across the table. 
 
 " Shake hands on it," he said ; and the Captain 
 clasped the slender member in his great paw, and 
 shook it heartily. " The Union has a broad back 
 — it'll have to shoulder that beer bottle." He 
 paused for a moment. " Captain McClintock, I 
 need a man like you in my employ. My farm boss 
 is going to leave at the end of the month — he has 
 Union principles — how would you like the posi- 
 tion?" 
 
 The large holdings of mine owners in the middle 
 West are farmed by tenants, or, more rarely, by the 
 
22 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 company itself. A farm boss's duties are to see that 
 the rents (generally in the shape of tithes) are col- 
 lected, or he attends to the administration on the 
 farms that the company itself may be operating. 
 
 " It would hit me just about right," agreed the 
 Captain. 
 
 And so the bargain was struck. As the old man 
 went out he met the president of the Local Branch 
 of the United Mine Workers. Strong was await- 
 ing the visit of a committee from this organization ; 
 and the president had come in a few minutes before 
 the appointed hour. He and his employer had 
 worked together in the mines as boys, and a kindly, 
 though undemonstrative, friendship subsisted be- 
 tween them. 
 
 A tall, well-built Pennsylvania Dutchman was 
 Joe Ackerman, with the slow wits, the sterling 
 honesty, and the crude simplicity which often char- 
 acterize his kind. He came to-day for the particular 
 purpose of labouring privately with his employer, 
 and of explaining to Strong that Van Dorn, super- 
 intendent and general manager as well as practical 
 owner of the Gloriana, was an example of what 
 may be done by acceding to the demands of the 
 Union. 
 
 " But, Mr. Strong," he argued, " you know that 
 in the Gloriana the Union has it all its own way. 
 
MARK STRONG 23 
 
 Mr. Van Dorn just sends for the committee when 
 there's any kick coming, and talks it over like one 
 of 'em." 
 
 Strong looked the big, simple man up and down, 
 with pity. 
 
 " I wonder at you, Joe," he said, finally. " I 
 know a little soft soap from a fellow like that 
 makes things slide easy ; but I really wonder at you. 
 He sends for the Union — he's got the working 
 man's wrongs at heart — he's willing to talk to your 
 committee! I wonder at you." 
 
 Ackerman scratched his head, and looked his 
 employer and one-time associate in the eye frankly ; 
 he was an honest man, if a rather slow one. 
 
 " I know what you mean, Mark," he said, in a 
 lower tone. " I've got the same feeling, too, about 
 Van Dorn, and it ain't just because his hands is so 
 white, and his pants always creased down the front 
 as if they'd just come off the shelf in the store. 
 Yet you're bound to admit the facts; you can't 
 deny that he lets the Union run his mine." 
 
 " Because he's too flabby to run it himself. Be- 
 cause he doesn't know enough — he doesn't know 
 how. And how does the Union run it, Joe? The 
 Gloriana has been losing money — Oh, I didn't 
 blame that on the Union — it was you that said the 
 Union was running the mine. I say Van Dorn's 
 
24 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 mine doesn't pay because Van Dorn doesn't know 
 his business. Is the Union in that business? Does 
 it know that business ? " 
 
 Ackerman shook his head sheepishly. 
 
 " Well, then, the man who keeps the Union 
 where it belongs — as I intend to — pays its men 
 good wages, gives them a safe, dry mine to work 
 in, adds every reasonable privilege they ask for — 
 and makes money for himself and them — is a 
 better friend to the Union than Van Dorn. 
 
 " Tell the truth, Joey," he said, leaning suddenly 
 forward with a smile. " Wouldn't the men leave 
 Van Dorn to come to me to-morrow, if they 
 thought they could get in here? Wouldn't they 
 rather work for me, ten to one, than stay with him ? 
 Who makes the most money, the men in the Glo- 
 riana, or the men in the Twin Brothers? Don't 
 quote Van Dorn to me, Joe," Strong frowned, 
 impatiently. "You'll see the day you'll be sorry 
 you ever trusted his friendliness to the Union." 
 
 Ackerman's stubborn " Dutch " was aroused. 
 " But I tell you Van Dorn is a reasonable man," 
 he persisted, " and a good friend to the Union. 
 He — " 
 
 "Van Dorn?" broke in Strong. "Joe, he 
 despises the Union — and all working men — as the 
 dirt under his feet ! The dirt that it is necessary to 
 
MARK STRONG 25 
 
 have there, so that he can walk on it. You've 
 picked out a bad illustration, Joe; Van Dorn isn't 
 even an American." 
 
 " W'y, you must be out of your head, Mark ! 
 'Course he's an American, — w'y, he was born right 
 here in — " 
 
 " Yes, I know where he was born ; but that was 
 the last of his Americanism. His mother took him 
 abroad when he was a chunk of a boy — took him 
 and his sister — and they've been abroad ever 
 since, till they came back here last year, after Van 
 Dorn had married the Gloriana. There isn't an 
 American thought in their heads. They're as 
 French as the Frenchest — just as their mother 
 wanted them to be. Lord, I wish you could hear 
 your friend Van Dorn talk to me a little! It's 
 equal to that devil, what's-his-name, over there in 
 France before their revolution. The man that said, 
 ' If the people are hungry let them eat grass ! ' 
 That's Van Dorn exactly. He'd use the working 
 people's flesh and blood and bones to make him a 
 carpet to walk through life the smoother on." 
 
 " You talk about Van Dorn getting such notions 
 in France," put in Ackerman ; " w'y, you're away 
 off, Mark. France is the red-hottest kind of a re- 
 public — more republican than we are. They're 
 the fellows — " 
 
26 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 "Oh, it is, is it? The poor, idle, bloodless 
 sponges of ex-counts, ex-dukes, and the rest of that 
 sort of gentry that Van Dorn associates with over 
 there were red-hot republicans, were they? Walk- 
 ing around cursing the people, watching their 
 chance, hoping for the day when they can get back 
 on to the necks of the people, — they're republi- 
 cans, are they? Well, I guess not. I tell you, 
 Joe, Van Dorn is not the kind of fellow to be 
 friends with the real people of any country. It's 
 the aristocracy — in other words, the vagrants, the 
 sponges, the blood-suckers — that are his associates. 
 And you fellows come and talk to me about that 
 man being a friend to your Union! It's hard for 
 me to have patience to listen to you ! " 
 
 Joe Ackerman was a man who carried himself 
 with a sort of dignity, despite his twenty years in 
 the mine. " Well — well ; let that go, then," he 
 said, hesitatingly. "I — I — " He came to a 
 troubled stop, and looked helplessly at his employer 
 with dumb, appealing, dark eyes. 
 
 " You want to speak to me about something aside 
 from committee business ? " the other helped him 
 out. 
 
 "Why, yes — that's it, that's it," agreed the 
 president of the Local, in a relieved tone. " It's 
 something the Union hain't got nothing to do with. 
 
MARK STRONG 27 
 
 It's — it's about that there " — he glanced at the 
 strip of plaster upon the other's head — " that there 
 beer bottle," he concluded, naively. 
 
 " And you think the Union had nothing to do 
 with the beer bottle, Joey ? " returning to the fa- 
 miliar accost of their boyhood. 
 
 Ackerman shook his head. " You know as well 
 as me, Mark, that the Union ain't 'round throwin' 
 things at people when there ain't no strike on," 
 he argued. 
 
 " The Union certainly threw some things at 
 people when I used to belong to it," debated Strong, 
 with a half-smile. " Yes, and, by George, they hit 
 — and hit harder than this one did ! " 
 
 " The Union lost a good man when you got rich, 
 Mark," the miner commented. " But," falling sud- 
 denly anxious again, " about that there beer bottle : 
 I hope you won't lay it on the Union. Because a 
 lot of fool boys gets half-slung and — " 
 
 His hearer shivered slightly, and sat down. 
 
 " I think 'I know just who threw it, Ackerman," 
 he said, sharply. "I — there was somebody about 
 who gave me a clue. So, after all, the beer bottle 
 comes out of the Union ; and your assurances come 
 out of the same place; and I understand one just 
 as well as I do the other." 
 
28 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " I said you'd lay it to the Union," concluded the 
 miner, in a discouraged tone. 
 
 " Let the Union put a stop to that sort of violence 
 if it doesn't approve it," said Strong^ grimly. 
 " That's its business. Let it attend to such things 
 — to keeping its young men straight, and provid- 
 ing better amusement for them than they can find 
 at Yount's. Perhaps if it looks after these things 
 it won't have so much time to tell me how to run my 
 business." 
 
 He had spoken with bitterness, yet he put out a 
 hand to the departing man and drew him kindly 
 back. 
 
 " I want Union miners in my mine. I believe 
 the Union can make of its men superior employes, 
 as army training makes superior fighters. I be- 
 lieve there's a big future for organized labour, — 
 but, Joe, they'll never get to it by trying to dictate 
 to their employers on points that don't concern 
 them. Sit down, Joe. Here comes your blessed 
 committee." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE COMMITTEE 
 
 They filed Into the room, six big, hulking, toil- 
 crippled men. There was nothing in this simple, 
 plain apartment to overawe them or embarrass them. 
 The man at the desk was an old acquaintance — to 
 some of them, an old friend. He had grown up in 
 the mines. His physique was the stunted result of 
 labour performed in the bowels of the earth while 
 that form was in its growing stage. Trapper, 
 driver, miner, timberman, boss — he knew it all; 
 not from the ground up, but from beneath the 
 ground up. And yet, perhaps for that very reason, 
 they did not like to face him. " Bedad, 'tis like 
 goin' to Pat Hennessy and tellin' him how he shall 
 manage his goat, to trot up to Mark Strong and 
 dictate to him about his mine," Corrigan had said, 
 as they came up the street. 
 
 A roar of laughter greeted this. 
 
 " 'Tis," asseverated the Irishman. " Hennessy 
 does ill enough with that goat, God knows; and 
 
 29 
 
30 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 likely Mark Strong does ill enough with the Twin 
 Brothers. And yit, d'ye see? Hennessy raised 
 that goat from a kid; and 'tis as though Mark 
 Strong had raised the mine — it sorter belongs to 
 him." 
 
 The first question brought forward was the pro- 
 hibition Strong had put upon the sending of a 
 committee up out of the mine with complaints. 
 
 The Union sanctions the custom of men laying 
 down pick and shovel to go up as a committee and 
 wait upon the superintendent with complaints. 
 More than that, it pays them so much per 
 hour for the time they thus pleasantly consume. 
 Strong's contention was that his inspectors made 
 the Twin Brothers a safe mine, as near as human 
 care and foresight could, and that any grievances 
 the men might have regarding the management of 
 the mine could easily wait until the whistle had 
 blown in the afternoon. He further asserted that 
 the getting together of this committee meant that 
 the men had been neglecting their work to compare 
 grievances. 
 
 The slender figure in gray seated itself in the desk 
 chair; those wonderful eyes, intolerable to the evil- 
 doer, and capable of much childlike directness and 
 frankness, looked his men over briefly. 
 
 " You say that I don't know how to appreciate 
 
THE COMMITTEE 31 
 
 your situation," he began, " because I refuse to let a 
 committee come up out of the Twin Brothers and 
 dictate to me concerning the manner in which the 
 mine shall be run. I don't refuse to receive you men 
 that are regularly appointed by the Union when 
 you come and talk over the various matters of our 
 work, but I do refuse to have my workmen throw 
 down their tools in working hours and bob up to 
 me with every petty grievance they can rake out — 
 yes, and any petty grievance. My bosses will have 
 to run the mine till the whistle blows. Then, if any- 
 thing of sufficient importance has occurred, the men 
 can report it to me, or they can report it to the 
 Union, and let the Union come to me about it. I 
 say that the method you now pursue is offensive to 
 an employer, and unsettling to his men, and I will 
 not have it." 
 
 " And yet, Mr. Strong, I understand you were 
 a miner yourself — and a member of the Mine 
 Workers' Union." 
 
 This from a new man named Marchmont. If 
 the speaker thought that such a reminder would be 
 humiliating to Mark Strong, he was mistaken. 
 
 " I was that," the owner of the Twin Brothers 
 replied to him. " I would be some inches taller if the 
 Union had got its work in a little earlier." 
 
32 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " How do you make that out? " asked the spokes- 
 man. 
 
 " The Union, some years ago, made it impossible 
 for boys under fourteen to labour in the mines. 
 Some parents will lie about their children's ages, 
 and unless the superintendent watches close, boys 
 under that age are got past them ; but I went into 
 the mine to work beside my father when I was a 
 little shaver of ten — and of course I never got my 
 growth." 
 
 It waited close behind Joe Ackerman's loyal'lips 
 to tell his old associate and present employer that 
 his soul had grown up tall if his body remained 
 stunted. But no words came to the slow-witted 
 fellow to clothe this somewhat delicate proposition, 
 and he let it slip. 
 
 " I have many reasons for making the Twin 
 Brothers as safe, as well run a mine, as can be put 
 under ground," Strong went on. " Here's one of 
 them — the main one : I had been helping my father 
 in the mine for five years; I was a boy of fifteen 
 when he was killed." 
 
 The little man bent forward and struck an im- 
 pressive forefinger upon the table in front of him. 
 " The men who owned that mine in which my father 
 worked — John Bolingbroke was president of the 
 company — are as responsible for his death as 
 
THE COMMITTEE 33 
 
 though they had taken a chunk of coal and knocked 
 him down. They knew the room into which we 
 were sent was unsafe, — I'd say nothing against any 
 committee which dropped work and came up out of 
 a mine to report on such a roof as that — but there 
 was no Union and no committee in those days. I 
 was loading a car down near the neck of the room, 
 and father was drilling at the face, when suddenly 
 we heard a crackling, snapping, grinding sound — 
 you know it well — " 
 
 He glanced along the line of faces, and was 
 answered with a nod or a low reply from one or 
 two. 
 
 " I looked up at the prop nearest me, and saw its 
 cap slipping. Then I heard father call to me to 
 run for my life.- He knew — and I knew — that 
 there was no use going back to him — but I tried to. 
 There was a sharp crack, and the slate came down 
 between us — he was under tons of it. They were 
 a week digging out the body." 
 
 In the moment of silence which followed Strong's 
 last word, the men's heavy breathing sounded loud. 
 Then the mine owner resumed, quietly : 
 
 " But this is a different matter. I give you a safe 
 mine to work in. I watch like a hawk to see there 
 is nothing amiss in the Twin Brothers. If you've 
 got a legitimate cause of dissatisfaction, I'm ready 
 
34 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 to arbitrate — but have your committee come jawing 
 to me during working hours — seeking to run my 
 business for me — I will not." 
 
 " But, Mr. Strong, we don't seek to run your 
 business. These things we — we — suggest, are 
 unimportant little matters, that no doubt you'd take 
 up yourself. You don't want no scabs in the mine. 
 If you stick by the Union, the Union will stick by 
 you." 
 
 " That ought to be so," returned the employer, 
 pleasantly, " but it isn't. The Union men will work 
 for me — just like any other men — as long as they 
 feel like it, and I pay them what is right. I don't 
 want anything else, and they won't do anything else. 
 Your attitude, my friend, is that a man who belongs 
 to the Union is all right, and a man who doesn't 
 belong to the Union — well, you call them rats or 
 scabs. Now, I want miners in my mine. I like 
 the idea of you men having a Union, and I wish 
 they would take up matters which come properly 
 within their province : keeping boys who are under 
 age out of the mine — that is, helping me to do 
 it; improving themselves in the work, and having 
 such meetings for social enjoyment as they may 
 choose; adding an insurance feature if they feel 
 like it, and letting me mind my own business while 
 they mind theirs." 
 
THE COMMITTEE 35 
 
 " Aw, the Union'll insure us fast enough," mut- 
 tered an old miner at the end of the line. 
 
 " Yes, it will insure you when you strike. But 
 if you're killed in the mine, it is your employer who 
 has paid your premiums," amended Strong. 
 
 " Well, he ort to, ortn't he? " asked Gillespie. 
 
 " Of course he ought," agreed the other. " I'm 
 only calling your attention to the fact that your 
 Union, which neither insures you nor pays the 
 premium on your insurance, stands ready to back you 
 while you're striking, to injure your employer who 
 does." 
 
 " 'Tis the only power we've got, Mr. Strong," 
 returned the leader, doggedly, " and we're obliged 
 to use it." 
 
 " Perhaps we haven't reached that point in this 
 country," Strong answered, a little sarcastically, 
 " but they are getting along very nicely without it in 
 New Zealand." 
 
 " This ain't New Zealand," the miner replied. 
 
 In his tone was all the ignorant man's gross con- 
 tempt for that which lies beyond his little ken. 
 Strong smiled, and returned to the matter in hand. 
 
 " I tell you, men, I've no complaint to make 
 against the Union. It's only a few years old in this 
 country — hardly grown up yet — and it's bound to 
 have the faults of youth. When I was a miner, and 
 
36 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 a member of the Miners' Union — and I was a 
 mighty good earnest one — it was in its infancy, 
 and it behaved as babies generally do. It got what 
 it wanted by yelling and kicking. It's all right for 
 a baby to get what it wants that way, and it was 
 all right for the Union then. But a great organiza- 
 tion like that ought to outgrow the kicking and yell- 
 ing stage sometime. I think — I hope — I believe 
 that the time has come for the Union to put on the 
 dignity of manhood, and to earn consideration and 
 give value received for the consideration." 
 
 " Well, a strike — " began the leader, a little un- 
 easily, when Strong interrupted him, mildly: 
 
 " I believe that the strike is what old man Kes- 
 terson would call obsolescent — that is, it's going 
 out of fashion ; it will soon be a thing of the past. 
 I wouldn't legislate against it, because there is no 
 need. The Union must simply see that it is a 
 weapon which served its turn, and is now no longer 
 useful." 
 
 "It served its turn, did it?" inquired March- 
 mont, with sudden heat. " Well, Mr. Strong, it 
 will serve a turn yet, for labour." 
 
 Strong nodded. " You think so? Well, that 
 means that you'll have to test it. A man never 
 learns anything save by experience. An organiza- 
 tion of men has to learn the same way. For that 
 
THE COMMITTEE 37 
 
 reason I'm extremely foolish to talk to you against 
 strikes ; but I'm going to do it. See here : the word 
 strike is its own condemnation. It means a fight. 
 Capital and labour do not want to fight. You come 
 here to me to arbitrate with the expressed intention 
 of avoiding a strike, or fight. But the men who are 
 too handy with a strike are just like a man who 
 is too handy with his gun — in the end they run up 
 against law and order, and make as much trouble 
 for themselves as they do for the other fellow." 
 
 " Most of us are willing to do that, if we can 
 only hit the other fellow hard enough," agreed 
 Marchmont, grimly. 
 
 " It isn't the hard hitting that I am so particu- 
 larly objecting to," agreed Strong. " It's the quick 
 hitting. That always means a feeling of weakness. 
 The Union doesn't strike, nowadays, because it 
 feels so strong, but because it's afraid the other 
 fellow is stronger. Now, I tell you, my men, 
 fundamentally, capital is not stronger than labour. 
 Fundamentally, the strength is all with labour. 
 If you could unite as one man, you would crush 
 any one employer, no matter what his fortune. 
 Of course it's asking more than there is in hu- 
 man nature, to suppose that the Union will be 
 as united as the members of a man's body; and 
 that is about the only strength capital has against 
 
38 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 you. One of my objections to the strike is that 
 it's a lie. You don't quit working in a man's mine 
 because you want to quit, because you don't intend 
 to work for that man on those terms again ; if you 
 did, you'd cripple him badly. An employer who 
 was really so detested that not one of you would 
 work for him (supposing you to be able to unite 
 and hang together indefinitely) would be a ruined 
 man. But yours is a bluff — a stick that you shake 
 at the man. You all quit at once, and in the most 
 inconvenient season, with a view to showing him 
 how dependent he is upon you. Well, that was 
 needed once. The employers did not realize how 
 dependent they were upon their men. I believe that 
 they all do realize it now, and I believe that in the 
 years to come you will do something better than 
 strike ; just as you are giving up the boycott — and 
 the boycott wasn't to be despised in its time, when 
 the straits of labour were really desperate." 
 
 " They're desperate now, Mr. Strong ; they're 
 desperate to-day. Any man that can read the 
 papers and not realize that the burning question of 
 the hour is, shall the workingman be given a share 
 in the dollar he earns, — well, we've done some- 
 thing with the Unions, and the strikes you think 
 so bad of, and the boycott you say we don't use no 
 more; but I'd call the condition of labour in these 
 
THE COMMITTEE 39 
 
 United States at this day, desperate — that's what 
 I'd call it — desperate." 
 
 " Um," said Strong, with an inscrutable look 
 through his glasses, and a half-smile. " And so you 
 men ask of me, and of all mine owners, what you 
 are not willing to do yourself. You say that I shall 
 agree to hire none but Union miners. It's probable 
 I might prefer to do that; but I have to do it un- 
 fettered, do it without promising." 
 
 "And what is it we are not willing to do?" 
 asked the spokesman. 
 
 " A thing I didn't ask of you, and which no em- 
 ployer asks of you, but which would be exactly the 
 same to you as this promise is to me; you are not 
 willing to bind yourselves to work- only for me. 
 I'm to employ nobody but you, but you are not to 
 work for me alone — individually, I mean." 
 
 There was an open smile on the faces of the com- 
 mittee. 
 
 " You employers have got us there," said the 
 spokesman. " We've bought little homes here, some 
 of us ; we don't know anything but mining, and we 
 can't go some place else and get some other kind 
 of work." 
 
 " That's a very tiresome old — lie," said Strong, 
 gently. " I don't mean that you men want to lie to 
 me, because you don't; you're just repeating what 
 
40 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 you've heard from the platform and read in labour 
 papers. You could sell your houses here, individu- 
 ally, more easily than I could sell the Twin Broth- 
 ers. You are not tied to me more than I am tied to 
 you by the force of circumstances. Any one of you 
 could get a job half-way across the country to- 
 morrow, and go to it. You know that's so." 
 
 Here he touched the pride of the good workman 
 whose boast it is that he would never be out of 
 employment. The committee were the best men in 
 the mine, and it irked them to let it go that if Mark 
 Strong discharged them to-morrow they would be 
 lacking means or opportunity to support their 
 families. They looked at each other dubiously; 
 their employer's quiet words seemed often like a 
 trap. Should they say yes or no to this? 
 
 " You know how it is in a strike," the leader 
 pursued, finally. " The men hang around the mine 
 because they can't get away; and the women and 
 children starve." 
 
 " In a strike — yes — that's just it," agreed 
 Strong. " In a strike the power of the individual 
 is destroyed; he cannot act independently. Other 
 mines are not needing the whole body of men, and 
 the thriftless element is urged into yet more thrift- 
 less courses by being supported by the Union. I 
 sometimes think that is what a good many of them 
 
THE COMMITTEE 41 
 
 strike for. But let the Union decide to-morrow that 
 it didn't want its men to work for Mark Strong; 
 let you men set about it as I would to dispose of 
 some stock I didn't wish to retain. I wouldn't 
 flood the market, I'd let it go by littles. You men 
 could seek employment like that, and actually 
 leave me without a driver to whack a mule in 
 the Twin Brothers. You know you could. That's 
 the way I'd run a strike nowadays, if I were 
 back in the Union. I suspect I was a fool to tell 
 you the plan; but I counted on your being enough 
 bigger fools not to put it in operation." 
 
 The men looked at each other in bewilderment. 
 It sounded well, but of course it was a trap. They 
 sheered away from it, and brought forward again 
 the grievance with which they had come. 
 
 " Mr. Strong, we want to hear you say that the 
 Twin Brothers will be put on the same basis as the 
 Gloriana. We want to carry back word to the boys 
 that there's one more employer who finds it to his 
 interest to stand by the Union and run a close 
 Union mine." 
 
 " But I don't think it to my interest — nor yours," 
 rejoined Strong. " I will strike hands with the 
 Union in all things reasonable. I'll give you a 
 Union hall that shall be as good as any hall this 
 side of Chicago, and it sha'n't cost you a cent. But 
 
42 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 I shall continue to hire and discharge whom I please, 
 and to run the Twin Brothers as I think best." 
 
 " A Union hall ! A club-house ! " snorted March- 
 mont. " Do you think that's a fair return for what 
 the Union; offers you? " 
 
 " The Union offers me — nothing," returned 
 Strong, concisely. " If you'd incorporate, so you 
 could be held to anything, so you could be sued, there 
 might be some use in talking of what the Union can 
 offer. As it is, you're water — that's what you are 
 — water. You can come up against an employer 
 with this strike you're so free to threaten, and you 
 can drown him out. But let him try to grasp you 
 and hold you to any promise or agreement, and 
 you're water, your words are so much spilled water 
 on the ground. See how nicely they get along in 
 New Zealand; the Unions there are responsible 
 parties." 
 
 " Mr. Strong, do you hint that if we made you 
 a promise here to-day the Union wouldn't keep 
 it ? And " — hotly — " we don't give a damn about 
 New Zealand ! " 
 
 " No. I don't hint it — I never was known to 
 hint anything in all my life, Marchmont — I say it 
 out, flat-footed. Who would I hold to it? You'd 
 all be sorry, and come around and tell me so. But 
 if the Union didn't stand behind you, what would 
 
THE COMMITTEE 43 
 
 you do? I'll not make any promises to a willapus- 
 wallapus like that. When the Union becomes a 
 body corporate, I'll treat with it. While it remains 
 a club, I'll — " His voice softened; he smiled a 
 bit humorously — " I'll offer it a club-house." 
 
 "Then we are to understand," said Marchmont, 
 rising, " that this is your last word." Marchmont 
 was spokesman generally for the committee. 
 " We're to go back to the Union and tell them that 
 Mr. Strong of the Twin Brothers knows better how 
 to run the United Mine Workers' Union than the 
 men who have built it up from the beginning, are 
 we ? Are we to say that ? " 
 
 " You might," snapped Strong, with sudden as- 
 perity. " You may say anything you please to the 
 Union — I may as well give you that permission, 
 for you'll do it anyhow. If you told the truth, 
 you'd say to them that I know more about running 
 my own business than they do — and I propose to 
 run it." 
 
 It was not a politic speech ; it was not a wise one ; 
 but Strong's patience was suddenly at an end. He 
 felt that he had made all the concessions (verbally), 
 and that the stupidity of these men with whom he 
 was dealing merited a lesson. 
 
 " All right — all right," said Marchmont, nursing 
 his hat in the curve of his arm in a fashion quite 
 
44 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 inimitable. " Gentlemen, we may as well be going. 
 No need to trespass on Mr. Strong's valuable time." 
 This last with cutting emphasis. 
 
 " Quite so," agreed the little man in gray. And 
 the committee filed out, the six big, shambling, 
 toil-bowed men, stepping heavily, giving forth a 
 strong suggestion that they left the one little man in 
 gray at the desk to that destruction which his evil 
 ways, stubbornly persisted in, must bring upon him. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 JULIA LLEWELLYN 
 
 As the committee shook hands and made their 
 final adieux to each other in the yard, a woman 
 passed on the opposite side of the street; a tall 
 woman, walking with a peculiar, swinging grace. 
 
 She nodded to Joe Ackerman, who had fallen 
 behind with Marchmont, the new man. 
 
 " Whew ! but she's a beauty ! " ejaculated March- 
 mont. 
 
 " Yes, that's Mark Strong's old sweetheart," 
 explained Ackerman, looking after her. 
 
 " You don't say so ! " exclaimed Marchmont. 
 " Is that why he never married ? " he added, eagerly ; 
 for men in all walks of life are confirmed gossips, 
 though tradition lays the weakness upon the other 
 sex. 
 
 " Well, yes, I reckon so," assented Ackerman, 
 doubtfully. " At least, everybody says that's why. 
 I've known Mark Strong for twenty years. We 
 worked together in the southern part of the State. 
 
 45 
 
46 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 I was in the mine when his father was killed. When 
 he come up to Iroquois, he'd begun to rise in the 
 world. Everybody said he'd do just about what 
 he has done." 
 
 " I expect he had help," hazarded Marchmont. 
 
 " No, he didn't — except such help as was inside 
 his own hide. He was always a master-hand to 
 study nights. A loyal member of the Union — I'll 
 say that for him. When Mark got to be boss, he 
 had more time to study, and he had some money 
 to spend on it. He bought books, and he hired him 
 a teacher. It wasn't any time before all the folks 
 that felt themselves too good to associate with the 
 miners was having him at their houses, and letting 
 their girls go with him. Even old Doc Copeland," 
 he nodded to the graceful figure disappearing down 
 the street, " let his daughter Jule, the prettiest girl 
 in Iroquois, as you can see even yet, go with Mark 
 Strong." 
 
 The men were following the woman at a distance. 
 
 " She's sure a good looker now," agreed March- 
 mont. " I reckon she's married ? " 
 
 " A widow," supplied Ackerman. " Her and 
 Strong was engaged, as everybody supposed. The 
 story is that they quarrelled. Anyhow, she married 
 Jack Llewellyn, the dirtiest low-down blackguard 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 47 
 
 of a drunken brute that ever disgraced the name of 
 miner. Well, she left him." 
 
 "You say Strong stayed single for her? I'd 
 think they'd 'a' been married," suggested March- 
 mont. 
 
 " No, her and Mark Strong don't seem to have 
 no notion of marrying," Joe returned. " I suppose 
 he could get most anybody he'd want — maybe he 
 don't feel like marrying a miner's widow. They say 
 that there sister of Van Dorn's courts him every- 
 where she can catch him." 
 
 Marchmont whistled. Whether it was this state- 
 ment, or the fact that the woman ahead of them 
 was turning into the gateway of a small house, did 
 not appear. 
 
 " Is that where she lives ? " he inquired. 
 
 " No, that's Mike Carmody's she's goin' in to. 
 Jule's lived alone since Jack died, just her and her 
 boy." 
 
 "There's a child, then?" 
 
 " A child ? Oh, I guess Bob Llewellyn must be 
 sixteen or seventeen; and he's about the most un- 
 promising young fool we've got in the Local," said 
 Ackerman, gloomily. " I'd 'a' turned him out — 
 or thrashed him — before now, if it hadn't been for 
 his mother. I've known Jule since she was a girl, 
 and she has such a pretty way of putting it about 
 
48 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Bob, that I never can come down on him as hard as 
 he deserves." 
 
 " That's the way a woman's fetching up ruins a 
 boy," grumbled Marchmont, as the two men passed 
 the gate. 
 
 Meantime, inside the Carmody shanty Jule had 
 found Katie, the old man's daughter. The girl's 
 eyes were red with weeping ; she had sobbed till her 
 voice was flatted and dull. 
 
 " I sent for you, Mrs. Llewellyn," she said, nerve- 
 lessly, " to see if you could help me about selling 
 these things." 
 
 Jule looked at the humble trousseau spread out 
 upon the bed. She had helped to make most of the 
 articles, and had worked hard over them at a re- 
 duced price, because Katie Carmody had so little 
 and desired so much — it was always Jule's weak- 
 ness to indulge the failings of others. 
 
 " Why, you're not going to give Charlie up, are 
 you ? " she asked, in a startled tone. 
 
 " Give him up ? " echoed the girl, bitterly ; and 
 then a rush of tears from the fountain which had 
 seemed run dry, choked her utterance for a moment. 
 " I reckon I might as well tell you what the town 
 will know before I'm done with it — Charlie's gone 
 back on me." 
 
 Jule dropped into a chair, and took some of the 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 49 
 
 sleazy finery in her lap, fingering the folds with a 
 gentle hand. 
 
 " Sit down, Kate," she said, finally. " I guess 
 I've got to talk to you. There are some things 
 I hate dreadfully to speak about, but — I will, if — 
 if it can do any good." 
 
 The Carmody girl knew poor Jule's married 
 history; she was aware that the patient, hard- 
 worked seamstress had the name of having, in her 
 beautiful, wilful youth, jilted Mark Strong — just 
 as Charlie had now jilted her, Katie. She knew 
 that Julia Llewellyn had unaccountably married a 
 man far below her in the social scale, a miner, as 
 Charlie was, and again, like Charlie, a man who 
 drank. Everybody in Iroquois had to know these 
 latter features, for Julia had lived the tragic life in 
 which she was neither maid, wife, nor widow. 
 
 " I don't know just where to begin," said the 
 older woman, taking the girl's rough, toil-hardened 
 hand, and stroking it softly. " I want to help you to 
 the knowledge that Charlie's going back on you 
 may be the best thing that ever happened to' you." 
 
 She was so long silent after this that the girl, 
 filled with coarse curiosity, suggested : " Maybe 
 you mean that you've always felt it was a good 
 thing you threw Mark Strong over ? " 
 
50 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 A quiver went through Julia's form, and she laid 
 the girl's hand down, though gently. 
 
 " No," she said, decidedly. " I didn't mean that. 
 It has nothing to do with Mark Strong. He is one 
 of the best men God ever made — but I have noth- 
 ing to do with him. What I meant to tell you of 
 was my husband, Jack Llewellyn. I was about 
 as old as you when I married Jack." 
 
 " And mother says you were the prettiest thing 
 she ever laid her eyes on," said Katie, with in- 
 terest. 
 
 " I guess what good looks I had turned my head," 
 said Jule, wearily. " Jack drank about as much as 
 your Charlie." 
 
 " But Charlie had promised me that he'd quit 
 drinking when he was married," put in the girl, 
 eagerly. 
 
 Jule looked at her in pity. 
 
 " Don't you know, dear, that's what they all 
 say? It seems as though any girl ought to realize 
 that the common run of men will do more for a 
 sweetheart than they will for a wife." 
 
 She seemed to take counsel with her own soul, 
 to dread repeating to these alien ears what had been 
 so fiery a trial — and to decide that she ought to 
 do so. 
 
 " Jack Llewellyn didn't drink any more than your 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 51 
 
 Charlie. He was a handsome boy. He had pretty 
 ways. I'd quarrelled with the — man — I'd quar- 
 relled with somebody else, and I married Jack all in 
 a hurry, without giving a thought to consequences. 
 My dear girl, a drunken man is a drunken man; 
 none of them are nice, or choice, or even decent. I 
 walked through hell with Jack for nearly a year, 
 and then, just before my son was born, my husband 
 came home a little drunker than usual, or perhaps 
 he had been drinking a different kind of liquor, for 
 he looked wicked, and he kept still, and that was not 
 generally his way. It ought to have frightened me 
 — and it did. But what could I do ? I was married 
 to him — the same as you would have been married 
 to Charlie, you know, Katie, if this thing had gone 
 through as you hoped it would. We were all alone 
 in our little shanty, and there was nobody to say 
 he shouldn't knock me down." 
 
 "Did he? Did the nasty brute do that? I've 
 heard, but I never believed it." 
 
 " Hush," said Jule, softly. " He's dead, re- 
 member. Maybe he was a brute — but what kind of 
 a fool had I been to marry him, when I might have 
 expected no better ? Oh, yes, Jack knocked me down. 
 I left him, you know, and for three years it was 
 his one determination in life (when he'd get drunk) 
 to kill me andget the child. That's what took me to 
 
52 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 live with Owen Llewellyn's family. Owen could 
 handle him when he was that way." 
 
 The girl had almost forgotten her own woes in 
 the elation of hearing this woman, who spoke so 
 seldom of her personal affairs, talk freely concern- 
 ing them. 
 
 " Is it true that he tried to burn your house 
 when you set up a dressmaking shop? Is that why 
 you never dared to, and just made your living by 
 days' works ? " she asked, breathlessly. 
 
 Jule nodded with closed lips. 
 
 " I don't want to seem to be telling a lot about 
 the shortcomings of a man that's dead and gone," 
 she said, rising and laying a hand on the girl's shoul- 
 der. " I just want to remind you, Katie, that you 
 might be a great deal worse off." 
 
 The girl turned her face against Jule's white 
 apron, and drew the arm around her neck. 
 
 " God bless you, Mrs. Llewellyn," she said, in a 
 muffled voice. " I think you're an angel, to hurt 
 your own heart — to go against your own feelings 
 — for the sake of helping me. If it wasn't for the 
 speech of people, I don't know so well but that I 
 could feel just as you say. But I do hate to be 
 pointed at as being a girl that some man went back 
 on." 
 
 The rich red surged up in Jule's face ; Katie Car- 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 53 
 
 mody had put finger upon the sorest spot in the 
 other's soul. 
 
 "For God's sake, never think of that!" she 
 cried. " It was there I shipwrecked my life. You 
 wouldn't think it, when I threw over a man like 
 Mark Strong to marry Jack Llewellyn — but it was 
 because of the talk of a lot of silly girls that I went 
 with, who were always saying that Mark was ugly 
 and common-looking, and Jack was just grand. 
 Oh, my child! you must learn that the speech of 
 people isn't worth the breath it takes to make it." 
 
 " I should think he — Strong, I mean — would 
 have come right to you after you left Jack, and 
 helped you to get a divorce. I had a lady friend 
 down in Evansville that had an experience like 
 yours. She's married to the sober man now, and 
 they're doing splendid. But I expect you know your 
 own plans best," stealing a look at the tall woman. 
 " Maybe he did come, and you turned him down." 
 The girl was on tenter-hooks of greedy inquisitive- 
 ness. " Maybe that's the reason that since you're 
 a real widow — maybe that's why — " 
 
 She broke off in a sort of terror. 
 
 Here again was the sore spot, and Julia's head was 
 thrown back haughtily. She was sorry, in that 
 moment, that she had attempted to help poor Kate. 
 
54 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 The girl saw the thought in her face, and cried out, 
 deprecating : 
 
 " Oh, don't mind me, Mrs. Llewellyn — don't ! 
 I'm just a fool. Mother says I do say the awfulest 
 things to folks ; she wonders I've got a friend left ! 
 But I do hate Mark Strong, and always will — for 
 your sake. He can't appreciate you." 
 
 " Don't, Katie ! You don't know what you're 
 talking about," said Julia, sharply. She turned to 
 the garments on the bed, and went on with a palpable 
 effort : 
 
 " I wouldn't sell these. They're made to fit you. 
 You go on and wear them. You won't get half 
 what they're worth if you try to sell them. And, 
 mind what I tell you, clear; don't pay attention to 
 what people say. If you listen to others, you'll have 
 no peace of your life." 
 
 Brave advice! But all the way home Kate Car- 
 mody's hints obtruded themselves upon poor Jule's 
 mind. 
 
 There had not been a month of the hundreds 
 which were counted in Julia Llewellyn's anomalous 
 widowhood — when Jack Llewellyn was living, but 
 she was not living with him — that some friend did 
 not suggest or insinuate to her that Mark Strong 
 might procure her legal separation from her drunken 
 husband, and offer her marriage. It was always 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 55 
 
 in Owen Llewellyn's mind; he told her clumsily, 
 and at great length, the story of a relative of his 
 own, in which a well-doing man had not only sug- 
 gested the divorce, but paid the " good smart 
 lawyer " to get it. 
 
 Jule well knew that, so far as legal grounds went, 
 she might have had a divorce at any time after she 
 left her poor drunken husband. But her answer 
 to Owen was always : 
 
 " I married Jack of my own free-will, brother. 
 If I didn't know that he would get drunk and strike 
 me, at least I knew well enough that such a thing 
 was not impossible, and I did not use any reason in 
 the matter at all. I just married Jack to satisfy 
 my own wilful whim. I don't believe, Owen, that 
 the law can free me of all responsibility by making a 
 decree of divorce, — that couldn't change me or 
 Jack, or the real conditions. I don't think there is 
 any obligation on me to live with Jack — I don't 
 think I did him any good when I did live with him, 
 or that such a life would be right now. But I won't 
 get any divorce — I'll just stay as I am." 
 
 This was truly poor Julia's view of her unhappy 
 situation. But the thought down deep in her heart 
 which she did not utter, was this : If she cast Jack 
 off, if she sought a legal divorce from him, it would 
 seem like taking a step toward her old lover. Then, 
 
56 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 if Mark failed to offer himself, how would her 
 humiliation be doubled! 
 
 What Mark Strong's feelings were in the matter 
 it would have been hard to conjecture. He must 
 have suffered in seeing the girl he had loved with 
 a single heart go so far astray, make so terrible a 
 mistake, then pay for it so terrible a price. How- 
 ever this may have been, none knew what the man's 
 feelings were; and the two who had been be- 
 trothed lovers used now toward each other the man- 
 ner of kindly old acquaintances. 
 
 She knew — as everybody in Iroquois knew — 
 the simple life of the owner of the Twin Brothers. 
 It was not alone that he had put no woman in her 
 place — it seemed that he had put nothing else in 
 that place — that his was an existence so bare, so 
 shorn, as to be almost a thing deformed. Yet Jule 
 Llewellyn was left, with the rest of the world, out- 
 side of this life. 
 
 These things could not fail to be galling to the 
 woman. Women are taught that it is well-nigh a 
 slur not to be ardently pursued by a lover. It is 
 possible that Julia never asked herself whether she 
 would have been pleased had Mark Strong followed 
 the course suggested by Owen ; it is certain that she 
 could not have thought he would be himself and 
 do so; yet, as year succeeded year, it is not strange 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 57 
 
 that she came to have a slighted feeling, and that 
 her old lover was mentioned in the household as 
 an enemy, one who, growing rich, had put an 
 affront upon them all. It is a singular thing how 
 unsuccessful people saddle their failures upon their 
 more prosperous intimates. They would seem to 
 say that Fate has but so many good gifts in her 
 hand, and, having lavished all upon these favourites, 
 has left only trials, disappointments, unsuccess, for 
 the others. 
 
 Poor Bob was full of it ; crude, affectionate, per- 
 sistently admiring his beautiful mother, he felt that 
 he was the young knight to avenge her; and Mark 
 Strong meant to him everything that was over- 
 bearing, insulting, intolerable. 
 
 People do not run away from such conditions. 
 The Llewellyns stayed. Owen was an excellent 
 workman, and as merit was sure of its due in the 
 Twin Brothers, he went on up from fire boss to 
 pit boss. Then his activity in the Union began 
 to take most of his time, and, being made district 
 president, he gave up work and his home in Iroquois 
 to devote his entire attention to it. Owen had been 
 ambitious for his children; he had one daughter 
 who was a teacher in the public schools of the town 
 in which he now lived, and a son doing well in 
 business there. Perhaps some thought of the ad- 
 
58 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 vantage such a connection would be to him and his 
 mingled with his earnestness to see Strong renew 
 his addresses to Julia. 
 
 Owen Llewellyn's upbringing of his own children 
 had been bad. As American parents are, he was 
 fond of them, proud of them, and ambitious for 
 them; and in so far this was good, and good for 
 them. But his very pride and fondness counselled 
 him to teach them to be insubordinate and vindictive 
 like himself. If a teacher disciplined one of them, 
 the child was removed from the school, often after 
 a scene in which the father encouraged the young- 
 ster to speak his mind to the instructor. When 
 quarrels came up between the young Llewellyns 
 and their playmates, they were sure of their father's 
 approval if they hit hardest and held out longest. 
 The cause of contention was not apt to be investi- 
 gated. 
 
 Though it was true that he controlled his brother 
 when Jack was drunk and dangerous, his influence 
 upon the younger man had never been for the good. 
 Proud of Jack's beauty and courage, exulting, in 
 some sort, in his very vices, Owen had gloried in 
 the fact that his brother stole the sweetheart of a 
 man in so many ways his superior. 
 
 Within six months of Julia's marriage to his 
 rival, Strong was working superintendent of the 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 59 
 
 Gloriana. Poor Jack, drunk, and swelling with 
 triumph to think he had supplanted a man in this 
 position, went one day into the office to crow over 
 the pale, quiet young fellow. 
 
 When he was sober and planned the thing, 
 Llewellyn had intended that there should be many 
 present to see Strong's humiliation; but when he 
 was drunk enough to relish the job, he chanced on 
 the noon hour, when the two had the room to them- 
 selves. What occurred there was never explained; 
 it seemed impossible that a man of Strong's physique 
 could handle one of Llewellyn's height and brawn ; 
 but certain it is that Jack was thrown out of the 
 office and the door shut after him, just as a party 
 of his fellow miners came by to pick him up. 
 
 So evident did it seem that Strong could not have 
 overcome the young Welshman without help, that 
 Owen Llewellyn went to him to tell him what he 
 thought of such behaviour. 
 
 There was no lack of auditors for this second 
 interview : almost the entire office force was present 
 when the elder brother came over from the Culleoka 
 to speak his mind to the young superintendent. 
 
 " Your brother was drunk, and he made himself 
 offensive," explained Strong. He felt that he could 
 not afford to show temper toward the man who 
 had robbed him of the girl he loved ; it would pass 
 
60 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 for jealousy, and lower his standing with his fellows. 
 Therefore he was not less, but more patient than 
 was his wont with both brothers. 
 
 Misinterpreting this patience, and presuming upon 
 it, Llewellyn read the lesser man a long lecture, 
 concluding : 
 
 " You say, yourself, that Jack was drunk. You 
 ought to be ashamed to jump on a man when he's 
 helpless that way, and try to pay out a grudge by 
 beating him up and pitching him down some 
 steps." 
 
 Strong did not, as another man would have been 
 apt to do, argue the point; he did not even assert, 
 what everybody knew to be true, that Jack Llewellyn 
 was a fair match for a man of his size as long as 
 the Welshman could keep on his feet. 
 
 "You're sober, aren't you?" he asked, abruptly. 
 
 "Don't you give me any of your impudence," 
 roared the big man. 
 
 " I wanted to know," pursued Strong, quietly ; 
 " for if you don't get out of this office in three 
 minutes — just three minutes, Owen — I'm going to 
 throw you out. And if I find I can't do it — if 
 you're too big for me to lift — I'll get somebody 
 that can." 
 
 "Going to call in help, are you? Well, you're 
 on your own ground now, Mark Strong," jeered 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 61 
 
 the other, furiously. " I reckon I'd better go, — but 
 wait till I catch you away from your crowd." 
 
 '.' You know I have no crowd," returned the 
 young superintendent, contemptuously; and he 
 scarcely raised his eyes from the open book upon 
 which he was writing, as the big man strode out. 
 
 " You'll have trouble with that fellow yet; better 
 have kept on the good side of him," suggested the 
 bookkeeper. 
 
 " I doubt if he has any good side — for me," 
 Strong answered, cheerfully. " I don't think there'll 
 be any trouble with him. Jack came to work in 
 the Gloriana, so he told me the other day, to get 
 a chance to do me up ; but he isn't making use of 
 his excellent opportunities. I guess they both talk 
 a good deal." 
 
 And there the matter was dropped — by Strong. 
 Soon after, Julia found it necessary to leave her 
 husband and take refuge with her brother-in-law. 
 This removed her temporarily from the neighbour- 
 hood of the Gloriana. But as year followed year, 
 and Strong established the Twin Brothers, was 
 made its vice-president and general manager, and 
 was, in fact, practical owner of the plant, Owen 
 himself (in a time of depression when Strong's mine 
 was the only one working in the Iroquois district, 
 and there was great distress among the miners) 
 
62 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 came asking for a job. And Bob worked in the 
 Twin Brothers from the time he was of legal age 
 to work in a mine ; but he always, as himself would 
 have phrased it, " had it in " for his employer, and 
 this grumbling threat of a strike offered his oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 Then news came that Jack was dying. The poor 
 girl was hurried from her sewing-machine to hear 
 him say that he was sorry, that if he had life to live 
 over again, he'd do better, to forgive him before 
 he went; and after that there came a little time 
 when even Julia, and certainly Owen, resented Jack's 
 death by an added distrust of Mark Strong. 
 
 But when Jack had been gone a year, and Mark 
 Strong made no movement to renew his friend- 
 ship, even, with the widow, no man could guess at 
 the agonies of humiliation she suffered. A woman 
 might fancy the sleepless nights when her eyes in- 
 terrogated the dark, and she wondered, if she had 
 been different, had she done this, had she done that, 
 had she held to the position in the public schools — 
 which Jack lost to her by hanging about in a dan- 
 gerous drunken state so that the board dismissed 
 her, — had she been or done any of these things, 
 would it have helped her any with Mark? Did he 
 think a seamstress too far beneath him? Had she 
 lost her beauty and attractiveness? 
 
JULIA LLEWELLYN 63 
 
 But to one of these questions her mirror an- 
 swered no ; and to the other, her multitude of loving 
 friends. People did love her. She herself was 
 aware that she was handsomer than she had been 
 as a girl. What was it, then ? 
 
 Mark's way — she knew that. She, of all people, 
 knew best the working of Mark Strong's niind. 
 She could imagine that he said to himself that he 
 had sought this woman once to his wounding, and 
 that he would not seek her again. And knowing all 
 this so surely, deep in her heart there trembled that 
 impulse to become herself the suitor, to bridge the 
 intolerable gulf between them, which made her more 
 reserved, less demonstrative in Strong's society, and 
 more willing to hear the condemnation of him which 
 was continual in her own household and circle. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A MEETING OF THE LOCAL 
 
 All day there had been a simmer of suppressed 
 excitement in Yount's place. Men left the front 
 door of the saloon by twos and threes, and went 
 with a certain air of secrecy up the narrow stairway 
 at its side, leading to the big room above where 
 Union meetings were held. 
 
 It was known to Yount and a few others that 
 Patterson, the district organizer, was in the hall 
 above. Oddly enough, he had not been seen on the 
 streets at all. It seemed that he preferred to hold 
 state in the meeting hall, and let the men come to 
 him. This was not the usual tactics of the district 
 organizer, particularly when he was known to be 
 favourable to a strike ; and there was a considerable 
 amount of opposition among the men in the Twin 
 Brothers. 
 
 Joe Ackerman, president of the Local and avowed 
 leader of the non-strikers, was puzzled, yet pleased, 
 by the languid behaviour of Patterson. " If he 
 
 6 4 
 
MEETING OF THE LOCAL 65 
 
 expects to get his gang out and carry the strike, he's 
 got to get a move on him," chuckled the big swart 
 Dutchman. 
 
 " Maybe's he's moving more than you think," 
 suggested McFadden, his more cautious lieutenant. 
 " Patterson's got something up his sleeve for us, and 
 we'd better watch out what it is. I don't like his 
 hanging round the hall all day. And Billy Demp- 
 sey sick — or so they say — he ain't in the mine ; 
 but I bet dollars to doughnuts he's in that hall." 
 
 Ackerman shook his head ; it was out of his power 
 to see anything which was not exactly in front of 
 his nose. 
 
 Evening found the non-strikers going to their 
 Union meeting almost in a body. There was a 
 singular lack of opposition. " I'm hanged if them 
 fellers ain't give the thing up, and decided to stay 
 at home ! " crowed Ackerman, gleefully. 
 
 " Well, they're a-going to stay where they are, 
 wherever that is," agreed McFadden, grimly, as the 
 two climbed the narrow wooden stairs side by side. 
 The dirty, narrow way was silent and deserted ; no- 
 body going up or down, no light from the doorway 
 above. 
 
 " I told you so," said Ackerman. " Hain't a soul 
 of 'em come yet." 
 
 McFadden only grunted in answer. His wary 
 
66 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 eye was searching the steps, calculating their width, 
 noting that the turn near the top made it a bad 
 place for a scuffle. 
 
 " Why, the boy ain't even come to light the lamps, 
 — the door's locked," said Ackerman, who had 
 pressed a little ahead. " The door's locked, and the 
 bar's up," he added, shaking the knob and hearing 
 the panels rattle against the barrier. 
 
 " You think the boy could jest evaporate through 
 the chimney and leave the bar up, do you ? " drawled 
 McFadden. 
 
 " Gosh ! " ejaculated Ackerman, again shaking 
 the door softly. He was a mild man and full of 
 boyish bywords which sat quaintly upon his inches 
 and his bulk. " Gosh, Melindy ! You're right, Mc. 
 They've got us fenced out." He looked inquiringly 
 at his shrewder companion. 
 
 Two men were ascending the steps behind them. 
 "What's up?" came the query; and the answer 
 was received with laughter by one and curses by 
 the other. 
 
 " You demand admission, Joe," counselled Mc- 
 Fadden. " You're the president, and they've got 
 to answer you." 
 
 It appeared that those within did not share Mc- 
 Fadden's opinion; dead silence followed various 
 hammerings and kickings of the door. 
 
MEETING OF THE LOCAL 6>j 
 
 " Patterson ! Patterson ! " roared the president. 
 " This is no way for a grown man to behave. This 
 ain't no child's play. There's a meeting of the 
 Local appointed in this room for this evening, and, 
 by God! I'm going to hold that meeting." The 
 president was warming to his work. 
 
 " I guess you'll catch your meetin' 'fore you hold 
 it," snickered somebody in the rapidly augmenting 
 ranks of those waiting upon the stair. 
 
 " Shut up, down there," growled the president. 
 " If any of you fellers don't want to stick by me to 
 get this door down, you can go home; but you 
 don't stand there and chew the rag." 
 
 McFadden had made one or two attempts upon 
 the door with his shoulder. The poor foothold 
 given by the ten-inch step made this extremely diffi- 
 cult. Now Ackerman added his size and bulk ; the 
 two men swung in together, and the door rattled 
 and bounced upon its hinges. 
 
 " Another and we'll have it down ! " shouted the 
 president. But no other assault was necessary. 
 
 " Hold on — hey, hold up ! — we're sending out 
 a man to talk to you," came the word from 
 within. 
 
 " Rush him ; jam the door wide open when he 
 comes ! " counselled McFadden, in a hurried 
 whisper. 
 
68 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 But Ackerman, all for law and order, and be- 
 lieving still that his Branch was loyal to his sway, 
 held the Scotchman back, as Pat Cassiday stepped 
 out. 
 
 "What do you want?" inquired the emissary, 
 jauntily. 
 
 " That's a hell of a question to ask me — the 
 president of this Local — on meeting night, at the 
 door of my own hall," responded Ackerman. 
 
 " 'Tain't a regular meeting night," said Cassiday, 
 impudently. " There's a committee setting in that 
 room now that knows its business. We don't need 
 you." 
 
 McFadden had withdrawn to the foot of the short 
 flight of steps which led from the landing at the turn 
 directly up to the door. Now he called : 
 
 " Ackerman — Joe ! Come down here. Don't 
 you get too close to that fellow." 
 
 And the man behind him echoed the caution in 
 various forms; for anybody but Joe Ackerman 
 would have suspected armed treachery. His slow 
 mind was still turning over Cassiday's statement 
 that it was not a regular meeting night. 
 
 "What's that got to do with it?" he inquired, 
 finally. " This is a called meeting, and I called 
 it myself — to meet Patterson." 
 
 This gave a new turn to his thoughts. Patter- 
 
MEETING OF THE LOCAL 69 
 
 son was at the root of the trouble; he would settle 
 with Patterson. 
 
 " Bert Patterson, come out and face me — if you 
 dare! If you don't come out in three minutes, 
 I'm coming in," he called. 
 
 They had heard, as Cassiday stepped out, the 
 key turn and the bar drop into place after him. 
 Now Patterson's voice sounded from within, and 
 a hum, as of many other voices, accompanied and 
 followed it. 
 
 " How you comin' in, Joey? " 
 
 Ackerman's wrath, the proverbial, deadly wrath 
 of a patient man, flared up at this. 
 
 " I'm going to take this d d Irishman you've 
 
 sent out, and break the door down with him," he 
 roared. 
 
 The prospect was not an inviting one to Cassiday ; 
 yet he stood several feet above his adversary, and 
 he knew that those within would send him rein- 
 forcements at a signal. 
 
 Ackerman moved up the stairs, guarding his 
 head as best he could, but not watching the Irish- 
 man as he ought. When he came within reach of 
 the latter's fist, it shot out — its knuckles armed — 
 caught the big man on the side of the head and 
 sent him rolling down to McFadden. 
 
 The doorkeeper whistled once, evidently the 
 
70 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 signal for opening the door. The men on the stairs 
 huddled together like frightened sheep. Acker- 
 man had not risen, and McFadden was bending 
 over him. The Irishman whistled again, supple- 
 menting his signal with a shout. 
 
 " Send me three men, and we'll clear the stairs ! " 
 
 They came : Bill Dempsey, who had been playing 
 sick, and acting as Patterson's special assistant; 
 Brawley Culp, armed with the bar, which he had 
 pulled from its socket on the door- jamb; and young 
 Talley Self. 
 
 " Single file ! " yelled Cassiday. " Let Culp get 
 ahead with that bar — and give 'im room to swing 
 it ! Aw, you young fool," to the boy who was press- 
 ing ahead, " put up that gun. We ain't come to 
 guns — yet." 
 
 The men on the stairs, unprepared for a fight, 
 turned and ran. McFadden had helped the chief 
 to his feet. 
 
 " Come on, Joe," he urged, pulling at Ackerman, 
 who seemed to be dazed. " No use standing here 
 to be hammered. But we'll come back again," he 
 called to the men above-stairs. 
 
 The man with the bar set its end against the back 
 of the retreating president, and deliberately rolled 
 him down the stairs, amid the laughter of those 
 above. 
 
MEETING OF THE LOCAL 71 
 
 Ackerman's adherents retreated into the saloon; 
 it is not pleasant to be identified with a losing cause. 
 Meantime, there gathered in the street before 
 Yount's place a crowd of persons more or less in- 
 terested in the question of the strike. Many of 
 these were women, whose high, excited voices 
 might be heard above the hum of the deeper tones, 
 cheering on the cause of the besieged, or jeering 
 shrilly at the apparently defeated besiegers. A 
 woman crying out in the street is always champion- 
 ing the worst proposition. 
 
 Ackerman sat on the lowest step, inside the little 
 dark entry at the foot of the stairs ; McFadden had 
 brought a glass of water, and stood beside him. 
 
 " You'd better go home, Joe," he counselled. 
 " Them was brass knucks he hit you with, and no 
 telling what he's done to your head." 
 
 " You go to hell ! " said Ackerman, kindly. " My 
 head's all right. Give me another swallow of water, 
 and I'll go inside and get the boys, and we'll rush 
 that door." 
 
 He looked, not overconfidently, up the narrow 
 stairway, now silent and deserted once more. Sud- 
 denly a hand rested lightly upon his shoulder. 
 
 " Why don't you try the back way ? " asked a 
 quiet voice. 
 
 " Mark Strong ! " exclaimed the big man. 
 
72 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " Hush ! Not so loud ; I'm hardly supposed to be 
 about where the Local meets," cautioned the other. 
 " But I've attended many a meeting in this same hall 
 — you and me, Joey. I wonder you didn't think 
 of the back way." 
 
 " There ain't any," remonstrated McFadden. 
 
 But Ackerman was slapping his knee and chuck- 
 ling, in spite of his bruised face. 
 
 " Lord, it's you, Mark, for a scrimmage like this. 
 I mind the time you come in through the window, 
 with twenty of us at your back, and put Cohen out 
 of the hall." 
 
 Several loiterers had paused to look in at the 
 entry. Strong stood with his back to them, and 
 avoided recognition ; yet he felt it was time to move 
 on. Once out in the darkness of the street, he 
 turned back. How familiar it all was. Was it last 
 week, or only yesterday, that much the same crowd 
 had filled that place to see him send Cohen and his 
 crowd fighting and swearing down the steps? His 
 blood tingled at thought of it. And now it meant 
 more to him than it could have meant in the old 
 days. Inside that upper room was a man who 
 received a fat salary for fomenting and continuing 
 just such quarrels as these. About him were a 
 score of men who ate Strong's bread — and defied 
 him. In the street were the usual number of hys- 
 
MEETING OF THE LOCAL 73 
 
 terical, ill-governed women, who, lacking grand 
 opera or a horse show, longed for the excitement of 
 a strike. 
 
 Poor, sensible, obtuse Joe, leading his majority of 
 non-strikers, had little chance against this noisy 
 minority. The steps of the little man in gray 
 lagged — halted. He turned, looked back; why 
 not? It was dark; he had been among them and 
 unrecognized before. He would but see to the 
 carrying out of that plan which he had proposed to 
 Ackerman. He ran to the alleyway which passed 
 the back of the saloon. 
 
 There, as he expected, he found a group of six 
 or eight men. McFadden had laid his plans well; 
 one of the non-striking men was haranguing the 
 crowd in front of the saloon, while others disposed 
 themselves prominently in the light, with a view to 
 keeping up a noise and taking off the attention of 
 those above-stairs from this attack in the rear. 
 Only so many men were to be employed here as 
 could be made useful. 
 
 Strong saw them drag up a ladder, set it against 
 the window-sill, and Ackerman prepare to mount. 
 
 " Joe, that won't do," he remonstrated, again 
 putting a hand unexpectedly upon the exiled ruler's 
 shoulder. 
 
74 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 If Ackerman recognized his employer, he gave no 
 sign of having done so. 
 
 " What's the matter with it ? " he inquired, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " Don't you see they'll tip your ladder over ? " 
 
 " McFadden and Burke will hold it." 
 
 " That's no good. They'll have you, when you 
 poke your head in there, and you standing on the 
 ladder." 
 
 " Well — well," urged the president, almost 
 testily ; " what have you got that's better ? " 
 
 " Why, the shed roof, there. And then climb on 
 to that covered stairway that goes up the side, and 
 these other boys can go up with you — there ought 
 to be ten more of them." 
 
 Ackerman saw the reasonableness of this scheme. 
 McFadden was sent around in front to quietly with- 
 draw ten men. The window above, which was 
 directly behind the speaker's platform, could be 
 seen, glowing dully with the light from within. A 
 flag covered the greater part of it, and through its 
 folds the light came in such a way as to make it 
 apparent that no watcher had been posted there. 
 Those above had evidently not thought of this open- 
 ing at all. 
 
 Strong felt that it was time for him to go. He 
 
MEETING OF THE LOCAL 75 
 
 was unwilling that any of the men should know he 
 had taken so active a part in this matter. 
 
 " See, Joe, look here — you take that ladder up on 
 the shed roof with you, throw it across, and climb 
 over to the stairway roof; then pull your ladder 
 over and go up from there. That'll make a way for 
 the whole crowd to get in quick. Don't you go in 
 there alone." 
 
 The president of the Local laughed bitterly. His 
 heart was too hot and sore to accept moderate 
 counsel. 
 
 " I wish I had you to boss the job," he muttered. 
 " I expect it would be better done than I'll do it. 
 But I see you're off — of course you'd have to leave. 
 And I'm going into that meeting — alive or dead — 
 alone, or with the rest of the boys. I'm going in 
 there." 
 
 At the corner Strong turned and looked back. 
 Some points of blacker blackness were moving 
 against the saloon wall at the rear. By leaning for- 
 ward he could see the lighted faces of the crowd in 
 the street before the building ; and he guessed from 
 the shouts that sensible McFadden had detailed some 
 men to make a feint of attacking the front door 
 once more. He sighed a little, muttering : 
 
 " Maybe I did poor old Joe more harm than 
 
76 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 good. A man must either be in a thing, or out of 
 it; and I'm out of the Union." 
 
 His brow contracted as he heard, down the street 
 a little way, his name yelled. His mouth set in 
 grim lines. 
 
 " Fools. Well, they must have enough of their 
 folly; " and he passed on toward where the Captain 
 waited with his buggy. 
 
 Back at the hall, Ackerman, with two others, 
 scrambled across the ladder and on to the stairway 
 roof. Then some clumsy foot kicked the ladder, 
 their improvised bridge, away, and it fell rattling 
 to the ground below. It was just such a mischance 
 as this that Strong's leadership would have provided 
 against. But Strong was necessarily far on his 
 way toward the station, and thick-headed Joe must 
 make up in boldness what he lacked in wit. 
 
 The bunch of men on the roof crouched silent, 
 hearkening intently to see if the sound of the fall- 
 ing ladder alarmed those within. Amid the noises 
 from the street in front, its clatter appeared to go 
 unnoticed. Ackerman reached up toward the win- 
 dow ; he could barely touch the sill with his finger- 
 ends. He whispered: 
 
 " Here! each of you take a leg; and when I say 
 ' up,' heave me into the room." 
 
 "It won't do, Ackerman," remonstrated Wess, 
 
MEETING OF THE LOCAL 77 
 
 James. " There ain't no tellin' how soon we can get 
 up after you — got to have that ladder here, and 
 another man acrost on it to help us up, before we 
 can even start." 
 
 " You do what I tell you," whispered Ackerman, 
 shortly, peering down into the dark. " The boys 
 is gettin' that ladder in place. If they don't get it 
 fixed, and they don't nobody come, I ain't caring. 
 I belong in that meeting, and into it I'm going — 
 even if I have to go all by myself. It won't bark 
 your jaw none when I skate in on my face — will 
 it?" 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WAR 
 
 Inside the hall the kerosene lamps flared. Pat- 
 terson, glorious in acknowledged authority, and 
 open victory over the lawful head of the organiza- 
 tion, sprawled in the chair. Upon the benches be- 
 fore him the men were disposed, with some attempt 
 at order; yet it was not such a meeting as Acker- 
 man would have held. 
 
 Motions were put and forgotten without a vote, 
 and there was a good deal of boisterous chaffing. 
 The chairman had just rapped sharply upon the 
 table. 
 
 " Gentlemen, we've got to get down to business," 
 he said. 
 
 A shout from the street in front sent half his 
 meeting to look out of the windows. 
 
 " Gentlemen — gentlemen ! " he remonstrated. 
 " This won't do. This ain't business. We've got 
 to work while we've got the chance. First thing 
 
 78 
 
WAR 79 
 
 we know that president of yours'll try buttin' in 
 here again — " 
 
 There was a crash, a splintering of glass, and 
 the lawful president, partially wrapped in an Ameri- 
 can flag, carrying the greater portion of a window- 
 sash with him, rolled upon the platform. He was on 
 his feet in an instant, pushing away the impeding 
 folds of the flag, and shaking off the sash. A bit 
 of broken glass had cut his forehead as he came 
 through, and the blood trickled in his eyes, half- 
 blinding him. 
 
 Confident of a sufficient following to take the 
 meeting by storm, Ackerman advanced upon the 
 usurper. 
 
 " You get out of my chair ! " he shouted. " Take 
 your seat on the benches with the others. I'm going 
 to hold this meeting. Pat Cassiday, open the front 
 door!" 
 
 More than half the men had leaped to their feet. 
 For a moment Patterson's ascendency tottered; 
 it looked as though the president's side would be the 
 winning side, and that gains always the wavering 
 ones. 
 
 But the district organizer was quick-witted. He 
 sprang out of his chair, almost before he had been 
 bidden, and fairly pushed Ackerman into it. 
 
 " Here ! " he shouted. " Dempsey — Allgood — 
 
80 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 get to the window there. Take my guns. This is 
 business." 
 
 Dempsey and Allgood, leaping to the window, 
 looked down upon a scene of disaster. The two men 
 who had heaved their president into the meeting- 
 room crouched on the small roof, with a laughable 
 likeness to terrified fowls on a roost. Below, there 
 was some stir in the dark, but little could now be 
 accomplished since the Patterson faction was warned 
 and on its guard. 
 
 " Nothin' doin' here," the sentries called back, 
 jubilantly. 
 
 " All right ! " shouted Patterson. " Tender 'em 
 my warmest thanks for the president — and keep 
 the others out. Baumgartner! Amos! come hold 
 your respected president in his chair — he may get 
 excited and try to desert us." 
 
 Ackerman struggled furiously as the two men 
 pinioned him. 
 
 " What the hell do you mean by this monkey 
 business?" he panted. "I've come to run this 
 meeting — and I'll run it. Take your hands off 
 me, you d d dirty loafers ! " 
 
 But it soon became evident why the presiding 
 officer was violently detained. 
 
 " This is the best thing that could 'a' happened to 
 us ! " exclaimed Patterson. " If we'd 'a' held this 
 
WAR 81 
 
 meetin' without the president, it wouldn't 'a' been 
 legal — the National Union would 'a' been asking 
 questions. But, bless you, here comes the gent to 
 help us out." 
 
 There was a bellow of laughter from the benches, 
 and cries of "That's so! You've got a head on 
 you, Patterson ! " 
 
 It took Ackerman some minutes to get his wits 
 together, and during that time Patterson was mak- 
 ing a very heated appeal to the miners to resort to 
 a strike — to call the men out of the Twin Brothers. 
 
 "You've tried everything!" he shouted. 
 " You've tried everything — but a strike. You've 
 gone to that man Strong, and he, seated on his gold, 
 has defied you." 
 
 Ackerman gnawed for fully a moment on this 
 surprising description of plain little Mark Strong, 
 in his plain, workaday office; and while he did so, 
 Patterson continued : 
 
 " Strong has been a miner like the rest of us. 
 He knows what the work is. He knows what the 
 Union has done for the men, — and is doing. He's 
 all for the Union — outside of the Twin Brothers 
 mine. But you touch his pocket nerve, and he 
 yells. He has said that no committee shall come 
 up out of that mine to talk to him — and when he 
 says that, he says what the Union won't stand for. 
 
82 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 If we can't send a committee of honest working 
 men to redress a wrong — immediately — at the 
 time it's happening — our fundamental right to 
 existence is denied us." 
 
 The men nodded among themselves, and agreed, 
 more or less noisily, that this was so. Many of 
 them had served on the committee, and the laying 
 down of pick and shovel in the mine gallery, the 
 piling out at so much per hour to lay their grievances 
 before the superintendent, was a prized privilege. 
 
 " He needs a lesson. He's got where he thinks 
 he can walk over the men who used to work beside 
 him. He's the only man in the Iroquois district 
 that's holding out against the Union. I call it a 
 dirty, stinking shame — he, a man that used to 
 belong to the Union ! He'll be glad enough to see 
 the next committee that comes out of the Twin 
 Brothers, if you men will put and second a motion 
 to declare a strike in that mine this night. Will 
 you? Will you? Will you? Did I hear some- 
 body put that motion ? Is there a second ? " 
 
 There was not only the motion itself — in most 
 irregular form — shouted from many quarters of 
 the room, but a dozen or more seconds. Patterson 
 had forgotten that he was not presiding; he had 
 pushed aside the flimsy pretence that Joe Ackerman 
 was in the chair. 
 
WAR 83 
 
 "Vote! Vote! Call the vote, Patterson!" 
 cried several voices. 
 
 Ackerman struggled away from those who de- 
 tained him. 
 
 " Men ! " he cried, " you're crazy. Don't listen 
 to what this blatherskite says. You've heard him 
 running down Mark Strong, and you know whether 
 it's true or not. You've heard his rotten lies — 
 you've heard him ask you to strike — are you going 
 to do it ? For God's sake, think before you go into 
 such a thing ! Are you going to do it — are you ? " 
 
 " Yes, by the Lord, we are ! " came back the 
 answer from more than a score of throats. 
 
 " Very neatly put, Mr. Ackerman ! " smirked 
 Patterson. " Much obliged to you for calling the 
 vote. Well, this is regular — it has been moved and 
 seconded that the men be called out of the Twin 
 Brothers mine, — your president has asked for the 
 vote, and, by God! he's got a standing one by 
 voice." 
 
 Ackerman sprang for him, missed him, tipped over 
 the stand on which the lamp was, and went down, 
 tangled in a shred of the flag, which still clung to 
 him. The men at the window had deserted their 
 post, delighted by the spectacle inside the hall. 
 McFadden, who was a stayer, had brought his 
 forces up in better shape; and, as the lamp went 
 
84 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 over, ten or fifteen non-strikers seemed to foam into 
 the room through the back window. 
 
 " You're done — get out, boys ! " yelled Patterson 
 to his adherents, at the same moment setting an 
 excellent example. 
 
 " Out with the lights ! " shouted Cassiday. 
 
 " Stop them fellers at the window ! " called some 
 one else. 
 
 The bracket lamps on each side of the hall were 
 smashed. A scrimmage or two began in the dark; 
 but as it was impossible to see whether you were 
 hitting friend or foe, the strikers made an effort to 
 get out of the room, and the non-strikers no effort 
 to prevent them. Down-stairs, Patterson leaped 
 upon a barrel in front of the saloon, and cried to the 
 waiting crowd : 
 
 " A strike has been declared in the Twin Brothers 
 mine — Joe Ackerman presiding." 
 
 At the window above his head appeared a bloody 
 face. A man pushed at the sash, and then struck it 
 on the cross-bar, as he had struck the sash of the 
 back window. It was the president of the Local. 
 Wrapped still in some tatters of the flag, lit by the 
 lights from the street below, into which some one 
 had carried two or three gasoline torches, Acker- 
 man looked down upon the jeering crowd. 
 
 " That's a lie ! " he shouted. " Patterson and his 
 
WAR 85 
 
 men have done the striking, — lay it to them when 
 your children are hungry." 
 
 " We'll not ask you to feed them — Mark 
 Strong's little dog Schneider ! " shrilled a woman's 
 voice from the street. 
 
 " The Union'll feed 'em," harangued Patterson. 
 " The Union'll stand by you till Mark Strong 
 crawls on his knees to beg you to work in the Twin 
 Brothers. The Union will see that you have your 
 rights — " 
 
 " The Union be d d ! " shouted the president 
 
 of its local branch — and then paled, as though he 
 had uttered blasphemy. 
 
 Behind him a flickering, shaken light arose; the 
 overturned lamps were firing the books and papers 
 upon the table. Ackerman's figure, heavy, dark, 
 stood outlined against it in the window. 
 
 " Yount ! " screamed a woman in the street be- 
 low. " Your — house — is — on — fire ! " 
 
 For a few moments the strike, the fight in the 
 meeting-hall, were both forgotten. The German 
 saloon-keeper dashed up the stairs, his bartender 
 close after him, carrying fire-extinguishers. 
 
 When the blaze was out, Patterson had moved on 
 down the street with his noisy, enthusiastic crowd. 
 
 Joe Ackerman went home alone, his head bent, 
 feeling himself a cruel bungler. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A MORNING CALL 
 
 One of the sharpest thorns which pierced Jule's 
 heart was the matter of Mark Strong's home — 
 his splendid, ornate, Queen Anne mansion. As soon 
 as Strong became a really rich man — and that was 
 not many years after their separation and her mar- 
 riage — he laid the foundations of this Queen Anne 
 house on the hillside. 
 
 It was the spot where they had planned to make 
 their home when they should be married. There 
 they used to sit under the big sycamore on late 
 summer afternoons, or on moonlit evenings, and 
 go over its details, looking with happy, trustful eyes 
 into that future which Mark's strength and talents 
 were to render splendid, and Jule's sweetness and 
 beauty were to adorn. Now he had bought the 
 place, and begun erecting the home. 
 
 Only one person in Iroquois, and that a woman, 
 knew why he built just such a house. It was the 
 plan which he and Jule picked out in a current maga- 
 
 86 
 
A MORNING CALL 87 
 
 zine on one of those never-forgotten summer eve- 
 nings, as they sat beneath the great tree. Just at 
 the time the building was commenced it fell out 
 that the woman had a few weeks' work in the home 
 of a family who lived over the hill ; and every morn- 
 ing and every evening she walked back and forth 
 past Mark Strong's grounds. 
 
 As the work went forward, as stone was laid 
 upon stone, and the dignified walls arose above the 
 foundation, who can guess how Jule's heart ached 
 to look at it? Was it a covert sarcasm on her old 
 lover's part ? And was he preparing to bring some 
 other woman to it a bride? After Jule came home 
 past Mark Strong's Queen Anne house, she had to 
 sing many songs, to sing them very loud and very 
 cheerfully, before she could eat the bit of supper 
 she had prepared. 
 
 When other people asked Strong if he was getting 
 ready for a wife, he answered quietly : 
 
 " Why, yes ; I suppose I shall be married — 
 sometime; most men do marry sometime; and 
 then the house will be ready ; meanwhile, I have got 
 to have some place to live, and this is the home I 
 long ago picked out." 
 
 " What on earth are you building that old- 
 fashioned thing for, Strong?" asked young Hans- 
 ford, the architect. " You might in decency have 
 
88 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 given me the job of getting you up designs for a 
 stunning, fine, airy, big Colonial house. It is all 
 the go, now, you know." 
 
 " Is it so? " responded Mark, with quiet indif- 
 ference. And the house on the hillside stood — 
 stood for many things: a sign of Mark Strong's 
 independence for one; for another, his inscrutable 
 habit of being so simple and open that none could 
 be sure of him where he did not wish to be made 
 sure of. 
 
 And for what did it stand to Julia Llewellyn? 
 Ah, who can guess? 
 
 It was a fine morning in early May ; Van Dorn of 
 the Gloriana and his sister had ridden over. They 
 were extremely fond of riding, and the pair of them 
 looked their best in the saddle. Strong had bidden 
 them in to the traditional wine and biscuit — old 
 Celia, Mark's housekeeper, was never visible at this 
 hour. Rumour had it that, like the thrifty woman 
 in Scripture, " she arose while it was yet dark ; " but 
 the densest of domestic mysteries usually enveloped 
 her until after the breakfast hour. Therefore the 
 host received his guests alone. 
 
 He was not an imposing figure; and yet, for 
 some reason, which perhaps did not reach in its 
 fulness to Jane Van Dorn, he was an endearing one. 
 The very association of power with his gentle, diffi- 
 
A MORNING CALL 89 
 
 dent slenderness was a piquant combination. The 
 Van Dorns stood; and so their host remained 
 standing. 
 
 " We haven't a minute," the brother began. " I 
 dragged Jane out of her way to stop here ; but — 
 hang it all, Strong! I can't quite afford to come 
 to the mine and talk to you. My men — " 
 
 He broke off, and laughed, with a heightened 
 colour. 
 
 " Your men are pretty strict with you — aren't 
 they?" inquired Strong, smiling. 
 
 " That's what I tell him," broke in the sister, 
 haughtily. " I say that when I can't go where I 
 please, or talk to whom I please — well, it won't be 
 on account of a parcel of dirty workmen, to whom I 
 pay wages." 
 
 The speech was an ill-judged one, to Strong, who 
 had himself been a miner. Yet it found him — and 
 left him — absolutely unruffled. Indeed, he ap- 
 peared to take the keenest interest in what this 
 young person might think of the class to which he 
 had once belonged. He nodded approvingly, but 
 her brother broke out : 
 
 " It's all very easy for Jane to talk ; but a man in 
 business has got to make concessions." 
 
 He caught the other's quiet eye, and laughed 
 awkwardly. 
 
90 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " That is, he's got to make concessions — unless 
 he's Mark Strong. But I came here this morning 
 hoping to argue you into a more complacent frame 
 of mind, for the sake of the rest of us. Hang it 
 all, Strong! You may make your point; I be- 
 lieve you will, if any man can — but will it pay 
 you?" 
 
 " I don't know whether or not it will pay me," 
 said the owner of the Twin Brothers, in his usual 
 quiet fashion. " But I think it will pay the Union 
 
 — I'm working in a missionary spirit," and he 
 flashed them one of his rare, odd smiles, which 
 irradiated his plain face and made it striking while 
 they lasted. 
 
 Van Dorn shifted uneasily, and looked annoyed. 
 Strong was too ready to bring up the fact that he 
 had been a miner, and felt with and for his men. 
 
 " I don't see how you make that out," said the 
 younger man. 
 
 " The Union has got to quit striking, sometime 
 
 — just as it has begun to quit the boycott; I may 
 as well be the one to show them that they can exist 
 and do their men good without striking, or threat- 
 ening to strike, or dictating to their employers. I 
 wish I could teach my men a long-time policy, and 
 the value of individual liberty." 
 
A MORNING CALL 91 
 
 Both Van Dorns looked bored, under a simulation 
 of well-bred interest. 
 
 " Forget it," counselled the brother. " You'll live 
 longer and die happier if you'll throw those fellows 
 a slovenly, unhandsome chunk of taffy when they 
 come to you with a grouch, do what you must, and 
 avoid what you can help, and rub along with them 
 — that's the way I do." 
 
 " I know," said Strong, simply. And for no 
 apparent reason, the other's irritation rose. 
 
 Miss Van Dorn had gone to the window, where 
 she stood striking softly against the sill with the 
 loop of her riding-crop. 
 
 " Mr. Strong," she began, evidently thinking to 
 save the day with feminine tact, where her brother 
 had blundered, " you make a mistake to fancy that 
 the men in the Unions are all like you. You endow 
 them with your own ability and ideas — and it 
 makes you treat their pretensions with a respect 
 of which they are not worthy." 
 
 Strong looked at her with an inscrutable expres- 
 sion. 
 
 " I'm pretty well aware that the men in my mine 
 haven't my ideas — or they wouldn't be there. For- 
 tunately for those who wish to own mines, and for 
 the world at large which burns coal, all the men who 
 dig that article are not ambitious." 
 
92 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " None of them are," asserted Van Dorn, thrust- 
 ing his hands into his pockets. " I tell you, Strong 
 
 — and I don't need to preface it with an apology, 
 for you are no more like a miner than I am — 
 those men are a grade above the mules they drive 
 
 — but it's only a grade." 
 
 Something kindly and human was withdrawn 
 from Mark Strong's face, as one might take a 
 lamp from the window of a cottage. 
 
 " Such an opinion makes you an unfortunate 
 person to handle the men," he commented, dryly. 
 
 " It doesn't — it doesn't ! " objected Van Dorn. 
 " Look at me. I'm having no trouble. I've made 
 some concessions; in fact, the Gloriana is a Union 
 mine ; but — but — " 
 
 " It is you who come to me," explained the little 
 man in gray, somewhat wearily. " I supposed you 
 might be having trouble — or anticipating it. I 
 have gone to no one. I'm asking no one to stand 
 with me. I don't deny that I'm aware that I'm 
 setting out upon a long, bitter fight. I trust noth- 
 ing to the personal liking of my men; because the 
 few who know and like me are not powerful enough 
 to swing matters. These strikes are largely 
 managed from the outside, anyhow. The Central 
 Committee has the say. But I shall make as much 
 
A MORNING CALL 93 
 
 money out of the Twin Brothers this year as any 
 man in the Iroquois district." 
 
 He said it with so quiet a confidence in his 
 ability to make good his words, that Van Dorn 
 almost groaned as he replied : 
 
 " But, the deuce take it all, man ! I'm not making 
 anything at the Gloriana; I'm losing ground; and 
 if your strike stirs my men up, why, I'll be worse 
 off than ever." 
 
 Strong smiled as at the vagaries of a child. 
 
 " You are not very logical," he commented. 
 
 " If the Gloriana isn't making any money," put 
 in Miss Van Dorn, hastily (her brother had let slip 
 this bit of truth inadvertently, in the heat of 
 argument) , " I should think you ought to be glad 
 to be shut down." 
 
 " Women know nothing about business," retorted 
 Van Dorn, with vague acrimony. 
 
 " And some men know less," laughed his sister, 
 as she drew on her riding-gloves. " I'm going down 
 to look at that bit of level there by the trees," she 
 announced to her host. " It would make an admi- 
 rable tennis-court. You really ought to go in for 
 something of that sort, Mr. Strong; tennis is a 
 good thing to begin on." 
 
 " I'll walk down with you," said Strong. 
 
 And this was why Julia Llewellyn, hurrying home 
 
94 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 with a great bundle of sewing, which she had been 
 across the creek to get, had sight of these two com- 
 ing down the lawn, apparently in earnest and 
 intimate conversation, while Van Dorn lingered 
 on the steps of the mansion, talking to Captain 
 McClintock. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 
 
 And so the strike in the Twin Brothers was 
 neither on nor off. 
 
 " The worst of it is," said Patterson, " that we've 
 got to get Johnny Mitchell down here, and let him 
 say his say, before this thing will be all right and 
 regular." 
 
 " Yes, and when you've got Johnny Mitchell, 
 you've got another Joe Ackerman," growled Owen 
 Llewellyn, who had instantly hurried to the Twin 
 Brothers on the hint that he might help in making 
 things worse for its owner. And now he defined 
 his own position in the matter : 
 
 " First I have my whack at stoppin' the strike, 
 ye know — stoppin' it ! Yes, I'll stop it like blazes ! 
 — and then we have to send for Mitchell, or some 
 other guy, and let him see if he can't arbitrate it. 
 But, to my way of thinking, the thing for us to do 
 is to cut Johnny out. I'm trying to scare up some 
 trouble for him in another direction; and if we 
 
 95 
 
96 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 can get Billings to come down here in his place, 
 we've got the thing our way. We can make Homer 
 Billings think we've waited too long now." 
 
 Patterson nodded. " I'll stay here and hold this 
 job down," he said. " You'll find that strike senti- 
 ment will grow in the Twin Brothers." 
 
 Llewellyn looked him over. 
 
 " You get down into the mine among the men, 
 Bert," he said. " Get Strong to let you down. He 
 ain't afraid of the Union, hang him ! " 
 
 " That's what I'll do," agreed Patterson. " Oh, 
 I'll get busy, all right." 
 
 And in the week that followed, there was not a 
 day that did not see him in the mine caucusing with 
 this bunch of miners or that. 
 
 The men were working on their own time; that 
 is, they were paid for the coal they got out, by 
 weight ; and so one might have said that Patterson's 
 operations did not concern the superintendent of the 
 mine, other than that, as district organizer, and a 
 man well known to be in favour of a strike in the 
 Twin Brothers at this time, he was a dangerous 
 person to talk to its employes. 
 
 Soon half the men in the mine were in a state of 
 sullen, grumbling unrest. They were boiling with 
 petty complaints of all sorts ; and Strong had inter- 
 dicted the committee which lays down its tools to 
 
CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 97 
 
 go up out of the mine and make these complaints. 
 They neglected their work ; and in a mine, neglected 
 work means accident. 
 
 The week succeeding the meeting in the hall over 
 Yount's witnessed a train of accidents in the Twin 
 Brothers, more or less ludicrous, and less or more 
 tragic. None of the disasters which occurred there 
 could be traced to malice ; all of them might safely 
 be ascribed to that loosening of bonds, that reckless- 
 ness which men feel who are hesitating before they 
 deal their employer the heaviest blow within their 
 power. 
 
 Mark Strong was not a man to keep an incompe- 
 tent person about him; but it so fell out that this 
 stress of affairs caught him with a superintendent 
 who was a dull fellow and rather inexperienced. 
 The man who had been Strong's right hand in this 
 position had gone into business for himself, and 
 Tawney, the new superintendent, was really on trial ; 
 but it would not do to attempt to swap horses while 
 crossing a stream. So Tawney remained, and 
 Strong was tied to the mine closer than ever. He 
 had become, in fact, his own working superin- 
 tendent. 
 
 Under the tremendous pressure, and with all the 
 jar and fret of the next week, his nerves jangled. 
 He discharged men right and left, many of them 
 
98 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 those whom he would at any other time have re- 
 tained,, probably reproving, admonishing, or warn- 
 ing them. This fell in excellently with Patterson's 
 plans, and bitter feeling against the little man in 
 gray ran high. 
 
 Strong was so savage, so drastic, that even 
 Ackerman came to think — and say — before the 
 two weeks were over, that the Union men had better 
 get out of the Twin Brothers before they were 
 pitched out. 
 
 " You're kicking — ain't you? You're mad, and 
 you've got Bert Patterson over here to settle your 
 disputes. What do you pay him for that same?" 
 questioned Strong, bitterly, at the first sign of 
 defection on the big Dutchman's part. 
 
 " He gets five dollars a day and his expenses, 
 when there's any trouble on," answered Ackerman, 
 half-sullenly. 
 
 " Humph ! That's about eight dollars a day — 
 and nice little trips, and the fun of shooting off his 
 mouth at his betters. Why wouldn't he keep you 
 men in trouble, at that rate? I'd do it for you 
 cheaper. What does he want to pacify you — or 
 pacify your employer — and go back to the pick and 
 shovel, for ? " 
 
 " He's a master hand at argument," maintained 
 Ackerman, doggedly. 
 
CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 99 
 
 " So would I be at more than two hundred per. 
 Say, Ackerman, you can get your quarrelling done 
 cheaper. Try another fellow. Try me." 
 
 Joe looked at his employer in angry, stupid 
 amazement; this bitter, gibing manner was some- 
 thing very strange to see in Mark Strong. But after 
 all, Strong was human like themselves ; he could not 
 always have patience for both ; and they had heaped 
 petty annoyances upon him until he was deeply 
 exasperated. 
 
 The Twin Brothers was fitted up in the most pro- 
 gressive manner. All its entries were electric 
 lighted, and furnished with electric haulage; while 
 the mine ventilation had the benefit of a new over- 
 cast, Strong's own device, which came nearer to 
 keeping the air in the rooms fresh than anything in 
 any of the other mines, though considered too ex- 
 pensive by the other owners to put in. 
 
 The first mishap began with a monkeyish trick 
 on the part of Bob Llewellyn. A green trapper 
 had been put on at the main air course. A big fan, 
 forty-two inches in diameter and six feet long, 
 pumped the air into the mines during working 
 hours; then when the whistle blew over, and the 
 men were mostly gone, it was reversed to exhaust 
 the mine of the foul air and the powder-smoke, as 
 the shots which had been left prepared were fired. 
 
ioo THE GRAPPLE 
 
 These were timed to begin exploding at the end of 
 the air, and work in toward the shaft. 
 
 Strong had his doors and traps so arranged that 
 he could isolate any part of the mine from air, or 
 could force an extra amount of air in by cutting 
 off most of the other entries. 
 
 Ackerman was working in Number One, North, 
 and it chanced that most of the men on his side of 
 the mine were the conservative non-strikers. Bob 
 noted that the boy at the door was a new trapper, 
 stopped beside him as he went down that morning, 
 and gave him some special instructions which con- 
 centrated the entire current of air in that portion of 
 the mine where he thought Ackerman might be. 
 Then he went on chuckling, and remarked to his 
 " buddy," as the mate who works in a room with 
 a miner is called : 
 
 " I guess I'll wake those dead ones up — you 
 wait till you hear something tear loose ! " 
 
 It was nearly an hour before the boy got Bob's 
 scheme to working well. At the end of that time 
 Ackerman, with half a dozen others, suddenly came 
 roaring out of a cross-entry, swearing and holding 
 to his hat. 
 
 " If I could find the fool that thought such a 
 dirty trick as that was a joke, I'd loosen all his 
 teeth for him ! " puffed the president of the Local, 
 
CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 101 
 
 as he leaned against the timbers in a vain attempt 
 to recover his wind. 
 
 " I'll bet Tawney blames it on to the Union," sug- 
 gested Bob Llewellyn, slyly. He had been hidden 
 behind one of the pillars, waiting for the wind- 
 tormented ones to emerge. 
 
 " Well, 'twould be natural enough ; the Union's 
 a great one for blowing," growled the pit boss. And 
 even Bob's crowd laughed at the apt retort. 
 
 As the whistle blew for noon, all the men on 
 the east entries (Patterson had been busy on that 
 side of the mine all day) caught up their dinner- 
 pails, and hastened into the room of the two Bills 
 — Cassiday and Dempsey — who were " buddies " 
 and worked together. It was plainly an arranged 
 meeting; for inside of half an hour nearly all of 
 the men in the Local were represented; and there 
 was a fair sprinkling of those non-Union men 
 whom Patterson had been most active in attempt- 
 ing to induce to join him — it would never do for 
 the Union to take itself out of the Twin Brothers, 
 and yet to leave with Strong enough experienced 
 miners for the mine to even creep along in a crippled 
 fashion. 
 
 All the men present had promised to join, and 
 were regarded as already members. A trapper was 
 stationed at the end of the cross-entry, to warn 
 
IQ2 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 them of coming interruptions. The men drew 
 together in an irregular circle, opened their dinner- 
 pails, and began to eat while they discussed the 
 situation. 
 
 Now Haley Suter, the pit boss, suspecting some- 
 thing, had followed the crowd. The boy on watch 
 gave warning of his approach, and when he entered 
 the room he found the circle sullenly silent. 
 
 " Well," the pit boss began, " what you boys up 
 to, bunchin' up like this in one room ? " 
 
 " I don't see that it's any of your damned busi- 
 ness," snarled Patterson. " If the men can't get 
 together socially, at their dinner-hour, why the 
 Twin Brothers is a little too much like the mines of 
 Siberia to suit American ideas." 
 
 " Siberia ! " snorted Suter. " I reckoned you 
 were sitting here talking about some such devil- 
 ment." 
 
 But the pit boss retired. He knew, as well as 
 Patterson himself, that the man was down there 
 working up a strike; that he was drawing con- 
 verts to the Union, with a view to having its strength 
 sufficient to make this strike felt; and yet he was 
 helpless in the matter. He had gone to Strong 
 with it over the head of Tawney, the superintendent, 
 and had been told that the vice-president and 
 
CHAPTER OF OCCIDENTS 103 
 
 general manager of the Twin Brothers wanted the 
 men to have a fair chance at the Union. 
 
 " Patterson's not to interfere with the work," 
 Strong said, concisely. " But the men are working 
 on their own time. We weigh the coal, and pay 
 them for what they dig. I don't want a lot of loaf- 
 ing in the mine; but I shall not hinder Mr. Pat- 
 terson from going down and talking Unionism. If 
 the men want the Union, they can have it. If the 
 Union makes up its mind that it doesn't want me 
 — why, that will be a new issue — we'll meet it 
 when it comes. But I'll never try to suppress 
 Unionism in the Twin Brothers." 
 
 " You're right," said the Captain, who had leaned 
 on Strong's desk during this talk with Suter. 
 " Unionism is like measles, you'd better let it come 
 out when it wants to. No use trying to suppress 
 it. I remember when my kids had the measles, and 
 Liza give 'em hot teas and things to bring it out 
 on them. That's the way I'd treat the Union if 
 I was running a mine. I heard a feller tell the 
 other day about a mine in Alabama, where they 
 suppressed the Union. The owners signed an 
 agreement to give the scale as it was paid in that 
 district; and the men signed an agreement not to 
 organize a Local branch until the agreement was 
 out." 
 
IQ4 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Having got so far, the Captain looked across at 
 his employer, inquiringly. 
 
 " You think that was a mistake? " asked Strong, 
 to keep the conversational ball rolling. 
 
 " I know it was. It was just like tryin' to get a 
 kid to hold the measles in, when he had 'em in his 
 blood. Them men had Unionism in their blood. 
 They signed the agreement all right; and then 
 thirty-seven of 'em got together and organized 
 a Local. The owners didn't do a thing but dis- 
 charge every last one of 'em. Now that wasn't 
 fair. 'Twas like spanking the kid for breaking out 
 with his measles when he'd promised not to." 
 
 "Not fair, wasn't it?" laughed Strong. "I 
 think it was. The men will have to be discharged 
 until they learn to incorporate their Locals. As it 
 is, the owners can only proceed against them indi- 
 vidually. Did the Union stand behind those 
 fellows?" 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said the Captain, almost rue- 
 fully. " The Union said about what you do, that 
 it didn't want any men for members that couldn't 
 keep their agreements. You see the men sorter 
 feel freer and different when they get together in 
 a bunch that way. It doesn't just seem' like a plain 
 lie to them then." 
 
 And word went forth upon a garbled report of 
 
CHAPTER OF OCCIDENTS 105 
 
 this conversation, that Mark Strong was only seek- 
 ing a pretext to discharge all Union men in the Twin 
 Brothers. 
 
 Meantime, Suter departed from the room of the 
 two Bills grumbling. He had walked all day in 
 the footsteps of the district organizer, uneasily 
 aware that- Patterson made trouble in more ways 
 than one; now he turned his head for one last 
 apprehensive glance. 
 
 To a stranger the scene would have been a strik- 
 ing one. To these men, familiarity had robbed 
 it of its picturesqueness. The light from fifty or 
 sixty small lamps carried in the hats of the miners, 
 cast a flickering glow around the room. It was 
 reflected from thousands of points on the shining 
 face of the coal. The room was about thirty-five 
 feet wide, and had now been driven in about fifty 
 feet from the entry. Dozens of big props upheld 
 the dark, slaty roof; a car, half-loaded with coal, 
 stood near the great pile of lumps which had been 
 blown down the day before. 
 
 The men were seated on the fallen coal and on 
 the unused props; no man who had not given his 
 word to join the Union was present; and the more 
 conservative among the Union men even were 
 absent, or held their peace. The lamp-shine flick- 
 ered on Joe Ackerman's dark, handsome face, where 
 
io6 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 he sat mute, ground between the upper and nether 
 millstone of Mark Strong and the Union. Patter- 
 son did the talking. 
 
 " I tell you, men," he said, " the only way to 
 bring a fellow of Strong's stamp to time, is to strike. 
 You can keep on talking to him until he's gray as 
 a rat ; as long as he's getting coal out, he ain't going 
 to do a thing for you, but talk. You just let him 
 begin to lose money on his contracts, and he'll get 
 down to business." 
 
 " That's right," answered a dozen voices. 
 
 " If he thinks he can run this mine without 
 recognizing the Union, now's the time to call his 
 bluff." 
 
 Patterson peered about him to see just who was 
 present. 
 
 " We've got to root for new members for the 
 Local. It won't do to leave him with enough men 
 to get out any coal. You fellers have got to get 
 busy." 
 
 " Acker man is president of the Local, and Mc- 
 Fadden is secretary," broke in a doubtful voice. 
 " You ain't got Ackerman to favour a strike. How 
 do we know that the committee is going to recog- 
 nize what you and Dempsey and the others done 
 the other night? Ackerman says the old man will 
 come around." 
 
CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 107 
 
 " Come around hell ! " growled a disgusted voice 
 from the outer darkness. " When Mark Strong 
 comes around to anything you'll be dead. He ain't 
 the comin' 'round kind. Ackerman ought to know 
 it. Him and me and Ackerman worked in the 
 mines south of here when we was boys. And him 
 and another feller had a fight down in the mine one 
 Saturday. The next Sunday they both of them 
 started to cross a foot-log that went over a crick 
 in the field back of the mine. It was a feller by the 
 name of Dosser the old man had been fighting, 
 and Dosser would have made two of him ; but when 
 he seen the big feller start out on that log, he 
 wouldn't go back an inch. Said he was goin' across 
 that log, Jim Dosser or no Jim Dosser. They met in 
 the middle, and Jim thought he'd pick the old man 
 up and carry him back to where he come from — 
 make him look silly like, you know." 
 
 The speaker had emerged into the circle of dim 
 light. He looked about upon his auditors. They 
 were deeply interested in the fight of Mark Strong 
 and Jim Dosser. To them it typified the mine 
 owner's imminent difficulty with the Union. 
 
 " Well ? " prompted one or two. 
 
 " Well," the miner chuckled. " The old man 
 would have been easy to lift, if he had wanted to 
 be picked up — but he didn't. He fought so like a 
 
io8 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 little tiger that they both fell in the water and come 
 near drowning. The old man couldn't swim a lick, 
 but he wasn't thinking about that. He had set his 
 head to cross the log, and as soon as some of the 
 boys pulled him out of the water on the same side he 
 started from, he got up and walked over it." 
 
 There was a scattering volley of laughter. The 
 miners, like other men who work hard with their 
 hands, are admirers of pluck and persistence. 
 
 " You can see for yourselves," came the district 
 organizer's smooth tones, attempting to make an 
 illustration of the story, " that the only thing to 
 bring a man like that to his senses is a strike." 
 
 " You notice he went across the log," said the 
 first doubter. 
 
 " I'd hate to see the old man in trouble," some- 
 body else put in ; " he's treated us as white as any 
 man could." 
 
 " Like hell he has ! " the organizer returned, dis- 
 gustedly. " Is it treating you white to refuse you 
 your rights as Union men ? " 
 
 " He pays us as much as any Union mine," 
 argued Strong's friend. 
 
 " We've got the scale, and what's more, we get all 
 the work we want. There's plenty of them in the 
 Iroquois district that can't say that much. Look 
 at the Gloriana — Van Dorn's men don't work 
 
CHAPTER OF OCCIDENTS 109 
 
 three days in a week, this summer ; even the Culleoka 
 is runnin' down since Kesterson's got old. We get 
 four and five days to the week right through mid- 
 summer." 
 
 " And the more reason for a strike," urged Pat- 
 terson. " A man as prosperous as that, can afford to 
 recognize the Union. With all that business on 
 hand, you can bring him to time in short order. 
 I happen to know that he's got an especially big 
 contract now, that will keep the mine running full 
 time till it's filled. He's got one railroad order for 
 twenty-five cars a day; with what he's using in 
 his washer, he's simply got to have the coal. Now's 
 your chance." 
 
 " I guess you ain't real well acquainted with the 
 old man," said the miner who had told the story 
 of the foot-log. " He'd see his contract to the devil 
 before he'd give in, if he thought he was in the right 
 of it. Anyway, all of them contracts, nowadays, 
 reads that he won't have to fill 'em if there's a 
 strike." 
 
 " Aw, shut your fool mouth ! " broke in a dozen 
 angry voices. 
 
 " If that's the way you're goin' to talk, you'd 
 better get out of here," snarled Patterson. 
 
 " I don't reckon I will," answered the miner, 
 standing up. And the circle recognized, with a little 
 
no THE GRAPPLE 
 
 shock, that Cassiday was the speaker. " I don't 
 reckon I'll get out of here, bein' as you fellers is in 
 my room. I didn't invite you here, neither — 
 mebbe my buddy did, and if he did, w'y that 
 goes. But let me tell you, Mr. Patterson," walking 
 over to where the organizer perched upon the edge 
 of a coal-car, " you've had a hell of a lot to say 
 about the old man, and what he'd have to do, and 
 what you'd do if you was us; but I don't see you 
 goin' to the old man and tellin' him all these things. 
 Naw, you'd ruther loaf 'round here with a bunch of 
 these damn fools, and try to make trouble for a 
 better man than you'll ever be. You'll try to make 
 him lose money 'cause he's doin' what he thinks 
 is right ; and I tell you I'm sick and tired of hearin' 
 you shoot off your mouth. I'm frum Missouri, I 
 am, and you've got to show me. I stood by you, 
 Patterson, up at the hall, and helped you down old 
 Joe Ackerman. And I tell you, fellers, right now, 
 when this meetin' begun I was a good Union man; 
 but in the last half-hour I've made up my mind that 
 whatever comes or goes, I stay with the old man. 
 An' if you don't like the way I'm talking, you can 
 go somewheres else." 
 
 Patterson kept his temper admirably. No one 
 doubted his courage; but just now there was a 
 bigger fight on than any mere encounter with fists ; 
 
CHAPTER OF OCCIDENTS in 
 
 and he had the loyalty to his cause which keeps the 
 soldier out of private quarrels in time of war. 
 
 Cassiday stood by the edge of the car, with one 
 hand upon it, the other resting on his little pick. 
 The big muscles swelled grandly upon his bare 
 arms. His face was flushed and angry. He meant 
 all he said — for the moment — that was Cassiday. 
 
 " Let me tell you something, Patterson," he went 
 on. " There was one time when I talked just the 
 way you are doin' now. I'd get fuller' n a goat, 
 and then rush up to the office and try to tell the old 
 man how to run this mine. I come down here one 
 morning 'bout half-shot. I never paid no attention 
 to how things looked, and begun pulling down some 
 coal from the face — and the next thing I knowed 
 they was pullin' 'bout ten tons of slate off o' me. 
 The old woman was sick then, and I didn't have no 
 one to wait on me. Did the old man forget that 
 him and me had worked in one mine when we was 
 boys? I'll bet he didn't. He come over to my 
 place and set up with me three nights, before he 
 could get a nurse. He ain't the man to get the big 
 head, and offer one of his old pards a dollar — but 
 he'll treat him like a friend when the time comes. 
 There ain't a man in the Twin Brothers that the old 
 man ain't done some good to. An' now, you all set 
 around in the rooms of his mine and hatch up plans 
 
112 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 to make him lose money, when he's just started in a 
 good way of making, for the first time since he's 
 been manager." 
 
 Again and again Patterson had sought to inter- 
 rupt. Now he broke in. 
 
 " You don't understand, Cassiday. This is a 
 matter of principle. I think it's Mr. Strong's 
 policy to keep on the good side of his men. I do 
 him justice. I say he's an honest man — but he's 
 a mighty badly mistaken one. If he thinks all that 
 of you, why does he insult the organization you 
 belong to? " 
 
 Cassiday turned with a snort. " I've said all I've 
 got to say," he concluded. " If Dempsey is goin' 
 to have a Union meetin' in here every time the 
 mine blows over for noon, w'y, I'll eat my dinner 
 in the entry. I'll tell you right here, when you go 
 to strikin', you can count me out. When the old 
 man wants me, he can have me, Union or no 
 Union." 
 
 Waiting for no reply, he strode out into the 
 entry, past the trapper who was on watch there, 
 and almost to the main entry. Here Patterson 
 overtook him; the district organizer's face was 
 white with fury; he felt that his long morning's 
 work had been undone by the loyalty of the clumsy 
 fool. 
 
CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 113 
 
 " Cassiday," he panted, " if you don't care noth- 
 ing about the advancement of your mates, you 
 might at least let alone them that does. I don't 
 want to fight you, but I'll have to if you're going to 
 run 'round in the Twin Brothers and talk the way 
 you done just now." 
 
 Cassiday swung about, the Irishman in him 
 stirred to the core by that word " fight." 
 
 " Say ! " he roared, almost genially, " if you don't 
 want yer face spoiled ye're takin' a mighty funny 
 way with Bill Cassiday." 
 
 What more would have happened was cut short 
 by the appearance of the pit boss. Suter came rush- 
 ing down the main entry, caught Patterson by the 
 coat lapel, and pulled him fully into the larger 
 way. 
 
 " Stirring up a fight, are you ? " he demanded, 
 in a singularly quiet voice. 
 
 Patterson's temper was on a wire edge, and this 
 broke through whatever restraint was left him. 
 
 " None of your business," he shouted, and the 
 next instant measured his length on the floor. 
 
 Suter started toward the prostrate man, who was 
 getting to his knees, but a dozen restraining hands 
 were on him in an instant, while angry shouts filled 
 the entry. 
 
 It would have needed but a straw to set the gang 
 
ii4 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 upon the pit boss. But Patterson was too wise to 
 allow this to happen, with matters in their present 
 shape. He trusted that his time would come, when 
 the strike was finally declared. He got slowly to his 
 feet, looked at Suter, and muttered : 
 
 " Haley, you done right. You're boss here, and 
 I'd no business to answer you the way I did. I've 
 got the old man's permission to come down in the 
 Twin Brothers. I don't see that I make you any 
 trouble if I talk to the men out of working 
 hours." 
 
 This magnanimity scarcely reached Suter. 
 
 " You and the old man for it," he growled. " I 
 s'pose he can send you down there if he's a mind 
 to — you shouldn't go into no mine that I was 
 manager of — " 
 
 Upon the instant there arose an infernal din 
 back of the two men. 
 
 "What the devil is that, now?" shrilled the 
 weary, exasperated pit boss. 
 
 " Sounds like it might be the rest of that hurri- 
 cane that spit us out of the North Side," said Acker- 
 man, rather grimly. It was the first word he had 
 uttered. 
 
 Bob Llewellyn snickered, and brought the Dutch- 
 man's glance around in his direction ; whereupon he 
 looked preternaturally innocent. 
 
CHAPTER OF OCCIDENTS 115 
 
 " Something's the matter back there," cried Pat- 
 terson, and set off running toward the cage. He 
 had not taken a dozen steps before the sound of a 
 furiously struck gong burst out. 
 
 "Git! Git! Git! Git to hell out o' here!" 
 yelled the voice of a frightened motorman. " She's 
 runnin' away from me ! She's tearin' up the ground. 
 Git! Git! Git! Clear the track! Whoopee!" 
 
 They got. Down the lighted tunnel came roar- 
 ing the runaway motor, with ten or fifteen coal-cars 
 after it ; the cars swaying from the unusual speed, 
 lumps of coal bouncing from the loads and striking 
 against the roadway or the timbers. It was plain 
 why the motorman dared not jump. 
 
 Near the foot of the shaft came the crash that 
 all were looking for. By a hundredth chance, the 
 motor took the switch into the runway where it was 
 expected to, the trolley pole flying off against the 
 roof of the entry and breaking the current from 
 the machine, which ran perhaps a hundred feet 
 farther into a hickory pole stretched across the 
 entry for a bumper. The force of the shock tore 
 the pole out of its bearings, but stopped the motor 
 without any damage to it. 
 
 The heavily-laden cars held straight on, tearing 
 free from the motor, throwing the man with some 
 violence ten or fifteen feet, and then ploughing 
 
n6 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 ahead to pile up on each other, and jam the road- 
 way until it would be a day's job to clear it for 
 traffic. 
 
 The motorman sat up and stared stupidly at his 
 runaway machine. 
 
 " You're a hell of a mule," he commented, getting 
 slowly to his feet. 
 
 At this moment the trolley-pole, which had 
 swayed and balanced for an instant, dropped over 
 upon an uninsulated light wire, which also carried 
 the current to the coal-cutting machines. There was 
 a snapping, a flare of blue fire, and the entry was 
 in darkness. 
 
 "Now what the devil did you do that for?" 
 fiercely demanded the pit boss, stumbling over the 
 coal piles and swearing. 
 
 " I didn't do it — it done itself," muttered the 
 motorman. 
 
 " Done itself — so does every damn thing that 
 happens in this God-forsaken mine this week. I 
 wish I had some men to get coal out here, and haul 
 it; I'm damned if I ain't tired of trying to run this 
 place with freaks." 
 
 Ackerman and half a dozen others now came 
 down the entry, their lamps tossing like fireflies, 
 and making a faint illumination in the pitchy black- 
 ness as they climbed over the coal. 
 
CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 117 
 
 " What did Buck do? Is he hurt? " Ackerman 
 called, placidly. 
 
 " No. Damn him, he ain't hurt a bit ! " roared 
 the pit boss, as though that fact were a personal 
 grievance. " We've had a mule runaway on the 
 North Side, and we've been short-circuited, and 
 we've had everything so far this week but some fool 
 to blow Us up with a keg of powder ; or a wind shot 
 — I reckon that's about due now. If I knew who 
 the Jonah was in this mine — well — he wouldn't 
 last long," and he looked darkly at Patterson. 
 
 " Aw, I ain't around setting up that sort of 
 thing," remonstrated the district organizer. 
 
 " No, but you're keeping my men so worked up 
 that they don't know whether they're here or in 
 Kalamzoo. Good Lord — what's that?" 
 
 There was a shortage of cars to ship in that day, 
 and the pit boss had told the men they would blow 
 over an hour after dinner, so most of them were 
 getting ready to fire their shots. These shots are 
 long holes drilled in the face of the coal from two 
 to three feet in depth. The miner places in this 
 hole what is called a cartridge, or shot, composed 
 of a certain grade of black powder suitable for 
 the kind of coal in which they are working. Usually 
 the companies have their powder made up for them 
 
n8 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 by some of the large powder companies, and they in 
 turn sell it to the miners. 
 
 Occasionally a green or careless hand fails to 
 tamp the powder well in the hole. When he lights 
 the fuse he has placed in the powder, instead of the 
 force of the shot being expended on the coal, it 
 blows out into the room, igniting whatever gas 
 its atmosphere contains, and there comes that fear- 
 ful, spectacular mischance which miners call a 
 " wind-shot." With a hissing, whistling sound, a 
 stream of fire hurls itself along the roof, to strike 
 against the further wall, and come hurtling back. 
 The thing is soon spent; and an experienced 
 miner will throw himself flat on the floor, bury- 
 ing his face and hands in the loose coal till it is 
 over. 
 
 But the wind-shot whose first whistling cough 
 the pit boss had heard, and whose banner of fire 
 now flung its feather edge fairly above their heads, 
 found one man unprepared. 
 
 All morning the trapper, a new hand, had listened 
 to Patterson, till he had forgotten where he was 
 and whatever he might have known about taking 
 care of himself in a mine. 
 
 As the great stream of fire leaped up, he 
 crouched, and followed it with a frightened gaze. 
 
CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 119 
 
 When it came back it licked the sight from those 
 poor eyes. With an awful scream the boy fell on 
 his face; and a few moments after, the two miners 
 to whom the room belonged were carrying him 
 out. 
 
 " He'll never see again," said Dempsey, in a 
 hushed, awed tone. 
 
 " 'Twas that infernal fire — and I tamped the 
 hole," muttered one of the bearers, penitently. 
 
 As the moaning boy was carried past toward the 
 cage, the men skirting the debris of overturned cars 
 and spilled coal as best they might, the pit boss 
 turned savagely to Patterson. 
 
 " There goes your work, damn you ! Fletcher 
 didn't tamp the hole right, didn't he? And for 
 why ? Because you were down here filling his head 
 up with foolishness so he couldn't do his work. 
 That's why I won't have you in the mine. That's 
 why I am goin' to beg the old man to give you no 
 more leave to come down." 
 
 Facing the swift tragedy which had befallen, 
 tragedy familiar enough to the miner, but none the 
 less awful for that, Patterson suddenly told the 
 truth. Perhaps he saw it would be found out if he 
 did not. 
 
 " The old man didn't say I could come down and 
 
I2Q THE GRAPPLE 
 
 stay," he acknowledged. " He just let me down on 
 an errand — I'll not come again." 
 
 And indeed Patterson thought he could conduct 
 his campaign better from the hall over Yount's than 
 in the distraught Twin Brothers. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE STRIKE 
 
 The little town lay in the low, rolling hills that 
 flank the Mississippi of the Middle West. There 
 were a few blocks of brick buildings on the one 
 main street, and the usual frame houses of the 
 country village on the side streets. These were oc- 
 cupied by the store owners, the few professional 
 men such a town calls for, and some of the higher 
 officials of the mines around. 
 
 The main street ended in the railway station, 
 which was the great focus of activity in Iroquois 
 when there was not a steamer at the landing. 
 Across the tracks was a flouring mill. Standing on 
 the depot platform you could see the head towers 
 of seven mines ; and the little river, winding down 
 to join the great" one, came past seventeen mines in 
 all, which were included in the Iroquois district. 
 
 Looking north, the road climbed by devious ways 
 through the hills, until you mounted the longest 
 one. Here it branched, the left-hand way going to 
 
122 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 the Gloriana, and the right-hand track leading to 
 Kesterson's mine, the Culleoka. On the very sum- 
 mit of this hill, at the direct parting of the ways, 
 stood a huge sycamore-tree, which came to have its 
 history; for it stood at the boundary of Mark 
 Strong's land, and there, when troubled times came, 
 ran his dead line, across which no man stepped to 
 enter without his pass, and across which his black 
 men never came. On this tree the notices were 
 posted warning all people to keep off his grounds. 
 And within the enclosure which was behind it, 
 every improvement, roads, electric lights, even the 
 railroad and the trolley line, came finally to belong 
 to Mark Strong. 
 
 In Iroquois, the most prosperous places of busi- 
 ness were the saloons, and there were nineteen in 
 this town of five thousand inhabitants. On pay- 
 days, most of the checks issued by the companies 
 were cashed across their beer-stained counters; and 
 back across those counters came much of the money 
 which the men earned. 
 
 All this before Mark Strong brought in the 
 guests from Alabama. After that, one mine, at 
 least, contributed no support to the saloons in 
 Iroquois. Strong had such liquors as he supposed 
 would be necessary taken out to his place, and sold 
 
THE STRIKE 123 
 
 to the men at a reasonable rate, and in a place which 
 was rather more like a restaurant than a saloon. 
 
 The order of events in the disagreement at the 
 Twin Brothers was now for the district president 
 to intervene and attempt to arbitrate the matter. 
 Owen Llewellyn came to Iroquois with that ex- 
 pressed intention. In fact, he had at last found him- 
 self in the position, so long coveted, in which he 
 could speak out his mind to Mark Strong. 
 
 He went alone to the owner of the Twin Brothers ; 
 he did not want a committee with him, nor even the 
 president of the Local. There were things which 
 had lain heavy on his mind for years, and which 
 he now proposed to delve out and to hurl at Mark 
 Strong, hoping that their weight would at least 
 make them effective missiles. 
 
 It was pay-day at the Twin Brothers, when he 
 made his call. The bookkeeper sat at his window 
 with a pile of pay envelopes at his elbow. The men 
 were gathered about the yard in little knots and 
 bunches. Everybody knew that Owen Llewellyn 
 had gone into the boss's private office, and many 
 of them were aware that he carried the papers 
 which authorized him to call the men out of the 
 Twin Brothers if Strong refused to arbitrate. 
 
 " Llewellyn ain't the man for the job," said Mc- 
 Fadden. " You send Joe Ackerman in there, and 
 
124 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 him and the boss would have matters straightened 
 out inside of half an houn" 
 
 " Well, then, Llewellyn is the man for the job, 
 if you let me tell it. Send Joe Ackerman to Strong, 
 indeed! The boss would twist Joe around hiss 
 finger, and send him back to us with everything 
 we asked for refused to us. Aw, Ackerman's no 
 good when you get a sharp fellow like Mark 
 Strong a-holt of him." This from Dempsey. 
 
 Meantime, there was more trouble in getting the 
 men of Twin Brothers paid this month than there 
 had been in any year before. They felt that they 
 were going, and most of them meant to make as 
 much trouble as possible before they left. 
 
 " That pit boss is the damnedest liar and sneak 
 in the State ! " shouted a big Swede, bringing a 
 fist down on a window-ledge. " You yust wait, 
 mister, till I go talk to him once 'bout my time for 
 track-lay in'." 
 
 This man sent on his way to find and dismember 
 Suter, the pit boss, another raised the cry that he 
 had been overcharged for blacksmithing. 
 
 " A ton of coal — what am I charged with a ton 
 of coal for?" snarled the next in line. 
 
 " Sent to your house," said the weary man be- 
 hind the window. 
 
 " The hell it was ! I ain't had a bushel of coal in 
 
THE STRIKE 125 
 
 two months. I can bring the old woman here to 
 prove it." 
 
 " Lord, no ! " protested the bookkeeper. " One of 
 you is enough. You can lie, and she can swear to 
 it. I'm not going over to your house to see the 
 state of your coal pile. Take your money as I give 
 it to you, and move on." 
 
 While a couple of men wrangled over the weight 
 which had been given one of them, a small girl, in 
 head-gear which was manifestly her mother's, at- 
 tempted to bring herself high enough to command 
 the attention of the paymaster. That functionary 
 saw first a battered hat with draggled feathers 
 bobbing about as though upon a troubled sea; 
 then a pair of round eyes and a snub nose appeared 
 beneath it, and a small, frightened voice said : 
 
 " Paw's-sick-and-he-says-for-you-to-girnme-the 
 money ! " 
 
 "What's the name?" inquired the man at the 
 window. 
 
 The snub nose and the eyes had gone down ; but 
 the hat still rode at uneasy anchor. " Paw-says-you- 
 gotter-give-it-tumme," came doggedly from beneath 
 the millinery. 
 
 "What's your father's name?" the clerk again 
 questioned of the hat crown. 
 
126 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " His -name's -John, - and - he - says - you - gotter 
 gimme-the-money." 
 
 " 'Tis Reagan's gurrel," supplied Dempsey, leav- 
 ing his own grievances to relieve a situation which 
 was becoming strained. 
 
 A half-dozen quiet men, who accepted their enve- 
 lopes without a word and walked quickly out of 
 the yard, were next disposed of. These belonged 
 to the non-striking faction, once a majority in the 
 Twin Brothers, but now, thanks to Patterson's 
 efforts, become a minority. 
 
 Inside the office, Llewellyn had ceased to talk of 
 the strike, and was devoting his attention to mat- 
 ters more personal; the questions brought up be- 
 tween the Union and the manager of the Twin 
 Brothers had been gone through in an almost per- 
 functory fashion, Llewellyn merely snarling at 
 each statement the other made, each new opinion 
 he expressed. 
 
 "Offered them a club-house, did you? Well, I 
 call that an insult; when men come to you for 
 justice, and bread for their children, you offer them 
 a club-house — a damned club-house ! " 
 
 Strong had prepared himself for this interview, 
 and held, all through it, a calm most irritating to his 
 antagonist. 
 
 " I didn't offer them a damned club-house," he 
 
THE STRIKE 127 
 
 amended. " I think my statement was that it should 
 be as good a building as any for its purpose this side 
 of Chicago. I believe in giving men what they 
 want. Old man Kesterson, over at the Culleoka, 
 gives 'em a swimming-bath and a library, and then 
 feels injured because they won't bathe nor read his 
 books. I used to belong to the Mine Workers' 
 Union, you know, Llewellyn, and I offered them 
 what I thought might come in handy." 
 
 Llewellyn glanced across the table. He was a 
 choleric man, with no little of that inflammable tem- 
 per which had made a brute of his brother. 
 
 " Well, there's no use for you and me to talk," 
 he concluded ; " we can't agree ; and the more we 
 talk, the more we can't agree." 
 
 " That's about so," said the mine owner, " and 
 that being the case, we are wasting time. I have 
 some important matters to which I might be devot- 
 ing my attention, if this is all." 
 
 He spoke brusquely, quietly. There was not the 
 least hint of that distress, that weakening, which 
 the other had fatuously hoped to see. The district 
 president arose in a fury. He had the sensation of 
 a person who has been summarily dismissed. 
 
 " All ! " he shouted. " Yes — and enough, too ! 
 Mark Strong, there are some people that can't stand 
 prosperity. There are some folks that get the big 
 
128 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 head when they've got one dollar to rub against 
 another. When I look at you, and think of them 
 that have stood your friend, and — that have stood 
 your friend — " 
 
 He broke off. Unfortunately, he had glanced at 
 the owner of the Twin Brothers when he made this 
 last remark, and something in that quiet eye stilled 
 him. 
 
 "Well?" prompted Strong. 
 
 There was silence. 
 
 " When you look at me and think of friends who 
 have been faithful to me," he repeated, " what hap- 
 pens then ? Have I been unfaithful to my friends ? " 
 
 " Yes, by God ! " said the big man, towering over 
 the other, but keeping his gaze consciously averted. 
 " You've got the sneaking hope to climb up among 
 men that feel themselves your betters. I reckon 
 you're fixing to marry — to marry — " 
 
 His voice faltered, and trailed helplessly. He took 
 his courage in both hands, and growled out : 
 
 " Everybody says you're trying to marry Van 
 Dorn's sister." 
 
 The little man in gray was on his feet. 
 
 " Now, Owen," he said, softly, " I give you just 
 one minute to get out of my office before you're 
 thrown out. You're not talking mine matters. 
 You know you've no business with what you're med- 
 
THE STRIKE 129 
 
 dling in now. Get out peaceably, and I'll say no 
 more about it." 
 
 Llewellyn was no coward or bully ; yet his quarrel 
 was so unjust, he knew so well himself that he had 
 no right to trench upon Strong's private affairs, 
 that he dared not risk an open rupture. 
 
 " Lord ! did you think I'd stay ? You knew I 
 was goin'. One minute to go in ! You're liberal — 
 I don't want two seconds." 
 
 With a black look he strode out of the room. As 
 he flung himself from the door of Strong's office, 
 and paused on the step overlooking the yard, every 
 eye was upon him. The groups broke up ; men left 
 their seats upon the piles of timber, to hurry for- 
 ward and hear what the district president had to say. 
 
 Instinctively his hand went to his breast pocket, 
 closed over the papers there, and drew them forth. 
 He had been made to appear like a brute and a 
 blackguard in Strong's office. Well, here was his 
 answer. He had not struck the little man with his 
 fist — but he would strike him with this. 
 
 " I've got the papers from the Central Commit- 
 tee," he cried, " authorizing me to call the men out 
 of the Twin Brothers if Strong refuses to arbi- 
 trate ! " 
 
 He was silent so long after this that Ackerman 
 took heart. 
 
I3Q THE GRAPPLE 
 
 "Well, Owen, out with it. What did the boss 
 say? He didn't refuse you. He sure would arbi- 
 trate." 
 
 "Say!" snarled Llewellyn. " What'd he say? 
 He talked to me like a dog. If he'd been a man of 
 my size, I'd 've broke his damn neck for him. 
 Arbitrate — hell ! You got nothing to expect from 
 Strong." 
 
 " The strike's on — the men are called out of this 
 mine ! " shouted Patterson, excitedly. 
 
 Llewellyn turned to walk away, when he was 
 confronted by an old man in a somewhat worn 
 G. A. R. suit. It was Strong's new farm boss. 
 
 " Was you looking for a man of your own size, 
 so that you could break somebody's neck ? " he 
 asked, gently. 
 
 " Now g'wan off," snorted Llewellyn, full of 
 the immediate triumph of having just declared a 
 strike in the Twin Brothers, and bitter from his 
 recent defeat in the office of its owner. " You get 
 out of the way, Mc. I ain't got any row with you." 
 
 " Ain't you ? " inquired the Captain, mildly. 
 " Well, I've got the hottest old row with you," and 
 he launched himself full upon the Welshman. 
 
 The men went down together, in the black dust 
 of the roadway, rolling over and over, hammering 
 savagely at each other. But there were numerous 
 
THE STRIKE 131^ 
 
 and willing hands to part them ; and the only result 
 of McClintock's defence of his employer was that 
 he was added to those whom Owen Llewellyn hated* 
 for Mark Strong's sake. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MARK STRONG'S DEAD - LINE 
 
 " Mark/' Ackerman had urged on one of those 
 occasions when he unsuccessfully laid the case of the 
 Union before the owner of the Twin Brothers, 
 " Mark, if two men apply for a place in your mine, 
 and they're equally good, you're bound to prefer 
 the non-Union man." 
 
 " Why, Ackerman? " Strong had asked him. 
 
 " It isn't human nature for you not to want to 
 keep as many non-Union men as you can in the 
 Twin Brothers, in case the Union should order a 
 strike. If it did, and you had, say, half a force of 
 outsiders, you could run on without us." 
 
 Strong had laughed at the Dutchman, but very 
 kindly. 
 
 " That's just the point I make, Joey, about this 
 business of striking. It makes your employers un- 
 willing to be in your hands. You've got a strangle 
 hold on them if the mine is unionized and every 
 man in it belongs to the Local. But I'll say this 
 
 132 
 
MARK STRONG'S DEAD -LINE 133 
 
 to you, and you'll believe me, because you know I 
 don't lie: I have never hired a non-Union man yet 
 for any reason but because he was better than the 
 Union man whom I could get to fill his place. I 
 let your organizers go into the Twin Brothers and 
 make all the converts they can. And, it's true, as I 
 tell you, I have given the preference to the Union, 
 and only hired non-Union men when they were 
 actually better — better men, better miners." 
 
 This was so true that when the Mine Workers' 
 Union called its men out of the Twin Brothers, 
 there remained with Strong, out of the three hun- 
 dred he employed when the mine was running full, 
 just thirty men. But these thirty were, as he had 
 asserted, picked men. They stood by him in this 
 time of trouble, and brought in a few others, among 
 their relatives and families, to assist, so that the 
 Twin Brothers crept along, on broken wing it is 
 true, but the mine was never closed, and the con- 
 tracts were being filled — to the infinite chagrin of 
 the strikers. 
 
 Strong was making every effort to add to his 
 diminished forces. The Union, pursuing its usual 
 tactics, discouraged men from hiring at the Twin 
 Brothers. The faithful thirty, also, began to have 
 trouble. Those who stood staunch, who showed no 
 indications of uniting with the Local and joining 
 
134 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 the strike, began to find it increasingly hard to make 
 such purchases in Iroquois as they desired. The 
 merchant was out of the goods they wanted, or he 
 gave them a timid hint that his trade was with 
 Union men, and that the sight of their faces in his 
 store was bad for business. 
 
 Strong undertook negotiations with a merchant 
 whom he had picked out as a suitable person, and 
 with whom the bulk of the Twin Brothers' trading 
 had been done heretofore. 
 
 " But, Mr. Strong," the man replied, " my trade 
 isn't altogether with your men. What can I expect 
 if I go against every customer I have ? " 
 
 " What can you expect ? Why, I'm going to fill 
 the mine with a new set of men, and if you'll stand 
 by me, your store will have a new set of customers 
 — that's what you can expect," Mark Strong 
 answered, a little sharply. 
 
 The man behind the counter scratched his head, 
 and looked doubtful. 
 
 " If you whip the Mine Workers' Union, Mr. 
 Strong, you'll be the first that's done it — you know 
 that, don't you?" 
 
 " There has to be a first one, Hubbard ; why not 
 me as well as some one else ? " 
 
 " I don't know about there having to be a first 
 one," the storekeeper demurred. " Nobody's told 
 
MARK STRONG'S DEAD-LINE 135 
 
 me yet that the Mine Workers' Union has to be 
 whipped. Maybe it'll whip you out — and then 
 where would I be ? " 
 
 A tinge of colour rose in Mark's face. 
 
 " I see — I see" he said. " You're pinning your 
 faith to the stronger antagonist. You're picking a 
 winner. Well, you're making a mistake. I would 
 have brought in a good class of non-Union men, paid 
 them well, and you could have had all their trade. 
 You say no. — you are afraid. Well, I've no 
 choice now but to bring in negroes from the far 
 South, and go the thing alone. And I'll build a 
 store — since I've got to build one at all — twice the 
 size of the one you have here." 
 
 He glanced about him. " Yes," he concluded, 
 " it'll take about twice this space to hold what I 
 want to put in. I'm going to run a store as I've 
 always run the Twin Brothers. I'll have the best 
 one in the neighbourhood." 
 
 The instinct of the merchant got the better of 
 Hubbard's Yankee caution. 
 
 " Them niggers won't appreciate that sort of 
 thing. You put up some sort of a shack, Mr. 
 Strong, and I'll find a way to supply you with goods 
 till I — till you — " 
 
 The owner of the Twin Brothers laughed out 
 suddenly. 
 
136 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " Till you see whether I make a go of it ! Well, 
 you're a cool one. No. I don't do business that 
 way. I didn't make my success that way. I'll put 
 in the best store hereabout, and I'll sell goods at a 
 fair price." 
 
 This last was a side hit at some extortionate 
 practices which the mine owner had always depre- 
 cated in his merchant. Hubbard followed the little 
 man in gray to the door with an uneasy face. 
 
 " I'm sure sorry I can't accommodate you, Mr. 
 Strong," he repeated. " I wish I could. I wish 
 I could see my way to do exactly what you want 
 me to. But you understand the men in the other 
 mines deal here. I get lots of trade from- the 
 Gloriana. They would all be down on me. I'd 
 have to be held harmless for that trade as well as for 
 the trade I get from the Twin Brothers." 
 
 " That's all right," said Strong, pleasantly. 
 " I've made my offer, and you don't care to take up 
 with it. I'm not angry. I didn't shake the new 
 store at you as a threat; for if I'm any judge of 
 matters, it'll have to be on my own property — this 
 store of mine will — and nobody but my own em- 
 ployes would be willing to trade there. I under- 
 stand that I'm to be treated as a case of smallpox 
 from this on." 
 
 He looked so slight, and so dauntless, as he stood, 
 
MARK STRONG'S DEAD-LINE 137 
 
 thin and worn, but smiling, in the pleasant autumn 
 sunlight, that even Hubbard's leathery old heart 
 was moved. 
 
 " A case of smallpox," he repeated. " Look out 
 that you don't die of that kind of smallpox, Mr. 
 Strong. The Union will only just boycott you now, 
 and annoy you every way they can. But when they 
 see you about to win, when they think they're liable 
 to be whipped — it'll be your life they'll be after 
 then — and you know it." 
 
 He ended in a whisper with his hand on the 
 other's shoulder. 
 
 " Sure," agreed Strong, cheerfully. " That's 
 what I'm going in for. That's what I expect. 
 Nothing else. This is war, Mr. Hubbard; it's no 
 less a war because it's so quiet — indeed, it's that 
 bitterest and deadliest of all — a factional fight ; and 
 a soldier who has scruples about risking his life 
 oughtn't to enlist at all." 
 
 This was the last proposition or suggestion that 
 Mark Strong made to anybody in Iroquois. There- 
 after he fought out the campaign alone, with only 
 the old Captain to give him personal sympathy and 
 support, meeting the defection of his farmers even, 
 and buying a razor when he found that every barber 
 in town refused to shave him. 
 
 " I tell you, Mark, you'd better get you a com- 
 
138 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 pany or two of militia camped out there on them 
 slopes before you stir a peg. It'll save trouble an' 
 lives an' layin' awake nights," the Captain coun- 
 selled, when Strong finally made his decision to 
 bring in negro miners from Alabama. And upon 
 every hand the owner of the Twin Brothers was 
 warned that military protection would be indispen- 
 sable. 
 
 " I'll not do it," Strong flung out, sharply. " I 
 
 have my own plan. I'll not set some d d 
 
 whey-faced fellow who has been refused credit by 
 some of our folks across the counter, or some chap 
 whose garden has been destroyed by some of my 
 men's chickens, to paying out neighbourhood spites, 
 with a uniform on." 
 
 " I don't see what you'll do, Strong," McClin- 
 tock urged, with a discouraged shake of the head. 
 " You can't get United States troops — and the 
 milish ain't so bad. I admit what you say about it's 
 going blamed hard for men to be ordered around 
 by the fellers they've taken drinks with and 
 chummed with for years; but I don't see how you 
 can help it. Lord, I wish we had the old Twenty- 
 Ninth here — and it was State troops when it began 
 life — we'd keep things in order without no frills." 
 
 " I'm going to come as near that as I can," 
 Strong told him. " The first hundred negroes who 
 
MARK STRONG'S DEAD-LINE 139 
 
 come in here won't be set to work in the mines for 
 a month. You'll plan a good parade-ground and 
 camp, up there on the slope, and you'll have who- 
 ever you want to help you drill 'em. They tell me 
 those darkies take to drill like a duck to water. I'm 
 buying the uniforms, and I've got a plan to have 
 them sworn in as special officers. They'll be my 
 milish — my own milish. Don't you see, Mc, the 
 strikers are bound to feel that these men have some 
 right to be fighting them. It won't scald like it does 
 to have Tom, Dick, and Harry — fellows whose 
 cats or goats or dogs have had ructions with our 
 people's cats and goats and dogs — fellows picked 
 up on the streets of their own town, and put in 
 uniforms to stand over them. Anyhow, it's what 
 I'm going to try." 
 
 McClintock warmed to the plan. 
 
 " Say, Strong, you have a good band — mind 
 that. Music goes a long way in encouraging men 
 to fight, and overawing the fellows you're fighting." 
 
 Strong laughed. 
 
 " That's the first cheerful word I've heard out 
 of your head for two weeks," he said. " I tell you, 
 McClintock, it goes against my grain to see my 
 own men turned out and these darkies brought in. 
 I don't know anything about 'em — I suppose 
 they're well enough, where they belong; but I've 
 
HO THE GRAPPLE 
 
 got an abiding belief that they don't belong in the 
 Twin Brothers, and I need all the encouragement 
 I can get to hold me level in bringing 'em there. 
 Once I place 'em — once they're my men — and 
 I'll fight for 'em all right; but just now I," — he 
 halted a moment — " Mc, I feel sick." 
 
 The Captain was deeply touched at this tacit ap- 
 peal for sympathy — for comprehension and help ; 
 and mortally ashamed of his recent appearance of 
 discouragement and weakening. 
 
 " Course you do ! " he cried, heartily. " It's 
 a sort of sickenin' thing to have to do. But as long 
 as they've shoved it on to us, we'll do it up right. 
 And another thing : the better we do it, the sooner 
 the Union's going to git a plenty of it, and come 
 back to you on your own terms — the only reason- 
 able terms." 
 
 Strong had a thousand acres of ground; it con- 
 tained some fine farming land ; he had thought his 
 campaign out exhaustively, going into every de- 
 tail, facing and providing for every possible exi- 
 gency. His intention was to surround this tract 
 with a dead-line; to create within it a little world 
 of his own, out of which his miners need not — 
 should not — go ; into which, without his permis- 
 sion, none dare come. For this purpose, he utilized 
 the mountains of old condemned timbers which 
 
MARK STRONG'S DEAD-LINE 141 
 
 accumulate about a mine. With them, and a few 
 tons of barbed wire, he set a mark about the exposed 
 boundaries of his tract; and this barrier he pur- 
 posed to sentry in times of trouble. 
 
 Inside was the store, a great ramshackle building, 
 which took less than four weeks to put up. It con- 
 tained everything that a miner could desire, and 
 much more than most miners have ever seen. There 
 were rough wooden counters, and rougher wooden 
 shelves; but upon the one was laid, and across the 
 other was vended, a stock of goods the like of which 
 had never been brought into Iroquois. The grocery 
 department was managed by an experienced man; 
 the goods were of the best, and the prices (which 
 would have made Van Dorn's or Kesterson's miners 
 open their eyes) were such as Strong had found 
 he could afford where he desired to make no profit. 
 In the butcher-shop the best of meats were sold; 
 farm products, hardware, everything that people 
 could want who were preparing for a siege, he 
 assembled under this one roof. 
 
 The band and the drill were to be great features 
 of the little world at the Twin Brothers. Strong had 
 had a band-stand constructed as soon as he found 
 how well his musicians could perform, and how 
 eagerly and enthusiastically they took to the prac- 
 tising. The parade-ground was McClintock's pride ; 
 
142 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 could he only have drilled white soldiers upon it, he 
 would have been completely content. 
 
 " No use fixin' up them cottages," the old man 
 had said ; " niggers is used to livin' in log cabins 
 where you can sling a cat through the roof." He 
 had gathered his ideas during the years of the 
 Civil War. 
 
 " I'm going to give them as good as the white 
 men had," Strong said ; " and better, as soon as they 
 show that they want it." 
 
 One day, passing the foot of her old lover's lawn, 
 on her way to Mrs. Kesterson's, Julia saw the little 
 man in gray out superintending the work of a gang 
 of negroes. He was putting his famous fence in 
 place. He left the labourers, to walk beside her 
 for a little way. 
 
 " I'm gathering my clans," he said, " to stand the 
 siege. Perhaps you'd better hold any last conver- 
 sation that you want to with me ; for in about two 
 months, when I get my negroes in from Alabama, 
 you'll not be willing to be seen talking to me." 
 
 " That'll be a strange day," smiled Julia, " when 
 I'm ashamed to be seen talking to Mark Strong." 
 
 " Stranger days have been," persisted the little 
 man in gray. 
 
 She was silent for a long time; then she began, 
 very gently: 
 
MARK STRONG'S DEAD-LINE 143 
 
 " I had hoped that your trouble with the Union 
 would be fixed up long ago. Are you really going 
 to ship in negroes from the South ? " 
 
 " I'm going to make use of what I can get," 
 Strong said, defensively. " I owe it to my stock- 
 holders to make the Twin Brothers pay. I owe it 
 to myself to run any mine that I set out to run, in 
 my own way. Yes, Julia, I'm going to bring the 
 negroes in. I'm going to make a little world of my 
 own here. We won't come across the line to trouble 
 other people; and other people would better not 
 come across the line to trouble us. I shall make a 
 success of it. I do not like the job; but I shall 
 make a success of it." 
 
 Julia looked at him, and was sure that he would 
 succeed. Her heart sank. 
 
 " You know, Mark," she began, hesitatingly, " I 
 go about among the people, and I see, as you can- 
 not, the good the Union has done. Why do you 
 fight it?" 
 
 " I do not fight it," objected Strong. " It fights 
 me. You're mistaken when you say I don't know 
 the good the Union has done and is doing. But I 
 know when it gets out of its place and needs a 
 whipping. I am only one man, and not a very big 
 man at that; but I propose to give it that whip- 
 ping." 
 
144 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 She eyed him wistfully and covertly; his face 
 looked hard and cold now; she wondered he had 
 cared to talk to her. As they came to the turn in 
 the path where her way crossed a small brook, she 
 put out her hand. 
 
 " You're going to build a town of your own," 
 she said ; " and I will be moving away, I expect. 
 I don't know where I'll go, yet. Bob has had a 
 prospect of work at one or two other places; but 
 we thought — I hoped — well, good-bye." 
 
 The mention of Bob brought added sternness to 
 Strong's features. He had been ready to ask Julia 
 if she did not care to ally herself with his faction. 
 When he turned to walk with her, it had been in 
 his mind that he must have a school inside his stock- 
 ade ; that there must be a teacher ; that there would 
 be room for various positions which she might 
 fill. But, after all, what could he hope? She was 
 the mother of that young hound who, more than 
 once, had made an attempt upon his life. No, he 
 had not the heart to try to include her in the little 
 world he was now building. There must be nobody 
 within the lines but those who were staunch. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said, taking her hand. " It 
 seems as though we were preparing to live in dif- 
 ferent countries. I guess we are. Good-bye, Julia." 
 
 The first month of preparation at the Twin 
 
MARK STRONG'S DEAD-LINE 145 
 
 Brothers brought Van Dorn up to investigate its 
 possibilities. 
 
 " They'll probably send a committee to me to- 
 morrow to try to dock me a month's salary for 
 sneaking away and coming over here," he said, 
 jocularly ; " but my curiosity overcame me, and I 
 played hookey, and just ran the risk." 
 
 The Captain was escorting him about with con- 
 siderable pride. 
 
 " You just wait till my squad turns out for drill, 
 and I'll show you as well set-up men as ever were 
 enlisted in the U. S. Army," he boasted. " I 
 tell you it's wonderful. These fellows are natural 
 soldiers — they've got the instinct of obedience 
 that's the foundation-stone of military discipline. I 
 know. I used to see 'em during the latter years of 
 the Civil War." 
 
 There came a flare of music down the neatly-kept 
 parade-ground, and then the thud of marching feet, 
 and Strong's Guard whirled into the open space. 
 The Captain stepped forward to put them through 
 the simple manual which he used. Their move- 
 ments were timed to a precision quite wonderful 
 considering how recently they had begun to drill. 
 
 Van Dorn gazed at them from under heavy 
 brows. 
 
 " Fine-looking animals," he commented to the 
 
146 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 little man in gray, who stood beside him. " Now 
 if a fellow owned them, as they used to in the South, 
 he might make something in the mining business." 
 
 Strong shook his head, laughingly. 
 
 " I should ask to be excused," he protested. 
 " Hiring miners is as fierce a job as I want to tackle; 
 if I owned about three hundred of them I should 
 go cut my throat." 
 
 Van Dorn shrugged, and raised his brows. 
 
 " I always thought I should like to own slaves. 
 My mother's people owned big cotton lands; I 
 can just remember going with her, as a kid of five 
 or six, to visit grandfather, on the great plantation. 
 If the war hadn't ruined them, I probably shouldn't 
 be running the Gloriana to-day." 
 
 " Come over and see the foundations we're put- 
 ting in for the new washer," said Strong. " I 
 found about a dozen good stone-masons among the 
 negroes. They have a natural bent for construct- 
 ive work, and I'm going to be able to use them, 
 since the Carpenters' Union and the Stone Cutters' 
 Union have got me on their list." 
 
 " That's the deuce of it, Strong," Van Dorn pro- 
 tested, in his faithless, skeptic, half-hearted fashion. 
 " That's where the hard part comes in ; you'll 
 find it cropping up everywhere. Every little three- 
 penny Union will boycott you; there'll be a hun- 
 
MARK STRONG'S DEAD-LINE 147 
 
 dred annoyances that you haven't prepared yourself 
 for." 
 
 " Think so? " asked Strong. " Well, I am in- 
 clined to believe that I have prepared myself for 
 anything that may come. You know I'm not new 
 to this sort of thing." 
 
 Van Dorn laughed, ruefully. " Hang it all, man, 
 you have such a competent air; you put the rest 
 of us to shame. But say you make a success of 
 this, what then? Are you going to live your days 
 out in a state of siege? I couldn't do that, you 
 know, I have a family; they couldn't comfortably 
 stay inside of my dead-line, and I shouldn't want 
 them to be outside while I was in. I have a liking 
 for some social existence; you realize what you're 
 cutting yourself off from? " 
 
 " I could not be ungracious enough to Mrs. Van 
 Dorn to suggest that a bachelor has any privileges 
 which a married man might envy," smiled Strong; 
 " but I will say that this thing is war ; you have 
 called it a siege; well, then, a soldier has no busi- 
 ness with a wife. Yet, if I had one — yes, I think 
 she would live inside the dead-line with me — I 
 think she would have to help me stand the siege. 
 I confess that Mrs. Graves is a failing prop. Per- 
 haps, as you suggest, I am better off without women- 
 folks, under these circumstances." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 
 
 Iroquois will never forget the day that brought 
 the negro miners into it, marched them through its 
 streets and out to the Twin Brothers' spur-track. 
 They came in singing — poor exiles — plantation 
 songs that were strange to the ears of the Middle 
 West, and would, under any other circumstances, 
 have been eagerly admired. 
 
 After Strong evinced his determination to bring 
 in negroes, and made the first move by hiring and 
 training the squad of special officers, his troubles 
 with the allied trades really began. Finally, no 
 engineer or fireman could be found to drive the 
 engine which hauled cars of coal on the spur-line 
 that ran to the Twin Brothers. So the engineer's 
 place was supplied by a young fellow from the 
 Boston Polytechnic Institute, a chap who could 
 have built a locomotive, who made shift to run one 
 on theory, and did run it till he learned to do so by 
 practical experience. A man from the mine fired 
 
 148 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 149 
 
 for him, and not one day was lost through failure 
 to move the cars. 
 
 But when everything was finally in readiness to 
 receive the guests from Alabama, the proprietor of 
 the Twin Brothers found but one railway which 
 would bring them in, and this road refused to have 
 its cars switched on to the Twin Brothers spur and 
 hauled out to the mine. The hitch came at the last 
 moment, and was no doubt contrived by the strikers, 
 who thought Strong would be afraid to unload the 
 blacks in Iroquois. But the little man in gray had 
 considered this possibility, as well as some others 
 which he was not called on to face; and the crisis 
 found him prepared. 
 
 Strong's m'lish, as his negro company was called, 
 stood in uniformed ranks to make a way down which 
 the newcomers would march. The Captain, white 
 and nervous, hovered on the outskirts, divided 
 between pride in the men's neat, martial appear- 
 ance, and helpless disgust at their colour — their 
 race. 
 
 "Play — play! For God's sake, why doesn't 
 that band play? " he demanded, peevishly; and the 
 ready musicians struck up a wailing camp-meeting 
 hymn of which they were extremely fond. 
 
 Instantly a hundred deep, sonorous basses and 
 
I5Q THE GRAPPLE 
 
 golden tenors, such voices as Africa is always giv- 
 ing us, took up the strain : 
 
 " Oh, Joseph begged his body, and laid it in the tomb, 
 Oh, Joseph begged his body, and laid it in the tomb, 
 Oh, Joseph begged his body, and laid it in the tomb, 
 And the Lord — will bear — my spir — it — home ! " 
 
 "Great Scott! — not that thing!" growled the 
 impatient Captain. And the air was changed to 
 " America." 
 
 Up the street they went, moving in lock-step, two 
 and two. 
 
 " Plenty of them fellers been in the mines down 
 South — convicts. Look at 'em slouch. I^ook at 
 'em fall into that lock-step — oh, they're a sweet- 
 scented lot ! " And the Captain groaned. 
 
 Door and window were crowded, curb and the 
 open way of every crossing lined with white faces ; 
 the striking miners, their wives and children, their 
 sympathizers, standing to see the men brought in 
 who should take their places, live in their cabins, 
 and swing the pick in those rooms of the Twin 
 Brothers, where they had but now made better 
 wages than any miners of the Iroquois district. 
 
 Not a soul but half-hearted old McClintock, or 
 the new clerical force from Chicago, was there to 
 stand with the little man in gray. His fellow mine 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 151 
 
 owners of the district were, of course, obliged to 
 hold rigidly aloof from an experiment whose suc- 
 cess or failure they watched with the keenest in- 
 terest, and in which all their sympathies were 
 actually upon his side. 
 
 It is a powerful soul which can breathe the bleak 
 air of these lonely pinnacles, and hold to its purpose. 
 
 Back of the ranks of men, humbly following, 
 bundles in hand, — and, strangest of all to Northern 
 eyes, great packets of bedding upon their heads, — 
 came the women, with the small black children 
 trotting at their sides, and sometimes a baby riding 
 on hip or arm. It was noticeable that the offspring 
 of this inferior race did not give tongue to its dis- 
 tress as white children would have done; the small 
 blacks marched mutely, sometimes knuckling their 
 eyes, but rarely raising their voices. Altogether, 
 it was rather a desolate procession, and a piteously 
 trustful one. 
 
 Something in the appearance of the black wives 
 and children must have roused the rage of some 
 white woman among the spectators, for a high, 
 female voice shrilled : 
 
 "Ah-h-h! look at 'em! the nasty, black brutes! 
 comin' in to take the bread from our children's 
 mouths ! " 
 
 The Captain whirled and caught the virago by 
 
152 THE GRAPPLE __ 
 
 the shoulder, clapping an effective palm over her 
 face. It was the only argument for which there 
 would have been time; and it proved effective. 
 He pushed her into a stairway, adjuring her in no 
 gentle tones to " Shut up ! " 
 
 When he had set her, somewhat bewildered, but 
 quite ready to shriek again, on the steps (while his 
 men were getting away from him), he glanced to the 
 door, saw that there was a key in it, stepped out, 
 pulled it to after him, and coolly locked her in. 
 
 " I never saw a dirty, howling mob yet," he said, 
 " that some woman didn't start. And nine times 
 out of ten she opens up by yelling about bread for 
 her children." 
 
 They walked along — unmolested now, and amid 
 silence. McClintock added : 
 
 " As a matter of fact, the big wages are mostly 
 spent over the bars; the more pay, the more beer 
 and whiskey. But when it comes to strikes, and 
 bellowing mobs, the cry is always, ' Bread ! Bread 
 for our children ! ' " 
 
 "Where was it you put her?" asked the new 
 weigh-master from Chicago. 
 
 " Durned if I know," returned the Captain. 
 " And I've got the key to their door — whoever 
 they are." He cast a bit of metal from him into the 
 middle of the roadway. 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 153 
 
 " I guess you're about right," the other observed. 
 " She seems to have started it," and he pointed 
 to where one of the negroes held a big black hand 
 over a bleeding mouth. The man was uttering no 
 sound, but his eyes rolled and showed the white 
 wildly. 
 
 " Somebody threw a stone at him about the time 
 your woman raised the yell," explained a quiet 
 voice at McClintock's other elbow. 
 
 As the last coal flat rattled away with its dusky 
 human freight, guarded by the proud wearers of 
 Strong's uniforms, the little man in gray heaved a 
 great sigh of relief, and turned to the shabby single 
 buggy and the old mare with the young gaits. 
 
 " Won't you come out to the house and take 
 supper, Captain McClintock?" he said. "I have 
 a little matter that I want to talk over with you ; and 
 Aunt Beck will be glad to see some one from out- 
 side." 
 
 The Aunt Beck to whom Strong referred was 
 his mother's youngest sister. A tall, thin, Scotch 
 woman, with a reproving visage, she had been the 
 wife of a druggist in a small place, was now a 
 widow, and had come, the year after the Queen 
 Anne mansion was completed, to keep house for 
 Strong. 
 
 It was plain that the negroes lay like an incubus 
 
154 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 on the spirit of the owner of the Twin Brothers; 
 and his aunt, who had been over at the mine to see 
 them unloaded and disposed in the company houses, 
 expressed her opinion of the appearance of the 
 women with great freedom, by way of entertaining 
 the supper-table. So wearing did the good lady's 
 talk become, that the Captain finally assumed the 
 burden of conversation, as a means of edging her 
 out of it. 
 
 Captain Hiram McClintock had twice been sheriff 
 of the county. He was a man with a war record 
 in which he might justly take pride, and a queer, 
 dry old stick, who was well loved by the few people 
 whom he admitted to intimacy. The Captain had 
 had his troubles. His wife and three children died 
 in one week during an epidemic of diphtheria 
 which swept the little mining town, before Mark 
 Strong, cooperating with the Miners' Union, forced 
 the other mine owners to assist in sewering the 
 village. Now he faced Strong quizzically, as the 
 proposition came to attach himself personally to 
 that gentleman as an assistant. 
 
 " My friends want me to get a bruiser down 
 from Chicago, have him sworn in as a special officer, 
 and take him around everywhere with me. Well, 
 they may have some such demonstration as that at 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 155 
 
 my funeral — but they won't have anything of that 
 sort while my head's hot — " 
 
 " What would be the use of having such a man 
 about when you were already dead?" interrupted 
 Mrs. Graves. She was one of the women without 
 the saving salt of a sense of humour. 
 
 " Yet I do need a good man," Strong went on, 
 paying no attention whatever to the unmeaning 
 question, " one I can trust to be right at hand — 
 to second me — to take a message for me. If I get 
 into any mix-ups, why, I'll get out the way I got 
 in, but you can see about what's wanted, Mc- 
 Clintock — what do you think of it?" 
 
 " I think it's all right," the old man answered. 
 " It suits me to a t-y-ty. There seems to be mostly 
 jaw work in it — and that's what I'm great on. 
 If they get to coming for you too fierce, you'll have 
 to fix me up a room out here at the house." 
 
 " That's what I intended to propose. It's coming 
 and going between the place and town that my 
 friends think I need you most. Aunt Beck would 
 like me to stay inside my own property, and 
 send you into town, I think. She's getting pretty 
 flighty. Well, I don't blame her, I'd run away my- 
 self, if it wasn't that I've got no place to run." 
 
 The men laughed together, wholesomely, while 
 the lady in question regarded them with alien eyes ; 
 
156 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 they understood each other's dry jokes without 
 explanation. 
 
 " We've lost three or four servants, one after 
 another; that makes it harder on Aunt Beck," 
 Strong pursued. " You and I may have to do our 
 own cooking before we're done with it." 
 
 McClintock nodded. " That part of it would be 
 all right," he agreed, " but I wanted to make my 
 arrangements — as to a room — prior to, and be- 
 fore my walkin' in on you out here; for you can't 
 most always tell what's goin' to happen when you 
 get to buttin' in on another feller's place." 
 
 " No need for any preparation," said Mrs. Graves, 
 with a good housekeeper's pride ; " I could give you 
 the folding bed in the sitting-room any night." 
 
 " A folding bed," echoed the Captain, medita- 
 tively. " Um-m — a folding bed." 
 
 He glanced at his employer's weary face, then 
 looked with perfect comprehension at the long drab 
 countenance of the lady behind the tea-urn. 
 
 " Just the mention of a folding bed makes me 
 think of the time Bill and Jim Maguire stopped at 
 my house after they'd been on a blind bat for about a 
 week." 
 
 The Captain passed his cup to be refilled. 
 
 " Mighty fine tea," he observed, " and just the 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 157 
 
 strength I like," he added, by way of placating the 
 mistress of the house. 
 
 " Bill Maguire — Jim Maguire," repeated 
 Strong, " they'd have been the best men in the Twin 
 Brothers if they'd let drink alone. Now they're 
 high tycoons with the strikers." 
 
 The Captain nodded. " I was a family man in 
 them days," he went on ; " and them fool boys got 
 to thinkin' that every time they went broke and had 
 nowhere else to go, they'd just butt into my place, 
 an' crawl in. My wife thought it was all right for 
 a time or two; she belonged to the W. C. T. U., 
 and had notions of reformin' 'em. But they always 
 came in so blamed drunk that they reformed in 
 three minutes and were asleep in two; so she got 
 tired of tryin'. Also and moreover, I got tired of 
 bein' pulled out of my bed and made to hunt up 
 cots and blankets for 'em, at all hours of the night." 
 
 Strong smiled; one of the Captain's recom- 
 mendations as a housemate was his story-telling 
 habit; it might be relied upon to beguile some 
 tedious evenings at the big Queen Anne house. 
 
 " After the Mrs. got down on 'em, I warned the 
 boys, an' kep' tellin' 'em they'd get enough of it 
 some day; cause I wouldn't have liked that house 
 myself if 'Liza had been down on me. Well, we 
 hadn't seen anything of 'em for a spell; but my 
 
158 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 wife she got one o' these highfalutin jack-knife beds 
 when she was in Chicago, so's to make a spare room 
 out of the settin'-room — you know the animal ? " 
 
 Strong nodded and laughed. " Folding beds 
 vary some," he assented ; " I know the sort you 
 mean; but I believe this one we have is pretty re- 
 liable." 
 
 " I don't doubt it, ma'am," said the Captain to 
 Mrs. Graves. " Well, this one the Mrs. got was 
 the sort that kinder bends double in the middle, 
 and you can fold her up till she looks like a piano; 
 then you can pull her down, unhook her, stretch 
 the foot hinge about half-way down the middle — 
 you know — and then break her loose somewhere 
 else an' unroll the blankets. This instrumentality 
 was set up in the settin'-room for about a week when 
 Bill and Jim turned out on another tear — they 
 always spreed together — funny for brothers, 
 wasn't it ? " 
 
 Strong admitted suitably that this was a peculiar 
 fraternal pastime. 
 
 " 'Long about four o'clock one mornin' they come 
 poundin' at my side door, and kept going till I had 
 to get up an' let 'em in. It was mighty cold ; an old 
 brindled tom-cat of 'Liza's had been huntin' some 
 warm place to sleep; and, unbeknownst to me, he 
 had burrowed down under the bedclothes in the new 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 159 
 
 contraption, an' was takin' life as easy as if 'twas 
 a hot brick. As I say, I got up an' let the boys in, 
 though Liza told me not to, for I knew they'd stand 
 there and yell till I did. They'd made up their 
 minds they was goin' to sleep at my house — an' 
 when men as drunk as they were get their minds 
 made up, that settles it. 
 
 " ' Let them dirty brutes go back to the saloon 
 where they got their vile poison,' says 'Liza — or 
 some such pleasant speech, just as I was gettin' the 
 door open; and when I felt the wind on my legs 
 I was inclined to agree with her. But them trifling 
 boys just pushed past me and made for the settin'- 
 room. Now, the old lady was sleeping up-stairs 
 with the kids, and had left me alone down there 
 to enjoy the new jack-knife bed. They seen it, and 
 they went fer it ; 'Liza up-stairs, all the time making 
 remarks about drunken miners, and folks that 
 didn't have any more respect for their families than 
 to let such into their house. She wasn't whispering, 
 neither ; and between 'em both I could have chewed 
 a tenpenny nail in two." 
 
 Mrs. Graves looked with hostile glance at the 
 two smiling men; evidently her sympathies were 
 all with 'Liza. 
 
 " Bill and Jim sort of halted when they saw the 
 new kind of bed. Then they got funny, and asked 
 
160 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 if 'Liza folded me up in it when I didn't behave. 
 Jim reached around after he had crawled in between 
 the sheets, without pullin' off anything but his coat 
 and boots, and picked a book off the shelf. 
 
 " ' Ha ! ' he says. ' This is what I call scrump- 
 tious. Man can improve his mind while he rests. 
 Say, it must be handy to have these nice story-books 
 on top of your patent self-oiling cage! ' 
 
 " 'Bout this time 'Liza came to the 'head of the 
 stairs and called down to know when I was goin' 
 to get them there drunken tramps gone. Tell you 
 I was plumb mad. 
 
 " I'd just got my cot fixed, and laid down, when 
 I heard Jim tell Bill to roll over, that he was takin' 
 up too much room. I reckon Bill started to roll, 
 for the next thing I knowed I thought the roof was 
 coming off. Of all the yelling you ever heard tell 
 of, Bill certainly was keeping the pennant. 
 
 " ' Shut up ! ' I says, tryin' to holler in a whisper, 
 because I knew 'Liza wasn't going to stand this 
 racket very long. And sure enough, before I could 
 get over to 'em and find what they was doing to each 
 other, I heard her coming down the steps." 
 
 " Well, I should think she would — I should 
 think she would have come down to you and the 
 company you kept," sniffed Mrs. ' Graves. " I'd 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 161 
 
 have been as apt as not to tell you to put them men 
 out, and go with 'em." 
 
 " I expect you would, ma'am," agreed the Cap- 
 tain, with a show of great and disarming innocence. 
 " I looked for 'Liza to say something of the sort 
 every minute. 
 
 " ' Now you've done it,' I says, gettin' madder 
 as I run in on 'em. But, Lord love you, I couldn't 
 make out anything about them fellers. You couldn't 
 tell whether Bill was eatin' Jim or Jim was eatin' 
 Bill, or whether they was both sort of eatin' each 
 other. I shouldn't have investigated if it hadn't 
 been for 'Liza. But she was carryin' on so, I lit 
 the lamp. There was Bill all hunched up in the bed 
 lookin' wild like at Jim; and Jim was doing some 
 of the almightiest scrougin' round under the covers 
 that you ever saw. 
 
 " Suddenly something seemed to strike Bill. 
 ' You quit that ! ' he hollered, and tried to jump out 
 of bed. But just then the pesky thing commenced 
 to fold. Its middle legs kind of humped them- 
 selves a little — maybe it was the cavortin' round the 
 boys had been doin' that started it — but anyhow, 
 the top bowed over as graceful as a lady salutin' 
 partners in a country dance, and before either of 
 them fellers could make their play, it whacked them 
 on the shins about half-way between heel and knee. 
 
1 62 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 'Liza had got there by that time, and I didn't know 
 but it was as well the boys were folded up in a 
 box. 
 
 " ' Why don't you wheel it round and help 'em 
 out at the back ? ' she asked, for we could hear 'em 
 just roaring inside the bed, and fighting for dear 
 life. So I rolled the thing round — she hadn't 
 any back to her — and there them two faces stuck 
 up between the slats like two everlastin' skeerys in 
 a shootin'-gallery ; and both of them was begging 
 us for pity's sake to pull the other one off of him. 
 We could see a commotion going on under the 
 clothes; and then all of a sudden 'Liza's brindled 
 Tom shot out with a little piece of Jim's shirt 
 hangin' to his whiskers, and his tail about the size 
 of my arm. 
 
 " 'Liza was a serious woman ; all she ever lacked 
 of perfection was having a sense of humour; but 
 she give one look at the cat and one look at them 
 boys' faces, and she sat down in the middle of the 
 floor and laughed till she cried. Her hair all fell 
 down her back, and I couldn't do nothin' myself but 
 holler till I was weak. 
 
 " ' Come and help us out of this, you gray-whis- 
 kered old goat ! ' they yelled. ' What kind of mur- 
 der and sudden death have you got shut up in this 
 bed, anyhow ? Ow ! Ouch ! Oh-o-o-oh ! ' 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 163 
 
 " ' Cats ! ' yelled Jim. ' I seen one run across the 
 floor just then ! ' 
 
 " ' That's it, Jim,' I said, between laughs. ' I'm 
 bettin' that by the time you find them other two cats 
 in the bottom of that bed, you won't want to do a 
 thing but go home ! ' 
 
 " The howl that boy let out would have moved 
 a heart of stone. ' Cap, oh, Cap ! ' he says ; ' you 
 don't mean to say that they's two more of them 
 things in here, do you ? ' And both of them like 
 to have killed themselves trying to claw the top of 
 that bed off. 
 
 " ' 'Liza,' I says, kind of dreamy like, ' didn't you 
 tell me that the reason you didn't want me to sleep 
 in that bed any more was because the cats and snakes 
 and sech had a habit of comin' in these cold nights 
 and gettin' into it ? ' 
 
 " 'Liza kind of sobbed out ' Yes.' It's the first 
 time she ever backed me in a lie — and the last. I 
 could see Bill's and Jim's feet hanging out at what 
 used to be the front of the bed, like four lost hams, 
 and I leaned over and fetched 'em a swipe with my 
 finger-nails. I reckon they're both ticklish — from 
 results. As I scratched 'em I said, ' There's them 
 cats again,' and Bill began to swear in such a 
 mournful tone that it was almost like praying." 
 
 " If that ain't a man all over," commented Aunt 
 
1 64 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Beck. " Things were bad enough, and you must 
 mix in and try to make 'em worse. I wonder if 
 there'd be a clean house or a decent bed in the 
 world if the men had the managing of things." 
 
 "'Liza said something like that — next day," 
 assented the Captain, mildly. " She was too busy 
 laughin' just then to file any objections. The boys 
 got meek. 
 
 " ' Oh, Cap, please lift this dad-lammed bed 
 loose,' they both begged. 
 
 " With that, I got on my dignity. ' I'll have you 
 boys remember that you're in the presence of my 
 wife. Quit your rough talk,' I says. And then I 
 swatted 'em again with my nails, and kinder snorted 
 like a cat. 
 
 " Say, Mark, you know that place in the Bible 
 where they order the man to take up his bed and 
 walk? Well, I tell you them two fellers come 
 mighty near doing it when I got in my last lick on 
 'em. The old folding bed gave one or two jerks, and 
 something tore loose. Them boys shot out and made 
 a grab for their boots an' coats. They lit runnin'. 
 'Bout then, 'Liza remembered that she wasn't 
 dressed for company. But they never knew she 
 was livin'. They sprinted all the way home in their 
 socks, and I wasn't troubled with 'em any more that 
 winter. Besides which, I had one subject that was 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 165 
 
 always safe to bring 'Liza round. If she got a 
 little too high-strung, all I had to do was to say, 
 ' Cats,' and she'd think up another of the things that 
 happened that night, and nearly kill herself laugh- 
 ing." 
 
 " So we're not to give you a folding bed," con- 
 cluded Strong, pleasantly. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know about that," replied the Cap- 
 tain ; " I guess I could rassle 'most any of the 
 blamed things, after what I've been through since 
 the time I was telling you of." 
 
 " I should think so," agreed Mrs. Graves, who 
 had never got over her simple terror of the black 
 faces of the new miners ; " anybody that isn't 
 afraid of those darkies needn't be afraid of any- 
 thing. It doesn't seem right to me, Mark, and I 
 can't make it seem right," she added, as an enliven- 
 ing contribution to the conversation, " to turn out 
 white men, people that you've known, as a body 
 may say, all your life, for these darkies. I suppose 
 they're all well enough where they belong; but 
 you'll never get me to feel that they belong in your 
 mine, in your white miners' places." 
 
 " Turn them out, Aunt Beck ? I didn't do any 
 such thing. They turned me out, you know," 
 Strong replied, a little wearily. " I didn't chot>se 
 negro miners. I don't think the climate suits them ; 
 
1 66 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 I don't suppose they ought to be brought here ; but 
 I was where I had no choice." 
 
 " That's just it," Mrs. Graves pursued, eagerly. 
 " The climate doesn't suit them. The Lord never 
 meant them to live where it was cold. They'll die 
 like flies when the first snow comes. Now you 
 mind what I say, and you'll see it." 
 
 Even Strong's patience and charity were worn 
 well-nigh threadbare with this continual opposition 
 from within. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, finally. "Have a little 
 patience, Aunt Beck; and when I whip the Union, 
 we'll have our own men back in the Twin Broth- 
 ers." 
 
 " Oh, yes," the old lady sniffed, with an acid, 
 superior air. " You men think of nothing but who 
 whips. Why you and the Union can't make out to 
 agree, is more than I can imagine." 
 
 " I agree all right, don't I, Captain ? " rising and 
 tossing his crumpled napkin down beside his al- 
 most untouched plate. " It's the Union that won't 
 agree, Aunt Beck. You'll have to go and talk to the 
 Union." 
 
 " He was always so from a boy," said his rela- 
 tive, shaking a reprehending head at his inoffensive 
 gray tweed back as he marched out of the room. 
 " You would think to look at him and hear him talk, 
 
GUESTS FROM ALABAMA 167 
 
 that he was the meekest, mildest creature; but he 
 is just as bound to have his own way as the rest 
 of the men." 
 
 The Captain merely grunted in reply, an inarticu- 
 late sound which might have meant almost any- 
 thing. McClintock was less than half-way through 
 his supper, having so far taken up a good part of his 
 time telling the tragedy of the folding bed. As a 
 married man, he had learned wisdom in his deal- 
 ings with women. He intended to have the re- 
 mainder of his meal; in peace, if it might be; but 
 to have it, at any rate. 
 
 Three weeks after McClintock was domiciled at 
 Strong's place, Mrs. Graves fled. She had been a 
 depressing housemate all along, and her nephew 
 was urging her to go to her daughter in California. 
 Reading an account of the burning of a miner's 
 house by the strikers in Pennsylvania, assimilating 
 the distressful details of how the wife and two 
 daughters perished in the flames, Mrs. Graves gave 
 in and prepared for departure. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AN OMELET AND A " TIN ROOF " 
 
 The man at the table wrote in silence. Presently 
 he looked up and smiled, as at the voice of a friend. 
 A soft, remittent grunting, or groaning, filled the 
 room. It was the poplar-tree outside the window, 
 breaking the stillness with the announcement that 
 the wind had risen. Strong had been told, again 
 and again, that the tree stood too close, that its 
 branches rubbing against the woodwork scoured off 
 the paint; but something in its voice had become 
 dear and familiar, and he would not allow it to be 
 felled, or even pruned. 
 
 Now he glanced up at the clock, then compared it 
 with his watch. " Time the Captain was here," he 
 muttered to himself. There had not yet been trouble 
 enough in that district to warrant any apprehensions 
 for McClintock; but when he failed to arrive with 
 the mail at his usual time, his employer grew un- 
 easy. 
 
 Scarcely had Strong turned back to his desk, when 
 1 68 
 
AN OMELET ^69 
 
 the door swung slowly open, disclosing the tall 
 figure of the old soldier. The Captain advanced 
 far enough to slide the package of letters he brought 
 on to a chair, then turned and went out without a 
 word. The stir was so slight that Mark — absorbed 
 in the work before him — was not sure that any one 
 had been in the room until he turned and saw his 
 mail lying there. 
 
 This was singular for the loquacious Captain; 
 and Strong dropped his pen into the rack and ran 
 hastily down-stairs. By the side door stood the 
 mare and the little old buggy ; flat upon the gravel 
 walk beside it sat the Captain, smiling uncertainly 
 at space. 
 
 " McClintock — McClintock ! " cried the owner 
 of the Twin Brothers, apprehensively, as he laid a 
 hand upon the old man's arm. 
 
 This brought a whole broadside of smiles, as the 
 tall, thin old fellow scrambled to his feet and sup- 
 ported himself unsteadily against the hitching- 
 post. 
 
 " You know me — you know me, Mark," he 
 began, with that curious incertitude of voice which 
 marks the drunken man. " You know I don't 
 drink — not drink — never drink. Jes' been up- 
 town to get the eggs and the mail — the mum — 
 mum — meggs and the ail." 
 
I7Q THE GRAPPLE 
 
 He contemplated this latter combination fatu- 
 ously, and laughed once more. 
 
 " I mixed 'em 1 — didn't I ? Eggs and mail — 
 meggs and ail — but, well ! " 
 
 And he subsided to a sitting posture, with his 
 back against the post. 
 
 Strong echoed the laugh rather half-heartedly, 
 and made the mare fast. He must see what had 
 become of old Sally, the cook and factotum. 
 
 " You need some supper, I guess, Captain," he 
 said, hesitatingly. 
 
 " Yessir — yessir — I'll get the supper, for 
 you an' me — for you an' me. Met old Sally down 
 the road there with her bundle." He waved an 
 arm largely. " She said she'd had a warning from 
 the strikers." 
 
 The old gentleman chuckled as he clung unstead- 
 ily to the post. Presently releasing it, and declining 
 with a shake of the head Strong's proffered arm, 
 he slowly wabbled up the steps and steered toward 
 the wash-stand set in a turn of the back hall. There 
 he made several ineffectual attempts to connect the 
 water with his face. There appeared to be a strong 
 attraction between the top of the Captain's head and 
 the bottom of the wash-basin, and it took violent 
 holding back to avoid completing the circuit. 
 Finally a bright idea seemed to visit him; he 
 
AN OMELET 171 
 
 lurched forward, and set his poll firmly against the 
 wall just above the basin at this point, moved his 
 head far enough around to wink slowly and labo- 
 riously at his employer, then started in upon his 
 ablutions, Mark standing by looking on, between 
 doubt and genuine apprehension. 
 
 " Strangest thing I ever saw — took one drink — 
 one drink — jes' one. Must 'a' been somethin' in 
 that drink, 'cause if it had been anybody but me 
 they'd be drunk — dam 'f 'ey wouldn't ! " 
 
 Strong was annoyed mainly by the Captain's 
 report of Sally's defection. The old warrior's con- 
 dition was temporary, of course, and, so far as Mark 
 knew, a thing which had never happened before, and 
 would probably never happen again. 
 
 " You get yourself washed, and go lie down," 
 he counselled. " I'll find Sally, and let her get you 
 some supper." 
 
 " Now Mark — now Mark Strong," reproached 
 the Captain, managing to stand straight by bracing 
 his legs with feet wide apart ; " you think I'm 
 drunk. Boys back in town think I'm drunk. Soon's 
 I get washed — washed — washed, an' get you 
 some supper — I'm go' back to town — show them 
 fool boys I ain't drunk ! " 
 
 It was indeed likely that McClintock had left 
 the impression abroad in Iroquois that he was in- 
 
172 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 toxicated. After securing the mail, he had taken 
 that one drink at Yount's place — he was so far 
 faithful — there had been but one glass of liquor. 
 But its effect was curious. It seemed to him hours 
 later when he realized that he must go to the station 
 and get a basket of farm produce which would be 
 sent in that day from a certain outlying farm. 
 
 The eggs were placed carefully on top of this 
 basket in a paper sack. The boy helping about the 
 station carried the heavier articles to the buggy, 
 but the Captain held fast to the eggs, admonishing 
 his small assistant solemnly: 
 
 " Eggs is curious things — most people don't 
 know an'thing 'bout eggs. I wouldn't trust you 
 with them eggs, 'cause you're too> young an' flighty," 
 and he got into the buggy. 
 
 The boy had just placed the basket at his feet, 
 and the Captain had deposited the eggs, of which he 
 was the only worthy custodian, upon the seat, when 
 the Chicago Vestibule Limited came through, and 
 the mare started forward abruptly. 
 
 First and last, drunk or sober, the Captain was 
 essentially a horseman, and the time never arrived 
 when he could not attend to his horse; but at this 
 particular moment it was harder than usual, and 
 all extraneous matters (including eggs) disappeared 
 from his mind as he dropped heavily to his seat, 
 
AN OMELET 173 
 
 and incidentally upon one corner of the bag of 
 eggs. 
 
 During the drive home the Captain many times 
 isolated those eggs — his boasted knowledge of their 
 curious structure included an inkling of the fact 
 that they were frail. But as the mare was an 
 erratic roadster and her driver's vision somewhat 
 clouded, there were sundry jars which brought him 
 in close contact with the damaged paper sack. Be- 
 tween it and the Captain's apparel there grew up 
 a friendship cemented by strong ties, — an attach- 
 ment into which, whatever may have been the case 
 with the garments, the eggs at least threw their 
 whole being; one of those hasty, headlong, ill-con- 
 sidered intimacies from which neither party may 
 free himself wholly and unchallenged. 
 
 Now, having washed himself, the Captain as- 
 sumed a dignity, a grandeur of manner, that only 
 an intoxicated man can wear. Going out to where 
 the buggy still stood, he first looked anxiously for 
 the paper sack; then, finding it and its contents 
 impartially distributed over the leather cushion, he 
 gathered up cushion, duster and all, and departed 
 for Sally's kitchen. There he lighted the gas range, 
 set a frying-pan above the blaze, and turned to 
 lift the remnant of the paper sack from the buggy 
 cushion. It held together just long enough to 
 
174 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 come clear of the cushion and travel half-way to 
 the range, then, with a sudden squash, the soaked 
 bottom fell out of it to the floor. 
 
 Nothing daunted, the Captain, stooping unstead- 
 ily, dipped up so much as would suffer itself to enter 
 the big spoon. The quantity seemed meagre, for a 
 generous meal, so the self-appointed cook lifted the 
 well-filled buggy cushion bodily, and poured the 
 contents into the frying-pan just as Mr. Strong 
 stepped through the kitchen door. As the old man 
 bent over the frying-pan there was little to be seen 
 of him from behind which was not egg decorated. 
 He had eggs of all kinds attached to him, from shell 
 to yolk, and he presented an amazing spectacle to 
 his employer. 
 
 " Captain, what in the name of heaven have you 
 been doing to yourself? " demanded Mark. " I left 
 you washing, but I didn't think you were going to 
 take an egg bath." 
 
 " Egg bath," repeated the Captain, as he straight- 
 ened up laboriously and revolved slowly to face his 
 interrogator. 
 
 He smiled expansively. " Egg bath — huh ! 
 can't you see what this is ? " waving his hand airily 
 at the range, the frying-pan, and the buggy cushion. 
 
 " Come home here — Sally's gone. I see you 
 didn't have no dinner. Cross, like a man that 
 
AN OMELET 175 
 
 didn't have no dinner. Looked like a man that 
 didn't have no dinner. I'm devo — devot — I'm 
 devoted to you, Mark — I'll get you fine omelet." 
 
 Here the Captain stepped upon the disregarded 
 paper sack and went down. 
 
 " Scrambled eggs, Mark," he muttered, as the 
 other helped him to his feet and led him away. " I 
 knew you liked your eggs scrambled." 
 
 When Strong had seen the Captain stumble across 
 his bedroom, and wrap himself in a slumber robe, 
 from which he refused to be parted, the little man 
 in gray turned to the only method of communication 
 with the outer world remaining to him. He rang 
 up the office at the mine. In the empty silence of the 
 house the bell sounded loud. 
 
 " Is that you, Jimmy ? " he asked. 
 
 " All right, Mr. Strong. This is Jimmy," came 
 the reassuring answer over the wire. 
 
 " Everything all right with you folks ? " the mine 
 owner asked next. 
 
 " All right here," was the word. 
 
 " Captain McClintock came home sick to-night," 
 Strong pursued. " He'd been in to Yount's — I 
 think they gave him knock-out drops. You go 
 over to Mrs. Atchley's and get Mr. Tawney. Tell 
 him to have the guard turned out, and put sentries 
 on the line." 
 
176 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " All right, Mr. Strong," came back the startled 
 answer, followed swiftly by the rattle of the re- 
 ceiver as it was hung in place, and Jimmy hastened 
 away to do his employer's bidding. 
 
 " It was not the mine," muttered Strong to him- 
 self, as he turned away from the 'phone. " Then it 
 was me." 
 
 This reflection led, very naturally, to the necessity 
 for seeing at once to the fastenings of window and 
 door. Strong went from room to room of the 
 empty, echoing house, carrying a small brass lan- 
 tern, bending to look at a catch or a fasten, now and 
 then shaking a door or a window to see that the 
 bolt was properly shot. 
 
 For some reason he went into the dining-room, 
 which was on the ground floor at the side, without 
 his light. He stepped softly across the floor, and 
 peered out at the window through the slats of the 
 inside blinds. At first he could make out nothing 
 but blackness; then, as his unusually sharp eyes 
 became accustomed to the dark, it seemed to him 
 that he saw a black something standing in the 
 drive where the old mare had stood an hour ago. 
 As he debated the matter, as he raised his hand to 
 make sure of the window catch, he heard a muffled 
 thump, and something moved in the outline he had 
 finally descried. 
 
AN OMELET 177 
 
 He drew back. Surely, that was the toss of a 
 horse's head which he had seen, and it was the soft 
 thump of a muffled hoof which had sounded at the 
 same instant. He silently set the shutters wide and 
 groped with his hand for the electric light button — 
 Strong had his house lighted from garret to cellar 
 — pressed it, and flooded the room with brilliance. 
 He had drawn back, quite out of sight of any one 
 who might be in that silent, sinister vehicle. 
 
 As the light blazed out, the horses shied and 
 backed with muffled poundings of their cloth-cov- 
 ered hoofs. Strong, peering from his place of 
 safety, could see a man's face, white and terrified, 
 for an instant in the light; then it was swallowed 
 up, as the equipage tore down the hill. 
 
 He had gone back to the Captain, and was remon- 
 strating with him, attempting to get him to undress, 
 his mind still busy with the prophecy Van Dorn had 
 made the other day. " They'll kidnap you," said 
 the owner of the Gloriana. " It's what they did 
 in the Pacific Coal District ten years ago, when old 
 man Murchison threatened to bring in Chinese 
 miners. One fine morning Murchison was nowhere 
 to be found. Everybody said he'd been murdered. 
 His stockholders tried to fix up things ; but when the 
 Chinese were landed in San Francisco — it was be- 
 fore the Chinese exclusion bill — they turned 'em 
 
178 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 back, and the stockholders came down to the Union. 
 The very day they acceded to the Union's demands, 
 Murchison was returned to his home, not much the 
 worse for wear, but busted as a mine superintend- 
 ent. Nobody wanted him any more. He'd been 
 beaten." 
 
 This highly entertaining story, which was char- 
 acteristic of the Job's comfort that Van Dorn dealt 
 out in these days to his friend, was going idly 
 through Mark's head, when the telephone bell 
 jingled. He ran down-stairs to answer. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Strong," came Tawney's perturbed 
 voice over the wire, " is that you ? " 
 
 Reassured, he went on : 
 
 " We've found something mighty queer over 
 here. The men went out on sentry, and they found 
 a rig down by the sycamore. It's got two bay 
 horses — mighty good horses — but none of us 
 ever saw them before; and they were hung up by 
 one of them having gone to one side of the tree, and 
 one to the other. I don't believe they'd run away — 
 they seemed to have just walked away. We brought 
 'em in, and now we're wondering if they didn't just 
 stray up from the road." 
 
 " Look at their hoofs," suggested Strong. " See 
 if they have been tied up in cloths — muffled." 
 
 "Gee! All right. Hold on." 
 
AN OMELET 179 
 
 Silence for a moment; then, after it, in an ex- 
 cited tone : 
 
 " Yes, sir ! We found a cloth on both the hind 
 feet of one of them, and the other had his feet 
 rubbed, where the strings had been." 
 
 " That team was here about fifteen minutes ago," 
 said the owner of the Twin Brothers. " But there 
 was a fellow driving — or at least in the buggy — ■ 
 then." 
 
 " Whose is it? What shall we do with it? " 
 
 " I don't know," Strong answered, " whose it is. 
 Put it in the mule stable till morning, and we'll find 
 out. I think it'll turn out to be a livery rig, and that 
 nobody will know the man that hired it." 
 
 " Need anybody over there ? " 
 
 " No," answered Strong, wearily. " Whatever 
 it was, they'll not come back to-night." 
 
 " How's Cap ? " came the next solicitous query. 
 " Is he able to help you if you needed him ? " 
 
 " Still lying in a sort of stupor," responded 
 Strong. 
 
 And "Gee!" came Tawney's expressive com- 
 ment once more. " Say, Mr. Strong, don't you 
 reckon some of the men better come over there and 
 sorter be around ? " 
 
 " No, I think not, Tawney. Just keep a sharp 
 
i8o THE GRAPPLE 
 
 lookout there. I feel sure they'll not show up here 
 any more to-night." 
 
 The Captain was ill for a week after his experi- 
 ence. Strong — who would never have resorted to 
 the law to redress any of his own wrongs — de- 
 murred immediately when the old fellow declared, 
 as soon as he was able to be afoot, that he meant to 
 go to Yount's place and get even, and suggested a 
 legal remedy, instead. 
 
 " See here, Cap, those were knock-out drops they 
 gave you; men who are ready for that are ready 
 for anything. There's a law that would cover this 
 case. You let Yount's place alone. I had no idea 
 you'd been going there. It isn't safe." 
 
 " You think a lot about going to safe places your- 
 self, don't you? " jeered the Captain. " You sue the 
 fellows that try gun practice on you — and the ones 
 that are out to kidnap you — a heap you do. I'm 
 just going down there to Yount's (Gus stood in with 
 those fellows — he's as guilty as they are) and 
 show him the beauty of a tin roof." 
 
 And this was the old man's last word on the 
 subject. 
 
 But the next day, attired in the usual G. A. R. 
 suit, the Captain, rather white and shaky, made his 
 way to Yount's, where he encountered a very em- 
 
AN OMELET ijh 
 
 barrassed, sheepish looking crowd, the most sheep- 
 ish of all being the guilty Gus himself. 
 
 He worked successfully the ancient " tin roof " 
 game; and, having lavishly treated every one 
 in the room, and every man who looked through the 
 door during the performance, was calmly leaving, 
 cigar in hand, when Yount called after him, in a 
 grieved voice : " But, I say, Cap, — er — who pays ? 
 I don't — ■ where does the tin roof come in ? " 
 
 To him the old man responded, amiably : " A tin 
 roof don't come in, you thick-headed, wall-eyed 
 Dutchman. It stays on the house — just where this 
 treat is — see? " The door swung gently shut, and 
 the Captain and his cigar marched proudly down the 
 street, followed by the protesting wail of Yount, and 
 the delighted roars of his erstwhile guests. 
 
 When he brought the story home to Strong, the 
 little man in gray smiled over it; it was the Cap- 
 tain's way of getting even, and Mark Strong, more 
 than another, believed in letting each man have his 
 own method. And Mark had long ago recognized 
 in McClintock, and often smiled at, that streak of 
 childishness which seems to be a very usual trait 
 in the character of the brave soldier. But a day 
 or two later, when the owner of the Twin Brothers 
 met Owen Llewellyn on the street in Iroquois, he 
 
182 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 halted that worthy, who was going past without 
 speaking. 
 
 " Llewellyn, I have a word to say to you," he 
 opened, quietly. " Your people drugged Captain 
 McClintock the other night — gave him knock-out 
 drops at Gus Yount's place." 
 
 " My people," broke in Llewellyn, with the fury 
 of a man accused of something he cannot honestly 
 deny; " who are my people? " 
 
 " I guess you know who they are," returned 
 Strong, briefly. " Anyhow, that's not the question. 
 You strikers had knock-out drops given to the man 
 who is the only person in the house with me." 
 
 He said no word of the other strange occurrences 
 of that night. Despite his rage, Owen Llewellyn 
 looked at him with intense curiosity. 
 
 " That's not fighting fair — it's not fighting at 
 all," Strong pursued calmly. " I call that sort of 
 thing murderous. The Captain is an old man — 
 you might have killed him." 
 
 " Well," said the district president, " did you stop 
 me to give me a lecture on what's right and what's 
 wrong?" 
 
 " I stopped you to tell you that the Captain refuses 
 to do anything about the matter, but that you've 
 got me to settle with if his life is threatened in any 
 such' a sneaking, underhand way again. We take 
 
AN OMELET 183 
 
 our risks; we carry our guns; but we're not ex- 
 pecting to be poisoned like stray dogs. That's all." 
 
 He moved unconcernedly on his way. Owen 
 Llewellyn looked after him with unappeased, un- 
 appeasable rancour. 
 
 " Damned upstart ! " he snarled. 
 
 His helpless rage fairly tore him. The other's 
 poise, his easy self-command and fearless clear- 
 sightedness were as festering thorns in Owen's 
 flesh. He had a feeling that, if he knew in what 
 limb or member or organ of that slight, intrepid 
 body the insolent courage and self-assurance resided, 
 he could joyfully rend it piecemeal, drag them 
 forth and trample on them — though he died next 
 minute for it. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE WARNING 
 
 The flight of old Sally left Strong and the Cap- 
 tain alone in the great house. 
 
 " Never you mind," McClintock said, " I'll get 
 my boy Demas over here to cook for us ; and then he 
 can 'tend to the mare, too. I expect he'll cook in 
 a new bunch of dishes every meal; and he can't 
 make a bed that a human being can sleep in; but 
 maybe the house'll have the luck to be hit by light- 
 ning, time we get the dishes all used up." 
 
 " Or possibly the strike will be over before that 
 time," supplied Strong, quietly. 
 
 Now, for three weeks the two men had been 
 maintaining this desolate masculine household, about 
 as comfortable as shipwrecked mariners, except that 
 they had plenty to eat, if one did not object to 
 some anomalies in the matter of cooking and serv- 
 ing. The old mare with the young gaits made her 
 daily trips to town, or to the mine; Strong had 
 twice been fired upon, and his friends continued 
 
 184 
 
THE WARNING 185 
 
 to remonstrate at his recklessness in driving thus 
 unattended, or with only the Captain beside him. 
 
 " When I can't do that," he replied to them, " I'll 
 go out of the business, and make a free gift of the 
 Twin Brothers to the town." 
 
 But now arose the necessity for a trip to Chicago. 
 It was a critical time for him to leave, and the 
 journey must be made at once. Another valise 
 than the little grip which carried the magazine gun 
 was packed, and he was giving his final orders to the 
 Captain, when Demas came in to say that a woman 
 at the door desired to speak to him. 
 
 He went out alone — the Captain a very few 
 steps behind him, since he was never willing to have 
 the slender gray figure far from his sight, these 
 days. It was Julia Llewellyn. 
 
 " Come in, won't you, Jule ? " the mine owner 
 asked, after he had discovered who it was. 
 
 " No, Mark, let me stop here and tell you. I 
 — nobody will overhear us, I guess." 
 
 She stood so long with bent face, twisting her 
 fingers nervously together, that Strong repeated 
 his invitation. 
 
 "What is it, Jule? Come in, child. Captain 
 McClintock is here." 
 
 " Yes, I know — that's why I don't want to come 
 in. I don't want to talk to any one but you. You'll 
 
1 86 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 believe me — and you won't ask a lot of ques- 
 tions." 
 
 " I'll believe you," repeated her old lover, smil- 
 ingly, " but I can't be so sUre I won't ask questions 
 — nor that I will take advice. You know, Jule, 
 that never was my way." 
 
 The woman came closer and laid a shaking hand 
 upon his gray sleeve. 
 
 " Don't drive the mare to town ! " she whispered. 
 " For God's sake, don't ! " 
 
 Strong put a kindly palm over the tremulous 
 fingers on his arm. 
 
 " That's just what all my timid friends have been 
 saying to me," he reassured her, cheerily. " Now, 
 I believe I've proved that a man is safe so long as 
 he thinks he's safe, and goes quietly about his busi- 
 ness." (As a matter of fact Strong's life had been 
 attempted more than once since the Union withdrew 
 its men from his mine — and especially since the 
 negroes came in ; but this was always his tone, his 
 assertion.) 
 
 " I mean to-night," urged Julia. " Don't go 
 to-night." 
 
 Strong drew back, and her hand fell to her side. 
 
 " How did you know I was intending to go 
 to-night ? " he asked, in a changed voice. 
 
 There was, so far as he knew, nothing to have 
 
THE WARNING 187 
 
 given outside information of this movement of his 
 — nothing but the telegram in his pocket. Could 
 the operator at the station have told the strikers? 
 He remembered, apparently for the first time since 
 the interview began, that Julia belonged to them, 
 that her connections were among those who were 
 not contented with the strike, nor even with the 
 boycott, but who must resort to violence. 
 
 " There," said the woman, in a heart-sick voice, 
 " I've been telling myself all the way over that I 
 must make you believe me in spite of — of Owen 
 and Bob." 
 
 Strong had recovered himself, and now spoke 
 very gently. 
 
 " I will believe whatever you say to me, Julia — 
 but I would like to know who told you that I was 
 going to drive into town at this time of night." 
 
 " I think you can guess," she answered, in a very 
 low voice. " I wasn't fit to bring up a boy. I seem 
 to lack the faculty of controlling him at all. Bob's 
 a loving son, and when I'm with him I can influence 
 him ; but when he gets with others — I think you 
 can guess." 
 
 " Well," said Strong, in his cheerful, even tones, 
 as soon as she had finished her halting half-ex- 
 planation, " I guess it's a good thing I didn't prom- 
 ise to take your advice, for I've got to get to 
 
i88 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Chicago to-night, and there is no way but to drive 
 over to the station." 
 
 " You might go across the fields and take the 
 trolley," suggested the woman, eagerly — plead- 
 ingly. " That's the plan I thought of, after — after 
 I found out. I knew you wouldn't be turned back 
 from your trip ; but I thought that for my sake — 
 think how awful — how awful — it would be for 
 me if anything happened to you, Mark, and he was 
 concerned in it." 
 
 " The path through the field is lonelier than the 
 big road," suggested Strong. " Once outside my 
 line, I'd rather be on the public highway, Julia." 
 
 " But they won't know that you're going that 
 way. They'll be looking for you on the road," she 
 explained. And her hearer shivered as he remem- 
 bered that " they," of whom she spoke, were son, 
 brother, and near relative to this woman before 
 him. 
 
 " Well, I must be starting," he said, with a sigh. 
 " Thank you, Julia, for caring to warn me. Though 
 of course I understand that it was mainly to keep 
 Bob out of trouble." 
 
 He picked up the valise and the little grip, then 
 set the latter down and offered his hand to his old 
 sweetheart. 
 
 " Good-bye, my dear girl," he said gently. " It 
 
THE WARNING 189 
 
 seems curious for you and me to be fighting on oppo- 
 site sides in this war." 
 
 She longed to tell him how little anything mat- 
 tered to her beside his safety and welfare; but a 
 sob caught in her throat, and when she had bravely 
 swallowed it down, she was only ready to ask, 
 humbly : 
 
 " Mayn't I walk over with you, Mark? Let me 
 carry the little bag. I want to talk to you. And I 
 sha'n't breathe free till I see you on that trolley-car 
 — you'll be safe enough on it, with the lights, the 
 conductor, the passengers and all." 
 
 He let her take the small, light grip, which con- 
 tained (shades of Samson and Delilah!) his papers 
 and gun. He glanced absently back for the Captain, 
 and, not seeing him, stepped away beside Julia 
 toward the path she had spoken of. The lawn 
 sloped abruptly to that side upon which the fields 
 were that they must cross to reach the trolley. 
 There was no gate ; but a rude, small stile took them 
 over to where a beaten path showed dimly in the 
 dark. This way was too narrow for them to walk 
 side by side, and Strong made a movement to take 
 the small bag, but Julia retained it. 
 
 " I'll just go over and wait with you there, Mark, 
 till a car passes. I'll stand in the shadow; nobody 
 will notice me ; and then I can slip back as I came." 
 
190 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " How are you getting along these days, Julia? " 
 Strong asked, quietly. And the woman wondered 
 that he could have thought for commonplace mat- 
 ters such as this, while his own life was in mortal 
 danger, and he must know it. 
 
 " Oh, well enough," she answered, somewhat at 
 random. " I earn a decent living, and I think I am 
 able to do some good in the world." 
 
 " I know it," returned Strong, heartily. " I've 
 heard your name called — with praises and grati- 
 tude > — more than once, Julia, where people were 
 in need. You're a good woman to give, out of 
 your poverty, and of what comes so hard." 
 
 The tribute was simply spoken, in Mark's own 
 blunt way; yet Julia's heart swelled to hear him; 
 it pleased her more than any flowery compliment 
 could have done. She was an approbative creature ; 
 love and admiration were the breath of life to her; 
 and this amiable weakness led her into many follies, 
 while it made her most touching and lovable. 
 
 " Mark, dear, when you come back from Chicago 
 I want to have a little talk with you," she said, press- 
 ing closer in the dark, and speaking scarcely above 
 a whisper. " I don't believe you are hard and over- 
 bearing and cold, like — like they say of you. I 
 think if I'd explain things — certain things — to 
 you — maybe it would do good. I walk through 
 
THE WARNING 191^ 
 
 this field every afternoon about six o'clock, when 
 I'm sewing for Mrs. Kesterson. Maybe sometime, 
 when you come back, you'll happen to be passing 
 along — going through here, too. It won't take 
 much time for me to say what I want to. I've 
 thought it up many a night when I couldn't sleep." 
 
 They had now passed Strong's boundaries, and 
 had nearly reached the edge of the field, where some 
 tall bushes interfered with their sight of the road 
 down which the trolley came. 
 
 " Jule," said the man, wearily, " it's been a good 
 while since you and I walked across this meadow 
 together — do you remember when it was ? " 
 
 It had been during those never-forgotten summer 
 evenings when they planned the grand house whose 
 doors she had just left. 
 
 The woman's heart leaped within her, at the 
 words and the tone. " Oh, Mark ! " she breathed, 
 and sought in her pocket for a handkerchief to 
 brush away the tears which had been close to her 
 eyes during the entire interview. 
 
 " It's a long time ago, isn't it, Jule ? And you and 
 I have come a weary way since then. We're middle- 
 aged people now; though you, who have had it 
 harder than I, look so much younger. You look like 
 a big, rosy-faced girl — I thought of it as you stood 
 talking to me in the lamplight back there, And 
 
192 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 beautiful, dear — more beautiful and sweet-looking 
 than ever. It's almost as though these twenty years 
 had been an ugly dream." 
 
 " I wish to the Lord they had," sobbed Jule. She 
 was thinking of the practical results of her years; 
 the headstrong, ill-managed boy, the poverty- 
 stricken, little cottage, the forlorn old age which 
 seemed likely to end it all. 
 
 " I don't," said Strong, softly. " All of a man's 
 experiences go to make up that man. You wouldn't 
 be you, and I wouldn't be I, without what we've 
 gone through." He checked, hesitated, then turned 
 back toward her in the soft obscurity. Ah, surely 
 the evil dream of those twenty years was over at 
 last. Her heart almost stopped beating. His hand 
 sought for her hand. He went on gently, " But 
 now, Jule — now — " 
 
 " Mark ! " she screamed. " Come back ! Oh, my 
 God! — Mark!" 
 
 She had seen a movement in the bushes beyond 
 them, the shouldering of stealthy dark figures which 
 waited behind the leafy screen. As though her 
 voice had been a signal, they sprang into the path, 
 shouting : 
 
 "That's him! Go for him! — Ah-h!" in a 
 long, canine snarl which Julia scarcely identified 
 with her son's clear, boyish tones. 
 
THE WARNING 193 
 
 Strong, who had wheeled with lightning quickness 
 at the cry, now flung a quick hand back toward 
 the woman behind him. 
 
 " The grip — quick ! My gun's in it," he whis- 
 pered. 
 
 It was sheer panic which made her turn and run 
 around the clump of trees, calling : 
 
 " Come this way, Mark — this way ! " 
 
 But to the man in mortal need it seemed as though 
 she knew that she was taking away his only weapon. 
 
 For an instant the attackers hesitated. Then 
 Strong's own words told them that he did not have 
 his dreaded gun ; and they came on with a rush. 
 
 He drew himself up with the determination to 
 meet them hand to hand, well knowing what a small 
 chance he stood in the unequal conflict; but the 
 word " run " had never had place in Mark Strong's 
 lexicon, and he did not think of giving way. 
 
 There was a soft hum, a rattle and jingle, and far 
 below, the trolley climbed the slope toward this spot. 
 Jule gained the roadway, sprang into it, and ran 
 screaming upon the car-track to signal a stop. 
 
 But the car came slowly up the long incline ; it had 
 not yet arrived. However, such light as it made 
 disconcerted the assailants. Strong could see them 
 plainly now. They were four in number — " Wolves 
 hunt in packs," he muttered between his set teeth, 
 
194 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 as he balanced his chances of following Julia, or 
 catching up a stone which his quick eye had seen by 
 the path, and attempting to make a stand. 
 
 Even as his form stiffened for this latter course, 
 there was the quick patter of steps at a run behind 
 him. The next instant he was lifted off his feet and 
 swung around as though he had been a babe — and 
 the Captain stood in front of him. He heard the 
 swift rasp of leather, as the old man pulled his guns 
 from their holsters; and that cool voice that grew 
 soft in its anger, said : 
 
 " Come on, damn ye, and there'll be a few funerals 
 to-morrow." 
 
 The men in front suddenly stopped, swerved, and 
 bunched ; for an encounter with McClintock, armed 
 and warned, was no part of their programme. 
 
 Strong and McClintock edged toward the bushes 
 till the way to the road was clear. 
 
 " Aw, you dirty, sneakin' cowards ! " taunted the 
 Captain. " Set a woman to stealin' his gun, and 
 then jump on him. Now there's a gun in front of 
 you, if there's a man in the crowd, why don't you 
 show it?" 
 
 Dead silence, except for the rattle of the stopping 
 car, and the rustle of the bushes as the men en- 
 trenched themselves behind the foliage. 
 
 " Dirty little boys — that's what you are — 
 
THE WARNING 195 
 
 'round makin' faces at people," concluded the Cap- 
 tain, scorchingly. Then he added, quietly: 
 
 " Get on the car, Mark. Step a little slow, and 
 I'll back after you." 
 
 So the two went across the illuminated space, 
 Strong facing toward the light, the trolley, the 
 vociferously inquiring conductor and motorman; 
 the Captain backing along in his rear, covering the 
 bushes at the road's edge with his guns. There was 
 no passenger on the car. 
 
 " Yes — a hold-up," Strong assented to the con- 
 ductor's direct question, as he caught the railing 
 and set his foot upon the step. " No, thank you, 
 we don't need any help — they ran." 
 
 The words might be called triumphant; but the 
 owner of the Twin Brothers mounted the step with 
 hanging head. 
 
 Julia had watched with wide, horrified eyes, 
 wringing her hands together. As the Captain backed 
 far enough to bring her within the circle of his vis- 
 ion, he exploded a sudden little oath that was like a 
 cough, dived quickly and caught the grip from her 
 hand, and was on the car in a moment. 
 
 " All right ! go ahead ! You won't be fired into 
 — this was to be knife work, or kidnapping — no 
 shooting," he called to the car men, his foot making 
 a great racket with the gong, though never for an 
 
196 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 instant lowering the one pistol which he still held in 
 his hand. " Noise and light is enough for them 
 fellers. I reckon a right good wind would do to 
 fight 'em with," he crowed. 
 
 " No — you cussed fool — you don't stop for 
 her. She wasn't with us — she was helpin' the 
 other fellers." 
 
 And the glowing car rattled away in the night, 
 leaving the white-faced woman, a thing stricken, be- 
 side the track. 
 
 The guns still in hand, McClintock walked into the 
 car and dropped in the seat beside his employer. 
 
 " God! " he murmured, drawing in a deep breath. 
 " I thought they had you that time, Mark, sure. 
 Why, what's the matter? You ain't hurt, are ye? " 
 looking anxiously into Strong's face that was drawn 
 and gray with pain. " They didn't get you any- 
 wheres, did they ? I didn't hear no shot — did that 
 woman have a knife ? " 
 
 Mark shuddered as he answered, " No. I'm all 
 right. I feel a little sick. I'm a little sick, but — " 
 
 He stopped and glared at the bag in the other's 
 hand. " Where did you get my grip ? " he half- 
 whispered. 
 
 " That hell-cat had it," answered the Captain, 
 bitterly. 
 
 All the way to the station the old man talked, 
 
THE WARNING 197 
 
 under pressure of a sort of jubilant excitement. 
 Strong sat turned from him, and watched the 
 night landscape through the window. The Cap- 
 tain finally dropped away, and secured a more 
 appreciative audience in the car men, looking in 
 from time to time, from his station on the front 
 platform, to caution Strong about sitting by the 
 window. 
 
 " 'Tain't safe," he urged. " Maybe there's more 
 than one crowd out after you to-night." 
 
 " Never mind," said the owner of the Twin 
 Brothers, nervelessly. " It doesn't make any differ- 
 ence. Oh, you don't want me to sit by the window ? 
 All right," and thereafter, obediently, he drooped in 
 a corner seat, his eyes fixed upon the floor, his pale, 
 worn face fallen into lines of pain, weariness, de- 
 jection. 
 
 " Ain't gettin' sick again, are you ? " McClintock 
 asked, solicitously, as they neared the station. 
 
 " No, I'm better, thank you, Captain. I'm all 
 right," returned Strong, sombrely. 
 
 But between him and the Captain's cheerful talk, 
 the noises of the car, and the throbbing of the in- 
 coming train, sounded the voice of his one-time love. 
 The question was as a knife in his heart; but he 
 must ask and ask himself, why had she carried the 
 little grip ? 
 
198 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Why, if it were not an ambush into which she 
 had deliberately led him, had she called his name 
 aloud — bidding him take a path which showed the 
 attackers where to find him, while she fled with his 
 only weapon? His sick spirit recoiled from these 
 ceaselessly reiterated questions. 
 
 That night, as he lay wakeful in his berth, the 
 drumming wheels talked to Mark Strong of Julia. 
 He felt now, for the first time, that he had lost her. 
 Before, she had been there waiting for him to 
 choose, or pass by scorning. In the light of her 
 bitter reprisal (as this attempt on his life seemed 
 to him) he admitted that it had been — half-un- 
 consciously — a comfortable thought that she was 
 there — and in that attitude. 
 
 Whose fault was it that her love for him — he 
 never gave up his belief that she had once loved him 
 well — had turned to resentment, and then to deadly 
 hatred? He had always intended to marry her 
 sometime; but he had fed his sense of power with 
 the thought of the woman who chose between Mark 
 Strong and a drunken miner — and chose ill — 
 remaining humbled to grace his triumph. 
 
 We might prefer that men and women should 
 be made other than they are ; but it would be useless 
 to deny that Julia's passive acceptance of her fate, 
 her avoidance of other lovers — which he knew to 
 
THE WARNING 199 
 
 be a tribute to the strength of her early attachment 
 to himself — moved Strong not at all. Even the 
 timid advances she had made toward his liking — 
 which he now shivered with pity to remember — 
 had not touched him at the time. This blow in the 
 face, this fierce, revengeful repudiation of him, 
 which made the woman impossible to him for ever, 
 left the man longing for her, bereft by her loss, as 
 he had never been since first the news was brought 
 to him that she had married Jack Llewellyn. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN THE SIGN OF THE GOAT 
 
 Strong came back from Chicago a haunted man. 
 All day he was feverishly at work about the Twin 
 Brothers, throwing a passion of energy into the 
 simplest question of its administration. But the 
 evenings at home worried the Captain. 
 
 McClintock had never been much of a reader. 
 His opinion would have been that of the making 
 of many books there is great weariness. And when 
 Mark sat for half an hour at a stretch, gazing 
 through — or past — a volume, without turning 
 a leaf, his friend was not far wrong in judging 
 that there was something on his mind. 
 
 So the Captain's old jokes were brought out and 
 furbished, and retold, and as many new ones added 
 as circumstances would furnish him. On the third 
 day after Strong's return, fate was kind, and the 
 Captain came home bubbling with merriment. 
 
 " Say, Mark," he began at the supper-table, " you 
 remember that goat of Hennessy's ? " 
 
 200 
 
THE SIGN OF THE GOAT 201 
 
 Strong nodded absently. 
 
 " Well, Hennessy's goat never has liked your 
 niggers. I don't say that it ain't mutual; they've 
 lammed most of the hide off of him, trying to con- 
 vince him of the error of his ways; but Billy, he 
 don't convince; he don't vote with the majority; 
 Billy would go to a Chicago aldermanic meeting, 
 and come away honest. Well, this evening I was 
 sitting out in front of the office, with my chair 
 tipped back against it, my hat pulled down over my 
 eyes, and thinking whether I wanted worse to start 
 for home or take a nap, sorter gapin' over in the 
 direction of the company houses, when I noticed 
 Billy. He stood up at the far end from me and 
 looked down the three rows of shanties, as though 
 he was tryin' to decide which one would yield him 
 the most joy. He decided on the east line toward 
 the pond. He come down skirtin' the back fences. 
 He had his lip up, and was lookin' sorter contemp- 
 tuous at them there pickaninnies, and them black 
 women he seen in the houses in place of the folks 
 he was used to. 
 
 " Say, Teddy doesn't extend his race suicide 
 theories to the negro, does he? He needn't. I 
 counted an even two hundred kids in that row of 
 thirty shanties. Well, I did. I can't help it. The 
 kids were there. I just said I counted them." 
 
2Q2 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Strong looked up and smiled. The Captain went 
 on, encouraged : 
 
 " I reckon they all seemed too peaceful for him. 
 There was them pickaninnies just lollopin' around 
 the doorways, like licorice-drops; and the women 
 was a-singin', some of 'em, at the wash-tubs. It 
 sure must 'a' looked too peaceful for him; he 
 seemed to hanker after that atmosphere of strife 
 which is natural to him. He hunted up some small 
 boys, and I saw him dodge several bricks, run two 
 or three of the kids in at the doors, stand off a dog 
 with a look, and calmly pull down a pair of britches 
 off o' the clothes-line when a woman wasn't lookin'. 
 She came out of the door in time to rescue part, I 
 reckon, for I saw her carrying something back in 
 the house, as Billy pranced stiff-legged on down the 
 line." 
 
 " He's a regular fighter," said Strong. " Billy's 
 a general in his small way." 
 
 " Yes. Well, he gave a display of his strategy 
 right then. He wandered into the back yard of 
 Babe Jackson's, that big, black fellow that always 
 has more coal to weigh, and more laugh to the 
 square inch than any man in the mine. Babe, he's 
 got an amount of family that sure ought to cheer 
 Teddy up a lot — ten kids and a dog. Babe does 
 a little gardening, and he believes in having all the 
 
THE SIGN OF THE GOAT 203 
 
 luxuries of life; so he keeps three stands of bees 
 in some old sections of hollow log that he has set 
 up on legsT Babe's dog lit into Billy and insulted 
 him. Billy retorted, and the dog retired to the rear 
 and assumed a reclining posture, assisted by the 
 goat. Then Billy fell into a meditative state. He 
 had gone the length of the row, and I reckon he 
 thought he had done enough for one day." 
 
 " The way you enter into Billy's secret imagin- 
 ings is certainly curious," challenged Strong. 
 
 The old gentleman fingered his gray chin-beard 
 meditatively. 
 
 " I always had a fellow feeling for a goat," he 
 said, mildly. " Some folks say I look like one. 
 Some folks tell me that I've got a voice like one. 
 Anyway, I know how they feel when they loaf 
 around tryin' to hunt up something exciting." 
 
 " Looking for a row," suggested Strong. 
 
 " Now, Mark — now, Mark," deprecated the Cap- 
 tain. " You know I'm a peaceable man." 
 
 " And Billy's a peaceable goat," supplied Strong ; 
 and they both laughed. 
 
 " Well, something attracted Billy's attention 
 right then to the bee-gums, and he sa'ntered over 
 toward 'them in the calmest manner imaginable. 
 Thinks I, there'll be something doing in about a 
 minute; and I come up where I could see better. 
 
2Q4 THE .GRAPPLE 
 
 He stood there for the full minute that I had give 
 him, his legs braced, head down, and tail flirt- 
 ing defiance to all the world. I thought the thing 
 was off, when I saw him start forward. He marched 
 up to the middle hive, as unconcerned as you please, 
 and pushed at it." 
 
 Mark's brightening eye and twitching lip con- 
 fessed that the situation was growing amusing ; and 
 the Captain proceeded: 
 
 " It didn't take those bees long to get a committee 
 out to see — not near as long as it does the pit boss 
 when some of the men are loading slate. Billy 
 backed off a few feet, shook his head a couple of 
 times, and I heard him murmur, ' Um-m-m. Nen- 
 nay! ' " 
 
 Strong laughed at the Captain's absolute repro- 
 duction of the goat's voice and manner. 
 
 " You can laugh," the old man said ; " I did my- 
 self, I giggled all over ; 'cause you can talk about the 
 little ant being industrious; but when it comes to 
 trouble, the busy bee has got more industry to the 
 square inch than any living thing I ever investigated. 
 They ain't a bit shy about presenting their creden- 
 tials. I reckon what they said to Billy was a little 
 irritating; for he backed off about ten feet and 
 commenced to give a first-class imitation of a 
 butting goat. I couldn't keep still. I whooped 
 
THE SIGN OP THE GOAT 205 
 
 right out, ' Go it, Billy ! Butt in and get what's 
 comin' to you — and get it quick.' 
 
 " He did. I reckon if you had measured them, 
 there would have been about a beer-keg of bees 
 that poured out of that hive and rested on Billy. 
 Why do I measure 'em that way? 'Cause no man 
 livin' could ever have counted 'em. There was a 
 bee wherever one could get a toe-holt, and they 
 didn't argue about who had the floor — Gee! no, 
 they all had it to onct." 
 
 The Captain was in his element now. The 
 haunted look was gone from Strong's eyes. That 
 pale face of his was flushed with laughter; the 
 curious supper which poor Demas had prepared was 
 going well. The old man helped his employer to 
 fried potatoes, and continued : 
 
 " Billy circled around backward a few times, all 
 garlanded up with strung-on bees, like an Injun 
 brave. He shook his head, and said, ' Nan — na-a- 
 a-ay! ' in different keys, and with different slides, 
 for the next few seconds, while they were getting 
 down to his side. I reckon the smell must have 
 staggered 'em a little, for you could see they didn't 
 begin to sting right off. But Billy sure did look 
 'different.' He looked like they tell in the story 
 about a cloud hanging over the hero. Well, Billy 
 he had a cloud, and it was sure hanging on heroic- 
 
2o6 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 ally ; so much so that he got powerful uneasy and 
 started for home. He turned his back on that hive 
 just in time for another bunch of home-seekers to 
 settle on some of the unclaimed territory. Then 
 Billy's doubts were changed to certainties. He 
 dropped his tail to half-mast. He bounded up into 
 the air as if somebody had made a fire under him. 
 'Umph! Um-m-m! — Mm-my-God! ' he said, as 
 he started out on rush orders." 
 
 " Come, now, Captain," remonstrated Strong, 
 between laughs. " You've told me what the goat 
 thought; but I submit it to you that you can't tell 
 me what he said." 
 
 " I can," asserted the Captain. " They was his 
 very words. I backed up against the wall so as 
 not to fall down laughin' ! And say, talk about 
 gettin' up speed in a short time — Billy had her 
 wide open and was giving her sand every jump, be- 
 fore he passed the corner of Jackson's house. He 
 was goin' home. As he come by Babe's door, Babe's 
 dog got gay — I reckon he seen that the goat was in 
 trouble — and took after him. I think Billy loaned 
 him about a cupful. That dog didn't wait for 
 more, though I'm sure that Billy's generosity would 
 not have given out on just one little measly cupful. 
 The dog fell all over himself, and yelled till you 
 could hardly hear Billy askin' for Nanny. Babe's 
 
THE SIGN OF THE GOAT 207 
 
 door was open, and in the poor dog went — bees 
 and all. I guess Babe was takin' a wash, for he 
 hadn't much on but an expression of terror when 
 he come out of a side window." 
 
 Demas had halted in the door to hear the story. 
 " I bet Big Babe didn't laugh then," he commented. 
 " I never seen him but what he was a-laughin'." 
 
 " He took this thing serious," agreed the Captain. 
 " Bolly Read lives about half-way down the row, 
 and his wife was a-bendin' over the wash-tub (that 
 fat, round, black woman that does our washin', 
 Mark) not noticin' all the ructions we was havin' up 
 our way. You know it was a hot day, and she didn't 
 have on much but a calico wrapper, and that was 
 stickin' like the paper on the wall, where she'd wiped 
 her hands on it. I guess Billy was sorry for them 
 bees that had such a hard time gettin' down through 
 his hair to his real feelings; anyhow, he spread a 
 few warm words of welcome on Sister Read as he 
 passed. She rose suddenly, said ' Gawd ! ' kinder 
 pious-like, and then she looked around for what 
 it was that had hit her. She stood lookin' jest one 
 second — not longer than that, I'll swear — and 
 then she set down right quick. She didn't stay sot 
 any longer than it took her to set down ; she hopped 
 up and sprinted for the house — for bees do get 
 busy. Sister Read knows that now. I guess Billy 
 
2o8 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 lost a nice little bunch on her. Next he passed Aunt 
 Minervy — you know, that old yellow woman that's 
 the mother of Charlie and Jeff and Wingfield. She 
 was washin', too — they mostly are. She went into 
 the tub. Billy was gettin' excited, and he was so 
 rough." 
 
 As Demas wiped the tears of merriment from his 
 small, light eyes, he looked with admiring envy at 
 the old man. 
 
 " I wish't I'd 'a' been there to see that," he said, 
 almost devoutly. " Nothin' never happens when 
 I'm around." 
 
 " Things happened around where Billy was," 
 pursued the Captain, joyously. " He side-stepped 
 and landed a few swift ones on Jake Washington's 
 young shoats. Them pigs ! " The Captain dropped 
 his face in his two palms, and shook. " They 
 spread the news — they sure did spread the news," 
 he declared. " When they thought their end of 
 creation was pretty well informed, they went under 
 the house, and come near tipping it over. They 
 also had a few bees on hand that they were willing 
 to let go cheap — on account of being loaded up too 
 heavy; but bees is stayers." 
 
 The Captain deemed that he was now well 
 enough into his precious tale to venture a little 
 experiment — a bit of a test ; so he paused, smiling 
 
THE SIGN OF THE GOAT 209 
 
 reminiscently, as though that might be all. And 
 he was duly gratified with Mark's prompt and in- 
 terested — 
 
 " Well, how did it come out — for Billy? " 
 "Billy?" echoed the guileful Captain; " w'y, 
 by the time I got my attention attracted away from 
 the shoats, Billy was leadin' two hound pups by 
 about a length. I felt sorry for them enthusiastic 
 pups, 'cause I knew just what a bitter disappoint- 
 ment it was goin' to be to their young hearts when 
 they caught Billy. By this time, the goat was leavin' 
 chunks of tired bees at every doorstep ; an' when the 
 poor little strangers would go in and cuddle up to 
 some of your black men, and want to be clasped to 
 their manly bosoms, it was mighty strange how un- 
 sympathetic their hosts was. Tell about darkies 
 bein' so warm-hearted and affectionate ! They give 
 'em the house; but stay with 'em an' talk over the 
 events of the day, they would not. It seemed like 
 them few quarts of bees spread over more territory, 
 and got more attention, than any similar amount of 
 animated matter I ever heard of. 
 
 " Billy took the corner on two legs, and went 
 down the path toward Dempsey's, you know, used 
 to be, — it's old Uncle Si Pickney's now, — while 
 those bees stayed with him like bill collectors. Just 
 as he dipped the hill, and was goin' out of our sight, 
 
2io THE GRAPPLE 
 
 he met Jim Jones, my big brawny sergeant. Brave 
 as a lion, you know, Jones is ; we've always declared 
 he wouldn't run from anything; and I guess he 
 wouldn't from anything human — but when Billy 
 landed him a corkscrew in the solar plexus, and 
 loaned him about a quart of stingers geared to 
 seven hundred jobs a minute, an' just eager to 
 begin work — well, I speeded him for a second or 
 two, and then the pace got too hot to estimate. 
 Jim wears one of these here negligent shirts, that 
 have forgot about buttons; and the bees went in- 
 side for the sake of the coolness — but I don't think 
 they took any coolness with them. Jim said some- 
 thing that sounded some like — " 
 
 The Captain glanced at the boy, Demas, who 
 sat on the floor embracing his knees and indulging in 
 mute ecstasies of mirth. 
 
 " Well, I don't know no African languages, and 
 I guess that's what Jim hollered out, in his excite- 
 ment. He sure did give a first-class imitation of a 
 Zulu war-dance, anyhow. He started after Billy 
 with such a distressed air that Billy turned to come 
 back and console him. Then that African must 'a' 
 realized his mistake; for he yelled something that 
 sounded like ' Nay, Pauline ! ' and came down in 
 my direction. I had no wish to meet James right 
 then — if he is my sergeant, and a mighty good one, 
 
THE SIGN OF THE GOAT 211 
 
 too; and I was just fixin' to hop inside the office 
 and shut the door, when he turned in at his own 
 house. 
 
 " His wife — big Maria, you know, that looks 
 and steps like some sort of heathen queen — she 
 saw Jim comin' — the whole row was on to the 
 matter by this time — and as he entered in at the 
 front door, she exited out at the back — timed to 
 exactly the same rate of speed, and with a camphor 
 bottle in one hand and a box of bakin' soda in the 
 other — the whole outfit of bee-sting medicine 
 there was to be found on them premises, I reckon ; 
 for we sure heard Jim a-chargin' around terrific; 
 and the darkies came to me afterward and said that 
 Jim had carried on scandalous, and they were afraid 
 that he would lick his wife ! Did you ever ? Well, 
 some things beat my time, and I passed this one 
 up. 
 
 " Billy sprinted through several briar-patches on 
 purpose, and he managed to get rid of nearly half 
 his bees before he hit the company pond — he had 
 changed his mind about going home; a life on the 
 ocean wave was what he craved at that time. As he 
 struck the water I heard his voice raise in a long 
 hurrah. 'M-m-m! — Thank Gawd!' he hollered." 
 
 " Now, Captain," objected Strong, who had long 
 
212 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 been frankly roaring with laughter, " there you go 
 with your goat talk again." 
 
 " He did — that's what he said," maintained the 
 Captain. " Who wouldn't, under the circum- 
 stances ? " 
 
 " Well," inquired Strong, quizzically, " did it 
 have any moral effect on that lawless Irish goat of 
 Hennessy's ? " 
 
 " Yes," returned the Captain, impartially, " yes, 
 I think it did. I believe it's saved his life, for he's 
 a-goin' to give that whole row a wide berth here- 
 after — and it's sure a mighty dangerous neigh- 
 bourhood to him from now out. Poor Billy ! You 
 wouldn't hardly recognize him. There's patches 
 of hair and hide off everywhere ; and where the 
 bees landed thick an' strong, there's humps and 
 knobs and bulges that plumb changes the unhappy 
 goat's geography — hey? his what? Yes, that's 
 it, his 'natomy. It's changed now, like Napoleon 
 changed the map of Europe. Funny about bees, 
 ain't it?" 
 
 " Yes," agreed Mark, with a comfortable laugh 
 that did the old man's heart good to hear. " Yes, 
 Captain; as you tell it, it's certainly funny about 
 bees — and about goats, and darkies, and shoats, 
 and pups — your entire dramatis persona." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AN UGLY COMPACT 
 
 " I saw Mark Strong with the Llewellyn woman 
 this morning." 
 
 Van Dorn leaned over the low hedge to where his 
 sister rested under a blossoming apple-tree, after 
 a practice game of tennis. 
 
 The girl looked up with a sudden glow on her 
 smooth cheeks. 
 
 " I think I must try to find some means of con- 
 vincing that person that she doesn't really want to 
 continue to live in Iroquois," she said, sharply. 
 
 " I thought you women had all sorts of ways and 
 means of conveying such hints," Van Dorn sug- 
 gested, lazily. 
 
 " Well, we women haven't," his sister returned, 
 sharply ; " but if I were a man like you, I don't 
 think I should fail to find a way to make that seam- 
 stress impossible to Mark Strong." 
 
 The man drew back and laughed a little — a 
 hateful Jaugh. 
 
 213 
 
214 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " By God, Jane ! you women are little devils when 
 it comes to fighting each other," he said, rather 
 admiringly. 
 
 " Nonsense," snapped Miss Van Dorn, rising and 
 shaking the fallen petals from her white linen 
 skirts. " You men profess to be shocked when we 
 act like men, fighting for what we want, with such 
 weapons as we can get our hands on. But you're 
 not shocked at all, and you know you're not." 
 
 She turned and sauntered toward the house, 
 striking her skirts with the tennis-racket in her firm, 
 muscular hand. 
 
 " Jane — I say, Jane ! were you in earnest — in 
 what you suggested — about my assistance, I 
 mean ? " Van Dorn called after her. 
 
 " Of course I was," she answered over her shoul- 
 der. " Why should I have said such a thing if I 
 didn't mean it? " 
 
 " I might not be able to help you at all — in that 
 way," debated her brother. 
 
 Miss Van Dorn faced about, and even came back 
 a few steps. 
 
 " If I were a man with your looks, and money," 
 she said, shortly, " I wouldn't make such a silly 
 speech as that about a woman of her class. Of 
 course you can do what you please with her. And 
 I think it'll be only friendly — In short, Tulley," 
 
AN UGLT COMPACT 215 
 
 and she laughed a little, " I want a row raised about 
 that person. You're a rather notorious individual 
 for getting rows raised, of that sort; they have 
 cost you a pretty penny, and a good deal of incon- 
 venience, before now. But in this case it would be 
 money in my pocket (and that means your pocket), 
 and I'll take it very kindly if you'll give me a helping 
 hand." 
 
 " All right, Jane, I'm ready to make any sacri- 
 fice — of that sort — of my personal feelings, in your 
 service," said Van Dorn, with a grin. " You just 
 stand back and watch my play." 
 
 Surely this was a strange compact — between a 
 brother and a sister; this easy, frivolous agreement 
 to meddle with life's most terrible explosives. It 
 was a pact which must have in it the seeds of ruin 
 and of death; it was such a weapon as inevitably 
 wounds the hand that wields it, whether or no it 
 ever reaches its intended victim. 
 
 When Miss Van Dorn reached the house she 
 found her sister-in-law, a small, pale woman, sit- 
 ting upon the broad porch with her two children. 
 Celia Van Dorn never looked at her beautiful, rosy 
 boy and girl without a curious feeling of thankful- 
 ness toward their father. And such a bond was 
 needed, indeed, to reconcile her to life as Van 
 Dorn's wife. She and Jane Van Dorn had been girl 
 
216 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 friends; or rather, Jane had discovered Celia, 
 learned that her wealth was a stable fact, and 
 recommended her to Tulley as a parti. The unmar- 
 ried woman never lost the tone of authority, of 
 patronage, which she had then adopted toward her 
 small, unassuming Western friend. 
 
 " Celia," she began, abruptly, " I wish you'd get 
 the Llewellyn woman to come here to the house 
 to do some sewing." 
 
 "For you?" 
 
 " For me, or for yourself, if you need any. I 
 want her here — in the house." 
 
 Miss Van Dorn was passing on, when her sister- 
 in-law's quiet tone stopped her. 
 
 " If you really want Julia Llewellyn to sew for 
 you, why don't you send for her, or go and see her 
 and hire her? " 
 
 Jane laughed shortly, then turned and seated her- 
 self upon the porch step. 
 
 " Donald, run down and get my book," she said 
 to the boy. " I left it under the tree by the tennis- 
 court. Dorothy, don't you want to go in and get 
 aunty a glass of water ? " Looking at the other, 
 she began, bluntly: 
 
 " Now, Celia, I've got those two juveniles out of 
 the way, I'll tell you that I've asked the haughty 
 
AN UGLT COMPACT 217 
 
 lady to sew for me, and she doesn't seem to wish to 
 do so." 
 
 " Well, then, get some one else to do your work, 
 and let her alone," suggested Mrs. Van Dorn, 
 briefly. 
 
 " I would," said Jane, " but there are other things 
 beside sewing in the matter. I have — oh, well, 
 say I have a curiosity about the woman, and I want 
 to study her at short range." 
 
 " I suppose you are interested in her on account 
 of Mark Strong," Mrs. Van Dorn observed. 
 
 Her sister-in-law nodded; she made no secret 
 of her designs upon the owner of the Twin Broth- 
 ers. 
 
 " Well, Jane," began the other, " you haven't 
 asked my advice ; I don't suppose you put any faith 
 in my judgment, or that you care to hear my 
 opinion ; but my opinion is that Mark Strong never 
 loved anybody but Julia Copeland — Julia Llewellyn 
 — and he never will." 
 
 Jane Van Dorn puckered her face into a mocking 
 little grimace. 
 
 " How sentimental we are," she laughed, lightly. 
 " Dotty Dimple," to the little niece who had just 
 brought out the glass of water, " don't you want 
 to go down and help brother hunt for that 
 book?" 
 
218 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 She looked with smiling eyes after the short legs 
 and rustling white skirts. " It'll be some time before 
 they find it," she commented. 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't lie to the children," re- 
 monstrated Mrs. Van Dorn, quietly. " They find it 
 out, you know, and it's a bad example. If you 
 want them out of the way, if you had anything you 
 wished to tell me or ask me, which they were not 
 to hear, why not say so ? " 
 
 " Why not, indeed ? " laughed Miss Van Dorn, 
 picking a spray of apple-blossom to pieces. " Why 
 not? Just my bringing up in a French school, I 
 suppose." 
 
 Mrs. Van Dorn rose to go in. 
 
 " Are you going to hire that woman for me, 
 Celia ? " her sister-in-law questioned. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I wish you would give me a reason," angrily. 
 
 Little Mrs. Van Dorn turned in the doorway of 
 her own house. 
 
 " Since when have I been obliged to give you 
 reasons for my actions, Jane? " she asked. " I don't 
 choose to have Julia Llewellyn here at the house. 
 If I had chosen to do so, I shouldn't need to ask you, 
 or to discuss it with you." 
 
 Miss Van Dorn was on her feet now, and the 
 faces of both women were flushed. But Jane's voice 
 
AN UGLT COMPACT 219 
 
 had dropped with anger, and she drawled out with 
 an affectation of indifference: 
 
 " Jealous, eh ? Your precious husband ? Do you 
 know, your vulgar jealousy of Tulley is getting to 
 be notorious. I heard some one say the other day 
 that you were afraid to have a good-looking woman 
 about the house." 
 
 " I guess you heard yourself or Tulley say that," 
 Mrs. Van Dorn threw back at her, contemptuously. 
 " It sounds like one or the other of you. And it 
 couldn't have been any one else — because there's 
 no truth in it — no one else ever thought of or said 
 such a thing. And now, since you've chosen to 
 speak with so much frankness, I may as well tell you, 
 Jane, that you'll get no good tagging after Mark 
 Strong — why, he doesn't know there's such a 
 woman as you in the world. I decline to help you 
 make a fool of yourself." 
 
 " Does that mean that you won't drive with me 
 and the children to the Twin Brothers this after- 
 noon? Mr. Strong has invited them to go over 
 and hear the negroes sing as they change the shift. 
 Don and Dot. are wild about it, and I promised to 
 drive them over with you in the double trap." 
 
 Again across poor Celia Van Dorn's face came 
 that softening which mention of her children always 
 brought. The two sturdy, rosy-faced, frank-eyed 
 
22Q THE GRAPPLE 
 
 little souls were trudging across the lawn, now, 
 shouting explanations about the patiently-sought-for 
 book. 
 
 " Why, Aunt Jane, I'll bet it's just another of 
 your forgets," Don called. " I don't believe there 
 was any book there." 
 
 " We looked all over the grass, and we climbed 
 up some in the tree," Dot chimed in, " but we 
 couldn't find any book." 
 
 " Never mind," said their aunt, with that smile 
 that puzzled and put them so at fault ; " I guess I 
 left it in my room, after all. No — no — you 
 needn't go there for it," and their mother was 
 saying low to Jane: 
 
 " No, I'll go if you think the children would 
 enjoy it. I don't know that it can do any harm. 
 For what time did you order the trap? " 
 
 " Five o'clock. That will give you time to dress, 
 and have them got ready." Jane chose to ignore 
 Celia's more significant observation. 
 
 Lunch found Van Dorn constrained and ill at 
 ease, as he always was when he wanted something 
 from his wife. It was a never-ending source of 
 bitterness to him that he must yet stand in the atti- 
 tude of one ready to be benefited by her. Yet, the 
 hard-headed, soft-hearted little woman had been 
 her father's right-hand man; she knew the mine, 
 
AN UGLT COMPACT 221 
 
 its product, its management, and its workings, as 
 Van Dorn could never know them; she knew the 
 people of her section ; and to her he must turn when 
 he himself was at a loss, or when anything particu- 
 larly important was on hand. In the early years of 
 their marriage he had treated her advice so cava- 
 lierly, he had arrogated all authority so completely 
 to himself, and carried matters with so high a hand, 
 that she now proffered no assistance, and must be 
 sought if she was to be made use of. 
 
 " Going over to the Twin Brothers, are you ? " 
 the head of the family asked, with affected careless- 
 ness. 
 
 " Dear, dear Mr. Strong asked us ! " said Doro- 
 thy. " He says the black men in the mine sing so 
 sweet (or is it ' sweetly,' mamma? Is that one of 
 the ' 1-y lys ? ' " she questioned, parenthetically, of 
 her mother, and receiving an affirmative nod and 
 smile, went on) ; " and there are funny little black 
 children at the miners' houses now." 
 
 " If we go before six o'clock we'll see 'em turn out 
 for drill," added Donald. 
 
 The father frowned; this was not what he 
 wanted. 
 
 " You should let the children have their meals 
 in the nursery, Celia. A table with a parcel of 
 noisy youngsters around it is insufferable — we 
 
222 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 might as well dine in a kindergarten," he said, 
 sharply. 
 
 Dorothy's round cheeks crimsoned helplessly, and 
 the slow, bright tears dropped over them. Even 
 sturdy Don's hand sought, below the table's edge, 
 for his mother's. They had both been so sure of 
 pleasing — and they so seldom pleased. 
 
 "Are you troubled about something?" inquired 
 the little mother in that stiff tone of reproof which 
 nothing but defence of her children ever gave her 
 courage to use. Her one hand, out of sight, clasped 
 her son's tremulous little fist; her other gave a 
 quick, reassuring touch to Dorothy's curls. 
 
 " Yes, I'm infernally worried. A committee 
 from the Local waited on me to-day, and desired 
 me to use my influence with Mark Strong to get him 
 to ship his darkies back to Alabama. My influ- 
 ence ! " And he laughed rather bitterly. 
 
 Mrs. Van Dorn studied her husband's face 
 intelligently. 
 
 " And you want me to open this matter to Mark 
 Strong ? " she said, quietly. 
 
 The man fidgeted in his chair; he had neither 
 strength and ability, nor the necessary knowledge, 
 to do without her; nor had he the grace to grant 
 her credit for the help she gave. 
 
AN UGLT COMPACT 223 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," he drawled. " You might 
 mention it to him, if the matter comes up." 
 
 Mrs. Van Dorn's lips tightened to a gray line. 
 During the early years of her marriage, she would 
 have hastened to urge her help upon him ; now she 
 said, indifferently: 
 
 " I shall not mention it to him, unless you desire 
 me to do so." 
 
 " Hang it all, Celia, don't be any nastier about 
 the thing than you feel obliged to ! " cried Van Dorn, 
 irritably. " I've been confoundedly worried. These 
 men are awful brutes. No doubt you know more 
 about them than I do. You hit it off better with 
 Strong. I think you might help me out, without 
 assuming that pharisaical tone." 
 
 Don's small, chubby fist clutched tight around 
 his mother's; Dorothy's tears dried on her heated 
 cheeks, as she stared angrily at the father who was 
 speaking so unkindly to that adored one. Both 
 these little creatures were full of the Van Dorn 
 courage, once offended, once roused. 
 
 " Have you little folks had enough lunch now ? " 
 inquired the mother, gently. " Run away to Han- 
 nah, then, and let her make you tidy for your 
 drive." 
 
 And the children went obediently, but slowly, 
 eyes still fixed angrily and doubtfully upon their 
 
224 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 father, or questioningly on their mother, as though 
 they thought she might need them to defend her. 
 Van Dorn saw nothing of it. Jane noted with a 
 sarcastic smile, Celia with a painfully swelling heart. 
 But she turned with an unruffled countenance to her 
 husband : 
 
 " I understand that, after all, you do want me to 
 sound Mr. Strong on what he might do about tak- 
 ing back the Union men." 
 
 " Of course I do — you knew it from the first. 
 It's your way to pick a man's remarks to pieces as 
 he makes them." 
 
 Mrs. Van Dorn regarded the spoon in her hand 
 intently. The Van Dorn crest upon it might have 
 been a complicated problem which she was striving 
 to solve. Yet it is doubtful if she saw either spoon 
 or crest, as she answered : 
 
 " It will not be of any use, but it might as well 
 be done. Then you'll be able to tell your men that 
 you have made every effort in your power." 
 
 " I need to tell 'em something of the sort," said 
 Van Dorn, ruefully. " They're on my back about 
 half the time, and making life a burden to me. They 
 seem to think that the sight of Mark Strong run- 
 ning an independent mine is bad for the rest of us 
 mine owners." 
 
 Mrs. Van Dorn smiled, a peculiar little smile. 
 
AN UGLT COMPACT 225 
 
 " Mark Strong has always been able to do things 
 which other people can't do," she said, briefly. 
 
 Her husband looked up angrily, opened his lips, 
 then, as her eyes met his fully and quietly, seemed 
 to think better of it, and said nothing. 
 
 The children enjoyed their outing to the full. 
 They were dear little souls, with the rosy, glowing 
 Van Dorn physique, and their mother's loving heart 
 and sturdy, active, sound mentality. Strong was a 
 prime favourite with both of them. To be where he 
 was, seemed to them delight enough ; but when was 
 added the many novel sights and scenes which the 
 Twin Brothers now afforded, their cup of bliss quite 
 ran over. 
 
 It was not till the Gloriana party was ready to 
 return home that the subject Van Dorn desired his 
 wife to bring up was broached. The four visitors 
 were seated in the tall trap, Donald beside his aunt, 
 and Dorothy, a bundle of fairy muslins and laces 
 and sweetness, at her mother's side. Miss Van 
 Dorn looked her best when riding or driving; she 
 was exceedingly fond of horses, a good whip, and 
 enjoyed displaying her abilities in this line. 
 
 The little man in gray stood at the wheel, his hand 
 upon the vehicle's edge, to bid his guests good- 
 bye. 
 
 " You seem to be making a success of this," said 
 
226 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Mrs. Van Dorn, nodding toward the long row of 
 miners' cottages, where negro women washed at the 
 tubs in the back yards, and fat, black babies tumbled 
 about the door-steps. " But do you like it? " 
 
 Strong's face contracted for a moment, and then 
 resumed its wonted placidity. 
 
 " Like it ? " he debated. Then, suddenly turning 
 toward her, " But that's hardly the point. The 
 success is the thing, isn't it ? " 
 
 "Is it?" asked Mrs. Van Dorn. "Well, per- 
 haps; but Tulley wanted me to sound you on the 
 question of the Union. Of course you know it 
 would simplify matters for the rest of us if you — if 
 you — " 
 
 " Fail," put in Strong, with one of his rare laughs. 
 " Well, yes. I believe it would. But I can't fail just 
 to be obliging to my friends." 
 
 " Seriously," said Mrs. Van Dorn, " you wouldn't 
 be likely to consider any sort of proposition from the 
 Union, would you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, there's one proposition that I should 
 always consider favourably from the Union. I'd 
 ship these fellows back to Alabama to-morrow, and 
 put my old men in their places at the old wages, 
 with all the old privileges — and some new ones, 
 perhaps — if the Union just said the word." 
 
 There was silence for an instant. Celia glanced 
 
AN UGLT COMPACT 227 
 
 down at Strong's face ; even Jane Van Dorn turned 
 slightly toward him. 
 
 " But I'd have to run my own mine my own way," 
 the quiet voice finished; and there was a quick 
 movement in both of the women before him. 
 
 " That brings us to the deadlock which put the 
 Union out of your mine," commented Mrs. Van 
 Dorn. Again her glance travelled over the neat 
 enclosure, the prosperous appearance of everything. 
 Before her mind's eye was a vision of the Gloriana, 
 run down, slovenly and incompetently administered, 
 going to rack as fast as it well could. " I dare say 
 you are making something," she hazarded. 
 
 "Of course; at this season, and with prices 
 where they are," Strong returned; "we're doing 
 well." 
 
 Jane, from where she sat, slightly turned away, 
 drawing her whip-lash across her horse's flank, 
 suddenly spoke. 
 
 " It's a relief to hear somebody talk prosperity," 
 she said. " We have nothing but the wail of hard 
 times at our house." 
 
 Mrs. Van Dorn's pale cheek tinged with colour. 
 Her pride was touched. The Gloriana had been a 
 fine paying property when the Twin Brothers was 
 struggling to gain a foothold. 
 
 " I fancy times will be better with us soon ; we're 
 
228 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 profiting somewhat by the good workmen the Twin 
 Brothers turned away," she put in, rather hurriedly. 
 
 " I'm glad you got some good men," said Strong, 
 with hearty kindness. " It's an ill wind, indeed, that 
 blows good to nobody." 
 
 " Yes," drawled Jane, with sudden inspiration, 
 " Tulley told me the other day that he was hiring 
 the Llewellyn boy, the son of the handsome widow," 
 and she looked amiably down at Strong, then 
 glanced triumphantly at her sister-in-law. " He 
 seems to have taken a fancy to the young fellow, and 
 is going to give him something to do in the office, 
 if he can." 
 
 The statement was pure invention, but Jane Van 
 Dorn meant to make it come true. To both of her 
 hearers, for varying reasons, it was unwelcome. 
 
 " Julia Copeland has lived in Iroquois for more 
 than twenty years," said Mrs. Van Dorn, softly. 
 " She would hate to move away. She has so many 
 friends here. I was always fond of Julia, my- 
 self." 
 
 " Oh, Tulley thinks of building a cottage for 
 them near the Gloriana, and selling it to them on 
 very easy terms," expanded Jane, glibly. " But of 
 course that's not moving away from Iroquois." 
 
 Mark Strong kept his gaze fixed upon the hub of 
 the wheel beside him. Tulley Van Dorn's assistance 
 
AN UGLT COMPACT 229 
 
 would be a doubtful boon to a woman in Julia 
 Llewellyn's position. 
 
 " Well, good-bye. Good-bye, my little sweet- 
 heart," to the small, beruffled girl, who poked her 
 chubby face over the side of the high trap, with 
 the utmost haste and hearty good-will, to be kissed 
 by her dear Mr. Strong. " Good-bye, partner," to 
 the white-serge-clad boy. " You're going to come 
 over and help me run the Twin Brothers when you 
 get a little older, aren't you ? " 
 
 And with much laughter the carriage drove away, 
 the two eager child faces gazing back as far as they 
 could see Mark, the little hands fluttering in re- 
 peated farewells. 
 
 Strong stood looking after them unseeingly for 
 some time, waving an almost perfunctory hand in 
 response. Julia was leaving his neighbourhood; 
 she was placing herself under the protection of a 
 man whom he despised, a man of whose views 
 concerning women he had not been allowed to re- 
 main -in ignorance. Well, she was old enough to 
 know her own mind. It was certain that he did 
 not see his way clear to offer advice. And with 
 another sigh he turned and walked slowly in the 
 direction of his own home. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FIRE AND TOW 
 
 Whether Jane Van Dorn had talked to her 
 brother beforehand and knew what his plans were to 
 be, or whether she invented these plans on the spur 
 of the moment, certain it is that a man working in 
 the Gloriana approached Bob Llewellyn the next day 
 with the statement that they were short-handed, and 
 that there would be a chance for a particularly good 
 job for a likely young fellow who could please Mr. 
 Van Dorn. 
 
 Upon applying, Bob found that he was not offered 
 the ordinary position of miner. Mr. Van Dorn 
 stated to him that one of his bosses was unsatis- 
 factory ; he desired to have a young fellow at hand 
 who would learn the mine and the men, and who 
 could be put into that place at a day's notice. 
 
 Poor Bob — poor, crude young fellow; easily 
 deceived, because he was not himself deceitful ! He 
 went home to his mother full of pride, telling her 
 that here, at last, was an employer who could 
 
 230 
 
FIRE AND TOW 231 
 
 appreciate good men. When had Mark Strong ever 
 called a sixteen-year-old boy into his office and 
 talked to him of being made a boss ? It was certain 
 that Strong's best men received only curt and cool 
 commendation. That they prized this more than 
 voluminous praise from anybody else, was some- 
 thing young Robert overlooked. 
 
 Julia was uneasy, but she could not bear to dash 
 her boy's enthusiasm. 
 
 " All right, Bob," she said, tremulously, smooth- 
 ing back the thick, dark hair, and looking down 
 into the eyes so like her own. She was giving him 
 his supper. " All right, dear ; you're the man of 
 the family, and must decide these things. But I 
 don't like to hear you speak harshly of Mr. Strong. 
 Remember, some folks that are cold and quiet in 
 their way mean better by you than others who say 
 a great deal. You were at the Twin Brothers first, 
 and I guess you found as little injustice there as 
 anywhere." 
 
 Bob flushed, and busied himself with his biscuit 
 and butter. Mark Strong's name had been a sore 
 subject since the night when Julia warned the mine 
 owner, and when she had later taxed her son with 
 being of the party who attacked them. Now he 
 wagged his head portentously. 
 
 " Never you mind about Strong," he said, boy- 
 
232 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 ishly. " Strong'll get met up with. I don't wish 
 him any worse luck than is comin' to him. The 
 Union will fix him and his niggers. But I'm going 
 to buy a cottage from Mr. Van Dorn — did I tell 
 you about that, mother ? " 
 
 " No — for what? " with vague anxiety. 
 
 " Why, for us to live in, of course. Before I'm 
 done with it I'm going to see you living in a finer 
 house than Mark Strong's; but a cottage will do 
 to begin on." 
 
 Julia sat down by her boy and watched to see 
 that he had everything he needed, keeping his coffee- 
 cup replenished and his plate supplied with hot 
 biscuit. 
 
 " I should think a cottage would do to begin on ! " 
 she laughed. " It's rather a large beginning for 
 a boy of your age. What put it into your head, 
 Bob ? " Her look was solicitous, as well as fond. 
 
 " Mr. Van Dorn. He took me out to see the lot, 
 and there's an apple-tree on it, and two peach-trees, 
 and lots of room for a garden. I'll bet you'll have 
 it just full of flowers by this time next year. He 
 said you could plan the house, if you wanted to. 
 Of course it is to be just so many rooms and all; 
 but you might have little things about it to suit you." 
 
 Julia shivered. She had planned one house in 
 her lifetime — a house she never lived in — and it 
 
FIRE AND TOW 233 
 
 seemed to be enough. The light went out of her 
 face, the girlish, running laugh out of her voice, as 
 she answered : 
 
 " Oh, almost any place suits me. I don't believe 
 I would want to be about planning a house before 
 the workmen; it might look like favouritism; and 
 if you get your mates down on you it's very un- 
 pleasant." 
 
 " I guess they'll have to stand it," said Bob, im- 
 portantly. " Mr. Van Dorn may make me a boss 
 before fall, he says." 
 
 Van Dorn himself went over to Iroquois to see 
 Bob Llewellyn's mother. For Tulley Van Dorn, 
 the door to every other sort of ruin opened through 
 his weakness for women. When he attempted to 
 lay hands upon Julia Llewellyn, it was like touching 
 a live wire. 
 
 She was Van Dorn's age exactly, in the meridian 
 of her affluent and most appealing beauty; a tall 
 woman, but so deep-chested and so grandly pro- 
 portioned that she scarcely looked her height. Hers 
 was the feminine curve, everywhere; the figure 
 was majestic, the head high borne, the features 
 well-nigh perfect; but with an endearing beauty 
 which was maternal, rather than imperial. Her 
 hair was a warm, reddish brown, escaping braids 
 and careful pinning, to turn glowing little ends 
 
234 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 of curls about her temples and neck. She had the 
 peculiarly transparent skin which goes with that 
 auburn hair; yet there was a dash of brown in its 
 transparency, which warmed it from waxen beauty 
 to the ripely human. Her eyes were brown, deeply 
 fringed, full of laughter, and shaded by heavy 
 brows ; the eye of the earth-born, the nature-woman. 
 
 But the chief beauty of Julia Llewellyn's face 
 was her mouth ; large, red-lipped, and with generous 
 curves, there was a fullness beneath it, a prominence 
 to its upper lip, which precluded any sharp line of 
 closure. It seemed a mouth made for speech and 
 laughter and kisses, tremulously alive to every 
 human emotion. Those were never the lips which 
 should have been silent, or pressed together in 
 anguish over secrets they dared not reveal. 
 
 Beautiful, appealing, richly feminine, tenderly 
 human, to Van Dorn's grossly self-indulgent, un- 
 governed, inflammable nature, Julia Llewellyn was 
 as a torch. His first interview with her settled 
 many things in the destiny of a dozen people seem- 
 ingly not concerned with either one of these princi- 
 pals. She had that crowning and irresistible charm 
 to a man of Van Dorn's type; she was plainly a 
 pure woman — and unprotected. 
 
 The little cottage was not finished ; Bob came and 
 went between Iroquois and the Gloriana by trolley, 
 
FIRE AND TOW 235 
 
 and Van Dorn's sudden, overwhelming passion had 
 little chance to feed itself by sight of its object. 
 
 " I wish you'd give young Llewellyn's mother 
 some sewing to do," the owner of the Gloriana said 
 carelessly one day to his wife. 
 
 "I do," said Mrs. Van Dorn, simply; and for 
 some reason her husband was suddenly abashed. 
 Yet he returned to the charge with : 
 
 " Oh, well, I mean rather specially just now. 
 We've got the boy in the office, filling in some time 
 in a clerk's place ; and I thought it — er, if she was 
 sewing here in the house, you see, why, they could 
 come and go together." 
 
 It was an absurd speech. Nothing but his in- 
 fatuation would have pushed him into making it. 
 Even his cheek reddened as he concluded it. 
 
 " I do not want Julia Llewellyn sewing here in 
 this house," said Mrs. Van Dorn, slowly and dis- 
 tinctly. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't speak like that," demurred her 
 husband. " The woman's a perfectly reputable per- 
 son." (As though his endorsement could help to 
 prop any woman's reputation.) She's a perfectly 
 proper woman to have in the house, if that's what 
 you mean." 
 
 They were alone, the opportunity seemed a 
 suitable one, and Celia Van Dorn answered, with a 
 
236 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 certain flat monotony of tone which terror lent 
 her: 
 
 " It's because Julia Llewellyn is a good woman — 
 and a very beautiful one — that I don't think she 
 is a suitable person to sew in my house." 
 
 Van Dorn made no reply of any sort at the 
 moment; but he was so little disturbed by the 
 rebuff that he recommenced the attack as soon as the 
 widow and her son were settled in their new home. 
 
 " Celia," he opened, " it isn't often that I ask any- 
 thing of you; but I wish you'd do me the favour 
 to go and see Mrs. Llewellyn." 
 
 The pale little woman turned a face of amazement 
 from the book she was reading. 
 
 " Tulley ! " she murmured, remonstrantly ; " call 
 on her, do you mean? Why, Julia would think I 
 was crazy." 
 
 " I don't see why you talk like that," the man 
 complained. " You speak as though she were an 
 inferior, a person whom it would disgrace you to 
 visit." 
 
 " I don't," returned his wife, with careful modera- 
 tion. " I said nothing of the sort. Julia Copeland 
 and I were girls together. She is a good woman, 
 and has had a hard time; but she earns her living, 
 and is busy all day — she doesn't expect me to call 
 on her." 
 
FIRE AND TOW 237 
 
 " Well, Celia," persisted Van Dorn, " I got young 
 Llewellyn from the Twin Brothers when Strong 
 brought the negroes in, and I prize him very much. 
 He's an unusual boy, and is going to be very useful 
 to me. Besides, he's Owen Llewellyn's nephew, 
 and very prominent with the Union ; and the Union 
 is giving me a lot of trouble these days. I — he — 
 I don't want to lose him." 
 
 " Oh, I guess you're in no danger of losing him," 
 said Mrs. Van Dorn, upon whose face a look of 
 disgust had settled. " I'll talk to the boy when I'm 
 down at the Gloriana next time — I think that 
 would be a more reasonable thing to do." 
 
 Van Dorn flashed a look of hatred at his wife's 
 bent head, as she lifted her book and prepared to 
 continue her reading. 
 
 " Will you call on her? " he asked, abruptly. 
 
 " I will not," she answered, briefly, and without 
 looking up. 
 
 " Not if I ask you to — beg you to — specially ? " 
 
 " Because you ask me to, and beg me specially 
 to, I will not — and it's reason enough," said pale 
 little Celia Van Dorn, dropping her book in her lap, 
 and facing her husband fully. 
 
 " By God, some women have the nerve ! " he 
 ejaculated. " If a man were as eaten up by jealousy 
 as all that, he'd at least make a stagger at trying to 
 
238 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 conceal it — but a woman — bah! You make me 
 sick!" 
 
 Celia rose. 
 
 " Tulley," she said, " I doubt the expediency of 
 attempting to say anything to you ; yet I must try. 
 Julia Llewellyn is a good woman — " 
 
 " Who, in the Lord's name, said anything else? " 
 blustered her husband. " What a fuss over nothing ! 
 What a tempest in a teapot ! Because the woman's 
 a beautiful creature, all you spiteful little baggages 
 must be pointing your fingers at her if a man at- 
 tempts to do her a kindness. That's a jealous 
 woman all over." 
 
 " I have only said that Julia was a good woman. 
 I have confidence that she will remain a good 
 woman, in spite of any advances from — " 
 
 She broke off, and stood looking down so long 
 it almost seemed as though she would not continue. 
 She was thinking of the children, and reminding 
 herself that this was their father. Suddenly she 
 raised her head. 
 
 " I think Julia will always be a good woman," 
 she went on, bravely, " in spite of the many advances 
 which you know have been made to her. It is true, 
 as you say, that she is very handsome, and her posi- 
 tion has been very trying. I'll not go to see her, 
 but I'll go to see some one who will defend her." 
 
FIRE AND TOW 239 
 
 She picked up her book, and was leaving the 
 room, when her husband put himself in her way, 
 his blond face darkened with anger. 
 
 " Who ? " he managed to articulate, in spite of 
 the passion which choked him. 
 
 " Somebody who will defend her," repeated his 
 wife, monotonously, and made as though to push 
 past him. Van Dorn grasped her wrist, and shook 
 her. 
 
 " Answer me ! " he shouted, getting his voice at 
 last. " Who is this you are going to see about — 
 about — about your private affairs — and mine ? " 
 
 Celia pulled back with a sudden wrench, and 
 jerked her wrist free. She was escaping from him 
 in silence, when he caught her dress, and held 
 her. 
 
 " I know who it is," he sneered ; " it's a man that 
 I'm going to break — that I'm going to ruin, as 
 sure as my name's Van Dorn. You think you'll 
 run to Mark Strong with this matter, and that he'll 
 set it straight — well, he won't." 
 
 With that he released her; and she fled with a 
 white face, and a red mark upon the wrist which he 
 had clutched. 
 
 She ran up-stairs to the nursery — in all this big 
 house which had been her father's home, the one 
 place that she felt she could call her own, since 
 
240. THE GRAPPLE 
 
 neither Van Dorn nor his sister ever cared to go 
 there. The children were out with their nurse. 
 She moved wistfully about the room picking up and 
 handling the toys they had dropped. She went to 
 the closet, upon pretence of seeing whether the coats 
 and hats were out, and the little wearers certainly 
 gone abroad ; but in reality to touch and gaze upon 
 the small garments and belongings hanging there. 
 At such times as these, Celia fled instinctively to her 
 little ones. 
 
 Lacking their presence, she sat long thinking over 
 the matter. She had not been Tulley's wife for 
 eight years without learning what such indications 
 meant ; but the accompaniments of this matter were 
 frightful to her. She wondered if it would be well 
 for her to break her word to Tulley, and go to talk 
 to the woman. But no, who could tell just what 
 the conditions there might be? She must not, in 
 any case, appear as the jealous, slighted wife ; that, 
 besides being unwelcome and untrue, she felt would 
 not further her ends. 
 
 Then she began mentally going over all the old 
 friends. This one was married ; that one was gone 
 away. Mrs. Kesterson, whose kindness to Julia 
 had never failed, was in Europe. The pastor of 
 the church they both attended was a young fellow, 
 lately come to the place. Everything pushed her 
 
FIRE AND TOW .241 
 
 back upon the conclusion that there was no one so 
 hopeful as Mark Strong. 
 
 With Celia Van Dorn, to think was to act; and 
 she had scarcely made up her mind to this purpose 
 before she was at the telephone, inquiring where 
 Mr. Strong was, and when she could see him. Find- 
 ing that he would be in Iroquois that afternoon, she 
 appointed a time and place, and went down herself 
 " to do a little shopping." In due course they met. 
 
 " Don't you remember when we three were young 
 together, and all belonged to the same Sunday 
 school ? " Celia made appeal to her old friend, as 
 they walked back and forth in the garden of the 
 parsonage. " We were in the same Bible class, 
 and we called each other Mark, and Julia, and 
 Celia." Her pale little face turned to him in deep 
 earnestness. 
 
 Strong nodded. One might have guessed from 
 the expression of his eyes that he was thinking of 
 Julia Copeland as she had been in those days. 
 
 " Father used to think so much of Julia's father, 
 Doctor Copeland," the little woman went on, 
 bravely. " He said the doctor was too good a man 
 to ever get rich; and you know there was nothing 
 left to poor Julia. She's had a hard battle." 
 
 " Mrs. Van Dorn, I do not see very clearly what 
 it is you want of me. They say that every good 
 
242 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 woman is at heart a match-maker, and that she 
 believes a good marriage will mend all evils ; but if 
 you're wanting to make a match between Julia and 
 me, why, it's — " they stopped walking by a 
 mutual impulse, and swung around facing each other 
 — "it's — too late." 
 
 Mark spoke out with sudden bitterness. The 
 night when he had so nearly asked Julia to be his 
 wife came back to him. He was too loyal to tell of 
 it, even to justify himself in kind, sterling Celia's 
 eyes; but the remembrance of it gave a hard edge 
 to his voice. 
 
 " Mark, I can't just tell you the particular reason 
 I had for coming to-day," poor Celia said, looking 
 in his face. " I think perhaps I was mistaken in 
 doing so; but I meant well. There are certain 
 things surrounding Julia where she now is — things 
 that — oh, I can't say just what ; but I thought if 
 you, as an old friend, would only go and see her, 
 it might make all the difference." 
 
 " I can't," said Strong, turning away, though 
 his cheek grew paler ; " I can't go and see her. 
 There's something that / may explain to you some 
 day, that stands between us. I would do anything I 
 could for her." 
 
 " Would you speak to Bob ? " asked Mrs. Van 
 Dorn, sadly. 
 
FIRE AND TOW 243 
 
 Strong shrugged his shoulders, and his face 
 darkened. Here, at least, there was no loyal love 
 to restrain him. 
 
 " The young scoundrel was an employe of mine 
 for some time," he said, " and he has made one or 
 two attempts on my life — I don't believe I'm the 
 proper person to talk to him." 
 
 Celia guessed that he thought the mother con- 
 cerned in some way in the boy's animosity; the 
 full depth of the guilt which he fancied lay at 
 Julia's door, she could not guess. 
 
 " She's a good woman, Mark," Van Dorn's wife 
 said, wistfully. " She's very large-hearted, and 
 generous, and kind. I would not pay too much 
 attention to appearances." 
 
 A trust so much stronger than his, though, as 
 he believed it to be, unfounded, touched Strong 
 deeply. He turned and put out both hands to the 
 little woman. 
 
 " I'm sorry, Celia," he said, with the indescribable 
 softening of the face which was not quite a smile, 
 and which yet partook of the nature of one, " I'm 
 sure sorry that I can't do just what you ask of me. 
 But no — no. I'm not the one to send to Julia 
 Llewellyn. Like the rest of us, she must work out 
 her own salvation." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SPARK IS STRUCK 
 
 Julia hurried on her way up from town, because 
 she had met Mr. Van Dorn on the street in Iro- 
 quois, and he had asked if he could not bring her 
 home in his auto. She treated the proposition as a 
 jest, and expressed a fear of the vehicle. 
 
 " I'll drive next time," said Van Dorn, gravely. 
 
 " There won't be any next time," retorted Julia, 
 putting aside his unwelcome attentions quite as a 
 woman of his own circle might have done. 
 
 " There always is, when a man is persistent 
 enough," declared Van Dorn, almost doggedly. 
 
 So she had taken the trolley, in fear and trem- 
 bling, got off at the foot of the hill, looking over 
 her shoulder and fancying she heard footsteps, and, 
 with a growing relief, had hastened up to her own 
 little place. She was within ten steps of the gate 
 when a man arose from the side of the grassy path 
 and confronted her. It was Van Dorn. 
 
 " An auto isn't half a bad thing to have," he ob- 
 244 
 
the spark is struck 245 
 
 served, raising his hat, and then trying to get pos- 
 session of her packages. " You see, it brings you to 
 the place ahead of the other party." 
 
 The colour deepened and deepened on Julia's 
 cheek; but she obstinately refused to recognize the 
 situation. 
 
 " No, don't take them, Mr. Van Dorn," she pro- 
 tested, alluding to the packages. " I'm almost 
 home." 
 
 " So I see. I wish I were. I'm tired. May I 
 come in and sit on your porch ? " 
 
 The issue was squarely before her. Van Dorn 
 had chosen this spot for the cottage, removed from 
 all the other miners; and yet she might be certain 
 that some one would see them, some one would carry 
 the news, if she allowed Bob's employer to enter. 
 
 " I don't think you want to do that, Mr. Van 
 Dorn," she said, gently. " I don't belong to the class 
 of people whom you make your friends. It would 
 excite remark. It — it — it isn't a proper thing in 
 any way." 
 
 He stopped, the gate in his hand, and looked at 
 her. 
 
 " So you won't invite me in," he commented, with 
 some irritation in his tone. 
 
 Julia trembled. Bob's future lay in this man's 
 hands. She must not interfere with her boy's 
 
246 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 prospects. Van Dorn was a little foolish; he could 
 be made to see the right way without her being 
 offensive. Thus she paltered with her womanhood 
 and her better impulses. 
 
 " I didn't say I wouldn't invite you in," she re- 
 monstrated. " I said you didn't want to come in. 
 And that is true. You know, Mr. Van Dorn, that 
 your friendship could be nothing but a disgrace 
 to me." 
 
 She looked appealingly up at him. Her fingers 
 upon the pickets trembled exceedingly. 
 
 " What a pretty hand you've got," murmured 
 Van Dorn, gazing down at it. " And see the little 
 forefinger all cut up with needle-pricks. That's a 
 shame. A hand like that ought never to have any- 
 thing to do but look pretty." 
 
 Julia drew the member away so suddenly that 
 the gate swung shut between them. Somewhere in 
 the depths of her desperation she found the ghost 
 of a frightened laugh. 
 
 " What nonsense ! " she said, faintly. " You 
 don't mean to be unkind when you speak to me so 
 — of course you're just joking — I know that — 
 but if anybody else heard you, they might think — 
 they might think — " 
 
 She came to a helpless pause, aware, in a sick 
 anguish of terror and apprehension, that the man 
 
THE SPARK IS STRUCK 247 
 
 before her was not listening, had not heard a 
 word. 
 
 " You refuse to invite me in, still, do you ? " he 
 asked. " You don't think I'm good enough to come 
 into your house." 
 
 " The house belongs to you," faltered Julia, 
 " and that's what makes it unkind for you to insist. 
 You force me to remember that I'm under so many 
 ©bligations to you. I'm really so grateful, and I 
 don't want to do anything that would seem ungrate- 
 ful; but — but — " 
 
 Van Dorn leaned across the gate and caught her 
 hands. 
 
 " Julia," he said, brusquely, " I'm coming to see 
 you — here — in your own house. And you're go- 
 ing to invite me to come. I'm in earnest, for once 
 in my life; and — well — that's to be the way of it." 
 
 He spoke with confidence. Jane Van Dorn's 
 appeal to him for assistance had come at an un- 
 fortunate time. Always dependent on some woman 
 or women, his wife had just then definitely ceased 
 offering him that counsel and support in his practical 
 affairs which he would only receive from her when 
 she thrust it upon him. He had not loved Celia; 
 he had married the plain, awkward little Western 
 girl purely on account of her money; yet it could 
 not be denied that he came to have a certain reliance 
 
248 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 upon her, and a certain satisfaction in her society. 
 This now was gone, and it left him ready to seek 
 that same support elsewhere. A notorious affair 
 of his with the daughter of one of his employes had 
 just closed as such affairs do close — most unpleas- 
 antly — and been followed by the woman's marriage 
 and departure for San Francisco. He was, then, 
 without an amour, and without a wife; and Julia 
 Llewellyn's appeal to him — the appeal of a woman 
 who had both beauty and intelligence — was most 
 powerful. 
 
 The last thing that his sister could have supposed, 
 when she planned the downfall of the other woman 
 through his agency, was that she was sending him 
 into any danger; but those big, soft, changeful 
 eyes, that mobile mouth, with its odd fullness, and its 
 curves of lurking sweetness and laughter, had begun 
 to haunt his dreams. It needed only that the woman 
 herself should prove loath, that she should be ab- 
 solutely unapproachable, to complete his infatua- 
 tion. 
 
 " Good night," he said, turning away ; " but I'm 
 coming again — and again — and again, until you 
 get tired and invite me in." 
 
 With the long, tremulous sigh of a child dis- 
 mayed, exhausted, the woman gathered up her 
 scattered bundles from the garden path. 
 
THE SPARK IS STRUCK 249 
 
 " I'll not go inside till Bob comes," she mur- 
 mured. " I hate to be alone in the house. Alone." 
 
 She had repeated the word, quite unconsciously; 
 and now as she sat, she said it again — " alone." 
 That is what this meant, this and similar advances 
 which had followed poor Julia's beauty and her 
 broken fortunes. It is what she would have been 
 protected from as Mark Strong's wife; it was 
 what came to her because she was alone. The man 
 who had just descended the hill was gone clean out 
 of her thoughts. Before her rose the plain, stern, 
 quiet face that would have meant everything in life 
 to her clinging, voluble tenderness, 
 
 " I wonder if he ever thinks about me — this 
 way, I mean," she whispered in the dusk. " I 
 wonder if he will ever know the truth about that 
 night when I tried to warn him. How different life 
 is from the way we think of it when we are young." 
 And Julia sighed again. 
 
 Then she laughed out suddenly and joyously, 
 for Bob had slipped over the side fence of the gar- 
 den and stolen upon her, dreaming there upon the 
 porch. 
 
 " Been breaking me up at the bargain-counters, 
 I'll bet," he said, as he once more collected her 
 forgotten parcels to carry them into the house for 
 her. 
 
250 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 And Julia laughed again, at his masculine assump- 
 tion that he was the head of the house, and sup- 
 plied her with shopping funds. 
 
 Meantime more and more dissatisfaction spread in 
 the Iroquois district. There lay Strong's settle- 
 ment of blacks like a plague-spot, to the thinking 
 of the Union; peaceful, prosperous, surrounded by 
 its dead-line, but enclosing harmony and hard work ; 
 and showing to all the world that a mine could be 
 profitably run without the Union. 
 
 Strong held rigidly to the Union scale; he gave 
 every privilege to his negroes which the Union 
 demanded for their white men; and he had more 
 work for his employes in the Twin Brothers than 
 any mine in the Iroquois district was giving to its 
 labourers. Is it any wonder that they longed to 
 crumple his settlement together, and thrust it down 
 the throat of his mine? 
 
 The men of the Gloriana went about with the 
 largest of chips upon their shoulders. There was 
 scarcely anything Van Dorn could do, which did 
 not give offence. Kesterson, of the Culleoka, was in 
 Europe, and his superintendent had his hands full. 
 The men struck at one time, and were out three 
 days, because a driver — a new hand who had been 
 but six months in the mine — refused to go down 
 one of the entries, declaring that it was unsafe. The 
 
THE SPARK IS STRUCK 251 
 
 fire boss, and their legitimate inspector, men hold- 
 ing State license for such work, and with long ex- 
 perience in it, went over the ground and pro- 
 nounced it perfectly safe; but the driver felt it in 
 his bones somewhere that it was not, communicated 
 his scare to a dozen others, and the Culleoka was on 
 strike, and losing three hundred dollars a day for 
 its stockholders. 
 
 Van Dorn's men had been out, on one small pre- 
 text and another, for periods varying from two days 
 to two weeks. 
 
 " Blamed if it ain't like a durned off an' on 
 scrappin' match, workin' in the Gloriana these days," 
 said Dave Trifford. " Sometimes we're a-hittin' 
 him, and sometimes he's a-hittin' us; and about 
 half the time we're settin' off, each feller in his 
 corner of the ring, lookin' at the other one." 
 
 A committee from the Union had come to confer 
 with the superintendent of the Gloriana. Van 
 Dorn shoved things about on his desk, half-rose 
 from his seat, sat down again, and fidgeted with his 
 inkstand. He was full of that uneasy cordiality 
 which he always showed to his inferiors from whom 
 he desired a favour. 
 
 " Well. Well. Is there anything that I can do 
 for you to-day?" he opened, with loud cheerful- 
 ness. --" 
 
252 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " The Local had a meetin' last night, Mr. Van 
 Dorn," said the spokesman, rising, " and it sent a 
 committee here to see about young Llewellyn bein' 
 put in as boss." 
 
 Van Dorn stiffened, and looked darkly from one 
 to the other. 
 
 " Well," he snarled, and the monosyllable sounded 
 scarce the same as the one he had used a moment 
 before. 
 
 " Well, sir, the Union can't endorse young 
 Llewellyn for that position, and the Union respect- 
 fully requests you not to put him in it." 
 
 Van Dorn looked up and down the row of faces, 
 alien, inferior, without interest or plea to him. He 
 would have been glad to tell them so, to have them 
 thrown out of his office; but some enlightening 
 spark of reason and caution held him back. 
 
 " What's the matter with young Llewellyn ? " he 
 inquired. " He's a Union man. I supposed you 
 fellows would be delighted. What more do you 
 want?" 
 
 "Well., we want a good deal more than that," 
 said the spokesman, who had not resumed his seat. 
 " We don't want no seventeen-year-old boys put in 
 for bosses in no mine that we have to work in. 
 He's set over men old enough to be his father. 
 Union or no Union, they won't stand for it. He 
 
THE SPARK IS STRUCK 253 
 
 ain't passed no State examination for such, and we 
 won't stand for it." 
 
 "Who's running the Gloriana?" inquired Van 
 Dorn, suddenly. 
 
 " W-e-1-1, you are — I suppose," said the chair- 
 man of the committee, reluctantly. " But the Union 
 sends the men down into your mine, and they risk 
 their lives there, and the Union's got a big word 
 to say about how the mines shall be run." 
 
 " The Union be d d ! " said Van Dorn, con- 
 cisely. 
 
 The committee was on its feet in a moment. One 
 might have suspected that the appointment of Bob 
 Llewellyn to a position for which he was certainly 
 unfit was taken as a pretext for something which 
 they were anxious to accomplish. 
 
 " Oh, that's the word, is it ? " said the spokes- 
 man. " You won't make any change ? Well, we 
 have this to say : You can give what you please, of 
 your own, to the folks that please you; but the 
 lives and safety of the men in this mine are going 
 to be looked after by the Union, and you can't give 
 'em to your pets." 
 
 A strike at the present time was by no means 
 what Van Dorn wanted. He controlled himself by 
 a mighty effort. 
 
 " I am willing to arbitrate the matter," he said, 
 
254 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 sulkily. " I supposed Llewellyn would suit the 
 Union. If he doesn't, we'll talk it over." 
 
 The chairman evidently wished that he had got 
 his committee out of the room before Van Dorn 
 made this concession. 
 
 " All right, Mr. Van Dorn," he said, " I'm glad 
 you see it so clearly. You can give that woman 
 any gift you like — a cottage here or there is not 
 what the Union is noticing — but the lives and 
 safety of your men — " 
 
 The speaker was bending over to pick up his hat, 
 when Van Dorn's fist shot out like a pile-driver, 
 and caught him on the side of his head. He went 
 down in a huddle, among the other men's shoes, 
 and lay there for the moment that it took for the 
 owner of the Gloriana to leap across the railing and 
 start forward to kick the prostrate figure. 
 
 " You dog ! You hound ! " he snarled between 
 his shut teeth. 
 
 The committee closed together before their fallen 
 leader, and Van Dorn drew back from their menac- 
 ing faces. 
 
 " He had no right to speak of my private affairs," 
 said the employer, brought to sudden realization of 
 the injudiciousness of his action. 
 
 " You had no right to hit a man that wasn't 
 
THE SPARK IS STRUCK 255 
 
 looking for it," growled an old miner, as the 
 wounded man struggled to his feet. 
 
 Again Van Dorn's wrath blazed out. 
 
 " I'll kick a dog like that everywhere I find him," 
 he said, furiously. 
 
 The words had hardly left his lips, when the 
 injured man rushed in on him, head down and arms 
 wide-spread. He caught the mine owner about the 
 middle, pinioning his arms to his sides, holding him 
 helpless as a child. 
 
 " Now, then, I'll smash you, you damned, sneak- 
 ing, overbearing brute ! " he roared, lifting the tall 
 man high in the air, and making ready to bring him 
 down across the railing. 
 
 It looked like sure death, and only the restrain- 
 ing hands of his own committee saved the chairman 
 from becoming a murderer. With a final shake, 
 he dropped Van Dorn, all dignity and elegance 
 shaken out of him, into his own office-chair. 
 
 " I ain't done with you, you sneaking coward," 
 he growled, as he was dragged away by his com- 
 panions. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LABOUR AT PLAY 
 
 The Union offered entertainment to the members 
 of the various Locals, in the shape of a basket picnic 
 in a grove about a mile and a half from Iroquois. 
 
 There was a small hand-bill, or dodger, of a 
 dubious pale red, printed at the shop of a couple of 
 Union printers who had set up in business for them- 
 selves. This document made the usual statement 
 that " The committee will spare no pains to make the 
 occasion pleasant. Good speaking. Good music. 
 Come one, come all." 
 
 Swings had been put up in the tall trees ; a band- 
 stand was already on the grounds, and a latticed 
 arbour or two where lunch might be eaten if the day- 
 proved rainy. The floor of the dancing pavilion 
 was well salted; barrels of ice-water stood about 
 with tin dippers chained to their edges. There were 
 the usual venders of peanuts and lemonade; and 
 Yount had sent out three barrels of beer. This 
 latter feature the women very much deprecated. 
 
 256 
 
LABOUR AT PLAT 257 
 
 " It's bad enough when Gus keeps the beer in 
 the saloon where the men can go and hunt it," said 
 Mrs. Joe Ackerman ; " but when he sends it out to 
 hunt the men, I think it's right hard on us women." 
 
 Many of the miners about Iroquois were farmers 
 in a small way. During the summer the coal mines 
 would offer them three or four idle days in every 
 week, and these the thrifty utilized in tilling the 
 soil. Some of the men had been farmers' sons, and 
 had inherited or bought little patches of ground; 
 some of them rented from the mine owners for 
 whom they worked. And so it came about that, 
 tied at the grove's edge this Fourth of July, was 
 every imaginable vehicle that a rural community 
 could send. Shaky little spring wagons, lumbering 
 old farm wagons, sulkies, jump-seat buggies, buck- 
 boards, they stood about in a ragged circle, with the 
 horses and mules which had hauled them there 
 munching corn or oats out of the backs of their beds. 
 
 Some of the younger men of the Union marched 
 out in a procession, headed by the band, and carry- 
 ing banners. First came the ensign of the Local, 
 with an American flag beside it, and then a banner 
 or two with labour mottoes upon them, a square of 
 muslin which boldly announced itself " For Liberty 
 or Death." 
 
 The members of the various Locals wore badges 
 
258 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 — would it have been a labour parade without 
 badges? These were of silk ribbon, with red- 
 white-and-blue rosettes at the top, on the back of 
 which a safety-pin was whipped, so that they could 
 be attached to the coat ; and they bore, generally, the 
 number of the Local, and sometimes a motto or 
 name. 
 
 The men trudged in the dust and heat, exchanging 
 reminiscences of the better state of affairs the year 
 before, when they had had the use of the mules and 
 wagons from their various mines for their jollifica- 
 tion. 
 
 There's no use saying that a strike's all fun," 
 argued Dempsey. " I mind the elegant time I had 
 last year, with money in my pocket, and a span of 
 mules to drive. We had straw in the bottom of the 
 wagon, and 'leven boys and 'leven girls to ride in 
 it — say, I bet I'll never have a better time than I 
 did last Fourth." 
 
 " Maybe you'll have a better time to-night," sug- 
 gested Corrigan, who was walking beside him, and 
 the two fell silent. 
 
 " Where's Bob Llewellyn ? " shouted a young 
 fellow from the rear of the procession. 
 
 " He's comin' over from the Gloriana by trolley ; 
 his mother's with him," came the answer from some 
 unseen source, 
 
LABOUR AT PLAT 259 
 
 Occasionally a sandwich man came through the 
 crowd crying his wares. 
 
 " Say, Ikey," the jest would run, " do you belong 
 to the Union? Is them goods Union made? " 
 
 " Ah, yes, they're made of rubber and cotton 
 batting, according to the Union regulations," ques- 
 tion and answer would fly about his head as the 
 leathery sandwiches were disposed of. 
 
 Taking it all together, it was an extremely orderly 
 crowd. There was little money to spend, though 
 the strike had been on in the Gloriana, the Big 
 Muddy, the Black Diamond, and three other mines, 
 for only six weeks. Still, under it all, giving a 
 strained expectancy to the humdrum gaiety of the 
 occasion, was the knowledge on the part of a few 
 extremists, of some wild work planned for the night 
 of the Fourth, and the apprehension, on the part of 
 the quieter element, that this day's jollification 
 would lead to rioting by the time night fell. 
 
 While the women were getting the baskets un- 
 packed, and spread upon the grass here and there, 
 some devoted victim read the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence from the band-stand. Like Signior Bene- 
 dick, nobody marked him ; and long after his dron- 
 ing had ceased, mothers continued to tell their 
 children to " hush and listen to what the gentleman's 
 a-saying." 
 
26o THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Then a small boy with a large head recited a 
 poem in which he had been carefully drilled, and 
 which required seven extremely angular gestures 
 to make its meaning plain. This having been re- 
 ceived with suitable applause, Owen Llewellyn 
 mounted the steps of the platform. 
 
 " I don't often speak in public," he began, look- 
 ing his auditors over with that simple directness 
 which belongs to a man who works with his hands. 
 "I'm not much on speech-making; but I've got 
 something to say to you people here in the Iroquois 
 district that can't just as well be said by somebody 
 else. I'm district president of the Mine Workers' 
 Union. This here district is under my charge. 
 Most of the men in this district are on strike. There 
 are them that have blamed the strike on me." 
 
 His big dark eyes began to glow, and to roam 
 over his audience seeking for that responsive coun- 
 tenance to which the orator always addresses his 
 most telling remarks. The benches in front of the 
 stand had filled up; men were listening to him 
 with attention, and the women paused with cake, 
 or pie, or glasses of " jell " in their hands, and drew 
 a faltering step or two nearer. 
 
 " Some folks have blamed it on me," he repeated, 
 " and they're right. They can just blame it on 
 Owen Llewellyn. I read in the paper the other day 
 
LABOUR AT PLAY 261 
 
 where Terry Powderly was givin' out to the re- 
 porter that strikes were played out, that a strike 
 was no way for men to get their rights. Well, 
 Terry can talk — that's what he can do. He was 
 brought up to that business. He never done a day's 
 work in his life." 
 
 There was a scattering laugh among the auditors. 
 
 " Now I can work better than I can talk ; but 
 I'm right here to take the responsibility of this 
 strike on my shoulders, and to tell you that I don't 
 think like Powderly does." 
 
 This was answered with, " Aw, who's Pow- 
 derly?" 
 
 " He's a blamed Knights of Labour, and the 
 Knights of Labour are dead! Powderly's a dead 
 one — he's a was — let him rest ! " 
 
 "Well, then, we'll let Powderly rest, and I'll 
 talk to you about the strike," the speaker went on. 
 " Lots of you men can remember, 'cause it's not so 
 very long ago, when you were not allowed to load 
 anything but lump coal. You dug the fine coal, and 
 the owners sold the fine coal, but the only thing that 
 was weighed, and you was paid for, was the lump. 
 Who got you pay for your fine coal and your 
 screenings? The Union. How did the Union get 
 it? By jaw-work, like Terry Powderly uses? Not 
 much. The Union got you pay for all the coal you 
 
262 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 dug, by striking — striking. I was in the strike at 
 Dusky Diamond, and we stayed out till we broke 
 the old man, on that very account. Now, there's 
 not a mine in the district, there's not a mine in the 
 State, there's not a mine in the United States, that 
 doesn't pay its men for every pound of coal they dig. 
 And they pay 'cause the Union knew how to strike." 
 The men were getting interested. A score or 
 more of the older miners crowded to the front 
 benches and sat mutely, their shoulders slouched 
 forward, and their eyes fixed upon the face of the 
 speaker. There they were, clods that had been 
 thrown out shapen by the ploughshare of labour, 
 and who now, stiffened in their uncouth form by 
 the hardening years, could never be moulded to 
 symmetry and grace; toilers in the dark and chill, 
 that others may sit warm in the light, members of 
 the vast dumb majority, part and parcel of the in- 
 articulate many who wrestle and strive and endure 
 ceaselessly, that the race may flower in the ex- 
 pressive few. Surely the feeling heart must always 
 be touched at sight of these old fellows with the 
 childishly earnest, appealing eyes; these whose 
 marred faces, knotted, toil-cramped hands and un- 
 gracious bodies often signify minds as little supple 
 and alert, and for whom whatever economic revolu- 
 
LABOUR AT PLAT 263 
 
 tions and improvements may come, will come too 
 late. 
 
 Now, they fixed their gaze intently on Owen 
 Llewellyn's face, as he spoke: 
 
 " We used to be sent into dangerous mines, and 
 not a one of us dared say his soul was his own 
 about it. To-day the Union demands that a mine 
 inspector shall have a State license, and know his 
 business — but the Union didn't get where it could 
 demand that by sitting down and throwing bouquets 
 at the owners. It got there by striking. There's 
 many a fat old mine owner sitting up clipping 
 coupons off of his bonds, that made his money, not 
 out of the mine at all, but out of the store that they 
 used to keep chugged up against the side of the mine, 
 and force you to go there and buy every bite you eat 
 and every rag you wore, at a hundred per cent, profit 
 to them. I mind old Steffens that kept the company 
 store at Dusky Diamond. There was always a 
 loaded Winchester in reach of his hand in the store ; 
 and he never drove in his little old spring wagon 
 without a gun between his knees. Every clerk 
 he had went armed, and a loaded rifle handy behind 
 the counter. Why — why — why? They said it 
 was because the miners were liable to come in drunk 
 and rob the store; but they knew mighty well the 
 grievance the men had against them — they knew 
 
264 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 they ought to be shot — that's why they were 
 afraid they would be. Did the Union jump on 
 them for it? Well, I guess. And how did it jump? 
 With tracts, and pretty talk, and arbitration? Not 
 much. It struck for the privilege of buying where 
 and what the men chose, and it's got it. Why, in 
 them days it was hard work to strike, at the side of 
 what it is now. Often we didn't have enough in the 
 treasury to pay the members strike money out of. 
 The men were fleeced out of what little they made, 
 at the company's store; and when we'd strike, they 
 couldn't get far enough away from their mines to 
 get another job, nor hold out long enough to do 
 much good. But we just set our teeth an' stuck 
 in our claws, and we struck, and we struck — and 
 we kept striking — until we made ourselves re- 
 spected." 
 
 " That's right, — we did ! " shouted an enthu- 
 siastic member, leaping upon a bench. 
 
 " The owners used to put up shacks that they 
 wouldn't 'a' been willing to stable their mules in, 
 and rent 'em to their men for ten dollars a month. 
 They kept us without work, while they had us hired 
 and tied so we couldn't get away; but we've 
 climbed to where we are now, by way o' the strike ; 
 and we'll climb a notch higher before we follow 
 Terry Powderly and throw away that same. 
 
LABOUR AT PLAT 265 
 
 Labour against capital is the dumb man against the 
 man of speech; and if we don't strike — we'll 
 never get anywhere. We'll still be the dirt under the 
 feet of such men as Strong, and Van Dorn, and 
 old man Kesterson." 
 
 The orator of the day was being congratulated, 
 when his sister-in-law and nephew entered the 
 grove. Julia's greeting was somewhat constrained ; 
 there were things which she feared Owen knew, 
 and which she fancied he might resent. 
 
 " Well, how goes it over 'at the Gloriana ? " the 
 big Welshman inquired of the boy. 
 
 " Why, I'm sorry the men were called out, Uncle 
 Owen," Bob answered, with his usual frankness. 
 " I was wishing that I could get you to come and 
 help arbitrate it. You know the trouble was over 
 Mr. Van Dorn wanting to put me in as boss." 
 
 " Oh, your granny ! " laughed the uncle. " The 
 men in the Gloriana know what they're about. That 
 serves as well as anything else to call the boys out." 
 Then, bending lower, and speaking in his nephew's 
 ear, " We've got to break Mark Strong. He's been 
 running along smooth and steady for a year, with 
 his niggers. We've got to break him, or the Union 
 itself's broken in the Iroquois district. It won't take 
 men like Van Dorn and Kesterson and the rest of 
 
266 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 them long to look at him, and see that the Union 
 can be made a monkey of. He's got to go." 
 
 " You'll take lunch with us, Owen," put in 
 Julia, encouraged by her brother-in-law's friendly 
 bearing toward her son. 
 
 " Well, I promised Joe Ackerman," said the 
 Welshman. 
 
 " That'll be all right," declared Mrs. Joe, coming 
 up opportunely. " We'll put our table-cloths to- 
 gether and make one long table of it; won't we, 
 Julia?" 
 
 So the cloths were laid edge to edge, and many a 
 guest besides Llewellyn gathered about them. The 
 children were calling from group to group, the 
 women were exchanging bits of cake and recipes, 
 the gathering might have been a grange, in some 
 rural district, rather than a celebration by an asso- 
 ciation of miners on a strike, and about to break 
 out into violence. 
 
 " I don't see much of you since you went over 
 to the Gloriana," said Mrs. Joe Ackerman to Bob's 
 mother. " You like it over there ? " 
 
 Julia looked down ; she appeared harassed, and ill 
 at ease. 
 
 " Oh, yes, we like it well enough," she admitted. 
 " I hate to be so far from Iroquois." 
 
 " But then the trolley runs close to you," supplied 
 
LABOUR AT PLAY 267 
 
 comfortable Mrs. Joe. "When we're out on the 
 farm, I feel as if it didn't matter whether the mines 
 was open or closed. I tell Joe we could make as 
 good a living off the top of the ground as he can get 
 out from under it." And she chuckled a little at 
 her own wit. 
 
 " Uncle Owen," said Bob, in a low tone, " I want 
 to get a chance to talk to you. You know I'm a 
 good Union man ; but — well — I want to ask you 
 some questions." 
 
 Questions of this sort were exactly what Owen 
 Llewellyn didn't intend to hear or answer. He 
 knew exactly what " unauthorized " violence was 
 afoot for this night; he had the affairs of his dis- 
 trict in his hands; and he regarded the whole 
 machinery as working well to pay out one personal 
 spite which he held against Mark Strong. To say 
 that he realized this, would not be just. His recent 
 speech had been made in all sincerity. The state- 
 ments it contained were true. There was one fatal 
 lack: he told what the Union had secured in the 
 past through strikes; he failed to tell what the 
 Union was now striving to secure by the same 
 means. 
 
 In this lay the shame and the undoing of organ- 
 ized labour in the Iroquois district at that time. 
 It had no grievance. It let the world say that, like 
 
268 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Jeshurun, it had waxed fat, and was kicking there- 
 for. 
 
 Because he didn't intend to counsel Bob, because 
 he knew already what part Bob had taken and was 
 taking in the affairs of the Union, Owen Llewellyn 
 answered, easily: 
 
 " There's no hurry about them questions of yours, 
 Bob. I'll be spending a week with you next month — 
 I guess the Gloriana will be working by that time 
 — and we'll talk things over like we used to." 
 
 Bob felt that next month would be too late for 
 his perplexities; but there was laid upon him the 
 responsibility of the young male not to admit as 
 much. 
 
 " All right," he said, gravely, and addressed him- 
 self to Mrs. Ackerman's very excellent lunch. 
 
 The year since the close of the Twin Brothers 
 had cut off Robert Llewellyn almost entirely from 
 his uncle's society; it had kept him more directly 
 and continuously with his mother than he had ever 
 been before, since in leaving her patrons she had 
 been obliged to take her work home, and not go out 
 by the day as formerly. The boy was showing the 
 effect of this association very plainly; while Julia, 
 most pliable of creatures, was a different woman, 
 removed from Owen Llewellyn's influence. It 
 might be conjectured that even Van Dorn's ad- 
 
LABOUR AT PLAT 269 
 
 miration, base as it was, much as it repelled her, had 
 done its part toward lifting up her drooping spirit, 
 and healing that poor, wounded, crushed, innocent 
 vanity without which a woman is almost unwomanly. 
 
 The continual harping on the idea that she was 
 slighted, which Owen Llewellyn and his family had 
 indulged in before poor Julia, was blighting and 
 disintegrating to her character. She was all love; 
 and when some crude, brutally frank creature held 
 up before her the image of herself as a soft fool, 
 thrust out, passed over, not desired, and willing 
 to lick the hand that struck at her, she was quite 
 undone. 
 
 So, in spite of fate, her year at the Gloriana, in 
 her own pretty little cottage with Bob, had been 
 a happy one, and had left her full of motherly 
 pride and growing self-respect. 
 
 " You're in the tableaux to-night, ain't you ? " 
 Llewellyn said to his sister-in-law when they 
 parted after the picnic was over, and the various 
 vehicles straggling away. 
 
 Bob flashed a quick look at his uncle, which 
 meant that Owen knew of the attack that was to be 
 made on Strong, and the reason for Julia's being 
 kept out of the way. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " Bob and I are in the same 
 tableau," then deprecated : " I think it's ridiculous 
 
270 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 for a woman of my age to be posing around and 
 dressing up that way." 
 
 " Of your age," cut in Owen, smiling kindly upon 
 her, his warm dark eyes glowing. " Well you don't 
 look it — not a minute, sis." 
 
 There was this to be said for the Llewellyns, 
 that they had always loved and admired and been 
 proud of beautiful, superior Julia, however unfor- 
 tunate their method of dealing with her and her 
 affairs might have been. Even poor Jack's short- 
 comings were not more as a husband than as a 
 man. He had failed with himself, before he failed 
 with her. 
 
 Julia smiled back at her brother-in-law grate- 
 fully. 
 
 " 'Twouldn't be so absurd, maybe, if Bob wasn't 
 in it, too," she allowed. 
 
 " Bob's in it, is he ? " repeated the uncle. " Well, 
 Robert Llewellyn," falling behind the others and 
 grasping Bob's hand, " see that you play your part 
 well to-night. You need to act the man." 
 
 The words were said with dark significance, and a 
 sudden, ominous gravity. 
 
 " He's to be a sailor," called Julia, gaily, from 
 the basket which she was packing. " Will you be 
 there, Owen ? " 
 
 " No," said the tall, dark-browed man, gazing 
 
LABOUR AT PLAT 27 1 
 
 intently at her kneeling figure, " I've got important 
 business somewhere else." 
 
 And somehow Julia looked up startled, tried to 
 laugh, and fell suddenly silent and thoughtful. 
 
 Four o'clock saw all the families off the picnic- 
 ground, the dancing-pavilion in full swing, and the 
 beer which good Mrs. Joe had resented, exhausted 
 and replaced, accompanied by stronger waters. 
 Midnight saw couples still dancing, but marked the 
 absence of some of the wildest among the revellers. 
 They had gone elsewhere, bent upon graver matters. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A VERY PARTICULAR JOB 
 
 About the time Strong brought the negroes in, 
 some questionable proceeding began at the Gloriana. 
 Van Dorn admitted freely, and most imprudently, 
 that the mine was making no money ; yet he started 
 out on an extensive career of repairs, even adding 
 to the already costly outside plant necessary for a 
 mine. 
 
 Strong was having a new washer put in, which 
 was to cost him ten thousand dollars. Van Dorn 
 eclipsed it with plans for a twenty-thousand dollar 
 washer. On pretext that the mine must have a 
 thorough retimbering, but really to give the manager 
 a free hand for his extraordinary improvements, 
 the men were turned out of the Gloriana, and held 
 idle a great part of the early summer. There was 
 nobody about to criticize, or so Van Dorn thought ; 
 but the very carpenters who worked upon the struc- 
 tures laughed at him. 
 
 He methodically insured and re-insured as the 
 272 
 
A VERY PARTICULAR JOB 273 
 
 work advanced, since he was his own contractor; 
 and the strike found him with his buildings com- 
 pleted, and policies in hand for nearly thirty thou- 
 sand dollars more than he had carried at the be- 
 ginning of the year. 
 
 Among other follies, he developed a plan for a 
 model boarding-house for his men. He said, from 
 the first, that if there should be a strike in the Glo- 
 riana which forced him to bring in non-Union 
 labour, it would be white men of intelligence. This 
 last was a side blow at Strong, for he neglected no 
 opportunity to sneer at the little man in gray nowa- 
 days. 
 
 For the benefit of these problematical workmen, 
 this big, pretentious edifice, with a sarcastic re- 
 semblance to Mark Strong's Queen Anne mansion, 
 was built very near the mine — too near, most 
 people thought, for it was well-nigh in the yard. The 
 inside of this building was left almost without finish, 
 and the joke went among the carpenters that it 
 would be dangerous to let three people get together 
 in any of the up-stairs rooms, for they'd make the 
 ceiling below sag. Yet this structure carried its 
 considerable portion of the new insurance. 
 
 In short, Van Dorn was contemplating a thing 
 which has been done before. He was scheming to 
 induce some needy soul to burn the outside plant 
 
274 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 of the Gloriana, with its heavy insurance upon the 
 mass of spurious new structure; the crime once 
 laid to the door of the Union and the striking 
 miners — an obvious conclusion — their power 
 would be broken in the Iroquois district, and two 
 birds thus fall to one stone. At the worst, he 
 would be permitted to declare military law, and 
 make his reprisals as in time of war. 
 
 From the original planning of this crime, there 
 had been but a step to the scheme for doubling the 
 insurance which he would receive for the burned 
 plant. His thought ran : 
 
 " If a fellow's going into the thing — and when 
 I do go into it, I do no more than plenty of owners 
 have done before me while fighting a strike — if 
 I'm going into it, I may as well make it pay. The 
 Gloriana's run down till it's ruined, anyway you 
 look." 
 
 And the day after, he began work on his new 
 sham washer. 
 
 Once decided upon the matter, he was not long 
 in finding the apt tool to his purpose. This was a 
 man who had been in the Gloriana for nearly a 
 year, acting as weigh master, pit boss, and straw 
 boss; a man who came from nobody knew where, 
 and who had a quiet way of asking more questions 
 than he answered. Van Dorn broached the subject 
 
A VERY PARTICULAR JOB 275 
 
 to him one day while discussing the Pullman riots 
 at Chicago in '99. 
 
 " Do you believe the company hired those fellows 
 to burn cars, and then laid it at the door of the 
 strikers ? " he inquired of Haskett. 
 
 Haskett smiled darkly. 
 
 " Ask me something hard," he said, enigmatic- 
 ally. 
 
 " Well, I see you do believe it," pursued Van 
 Dorn. Things were drifting his way. " Don't 
 you think they were justified in doing so? " 
 
 Haskett chuckled. " I don't know that I'd care 
 about being justified, if I had as many millions as 
 they've got," he observed, carelessly. 
 
 " Well, but don't you ? Don't you see that an 
 owner may sometimes be driven to resort to such 
 means as that, may countenance — or even procure 
 - — lawless acts, so that he may avert worse crimes ? " 
 
 Haskett leaned back in his chair. He had been 
 asked to come to the private office of the owner of 
 the Gloriana, for a special conference. 
 
 " Cut it out," he said, laconically. " Come down 
 to cases. I think I know what you want — what 
 are you paying ? " 
 
 Van Dorn bent forward and laughed excitedly. 
 
 " If you burn the whole plant, five thou — " 
 
 " Shssh ! " hissed Hackett, bringing the front legs 
 
276 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 of his chair to the floor with a slam. " You don't 
 want to talk that way," he warned, looking about the 
 office. " If you and I are goin' to trade, you'll 
 have to learn to hold your gab. Why, Lord, man 
 — you don't know who might just happen to be 
 passing one of these windows, and hear enough 
 to send us both to the Pen." 
 
 This last was delivered in a resentful whisper. 
 Haskett felt that he was dealing with a disagree- 
 able amateur; and yet the proposition fell in with 
 some old criminal bent in the man's nature, and 
 was not to be resisted. 
 
 This, then, had been the arrangement while the 
 great sheds were being built, upon which the extra 
 insurance might be carried. But on the morning 
 of the Fourth, Haskett came to his employer with a 
 pale face and whining voice. 
 
 " I've made all the arrangements, Mr. Van 
 Dorn," he said, " for that little business you and I 
 have had up between us; but I'm damned if I can 
 carry 'em out to-night." 
 
 "What?" roared Van Dorn. "You go along 
 with me up to the last minute, like this, and then 
 drop from under me — will you ? Well, I guess 
 not! You'll do your part in that business — or 
 you'll wish you had. That's all. That's my last 
 word. I tell you it's too late to back out." 
 
A VERY PARTICULAR JOB 277 
 
 During the planning of the arson, Haskett, the 
 older hand, had taken the lead and held a superior 
 tone with his employer. Now he whined — he 
 fairly crawled. 
 
 " Don't be hard on me, Mr. Van Dorn. Don't 
 hold it against me, sir. But I tell you I — when I 
 come right up against it — I just can't." 
 
 " You just can! " cut in Van Dorn, viciously. 
 " You'll find that you can," thrusting his fair- 
 skinned, clean-shaven jaw forward at the other till 
 he looked strangely brutal and fierce. 
 
 " Mr. Van Dorn, sir," whispered that other, " I 
 tell you I've — I've — I've been in the penitentiary 
 — and 'twas for a job like this. Don't you push 
 me no further." 
 
 " You have ? " snarled Van Dorn, looking the 
 man over with a bloodshot eye. 
 
 " Yes, I have," doggedly. " What did you ex- 
 pect? You wasn't hunting for a Sunday-school 
 superintendent, was you? Hang it all! what do 
 I get out of it? It's your mine — your plant — 
 your insurance. What do I get out of it, but the 
 risk of my hide? And I won't do it. I won't do it. 
 I don't care if you refuse to give me a dollar for 
 what I've already done, or for keeping dark on what 
 I know. Here's where I quit." 
 
 "You sneaking coward!" Van Dorn fairly 
 
278 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 gnashed at him. " We had the thing as safe as a 
 church — the Union was to father it — and you 
 know that the Union is going to break out in a 
 wild razzee on the Fourth. Like enough they'd 
 do it anyhow, if I'd let 'em alone. Come, Haskett, 
 you're not going back on me this way, are you? " 
 
 " Let 'em do it, then," said Haskett, doggedly. 
 " Yes ; if it's going back on you to refuse to touch 
 them things off, why, yes, I am. They're already in 
 place — you know where — and if you can get 
 somebody else to do the job, why, I'm a safe man to 
 know about it, and I'll look out for him, and stand 
 by you ; but touch it further I will not." 
 
 And from this resolution Van Dorn found it 
 impossible to move him. 
 
 Celia's husband had been going down-hill fast 
 in the last year. His thwarted passion for poor 
 Julia Llewellyn ran in his veins like fire. To quench 
 it, to enable himself to imagine some hope for a 
 successful issue to that affair, he turned more and 
 more to his evillest counsellor, the decanter of co- 
 gnac which he kept in his office desk, and one sacred 
 to his own use in the sideboard at home. 
 
 To ordinary drinking Van Dorn had been accus- 
 tomed since his youth; but this persistent stoking 
 of fires, already lit, this drinking for the sake of its 
 effect, was a new thing with him. He was never 
 
A VERT PARTICULAR JOB 279 
 
 quite sober in those days, and never really drunk; 
 he was always just pushed past that sane and rea- 
 sonable point where things are in their proper focus. 
 
 Now, as Haskett left the office, he bent, and, with 
 hot, shaking fingers, helped himself to a glass of 
 brandy. Who was there that he could call upon 
 to complete this deed? His mind ran the round 
 of those who had been in his employ, interrogating 
 desperately the fitness of each one. 
 
 He was suddenly aware that he was a detested 
 employer, a boss who had won allegiance from no 
 man in his pay. The scurviest of the lot would 
 scorn to run a risk for him — of that he was sure ; 
 and many of the men would be glad of his down- 
 fall. Aside from Haskett, to whom some instinct 
 had led him, as a man natively criminal and ready 
 to be procured for such an enterprise, there was not 
 one whom he could fix upon as safe to trust in this 
 matter. 
 
 There was Ariola's father — he was a tough old 
 bird; and in the days when Ariola was wearing 
 Van Dorn's silks, and sporting the jewelry he gave 
 her, the old man might have been depended upon 
 for a thing of the sort. But since all that was 
 changed, only bitterness was to be expected from 
 that quarter. Old Jeter would gladly be the first to 
 strike him down, to proclaim his guilt or his ruin. 
 
28o THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Suddenly a thought dropped with a splash in the 
 pool of his mind. Bob Llewellyn ! 
 
 Well, why not? He was, perhaps, the only 
 one among Van Dorn's late employes who admired 
 and respected the manager of the Gloriana. There 
 must come a time when Julia herself would give way 
 before the ardour of Tulley's suit. If nothing else 
 would serve, if she protested that she could not stay 
 in Iroquois to face the probability of disgrace for 
 his sake, why, there were the funds he had lodged 
 with the correspondent in Peru. 
 
 He began that deposit when he mortgaged the 
 mine, and secured money on the property belonging 
 to the children. He was aware that there must be 
 an anchor to windward, in some country where 
 extradition papers do not follow. And since that 
 time, whenever he had been fretted or annoyed, 
 he had added to the sum. It was there, in case of 
 bankruptcy. It was in such shape that he hoped 
 it could not be traced; and he knew that he could 
 get his hands upon it at any time he chose. 
 
 The thought of Julia, Julia bending her proud 
 neck to the yoke of his love, and going with him 
 to this far country, quite overcame him. He saw, 
 in this action of his, a sort of providence; and he 
 breathed freer as he reassured himself that Bob 
 would certainly not refuse him. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A PROPOSITION TURNED DOWN 
 
 The empty buildings of a factory, or the sheds 
 of a deserted mine, wear often a sinister face to him 
 who enters them alone. 
 
 The yard of the Gloriana had been silent and 
 deserted for more than three weeks ; the watchman's 
 footsteps were the only ones that waked the echoes 
 in it, when Van Dorn ran up the office steps, put 
 his key in the door and entered, stepping at once to 
 the window and drawing the dingy sash-curtain 
 over its lower portion. 
 
 The watchman had just passed sighingly on his 
 rounds, thinking of the many delights of the Fourth 
 which he was missing, when the owner of the 
 Gloriana turned to the man who had come with 
 him, and said: 
 
 " We can talk here. I have some very important 
 matters which I wish to speak to you about." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Bob. 
 
 For it was Robert Llewellyn. He stood cap in 
 281 
 
282 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 hand, and most uncomfortable, gazing at the tall, 
 elegantly dressed man in the office chair. 
 
 " Sit down, Llewellyn. That's better," as the boy 
 seated himself. " Have a cigar ? You don't smoke ? 
 Well, that's better yet. But I've got to have some- 
 thing to drink, and you must join me. I keep 
 something special here, something out of the 
 common." 
 
 He bent down, unlocked a compartment of his 
 desk, and drew out a decanter and glasses. 
 
 " Cognac," he said. " I got it myself in France, 
 so I know it's not the stuff they generally export 
 under that name." 
 
 He poured a tiny glass of the fiery liquor, and 
 pushed it toward his young companion, swallowed 
 one himself, and began : 
 
 " You're a young fellow, Llewellyn, but I look 
 to you to help me out of a very tight place." 
 
 " I shall be glad to do anything I can, Mr. Van 
 Dorn," said Bob. " I think the Union is ready to 
 bring the men back into the Gloriana. I'd be willing 
 to sound Uncle Owen about it for you, if that's 
 what you mean. If I'd known it, I could have 
 mentioned it to him at the picnic to-day. But I'll 
 see him again to-night." 
 
 The boy flushed and looked down. Something 
 
TURNED DOWN 283 
 
 about the meeting with his Uncle Owen this night 
 excited and embarrassed him. 
 
 " I don't want the men brought back into the 
 mine — not now. I'm going to break Mark Strong 
 before I open the Gloriana again," and Van Dorn 
 smote the table with his fist. 
 
 Bob's dark eyes danced ; here was a glorious new 
 recruit for the ranks of those who hated the owner 
 of the Twin Brothers. 
 
 " You want to see the whole Iroquois district 
 unionized," he said. That last phrase was the 
 present Union slogan. 
 
 " No, it's not exactly that. I — hang it all, 
 Llewellyn, how much do you care about the Union ? 
 You're not a miner. I'll put you in the office till 
 you are old enough to be a boss, and you can't be- 
 long to the Union then, anyhow." 
 
 Bob drew back and regarded his employer with 
 some distrust. One saw his mother very plainly 
 in his face just then. The width between his eyes, 
 the directness of gaze, were Julia's own. 
 
 " I care a great deal about the Union, Mr. Van 
 Dorn," the boy said, slowly. " I've done some 
 pretty hard things for the Union — and I'd do 'em 
 again," he added, with boyish bravado, which un- 
 doubtedly covered a sinking heart, so far as the two 
 
284 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 occasions upon which he had employed violence to 
 serve the ends of the Union were concerned. 
 
 " Just so," said Van Dorn. " You young fellows 
 are full of devotion to an ideal. But the Union has 
 no business to be your ideal, Llewellyn. You don't 
 belong to that class of people. Look at your 
 mother." 
 
 For some reason this grated upon Robert. 
 
 " My father was a miner," he said, sturdily. 
 " He had his faults, and they were bad faults, and 
 my mother had to separate from him ; but it was not 
 because he belonged to what you call ' that class 
 of people.' My father's people are all miners. I 
 don't feel myself above them." 
 
 " But you are above them — you are above 
 them. Mrs. Llewellyn is a wonderful woman — 
 she's a queen. You ought to do something for that 
 mother of yours, Bob. You ought to — to grasp 
 at every opportunity that's offered you, if only for 
 her sake." 
 
 The enthusiasm had been kindled, and the chance 
 shot was a fortunate one for Van Dorn. He had 
 reached the boy's weakest spot, his passionate de- 
 votion to his beautiful mother. 
 
 " I mean to," he said. " Mother's had a hard 
 time; but I'm going to make it up to her." 
 
 " Would you like the chance to make it up to her 
 
TURNED DOWN 285 
 
 in a hurry? " asked Van Dorn. " Would you like 
 to be a rich man — to-morrow — or next day?" 
 
 "That's a joke," said Bob, laughing. "Who 
 wouldn't ? Who doesn't want to wake up rich ? " 
 
 Van Dorn filled the glass again and pushed it 
 toward the boy. He waited till the other had tasted 
 the liquor, tasted it again, and finally sipped nearly 
 half the contents of the small tumbler. 
 
 " Do you know that the strikers are going to 
 burn the whole outside plant of the Gloriana to- 
 night? " he asked, suddenly. 
 
 Bob was on his feet in a moment, sobered so far 
 as physical appearance went; but his wits refused 
 to work. 
 
 " Who told you ? " he gasped, desperately. 
 " What do you know about to-night's work ? " 
 
 Van Dorn leaned back in his chair and laughed. 
 
 " There," he said, " sit down. I'm a good 
 guesser." 
 
 " But I begged the Gloriana out," persisted the 
 boy, resting a hand upon the table and leaning for- 
 ward to peer into Van Dorn's face, with eyes which 
 the unaccustomed liquor rendered dim. " I begged 
 off, for you. I reminded the men that I was the 
 cause of the strike here; and I promised 'em I'd 
 do anything. They've got a scheme to make a big 
 stroke to-night. But I begged off for the Gloriana." 
 
286 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 For a moment Van Dorn sat dumbfounded. 
 
 Then, " You d d young fool ! " he shouted, 
 
 leaping to his feet. " You've ruined me ! The men 
 were coming here — to-night — to burn these build- 
 ings — and you interfered ? You've ruined me ! " 
 
 Bob clung, swaying, to the table's edge. His 
 world was crashing and going to smash all about 
 him. He had saved Van Dorn's mine from the 
 torch, at the expense of some very humiliating talk 
 from the leaders of the enterprise; and now Van 
 Dorn had said that he — Robert Llewellyn — had 
 ruined him. 
 
 Suddenly Van Dorn gripped the other's wrist. 
 
 " You must go back — you must tell them that 
 you've broken with me — you must send them here 
 to burn the place, or — you must burn it your- 
 self! " 
 
 The boy stiffened. The fumes of the brandy yet 
 muddled his understanding; but about this there 
 could be no mistake; Mr. Van Dorn was giving 
 him an order, sending him to do something — what 
 was it? 
 
 " Curse the young fool," muttered Van Dorn. 
 " The brandy was too strong for him. Here," and 
 he urged a glass of water upon Robert. 
 
 Bob drew out his handkerchief, sopped it in the 
 fluid, and mopped his forehead. 
 
TURNED DOWN 287 
 
 " You want the Gloriana burned," he said, slowly, 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I've got it insured for double what it's 
 worth," snapped the baited, exasperated Van Dorn, 
 incautiously. " Because if the brute, fool Union 
 gets to burning things right and left, we'll have 
 martial law, and chuck about half of it into the 
 penitentiary, and then we'll have peace." 
 
 He had spoken more to himself than to the tipsy 
 lad before him ; yet the effect of the cold water on 
 Bob's face, and the sharp sting of Van Dorn's 
 words, combined to sober him somewhat. He was 
 devoted to the Union, first, last, and always; the 
 Union had ever been an object of veneration in 
 the boy's eyes. This threat of his late employer's 
 was an old one. He believed, as many workingmen 
 do believe, that owners and employers had many 
 times before now procured violence and the destruc- 
 tion of property, that it might be ascribed to the 
 Union, and a strike thereby broken. 
 
 " You'll get a crime done, and put it on the 
 Union, to ruin it — to send a lot of my people to 
 penitentiary — and put money in your pocket ; and 
 you think I'll help you? Well, I'll not do it," he 
 said, obstinately. " I might have burned a building 
 for the Union — that's a proper risk for a man to 
 take; but I'll not do your dirty, criminal work for 
 
288 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 you. And if you're over-insured, Mr. Van Dorn, 
 I'll tell the Union of it, and see that your buildings 
 are let alone." 
 
 He sat down and eyed his employer sullenly. 
 
 " Was that what you wanted to talk to me 
 about ? " he asked. 
 
 Van Dorn realized to the full his recklessness in 
 trusting with such dangerous matter this raw boy, 
 whom he had not thoroughly sounded. Well, the 
 step must be retraced, or the boy silenced. 
 
 " Bob," he said, abruptly, " I'm not going to live 
 in Iroquois any more. I'm going to South 
 America." 
 
 " Live where you please. Go where you please. 
 Was that all you wanted of me ? " inquired the 
 other, savagely, sitting half-averted. 
 
 " I'm going to South America," Van Dorn re- 
 sumed, smoothly ; " and somebody is going with 
 me — somebody that you think a great deal of." 
 
 The boy turned like a tormented thing ; the liquor 
 was dying out, in that sound young physique of his, 
 and his nerves were on edge. 
 
 " Say, you go to South America ; the sooner the 
 better; and you take who you please with you — 
 but you let me alone. I'll — " hesitating, and look- 
 ing about him somewhat doubtfully, and with 
 evident distaste — " I'll leave now." 
 
TURNED DOWN 289 
 
 Van Dorn did not rise, nor make any motion to 
 do so. 
 
 Bob lingered. " I won't tell on you," he said, 
 half-sulkily. 
 
 He was a generous creature ; he could not bear to 
 strike the man who once seemed to be kind to 
 him. 
 
 " I know, now, that all the favours you've shown 
 me were to fix up for a job like this — but I won't 
 tell on you," and he moved to walk out of the office. 
 
 " Bob," called Van Dorn, softly. 
 
 The boy checked impatiently. "Well?" he 
 asked, over his shoulder. 
 
 " Come back here, you young idiot," said Van 
 Dorn, smilingly. 
 
 He rose now, followed, and laid a constraining 
 arm across the boy's shoulders. 
 
 " Your mother is going to South America with 
 me," he said, in a low tone. 
 
 " You lie ! " screamed the boy, striking at him 
 with wild fury. 
 
 Van Dorn was a tall, muscular man; the young 
 fellow was no match for him in strength, or 
 science. Even had Robert been quite himself, and 
 prepared for an encounter, it could have had no 
 different ending. 
 
 Van Dorn caught the inexpert blow with a dex- 
 
290 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 terous fist. The next instant he struck straight for 
 the neck, and knocked his young antagonist to the 
 floor. There he lay quietly. Van Dorn stirred the 
 limp figure with his foot. 
 
 " I hope I've killed him," he muttered through his 
 set teeth with a constrained swell of rage. Then, 
 after another glance, he flung himself out of the 
 office, slamming the door behind him. 
 
 And as he set out for home, this problem dogged 
 him; how to make some use of Bob Llewellyn's 
 absence. It had cost dearly — now to make it 
 count. He remembered suddenly a facility he had 
 for imitating handwriting. He was half-way to 
 the confines of the yard when this occurred to him ; 
 and he went methodically back, inserted the latch- 
 key, and opened the office door. 
 
 The prone figure had not moved. There was no 
 blood upon it — probably the boy was only stunned ; 
 but of that Van Dorn was careless. He was, indeed, 
 a most inexpert criminal, as he now went about 
 searching for the books upon which young Llew- 
 ellyn had written. Tearing a leaf at random from 
 one of them, he sat down in the office-chair and 
 somewhat laboriously constructed a note. He ad- 
 dressed it, with more cunning than might have been 
 expected : 
 
TURNED DOWN 291 
 
 " To whom it may concern : I have changed my 
 mind about Van Dorn and the Gloriana. Let him 
 take his luck with the rest. I'm off for Chicago. 
 Will explain when I return. 
 
 " Bob Llewellyn." 
 
 The sending of the note was made easy by his 
 meeting Haskett half-way up the hill. 
 
 " I want you to see that this goes into the hands 
 of whoever is leader in to-night's devilment," he 
 said. " You know who it is — and I am not ask- 
 ing. It's the last thing I'll call on you for, and I'll 
 pay you half as much as I would for doing the 
 trick up there." 
 
 He jerked an explanatory thumb toward the 
 buildings of the Gloriana. Haskett accepted the 
 commission with a nod, and a gruff " All right." 
 
 When Bob Llewellyn awakened from his sick 
 swoon in the office of the Gloriana, his first recol- 
 lection was of blind, overpowering rage at his late 
 employer. As he lay there, with the room opening 
 and shutting about him like the clattering sticks 
 of a wooden fan, all Van Dorn's conversation came 
 back upon his now sobered mind with perfect clear- 
 ness. Strangely enough, with what seemed undue 
 insistence, returned that first statement Van Dorn 
 
292 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 had made before he launched upon his nefarious 
 proposition : 
 
 He had said that he would break Strong! Bob 
 clung by the table leg and crawled up, sick, trem- 
 bling, and giddy. He sat in the desk chair and 
 thought. His mind was still a little confused, but it 
 was clearing. Van Dorn had said that he would 
 break Mark Strong. 
 
 The boy felt that he was weak against this power- 
 ful adversary, who had assailed even the sacred 
 purity of his mother. But — Mark Strong — there 
 was strength. If he could enlist Strong; if he 
 could ally himself with Strong, Julia might be 
 avenged. 
 
 In the light of Van Dorn's behaviour, poor Robert 
 reviewed Strong's attitude toward the woman who 
 had once been his promised wife. Had it ever been 
 less than that of a loving and respectful friend ?. It 
 came to the boy as an illuminating idea that his 
 Uncle Owen's notions were crude and coarse; that 
 Mark Strong had shown more respect for the 
 woman he had once loved, by avoiding her society 
 while the man who was her legal husband still 
 lived. And then, when death had removed the 
 barrier from between them, if he didn't choose to 
 come forward to order as a suitor, why, after all, 
 was that an insult? Was that an affront? After 
 
TURNED DOWN 293 
 
 Van Dorn's assertions, it seemed to Julia Llewellyn's 
 poor, loving, loyal son, that it was not at all. 
 
 The boy was Julia's own. With both, thought 
 was action. He was at the door, trying it, almost 
 before he had formulated these conclusions. He 
 found it locked, and was debating whether or no 
 he should shout for help, when a step sounded upon 
 the porch outside, and he heard Mrs. Van Dorn's 
 voice call her husband's name. 
 
 Celia had at first disregarded the stories which did 
 not fail to reach her, concerning her husband's 
 building mania ; but after a time she felt obliged to 
 take cognizance of them. The mine had been her 
 father's ; it was to belong to her children ; and she 
 could not turn her back and see it brought to ruin. 
 
 " What's your idea in doing so much building 
 just now ? " she asked of her husband, guardedly. 
 
 " It's a convenient time to build. I have to re- 
 timber, anyhow ; that keeps the men out of the way ; 
 and lumber's cheap," he replied, civilly. " I want 
 to put the mine in thorough repair, finer con- 
 dition than it ever has been in, before I bring my 
 new set of workmen here. I feel that I must offer 
 special inducements to get the class of men I want." 
 
 This seemed reasonable enough; and yet, some- 
 how, it did not quiet Celia's fears. She had taken 
 the children down to Iroquois to see the Fourth of 
 
294 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 July parade. There were to be some people at the 
 house for a late supper, but for several hours yet 
 her time was her own. She sent Donald and 
 Dorothy in, and turned her horse's head toward the 
 Gloriana. 
 
 In the yard the watchman met her. " Was you 
 lookin' for Mr. Van Dorn ? " he said. " He won't 
 be back for about an hour." 
 
 Celia did not tell the man that she thought her 
 husband was in Iroquois for the day. She merely 
 nodded, and went on with her inspection of the new 
 buildings. 
 
 One thing the man's unconscious warning did, 
 was to make her ask him if he would not lead her 
 horse around to the sheds. There it would be out 
 of sight; and if Van Dorn came in, she need not 
 meet him ; there need be no distressing explanations. 
 
 The man was gone, and Mrs. Van Dorn had soon 
 forgotten him in painful wonder over her husband's 
 proceedings. She knew the equipment of a good 
 modern mine, as well as any practical man ; and this 
 jumble of jerry-built sheds dismayed her. She was 
 aware that her husband was impractical and un- 
 versed in the business he had chosen to assume ; yet 
 what she saw here passed her wildest ideas of mis- 
 management; it almost suggested insanity. 
 
 She had just come from the hall of the big board- 
 
TURNED DOWN 295 
 
 ing-house, and was about to seek the watchman 
 and ask for the horse and buggy, when Van Dorn 
 and Bob Llewellyn crossed the empty yard. Celia 
 drew back in the doorway with burning cheeks, and 
 let them pass, noting, almost against her will, that 
 her husband was even more carefully dressed than 
 usual, and that the boy's admiring eyes followed 
 him eagerly. Was she acting the part of a woman 
 and a mother when she did not interfere? Then 
 came the watchman's voice calling from the back of 
 the house : 
 
 " Mrs. Van Dorn, there seems to be something the 
 matter with the buggy. Shall I go down to the 
 shop and see if I can get a blacksmith to come up 
 and fix it? The Lord knows whether I can get 
 anybody, on the Fourth this way." 
 
 Celia was a clever, practical little soul, and she 
 lost sight of all her perplexities for the moment, 
 putting the buggy to rights. It was not broken, 
 but the king-bolt had jarred loose, and left the shafts 
 dangling about the old horse's heels. It took nearly 
 half an hour to find a suitable nut on another 
 vehicle, and get the matter finally adjusted. 
 
 At the end of that time Mrs. Van Dorn was driv- 
 ing out of the yard when the sight of the office 
 recalled her husband and young Llewellyn to her 
 mind. She drew up in front of the little frame 
 
296 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 building, but there was no sound, and the doors 
 and windows were closed. She was going on, when 
 she heard a faint movement within. Absolutely 
 without fear, she jumped from the buggy and ran 
 up the steps, tried the door, and found it locked. 
 
 "Is that you, Tulley?" she cried, rattling the 
 knob. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Tulley — Tulley ! " she called, again and again. 
 " It is I, Celia." 
 
 She fancied there had been a movement in 
 response to her first call ; but now all was quiet. She 
 told herself it would be absurd to believe that any 
 human being was in the office on this sweltering July 
 afternoon, with the windows closed; yet in truth 
 Celia Van Dorn could not shake off that belief. She 
 went to a casement and began to pry gently with 
 the tip of her parasol, when — 
 
 " It's — it's me, Mrs. Van Dorn," came a hesi- 
 tating, boyish voice from within, and the sash- 
 curtain was drawn aside, showing Bob Llewellyn's 
 face. 
 
 Celia dropped her parasol with a clatter. 
 
 "Do you want to stay in there?" she asked. 
 Then, with her usual directness, " I saw you go in 
 with Mr. Van Dorn — is he there ? — is anything 
 the matter ? " with mounting anxiety. 
 
TURNED DOWN 297 
 
 For a moment the two glared at each other doubt- 
 fully. Celia had visions of Van Dorn done to 
 death, lying on the floor of his own office. She 
 reflected that Bob Llewellyn was prominent among 
 the strikers, the nephew of the district president. 
 
 What the boy had to keep from her was best 
 known to himself ; yet the sight of her terrified eyes 
 brought a sudden resolution to him. 
 
 "Mr. Van Dorn isn't here," he said. "You 
 needn't be uneasy about him. You'll find him at 
 home all right when you get there. He — I went to 
 sleep, and I guess he forgot that the night-latch 
 was on the door." 
 
 It was a lame explanation, but it must serve to 
 bridge the time till a better could be offered. The 
 boy had pushed up the sash as he spoke, and Celia 
 smelled the fumes of brandy, the overturned de- 
 canter adding its portion. She remembered that 
 poor Bob's father had been a drunkard. She could 
 not forget Van Dorn's unseemly pursuit of the 
 mother — oh, it was all unspeakably vile. 
 
 " You had better close the window down after 
 you come out," she said, gently. " And you can 
 just get away before the watchman comes around." 
 
 This brought a sickly smile to Bob's lips. The 
 watchman was one of the men whom Van Dorn had 
 
298 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 mentioned, who would be expecting Bob's assistance 
 in that night's work. 
 
 " Yes'm," he said, awkwardly, as he climbed 
 through the window. " You're very good not to 
 make any fuss about it; but it'll be all right. I'll 
 try to thank you some other time." 
 
 He pulled up, with a sudden remembrance that 
 his one errand this night was to murder this 
 woman's husband. He was only a boy, after all, 
 and the reckless Llewellyn blood could carry him 
 just so far. Now, a lump rose in his throat, and 
 he watched the shabby little buggy and its pale, 
 small mistress drive away, through unshed tears. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 
 
 For more than a year there had been peace and 
 prosperity at the Twin Brothers. Strong was despot 
 in his little realm ; and the negroes, used to being so 
 ruled, took kindly to his firm, salutary way. The 
 white miners who had stayed with him were quiet 
 men, not likely to make him trouble; so there was 
 harmony within the sentried dead-line, though it 
 had taken a menace of war to secure it, and — if the 
 bull may be pardoned — might take the actual thing 
 to maintain it. Strong never really came to like this 
 alien people he had brought in. But they had their 
 good points; they were a kindly, mellow-natured 
 set of semi-barbarians ; they took pride in the 
 military duties which he never intermitted, and 
 made a squad of whose drill the Captain was justly 
 proud. They were natural musicians, and the 
 band played with pleasing frequency in the band- 
 stand on the parade-ground, sending dulcet strains 
 
 299 
 
3QQ THE GRAPPLE 
 
 out over the dead-line to tell that all went well 
 within it. 
 
 Meantime, the Twin Brothers had made the best 
 year in its history. Mark Strong continued to take 
 out coal in peaceful obliviousness of any difficulties. 
 Owen Llewellyn, as district president, was aghast. 
 If such an object-lesson were permitted to remain 
 before the eyes of his district and the mine owners 
 of the United States, he felt that the power of his 
 organization was no longer existent. 
 
 So the watchword was " Break Strong. 
 Strong's got to be broken, or the Union goes. It's 
 life or death with us now — Strong, or the Union. 
 Strong must be broken! " 
 
 Is it strange that, with such an issue confront- 
 ing them, such disaster threatening, the wilder 
 element continally hearkened to the suggestion that 
 there were other ways — ways far more direct and 
 expeditious — of silencing the little man in gray, 
 than that of ruining him financially? Such things 
 are easily denied, after the act; and it is indeed 
 probable that no American organization ever had a 
 committee on secret murder. Yet the facts are apt 
 to run about alike. In this case Strong was success- 
 fully opposing the Union; and Strong's life was 
 attempted four times — four times, that is, that 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 301 
 
 were duly and publicly known — on his trips be- 
 tween his own place and Iroquois. 
 
 For this reason Captain McClintock remained 
 with him, and Demas was still apt to be the only 
 servant in the big Queen Anne house where the two 
 men were marooned, though it was more than once 
 suggested to Strong that the Southern negroes were 
 often excellent cooks. 
 
 But he negatived the implied proposition always 
 with sharp distaste. He had cut himself off from 
 his kind, and was living on a little continent of his 
 own making, whose boundaries were the dead-line. 
 Up at the boarding-house they had a fat darky 
 woman in the kitchen, with her husband doing 
 chores, waiting on table, and making beds ; but 
 Strong was too averse to these humble companions 
 of his exile to think of making use of them in a 
 domestic capacity. 
 
 " No, no," he said ; " we'll manage somehow till 
 I can get a Swedish girl from Chicago to stay. 
 Perhaps I'd better try a man and his wife — they 
 might be less likely to be scared." 
 
 A natural result of this determination to break 
 the manager of the Twin Brothers was unrest and 
 petty strikes in the mines which were fully union- 
 ized. The men were captious, exacting, hard to 
 handle; and when it came to actual trouble, there 
 
3Q2 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 was not wanting some one to go privately to the 
 representative of the owners and say that the Union 
 would be pacified, on many counts, if they (the 
 owners) would remonstrate with Mark Strong 
 against degrading the American working man by 
 bringing in niggers to take away his job. 
 
 " Why, there's no place for this thing to stop," 
 Llewellyn said, in trying to win over the manager 
 of the Tuscola. " Get him to give up his niggers, 
 and unionize the Twin Brothers; if we ca'n't get 
 him to unionize the mine — if we don't have no 
 hold on him — he'd go bribe the United States 
 Senate and Congress, and get leave to bring in 
 Chinese. He's the feller that would try to get 
 trained baboons to get out coal for him, before 
 he'd fail. He needs the Union to keep him in 
 check." 
 
 When this speech came to the Captain's ears, he 
 grinned exceedingly, and said that the Twin 
 Brothers had tried baboons first, but they found men 
 got out more coal. 
 
 Strong made no reply; his answer was the car- 
 loads of coal he got out, the orders he booked which 
 would, in the nature of things, have gone to other 
 mines in the district — mines which had been 
 strictly Union, and which were now being har- 
 assed with labour difficulties — all for the sake of 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 303 
 
 breaking him. The situation was indeed a complex 
 one. 
 
 Van Dorn's infatuation for Julia Llewellyn grew, 
 apparently, by the food that was denied it; and 
 here Strong was as much in his way as he was in 
 the way of the Union. It was for Mark Strong's 
 sake that she clung to respectability — so Van Dorn 
 told himself. Mark Strong had that to offer her, 
 which he could not give — a name and home, the 
 respect of her circle. 
 
 Well, he would outwit him in some way. He 
 would out-stay him, he would out-face him, out-play 
 him. And here he made his final capitulation to 
 the worst that was in him, and remembered gladly 
 that the Union might be his best ally in getting rid 
 of a rival. 
 
 The strikes at the other mines had been mere 
 peevish outbreaks ; all the rougher element gathered 
 in Iroquois, or as near the Twin Brothers' dead- 
 line as seemed safe. One thing on which the Union 
 had not counted, was the rage of the owners who 
 had unionized their mines, made every concession, 
 only to see Strong defy the organization, stand 
 like a rock for the human right to manage his own 
 business in his own way, teach this trade organiza- 
 tion metes and bounds to its authority, and — make 
 money by it where they lost ! 
 
3Q4 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Early in June there was a consultation of the 
 representatives of seven other mines in the district. 
 Van Dorn was hot to have the State troops brought 
 in ; he was an old friend of the governor's, and he 
 believed he could get the militia sent to overawe 
 the strikers before any great violence or destruction 
 of property had been attempted. A fund was sub- 
 scribed for this purpose, and the matter put in his 
 hands. He had his own reasons — reasons which 
 he could not make public — for intending that 
 there should be destruction of property about the 
 Gloriana; and he entered at once into negotiations, 
 with a view to having the troops ready when they 
 should be needed. He made a visit to Springfield, 
 and convinced the governor of the likelihood of 
 this necessity arising; and Colonel Harbury, com- 
 mander-in-chief of the State troops, came, unoffi- 
 cially, to look over the ground. 
 
 About the time the owners got together and 
 decided that something must be done, the active 
 heads of all the Locals in the district took the same 
 action. There was one answer to all their troubles ; 
 in this they were more fortunate than their late 
 employers ; for, while the latter knew not which way 
 to turn, whether to attempt conciliation or force, 
 the Union was agreed as one man that, Mark 
 Strong once removed, all would go well in the Iro- 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 305 
 
 quois district. The man who could resist a full- 
 grown strike and resist it successfully — definitely 
 — permanently, must go. The means to be used 
 figured in the plans as kidnapping; but the men in 
 charge were endowed with discretion in the matter 
 as wide as all the universe; they were to resort to 
 anything that might prove necessary; and with 
 a man of Strong's type the ultimate was certain. 
 
 There was something insulting about the new 
 washer which had been put in at the Twin Brothers. 
 A washer is a washer, and a necessary apparatus 
 for the cleaning of coal; its installation may mean 
 no more than prosperity, since the thing costs from 
 ten to fifteen thousand dollars, and the Twin Broth- 
 ers had an old washer by no means superannuated. 
 But the Locals of the Mine Workers' Union in and 
 about Iroquois chose to feel that Mark Strong had 
 aimed this washer at them, as it were, a taunt, a 
 gibe. 
 
 Well, they would burn his fine washer for him; 
 and when the blaze drew him toward it — he might 
 suffer the fate of other moths. 
 
 Bob Llewellyn was urged by his uncle as a suit- 
 able person to take part in this plot. 
 
 " He owes Strong one that he's never had a 
 chance yet to pay. He's young, but he's safe," said 
 
3Q6 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 the district president. " You give him something 
 to do — I'll answer for him." 
 
 " Bob's all right — it's his mother that needs 
 some one to answer for her," returned the man upon 
 whose shoulders the burden of responsibility lay. 
 
 " Women are like that," agreed Llewellyn, a 
 little uneasily; "afraid their men- folks will get 
 into difficulties. And you must mind that this is 
 Jule's only son, and she a widow that has seen more 
 trouble than most. Bob will manage her; he'll 
 keep her out of the way this time, without her sus- 
 picioning anything." 
 
 It is impossible to determine — afterward and by 
 means of a coroner's jury — just how much, how 
 far, a society or organization has approved the mur- 
 der committed by its members in the course of a 
 strike. Strong held — and many sensible labour 
 leaders hold with him — that the organization 
 which countenances and dictates a strike sanctions 
 the murders which may be committed for the cause. 
 They believed, and perhaps the American people 
 will come to believe, that a society cannot plan a 
 strike or boycott without (subjectively, at least) 
 contemplating the violence, the arson, the destruc- 
 tion of property and human life which labouring 
 men know better than any others may result from 
 this strike. 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 307 
 
 So perhaps it is not necessary to represent Mark 
 Strong's murder as having been determined upon 
 in open meeting of the Local Branch of the Mine 
 Workers' Union which still existed in the vicinity 
 of the Twin Brothers, and held fitful meetings in 
 the room over Yount's saloon. Indeed, it is true 
 that such was never the case; but matters were 
 determined upon at these meetings which resulted 
 in the planning by Bert Patterson and ten others 
 of the arson and murder to take place on the night 
 of July fourth. 
 
 " You will have to look after that mother of 
 yours," growled Dempsey, as they concluded the 
 last of their arrangements. " She queered us, all 
 right, all right, when we pretty nearly got the little 
 devil, that night he was going to Chicago." 
 
 " You let my mother alone ! " flashed Bob. 
 " She has a right to say what she pleases, and go 
 where she pleases." 
 
 The big Irishman squared himself before the boy, 
 hands truculently on hips, and small eyes snapping. 
 
 " Now, Bob Llewellyn," he began, and it was 
 plain all the others were with him, " we don't want 
 any loose-head from you about your mother giving 
 us away that time. We think it's more than you've 
 got any right to expect, for us to trust you in any 
 particular plans after that. How do we know but 
 
308 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 you gave it away to her yourself? But I don't say 
 we think so," as the boy's eyes began to blaze and 
 his hands to double themselves into fists. " I don't 
 say we put that on you — but we might. You just 
 account for your mother on the night of July fourth 
 — or this here business is off — that's all." 
 
 So it came about that Julia Llewellyn found her- 
 self urged to take the part of the Goddess of Liberty 
 in the tableaux which were given in Union Hall on 
 the night of the Fourth. 
 
 " But, I'm too old," she said, laughing, to Cassi- 
 day, when he urged the matter upon her. " Let 
 some of the girls do that." 
 
 " There ain't a one of them that could look the 
 part like yourself," asserted Cassiday — and he 
 spoke the truth. 
 
 " We want you on account of your hair," urged 
 Kate Carmody, who was still Jule's ardent admirer, 
 and now an innocent ally of the strikers who wished 
 to get Strong's old sweetheart out of the way for 
 that evening's work. 
 
 It was true that Jule's abundant hair fell nearly 
 to her knees in waving masses; and when this 
 splendid golden-bronze mane was let down, and 
 crowned with a small red liberty cap, with its single 
 gilt paper star upon the front, she shone forth the 
 beauty she really was. Her gown was made by her 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 309 
 
 own clever fingers, as were most of those worn in 
 the tableau with her. A tricolour scarf crossed her 
 nobly molded bust, passing over her shoulder from 
 left to right, and was knotted upon her right hip. 
 She was to hold a shield against the right side of 
 her skirt, and to stand upon the top of a rather 
 insecure pedestal, with the thirteen original States 
 
 — impersonated by thirteen girls — grouped about 
 its base. This certainly seemed a plan for keeping 
 her out of mischief. 
 
 That Jule was a subjective creature is true; she 
 was one who had premonitions, whose dreams fore- 
 shadowed things; and yet the positive terror with 
 which she passed that night was something here- 
 tofore unknown in her life. She did not deceive 
 herself; she admitted promptly and fully that she 
 was afraid some plot was afoot against Mark 
 Strong's life, and that her son Robert Llewellyn 
 was concerned in it. To have given the root of this 
 fear would have been beyond her. 
 
 With a woman's wisdom — the subtility of the 
 slave, rather than the direct methods of the free-born 
 
 — she insisted that Bob should take a part in the 
 tableau; he was already a member of the band 
 which was to discourse music for the occasion. 
 
 Her objective suspicions were lulled by his ready 
 acquiescence in this plan, and by the interest he took 
 
3io THE GRJPPLE 
 
 in the costume she was making for him ; but some- 
 thing at the back of her head was alert, looking 
 out for disaster, from the time she donned her 
 classic white robe in the improvised dressing-room, 
 among the crowd of laughing girls. 
 
 She was mounted on her swaying pedestal before 
 she knew the worst, with two or three girls in front 
 of her. The green curtains were being parted, 
 before she had decided what to do. 
 
 Two young men, representing respectively the 
 Army and Navy, were to have acted as supporters 
 to the group which Jule's figure crowned; and of 
 these, Bob, in sailor costume, was to stand upon her 
 left. Something unfamiliar in the blue serge shoul- 
 ders of this figure, in the poise of the head which 
 the nautical cap covered, sent a little shiver of appre- 
 hension through her even while she climbed up to 
 her place. 
 
 As the curtains were thrown back and the tab- 
 leau fire set burning, the girl near this sailor lad 
 uttered a smothered exclamation of dismay. Some- 
 thing was slipping in the garland she held. She 
 appealed in an undertone to him', and the boy turned 
 his head. It was not Bob ! 
 
 For a moment Julia was stone-cold. Then she 
 blazed and glowed with righteous wrath. She saw 
 the whole vile trick, and from it apprehended the 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 311 
 
 worst. The audience before her clapped and ap- 
 plauded. But for Julia Llewellyn, the confines of 
 the hall melted away. She was walking again 
 with Mark Strong through the wintry dusk; she 
 heard the shouts of those who had ambushed him ; 
 she saw his face of anguish at what he deemed 
 her cruel treachery. Every blighting detail of 
 that dreadful mistake was seared into her memory. 
 That should not happen to her again. She had 
 borne poverty, disappointment, bereavement; when 
 the time came she would bear to be wrongly con- 
 demned — by some one other than her old lover. 
 For more than a year she had known the bitterness 
 of being utterly misunderstood by Mark Strong, 
 cast out from him ; and she felt that not only could 
 she never run the risk of adding to the tragic 
 misunderstanding, but she must make this night 
 atone for and explain that other one, if the thing 
 were possible. 
 
 Blindly, unconsideringly, she bent and laid her 
 hand upon the shoulder of the figure in front of 
 her, and leaped to the platform with the clean spring 
 of a young girl. 
 
 " What's the matter — are you sick ? " cried 
 Kate Carmody. It was she Julia had utilized in 
 getting down. 
 
 " Let me help you, Mrs. Llewellyn," put in the 
 
312 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 young man who had impersonated the sailor, with 
 suspicious alacrity. 
 
 " You help yourself out of this black business the 
 best you can," Julia answered, turning on him a look 
 before which he shrank. " I am going to do what 
 I can for the one you know of — and for my 
 wretched boy. Oh ! " she groaned, " God send that 
 I'm not too late." 
 
 The audience had risen almost en masse, and was 
 shouting inquiries toward the stage. 
 
 " Pull them curtains ! " shouted Bill Dempsey, 
 who was managing the affair. 
 
 The band struck up " America," the music which 
 was to have accompanied this tableau, and Dempsey 
 turned to deal with his rebellious goddess. 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Llewellyn, if there is anything you 
 want to know, I am at your service," he added, 
 turning to where Jule had stood. 
 
 But he spoke to her departing back. In her white 
 dress, just as she was, with her hair flying over her 
 shoulders, she sprang across the footlights, since 
 she found the way to the dressing-room purposely 
 barred. Through the audience she elbowed her 
 way, asking no questions, and answering none. 
 There was not a face among them that she felt she 
 could trust. 
 
 " Let her go," said Dempsey, comfortably. 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 313 
 
 " We've kept her long enough. The trick will be 
 turned before she could get over there — anyway, 
 she doesn't know the direction to go in." And in 
 a louder tone he added, bowing to the disturbed 
 audience, " Mrs. Llewellyn was sick — The God- 
 dess of Liberty don't like being penned up, I guess," 
 and he announced the next number on the pro- 
 gramme. 
 
 Julia found the street deserted; the attractions 
 above-stairs had cleared it. There would be some- 
 body in Yount's place; but to them she dared not 
 apply. After all, what could she do! She had been 
 a fool — a fool — a fool, to trust Bob's protesta- 
 tions. She should have gone a thousand miles from 
 this town after that terrible night in the field near 
 Mark's place. 
 
 But these despairing reflections interfered not at 
 all with Jule's bodily activity. She caught up her 
 trailing white skirts and kilted them with a hat-pin. 
 A horse — she must have a horse ! She must reach 
 Strong's house in time to warn him, or to share 
 whatever threatened him. 
 
 " I won't — I won't ! I won't live on. If Bob's 
 into it, and they kill Mark, they'll have to just 
 kill me too. He needn't ask anything else — Bob 
 — he needn't expect — " she whispered sobbingly to 
 herself, as she ran around to the side of the building 
 
314 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 where there was a dilapidated old hitching-rack, and 
 a shed beneath which turnouts used to be tied. Would 
 there be anything there now? Yes, there was one 
 horse. Some careful soul, whose family was in the 
 room above, had unharnessed his nag, or rather 
 taken him from the vehicle, leaving the harness upon 
 him. The animal stood munching hay at the rack. 
 Julia drew him back, and slipped the bit into his 
 mouth with tremulous fingers. Then she sought to 
 connect the creature with the vehicle standing in 
 the shed. 
 
 The sound of running feet in the street beyond 
 broke in upon her. In sheer terror of detection, she 
 struggled to the horse's back, turned him, and sent 
 him at an awkward, plunging gallop in the direction 
 of Strong's home. Crouching close, clutching the 
 harness with both hands, she urged the stiff old 
 creature to its utmost speed. 
 
 " Pray God that I may not be too late," she re- 
 peated under her breath. And then again : " This 
 time I will stay and share it. They'll just have to 
 kill me, too. O Mark — Mark ! " 
 
 Nothing but desperation could have kept her 
 seated upon the clumsy animal. She clung to the 
 harness, and guided him as best she might with the 
 lines which were knotted to the harness saddle. She 
 took the road for the Twin Brothers, which was 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 315 
 
 evidently the old horse's way home as well, for he 
 applied himself to it with gusto. 
 
 When it came to turning off below the sycamore- 
 tree, however, it was a different matter. He strug- 
 gled, with that patient mulishness characteristic of 
 the family horse. 
 
 " I have endured much," he seemed to say. 
 " Your method of mounting was quite irregular ; 
 and I object to the way you ride. I have borne with 
 these things ; but when you would turn off, and try 
 to take me away from my oats-bin at this time of 
 night, I rebel." 
 
 Looking eastward away from lighted Iroquois, 
 and toward the big Queen Anne house, as she 
 fought the beast, Julia's attention was caught and 
 held for a moment by the aspect of the sky. The 
 night had been relentlessly hot and very dark. Now 
 it presented a curious appearance. To the north- 
 east there was a great, rising, expanding continent 
 of black cloud, whose edges were smooth, straight, 
 cliff-like; while the southeast was of a clear, pale 
 blue-gray, full of subdued night-light. The moon, 
 far past the full, and about half an hour high, hung 
 over Mark's house, close at the edge of, and be- 
 neath, the black cloud-mass, which was sweeping 
 along under the propulsion of a northeast wind, to 
 cover her wild, tragic, turgidly reddened face. 
 
3£6 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Wrath, menace, furious resentment, were writ 
 large upon the face of the heavens. Looking up 
 the slope, she could see above her the black, huge 
 umbels of the oaks move heavily; the long, slim 
 plume of a Lombardy poplar whip and bow; the 
 graceful spreading arms of an elm, tossing and 
 wringing and writhing in the gusts of the rising 
 wind, whose cool fingers caught nervously at her 
 loosened hair. While she looked, the wild-faced 
 moon was swallowed up of the black cloud-mass, 
 and the night became densely dark. 
 
 From this time on, her mount engrossed a great 
 part of her attention; reluctant, unconvinced, he 
 shrugged along, trying to bolt down side-paths 
 which she could not see, and edge back toward his 
 own home road. She was straining her eyes 
 through the blackness to make out the sycamore, 
 when a hand on the bit brought the horse almost 
 to his haunches. 
 
 " Hold on," growled a curiously muffled, feigned 
 man's voice; and she thought she saw something 
 shine faintly, like a gun-barrel. 
 
 " Bob ! " she screamed, with a sudden terrified 
 intuition. " Oh, son — for God's sake ! " 
 
 The man who held her horse's head dropped the 
 bridle, and fell back, ejaculating: 
 
 " Lord ! It's a woman ! " 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 317 
 
 " Stop her ! " roared Owen Llewellyn's unmis- 
 takable voice from the roadside above. 
 
 " It's just a woman," hesitated her captor, with a 
 half-hearted effort to regain the line he had re- 
 linquished. 
 
 Now, if she had been at one with her steed, she 
 could have made good her escape ; but the old horse 
 balked and whirled, nearly unseating his rider, Owen 
 Llewellyn's deep-throated " Whoa ! " appearing to 
 him much better authority than her frantic efforts 
 to make him go on. 
 
 " Owen ! " she cried, " Owen — let me pass ! 
 Where's Bob? Where's my boy? What — get 
 back! — what are you leading him into this night? 
 If harm comes to Mark Strong through you, I'll 
 tell — I'll — oh, so help me God, I will — " 
 
 She had tugged vainly at the line. Now it came 
 free in her hand — the buckle was unfastened at the 
 bit! Whirling up the bunch of loose leather, she 
 brought it down upon her horse's head with all the 
 strength of her vigorous arm. He plunged, reared, 
 and tore forward, narrowly missing the man who 
 had tried to hold him. 
 
 " Jule ! " yelled Llewellyn, as he stumbled after 
 the horse. "Jule! There ain't no harm to come 
 to anybody — stop! you fool! Hold on, Julia!" 
 
 These outcries were in as guarded a tone as 
 
318 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Llewellyn deemed he could make heard. He lis- 
 tened to the loose stones rattling under the horse's 
 clattering hoofs, to the heavy breathing of the 
 animal, as its rider urged it up the slope. Then he 
 heard the sentry above challenge : " Who goes 
 there?" 
 
 It was here and now, not elsewhere nor at another 
 time, that Owen Llewellyn made the turning. For 
 years he had pursued Mark Strong relentlessly, the 
 excuse he gave his own soul being a grudge on 
 behalf of his beautiful, slighted sister-in-law. The 
 ill-feeling had grown to a sort of vendetta, and all 
 for Julia's sake. Now, in a moment, this thing with 
 which the Welshman had bedraped and concealed 
 his own violence and insubordinate rage against 
 those who would rule him, dropped away. The war 
 
 was not for Julia — d n her ; there she rode to 
 
 warn the very one upon whom he had sworn ven- 
 geance for her sake. All that was best in the man 
 veiled its face and turned aside as he raised his gun 
 and sent a shot after her. Then he came back, 
 cursing, to his companion by the road's edge. 
 
 " Get out of here — get yourself out of here ! " 
 he ground forth. " There'll be no chance to do 
 anything at the Twin Brothers this night." 
 
 " Whose fault is it ? " flared the other, who was 
 a miner from the Culleoka. " I reckon that was 
 
DESCENT OF THE GODDESS 319 
 
 your sister-in-law. If you can't boss your own 
 family, you ain't fit to boss anything in the Union 
 — I can tell you that. Don't you curse me ; I 
 didn't do nothing but let her get away — you shot 
 after her. A nice batch you are, all round! " 
 
 Llewellyn took himself in hand, and curbed his 
 fury as best he might. 
 
 " Let's get down to the river," he said, shortly. 
 " We may do some good there, if the boat hasn't 
 gone." 
 
 " How about Dempsey, and the ten who were to 
 meet us at the Twin Brothers ? " hesitated the 
 Culleoka man. 
 
 But at the mention of Mark Strong's mine, 
 Llewellyn turned loose such a stream of profanity 
 as drowned out his companion's objections. 
 
 " They can take care of themselves," he finished, 
 savagely. " If they get anything done — why, it's 
 so much. She'll warn the whole nest of niggers; 
 and more than like, Dempsey won't get to put a foot 
 inside the fence." 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE GODDESS INTERVENES 
 
 The table was perfectly appointed, and perfectly 
 served, as the Van Dorn table always was. About 
 it the low-toned hum of conversation sounded pleas- 
 antly. The one topic seemed to be the strike. 
 
 Van Dorn's wife, beside his floridity, and his 
 sister's healthy bloom, looked strangely gray and 
 pinched to-night. Mark's eyes travelled again and 
 again to the little lady sitting silent and irresponsive 
 at her own table's foot. To an observing eye there 
 was something ominous in her calm, something that 
 promised more words than would be welcome when 
 once she took occasion to speak. 
 
 Miss Van Dorn had let Strong take her in, but 
 the places were so arranged that Colonel Harbury, 
 commander-in-chief of the State troops, sat on her 
 left, and to him she devoted most of her attention, 
 apparently with the idea of piquing the owner of the 
 Twin Brothers. 
 
 " I can't be entirely sorry that we had a strike," 
 320 
 
THE GODDESS INTERVENES 321 
 
 she said smilingly, to the military gentleman, " if it 
 calls you folks into .the neighbourhood. Things are 
 deadly dull around Iroquois; and to my mind the 
 very sight of tents suggests romantic possibilities." 
 
 " And I, on my part, must feel kindly toward any- 
 thing which brought me within Miss Van Dorn's 
 sphere," replied the colonel, gallantly. 
 
 Strong was not listening; he sat idly turning an 
 empty wine-glass; he was an abstemious man, and 
 a formal meal of this sort bored him exceedingly. 
 He looked neither better nor worse in his evening 
 dress. He would never have been the man to be 
 mistaken for a waiter in that garb; but only, he 
 chucklingly declared, because he did not appear 
 sufficiently elegant and imposing. 
 
 Presently the conversation veered more strongly 
 to the strike. 
 
 " I was reading an article the other day, by some 
 man who's studied these things," said Colonel Har- 
 bury, " and he says the Open Shop — I understand 
 that's what Mr. Strong fought for — means the 
 destruction of all Trade Unions." 
 
 The owner of the Twin Brothers smiled a little. 
 
 " It is odd," he said, " how all amateurs, if I may 
 call them so, in handling this industrial problem 
 confound the strike and the Union. If the Union 
 clings to the strike, if they become but organiza- 
 
322 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 tions for the purpose of enforcing their views by 
 striking, why, yes, they'll go, along with the strike 
 
 — for that's surely going." 
 
 Harbury regarded this summing up of the matter 
 unfavourably. There was not enough fight in it 
 to please a man of war. 
 
 " But this writer holds," he went on, " that if 
 the Union succeeds, nothing can prevent final indus- 
 trial domination. He thinks the country will be 
 ruled by its Trade Unions." 
 
 " He supposes that they'll put the foundation- 
 stone in the cornice, does he ? " asked Strong's 
 quietest voice. 
 
 " But they could rule — they've got a majority 
 
 — and this is a popular government," interposed 
 Van Dorn, voicing the fear of many another like 
 him. 
 
 " Is it the Populist party that you're afraid of? " 
 queried Strong. " When our Trade Unions at- 
 tempt to rule by strikes, they remain Unions ; when 
 they attempt to rule by the ballot, their sole repre- 
 sentative so far is the Populist party — not a very 
 formidable one, you'll admit. The vote sifts the 
 thing; the men, individually, go where they belong, 
 and lose significance as Trade Unionists." 
 
 " I don't see how you can say that the Unions 
 are about to give up striking," demurred Miss Van 
 
THE GODDESS INTERVENES 323 
 
 Dorn. " We've never had such a time with them ; 
 and Tulley says that it's not miners alone; they're 
 striking in all the trades all over the country." 
 
 " I draw my conclusion from that fact," said 
 Strong. " A thing of the sort always looms biggest 
 just before it collapses. There is a direct connection 
 between the wide-spread striking and the passing 
 of strikes. It seems that the American people are 
 to have an ample opportunity to see and feel the 
 workings of such methods, to decide — with plenty 
 of evidence before them — whether or not they want 
 strikes. Remember the strikers, themselves, are 
 part of the people. If striking is only common 
 enough, and persistent enough, they're certain to 
 disapprove of it in some other trade, and come to 
 see the folly of it in their own." 
 
 " They tell me that the women and children in the 
 Iroquois district are beginning to suffer," said Miss 
 Van Dorn, in the tone of one mentioning the hard- 
 ships of cattle upon the Western ranges, or wild 
 beasts in the jungle. 
 
 Van Dorn was talking loud and laughing much ; 
 his tight-skinned, long oval cheeks were deeply 
 flushed; the danger, the tremendous excitement 
 of the moment, stimulated him even more than the 
 liquor he continued to drink in liberal portions. 
 
 " I'm always glad to hear that," he remarked. 
 
324 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " It means the breaking of the strike. The women 
 — hang 'em ! — are at the root of this, as of most 
 other matters ; and when they begin to squeal, the 
 men have got to move." 
 
 " Cherchez la femme," quoted the colonel labori- 
 ously, adding, " But, after all, isn't it a question of 
 force? The modern industrial world is a battle- 
 ground, and occasionally you 1 have to have real 
 soldiers to fight upon it." 
 
 Miss Van Dorn looked at the speaker with ad- 
 miration, and struck her palms softly together. 
 She was rather overdoing the part — but then, Jane 
 Van Dorn had always enjoyed the disadvantage of 
 possessing no sensibilities to disturb her own peace, 
 or to warn her in a situation such as this. 
 
 " I tell Tulley," she declared, " it's a jolly good 
 thing for the miners that they have him to deal with, 
 and not me. If I owned the mines, I should find a 
 way to work them — even if I had to do as Mr. 
 Strong does." 
 
 She seemed to forget that the mines belonged in 
 fact to her brother's wife, and not to her brother. 
 Tulley himself had so long forgotten it, that noth- 
 ing seemed likely to recall it to his remembrance. 
 
 " There's one thing sure," Van Dorn was saying ; 
 " if we'd put in the schools, and the lecture-rooms, 
 and the chances for special training which you folks 
 
THE GODDESS INTERVENES 325 
 
 suggest " (he spoke to his wife, or at her, in that 
 irritating indirect fashion some husbands use), " as 
 soon as the remedy took good hold, we wouldn't 
 have a man left in the mines." 
 
 "My husband," observed Mrs. Van Dorn, re- 
 plying to the speech, but addressing Strong, " al- 
 ways holds that the business cannot be elevated. He 
 thinks that if we raise the miner or his children, 
 we take them away from their work." 
 
 She spoke with a curious, detached air, and quite 
 as if the matter were no concern of hers. Strong 
 recalled her, a sturdy little girl of twelve, riding 
 her pony over these hills ; her father's daughter, to 
 be sure, and the little lady patroness of her father's 
 employes, but a friendly small soul, knowing the 
 affairs of the girls and the boys of her own age, 
 who were daughters and sons of the men working 
 in her father's mines. Celia Van Dorn he well 
 knew was not likely to follow her husband far in 
 his old-world ideas of caste. 
 
 " That's exactly what I think," agreed Van Dorn, 
 with something of a flourish. " No man who could 
 possibly do anything else would be a miner. The 
 owners — employers — like to tell themselves a lot 
 of nice-sounding lies; but it's my way to say the 
 thing just as it is, without any fancy frills; and I 
 admit frankly that mining's a business to which a 
 
326 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 man must be held down, if you want to keep him 
 to it — nothing but ignorance and vice will reconcile 
 him to his calling." 
 
 Mrs. Van Dorn contemplated the rings upon her 
 thin little hands. 
 
 " It would be a curious public policy," she said, 
 " which advocated the production of a degraded 
 class, so that they might follow a degrading call- 
 ing, and thereby make money for their employer, 
 and supply the world with a necessary commodity." 
 
 Van Dorn shook his head in protest. 
 
 " Pray do not speak as though I had ordered so 
 many dozens of the beggars from Providence, and 
 was being supplied with 'em, Celia. I'm not, you 
 know. I find them here, and I make use of them. 
 When you elevate the miner you have no miners 
 left. And as I have a mighty pressing need of a 
 few hundred to operate my — operate the Gloriana 
 — why, I'll certainly not make any attempt to 
 elevate 'em above my work." 
 
 The host seemed to have a sudden, uneasy con- 
 sciousness that Strong had been a miner ; the friends 
 of the little man in gray were apt to have spasmodic 
 recollections of the sort which proved embarrassing. 
 
 " Probably you and Strong can agree," he added 
 to his wife, awkwardly. " Your theories may not 
 seem to him as visionary as they do to me." 
 
THE GODDESS INTERVENES 327 
 
 The owner of the Twin Brothers raised quiet eyes 
 to Van Dom's flushed countenance, and the small, 
 pale face of the lady opposite him. His calm, low- 
 pitched voice — the voice that was always listened 
 for — said, gently, not sarcastically or reproach- 
 fully: 
 
 " It may be from my early training in the mines, 
 but it has always seemed to me, in all questions, that 
 the way up was the way out." 
 
 Before Mrs. Van Dorn could agree or disagree, 
 her husband chimed in, sharply: 
 
 " The way out — that's what I said. You go far 
 enough up, and you'll be out — you'll have no 
 miner left to dig your coal. Strong himself is an 
 example of it. Being the man he is, he has not been 
 a practical miner for some twenty years — though 
 he tries to make us believe he began as one." 
 
 Strong smiled a little grimly over this evident 
 effort to smooth the asperities of his early history. 
 
 " Striking and its attendant evils," he said, " are 
 the work of devils — and your mine owner should 
 be careful that while he is assisting long days of 
 bitter toil, away from refining and elevating in- 
 fluence, to brutalize his employes, he is not making 
 devils of them. If he does that, and then if they 
 break loose, what can he expect — what — " 
 
 The quiet voice to which every one at the table 
 
328 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 was listening intently, with extremely various ex- 
 pressions of countenance, hesitated, and broke off. 
 For there sounded a clattering as though shod hoofs 
 came across the terrace outside; some one jumped 
 from the horse; there was the rending plunge of 
 a body breaking through the vines about the porch ; 
 a heavy hand fell upon the fastening of the window 
 screen, the French window burst violently open, and 
 a pale-faced woman in strange clinging robes of 
 white looked into the room. Her gaze went around 
 the company till it encountered Mark Strong; then 
 she put her hand to her throat and whispered : 
 
 " Thank God ! " 
 
 With one uncontrollable impulse they had all 
 sprung to their feet, and drawn somewhat toward 
 each other as they turned to face the window. For 
 an instant they stood so, and gazed at the amazing 
 figure which had burst in upon them. A white, 
 pseudo-classic robe, splashed with mud about its 
 hem, left bare her nobly molded arms, her chest, 
 and the column of her neck. The richly curling hair, 
 which tossed wildly about her pale face and hung to 
 her knees, was surmounted by a little red liberty cap, 
 with a single gilt star upon its front. Athwart her 
 splendid body from shoulder to hip was knotted a 
 tricolour, and a flag had evidently been draped 
 behind her, for some shreds of it still drooped at her 
 
THE GODDESS INTERVENES 329 
 
 shoulders. Those about the table stared with pale 
 faces; the woman who had entered through the 
 window' looked back at them with a face as pale. 
 
 " Jule ! " breathed Strong, and despite himself 
 his eyes fastened upon her eyes. 
 
 " Mrs. Llewellyn ! " cried Miss Van Dorn, in 
 a curious voice. 
 
 "I — I — I — " and Julia staggered forward 
 toward the table; hardly would her trembling, 
 cramped limbs hold her up. 
 
 Instantly — with the open solicitude of a lover — 
 Van Dorn was beside her, a wine-glass in his hand. 
 
 " Sit down," he said, in a low, impassioned tone, 
 turning his back upon the others. " Here, take 
 some wine. You look faint." 
 
 Truly she shook from head to foot, with painful 
 emotion, excitement, and the exhaustion of such a 
 ride, clinging, cramped and insecure, to such a steed. 
 Now she put out a trembling hand and took the glass 
 unconsciously, spilling its contents down her white 
 robe, where it dripped like blood. 
 
 " I'm out of breath," she managed to utter, finally. 
 " I came past Mr. Strong's place to " — she hesi- 
 tated, then essayed again — " to warn him that the 
 strikers " — she gazed piteously about her — " that 
 the strikers — " 
 
 Her eyes fell. There was silence in the room. 
 
33Q THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Colonel Harbury had been looking at the new- 
 comer with peculiar insolence, since her first entry. 
 
 " You are Bob Llewellyn's mother, aren't you ? " 
 he inquired, with military brevity. 
 
 Everybody else in the room knew, and nobody 
 heeded the colonel's question. Mrs. Van Dorn's 
 haggard eyes had never left Julia's face; now she 
 came close and caught the widow's arm. 
 
 " If you want to warn Mr. Strong, speak out, 
 Julia Copeland," she said, using the name by which 
 she had known the girl before her marriage. 
 " Speak out, quick, while there's time. He will 
 believe you. We — I believe you. What is it the 
 strikers mean to do ? " 
 
 This first touch of kindness quite overpowered 
 poor Julia. Sinking into the chair which Van Dorn 
 had all the time been proffering, she gasped out : 
 
 " They're going to burn the washer at the Twin 
 Brothers; and when Mark — when Mr. Strong 
 comes toward the fire, he's to be ambushed. I knew 
 that much when I started. On the way I found out 
 that the head-tower of every mine in the Iroquois 
 district is to be burned — and God help the owners 
 if they go near the fire! " 
 
 There was dead silence in the room. The butler, 
 who had ceased his serving operations, stood near 
 the door through which he brought the dishes, and 
 
THE GODDESS INTERVENES 331 
 
 behind his shoulders appeared the scared faces of 
 two maids. 
 
 Suddenly, across the silence cut Jane Van Dorn's 
 cool tones. 
 
 " I believe you are the person who warned Mr. 
 Strong once before," she said, slowly. " The un- 
 derstanding is that his acceptance of your warning 
 very nearly cost him his life." 
 
 Julia shivered where she sat, and looked down. 
 Captain McClintock had told that story to Van 
 Dorn. But how was she to know that Mark Strong 
 himself had not confided it to the sister? Before 
 she could make response of any sort, Strong rose, 
 with much of his usual calm. 
 
 " I am sorry to leave your supper-table on this 
 errand," he said courteously to Mrs. Van Dorn, 
 " but I must go back with Mrs. Llewellyn, and see 
 what there is in this thing." 
 
 His countenance was equal, his voice level and 
 controlled; he would not shame her before them 
 all, though he could not, in his own mind, be sure 
 that this was not another trap into which she was 
 seeking to lead him. 
 
 " No — no ! " she protested. " You mustn't go 
 with me. Stay here. You are safe — they won't 
 attack you here. I " — her passionate voice fal- 
 tered — "I warned them at the Twin Brothers 
 
332 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 about the plan to burn the head-tower; but," pite- 
 ously, " I didn't think Captain McClintock be- 
 lieved me — of course he wouldn't. Yet he'll act 
 on it somewhat — enough to save the washer, I'm 
 sure. Stay here!" 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE TIDES 
 
 During this discussion Van Dorn had more than 
 once flushed, opened his lips as though to interrupt, 
 and checked himself. 
 
 " There's another point that you folks seem to 
 overlook," he said, finally. " If Mr. Strong is going 
 into danger " (Who knew better than the owner of 
 the Gloriana that this was so, and exactly what that 
 danger was ?) " if he thinks he's going into danger, 
 he certainly doesn't want to drag a woman into 
 peril with him," and a very thinly veiled expression 
 of ill-will was turned upon the little man in gray. 
 
 " But has it not occurred to you that what might 
 be danger for me, might be safety for Mrs. Llew- 
 ellyn ? " said Strong, so quietly that part of the com- 
 pany did not notice the bitter significance of his 
 words. But Julia noted it, and wrung her hands 
 with nervous impatience. 
 
 " Well, then, let's go — let's go. I may be of 
 
 333 
 
334 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 some use to Mr. Strong. He will certainly be in no 
 more danger with me than without me." 
 
 With the words she cast an imploring look at her 
 old lover; and the two were moving toward the 
 open window, when Van Dorn put himself in their 
 way. 
 
 " Why doesn't Mrs. Llewellyn stay here ? " he 
 demanded in a low, uneven voice — a voice thick 
 with passion. 
 
 " Celia, I know you want her to remain." 
 
 He addressed his wife in an almost menacing 
 tone, which made this rather an assertion than an 
 appeal. His reddened eyes flashed upon her. Mrs. 
 Van Dorn took her old friend's hand. 
 
 " Julia, you know you are welcome. Stay, if you 
 think it would be better," she said. Then, bending 
 closer, and speaking in a lowered tone, " Do you 
 know where your son is? I saw him this evening." 
 
 The words were not so low but they reached Van 
 Dorn's ears. He started ; and now he turned a look 
 that was almost terror upon his wife. 
 
 " You were mistaken," he said, roughly. " You 
 know how near-sighted you are — how dare you 
 assert that you would recognize the boy at — at 
 that distance ? " 
 
 The circle of listening faces about Van Dorn 
 would have been a study for a painter; Julia's full 
 
CHILDREN OF THE TIDES 335 
 
 of distress and apprehension ; Jane's — in entire 
 though uncomprehending sympathy with Tulley — 
 expressing anger and distrust; the colonel leaning 
 forward with a puzzled smile; Mrs. Van Dorn pale 
 and desperate looking, past resenting the affront 
 of her husband's words. 
 
 " At what distance ? " Strong's clear, even tones 
 cut across their strained anticipation. 
 
 " Why — I — I thought she mentioned seeing 
 him from — the road," stammered Van Dorn, curs- 
 ing his folly and his quick temper for the luckless 
 speech. 
 
 " Where did you see Mrs. Llewellyn's son ? " 
 Strong now asked Celia. He felt sure that wherever 
 the boy was, there lay his danger. 
 
 " At the office of the Gloriana," replied Mrs. Van 
 Dorn, in a very low voice. 
 
 She did not know what shameful secret she might 
 be betraying. She had not intended to tell of this 
 before them all. She reminded herself that Van 
 Dorn was the father of her children, that his name 
 was theirs ; and she added no details. 
 
 " What was he doing ? When did you see him ? " 
 demanded her husband, in a strained half-whisper. 
 
 On her answer to this he felt depended his conduct 
 that night. Van Dorn's wife looked full into his 
 eyes and answered, slowly : 
 
336 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " I saw him going into the office." 
 
 Tulley heaved a sigh of relief. After all, the boy 
 no doubt lay there safely yet. There were hours 
 between him and whatever exposure must come. As 
 for what Celia thought, or why she did not betray 
 the fact that she had seen her husband with young 
 Llewellyn, that husband gave no consideration to 
 it. She was become a very small factor in his 
 calculations. 
 
 " That looks black enough," said Colonel Har- 
 bury. " Young Llewellyn is prominent in the 
 Union. Has he been a strike leader ? " 
 
 He spoke with cold insulting disregard for the 
 boy's mother, who listened to him. 
 
 " No," said Van Dorn. " This strike was 
 brought on by my known intention to put Bob in 
 as a boss. He hasn't affiliated with the strikers, 
 though he went out with the rest of the men. I 
 advised him to, if he wanted to retain his position 
 in the Union." 
 
 The last was said with a sort of bravado, as he 
 glanced about upon his listeners. 
 
 " Why don't we do something ? " cried Jane, 
 impatiently. " We stand here talking ; and if the 
 woman's story has anything in it, this work is going 
 forward. Why don't we do something ? " 
 
 " Well said," agreed Strong, almost cheerfully, 
 
CHILDREN OF THE TIDES 337 
 
 with a swift, unreadable glance from Jane's flushed, 
 handsome, shallow countenance to Julia's pale, dis- 
 traught face with its eloquent eyes. He had made 
 an unostentatious request for his hat, which was now 
 put in his hand by a servant. " I'm off, Mrs. Van 
 Dorn. Don't worry about me," he said, kindly. 
 " I've come through some very tight places, you 
 know." 
 
 As Tulley Van Dorn looked at Julia, waiting 
 there to go forth into that night's unknown terrors 
 and dangers with Mark Strong — the man she had 
 come there despite all difficulties to warn and save, 
 "If you're going, I'll go with you," he cried, sharply, 
 on the impulse of the moment. And when Julia 
 stepped from the window, she was followed by the 
 two men. Outside, the three halted in the cool dark. 
 Surely no stranger trio ever took the road together ! 
 Yet, in some degree there was a common danger, 
 and it led to a consultation over their next move. 
 
 "We'd better walk down the hill and get the 
 trolley," said Van Dorn. " You're safer in Iroquois 
 now than you could be anywhere about here. If you 
 take my advice, you'll go to the station as quick as 
 you can, and take a train for Chicago." 
 
 " Run ? " inquired Strong, incredulously. He 
 said but the one word ; yet Van Dorn dropped that 
 line of argument. 
 
338 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " Well, we'd better be moving. Take my hand, 
 Mrs. Llewellyn. Give your other to Strong. Now, 
 let's go down the hill as quietly as we can, and wait 
 for the car." 
 
 Half-way down they were overtaken by a roar- 
 ing avalanche of song and profanity, punctuated by 
 pistol-shots; a wagon load of drunken miners, re- 
 turning from the Fourth of July picnic. They 
 were just now indulging in the humourous pastime 
 of shooting at the ears of the mules, as they showed 
 up against the far lights of the town. Their marks- 
 manship was such that the mules were in no imme- 
 diate danger ; but the three by the roadside shrank 
 back into the bushes, and Strong, who knew of old 
 what revelations the flash of a pistol might make, 
 caught Julia and drew her after him down into the 
 shallow, dry ditch, where they were entirely secure 
 from observation. Van Dorn's crouching figure 
 was seen by the revellers and made the subject for 
 much jest. And as the wagon load of whooping, 
 reckless, drunken men rolled on past, the three stood 
 once more in the roadway. 
 
 " Julia," whispered Strong, quietly, " let us take 
 you back to Mrs. Van Dorn's. You'll be safe there. 
 The men have no idea of attacking Mr. Stanley's 
 home." 
 
 Strong used the name of Van Dorn's father-in- 
 
CHILDREN OF THE TIDES 339 
 
 law, and the latter winced. He well knew that no 
 home would be spared because it was his. 
 
 " No, no," protested Julia, feverishly. " Let's 
 get to the trolley. I can't go back. I don't know 
 where Rob is. Nobody will hurt me." 
 
 This assertion was so reasonable, that they held 
 their way until they stood beside the track. It was 
 well that they heeded Strong's warning, and did not 
 put themselves out in the light; for the first car 
 that whirled past, with clanging gong and the blind- 
 ing flash of lights, had been taken possession of by a 
 crowd who made the party in the wagon seem tame 
 and mild by comparison. 
 
 There were no women with these men, and 
 Strong held it to be an indication that Julia's in- 
 formation was correct. They were ready to fight; 
 and like the savage when he goes upon the war-path, 
 they had left the women and children behind. 
 
 Some motorman from one of the mines was in 
 charge of the motor, with the rightful incumbent 
 tied and protesting, half in anger, half-laughing. 
 The conductor had been dropped off, because no- 
 body wanted to pay fare, and no more passengers 
 were desired. And, indeed, the car was full enough. 
 Howling, singing, shrieking, they sped past the 
 watchers by the roadway, and Van Dorn com- 
 mented : 
 
34Q THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " Well, this is getting to be serious." 
 
 " There's no use talking about the trolley," was 
 Strong's conclusion. " I doubt if we could find a 
 safe car to-night, or if we would be safe on a 
 lighted car, anyhow." 
 
 " I am going back and get my auto," suddenly 
 declared Van Dorn. 
 
 " And be picked off as you go along. Everybody 
 knows that you've got the only auto in the Iroquois 
 district. It would be no trouble for the men who 
 are out gunning for you, to find you," remonstrated 
 Strong. 
 
 " We would be safer afoot than any other way," 
 Julia put in, quietly. 
 
 " We men can walk, but you couldn't," objected 
 Van Dorn. 
 
 And suddenly it came upon the three of them 
 that they all desired to go in different directions. 
 Strong was eager to get back to the Twin Broth- 
 ers. Julia, for all her loyalty to him, was frantic 
 with anxiety concerning Bob, and would have 
 hastened to the ranks of the strikers to find him. As 
 for Van Dorn, it would be natural to suppose that 
 he desired to go to the Gloriana — but he showed no 
 anxiety about his mine. 
 
 " Julia," said Strong, as these things became 
 plain, " shall I take you to the Twin Brothers with 
 
CHILDREN OF THE TIDES 341 
 
 me? I'm willing to strike through the woods here 
 for the edge of my own land, and I think it is not 
 more than two miles." 
 
 " No, no," shuddered the woman. " Mr. Van 
 Dorn is right; you would be better off in Iroquois. 
 Let us go there." 
 
 Strong acquiesced silently. 
 
 " I have a quick little motor-boat down here in 
 the boat-house," announced Van Dorn. " Let's take 
 that." 
 
 The idea seemed a good one, and the three set 
 off through the edge of the grove to where the 
 lesser river wound down to join the Father of 
 Waters. The owner of the Gloriana opened the 
 small boat-house with his key, turned on the lights, 
 and inspected his boat. Nobody had tampered with 
 it. Probably nobody had thought of it. Soon the 
 three were afloat in the dark, with the motor making 
 no noise, since they were drifting down with the 
 current. 
 
 " This is the very thing," whispered Van Dorn, 
 excitedly. " Are you comfortable there, Mrs. 
 Llewellyn? Nobody will think of this, and we'll 
 be in Iroquois before a lick can be struck." 
 
 Julia knelt and clutched the boat's edge with 
 nervous fingers, her strained eyes searching the dark 
 toward Iroquois. 
 
342 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 As they neared the town, it became evident that 
 the disorder there was unusual, even for a Fourth of 
 July celebration. Indeed, no rockets were going up ; 
 but a continual flare of light, hoarse voices, and the 
 remittent clanging of a bell, showed where a house 
 was burning. Again and again came a round of 
 small explosions. 
 
 " Are those guns, or only giant crackers? " asked 
 Julia, anxiously. 
 
 Then, upon a sudden gust of the breeze, was 
 borne to them a fiercer yell than they had yet heard. 
 They strained their senses to listen, and finally 
 realized that it fell in rhythmical beat upon the ear. 
 A company of men had evidently joined their voices 
 to roar out something which resembled a college yell. 
 In intense listening silence those in the boat drifted 
 nearer. Gradually the heavy bass chorus disen- 
 tangled itself from the other noises of that night. 
 
 " Strong ! Strong ! 
 He won't last long ! 
 Whoopee ! Whoopee ! Whoopee ! " 
 
 boomed the shout across the black, still water. 
 The little man in gray chuckled grimly : 
 
 " He may last long enough to see you get the 
 licking that's laid up for you." 
 
 They swung in almost abreast of the main street, 
 
CHILDREN OF THE TIDES 343 
 
 which ran down to the landing, the point at which 
 the lesser river widened to the great one. 
 
 " You'd better not try to land there, Strong," 
 cautioned Van Dorn. " Let's slip off here in the 
 dark, and skirt the crowd. God knows what those 
 dirty beggars up there would do to you." 
 
 Julia's eyes were fixed on the quiet face of her 
 old lover. In all the terror of the moment, he was 
 something certain and stable to hold to. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " she asked. 
 
 " I shouldn't be much afraid to try it," Strong 
 said, with knitted brows. " It isn't very dangerous 
 to face a crowd — in the light, that way. You're 
 generally safer than you would be trying to dodge 
 'em in the dark. If we didn't have Mrs. Llewellyn 
 with us, I'd go straight up. I think we could make 
 it. They'd be taken by surprise to see us walk in 
 among them." 
 
 " They can be surprised when they see me try a 
 thing of the sort," said Van Dorn, shaking his head. 
 " Nobody ever called me a coward, but half of those 
 fellows are too drunk to know what they're about." 
 
 " We must think of some other way, then," said 
 Strong, reasonably. But it was not to be left for 
 their deciding. The great curtain was already going 
 up; the whistle of Fate had sounded its cue to the 
 main actors in this drama; these three, who had 
 
344 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 their appointed parts to play, could not choose 
 when or in what wise they would come on the stage, 
 nor elect whether or not they would come at all. 
 
 " Shall I use the motor to hold the boat where she 
 is?" whispered Van Dorn; for the current was 
 bearing them down. 
 
 He leaned forward and grasped Strong's arm. 
 " Shall I ? We'll be into the light in a minute, if 
 we don't do something," he urged. 
 
 But the keen hearing of the little man in gray had 
 caught a sound from down-stream. Julia, too, 
 heard it, and, with a vague accession of terror, 
 clung to Mark's other arm. 
 
 " What is it ? " she murmured. " What's com- 
 ing?" 
 
 As they hung so, scarce breathing, straining eye 
 and ear into the darkness, there rounded the bend 
 below Iroquois and swam into their amazed sight in 
 mid-stream, coming grandly up the river, glowing 
 with light from stem to stern, a great launch filled 
 with troops. As they stared amazed, a flare of 
 music burst forth. 
 
 " What's that ? " demanded Strong sharply of 
 Van Dorn. " Are you bringing in militia to- 
 night?" 
 
 Van Dorn had stood up and was leaning forward, 
 staring in dismay at the approaching boat. 
 
CHILDREN OF THE TIDES 345 
 
 " Oh, damn it ! — such fools ! It's a mistake — 
 all a miserable mistake," he groaned. " I had them 
 spoken for if things got too hot to hold us here — 
 but great Heaven! they were only to come when 
 I telephoned for them." 
 
 " Well, they're here now," said Strong, briefly. 
 " They're showing just about their usual amount 
 of sense. Good God ! To think of those men flar- 
 ing up the river with their lights all lit, and their 
 band playing! It beats anything that I ever knew 
 of even militia doing ! " 
 
 Van Dorn's voice had been raised incautiously; 
 now a sound, to one side of them in the darkness, 
 made Strong put out his hand with a warning, 
 "Hush!" 
 
 As the lighted boat turned her nose to the bank in 
 preparation for landing, a big, dark form, coming 
 out of the tributary river where it emptied into the 
 Mississippi, just above Main street, grazed so close 
 to the small motor-boat that Julia cried out in fright. 
 It took its way down in the shadow of the bank. 
 Perhaps it was a barge. Perhaps it was a lumber 
 raft which had torn loose from its moorings above. 
 
 On the landing they could see the procession 
 deploying into the open space. The men came in 
 some order, and to the heavy, united tramp of feet, 
 they timed the words, 
 
346 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 "Strong! Strong! 
 He won't last long ! " 
 
 This with hootings, unformulated cries, and 
 shouts of — 
 
 " The Union ! The Union ! " 
 
 " Hurrah for labour ! " 
 
 " Down with monopolies ! " and the like, sounded 
 along the line. 
 
 Transparencies were carried aloft displaying 
 " Liberty or death ! " " Down with the trusts ! " 
 " Patterson ! " and similar inscriptions. The militia 
 were making ready to land. 
 
 " They ought not to walk right into that parade," 
 muttered Strong. " It looks as though they were 
 hunting trouble." 
 
 If they were hunting trouble, they found it — and 
 that right speedily. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SUCKED DOWN 
 
 Suddenly, like a transformation scene at a 
 theatre, almost like the bursting forth of a pyrotech- 
 nic display, the thing which had looked like a barge 
 — a raft — a pile of driftwood — lighted up from 
 end to end. It was a launch almost as big as that 
 one which had carried the troops. 
 
 A single man steered it, about its edges lay large 
 tarpaulins, and people held their breath to see the 
 strange craft come on, without a sound or movement 
 of life on board. 
 
 Something shining under the edge of one of the 
 tarpaulins caught Julia's eye. " Look ! " she whis- 
 pered to Strong, and pointed to that gleam of 
 metallic reflection. 
 
 The little man in gray nodded. 
 
 " Armed men," he said. " They're slipping up 
 on these fools of militia — no wonder ! To think 
 of their exposing themselves like that, and a brass 
 band going! " 
 
 347 
 
348 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 The words were scarcely out of his mouth when 
 the big, apparently empty boat swung broadside 
 against the militia launch. 
 
 "Hi! Hi! Hi!" shouted the captain of the 
 troop boat. " Look out, there ! Get out of the 
 way ! " 
 
 But getting out of the way was the last thing the 
 solitary steersman of the empty boat intended. As 
 the sides of the boats came together, the tarpaulins 
 were thrown back, and with a whoop the men who 
 had lain concealed under them rose to their feet, 
 guns in hand. Owen Llewellyn's tall form tow- 
 ered prominent among them. 
 
 " Take your dough-boys out of here ! " he 
 shouted; he apparently led the attacking party. 
 " They can't land here. They're not wanted at 
 Iroquois." 
 
 " Dough-boys ! Yah — dough-boys ! " 
 
 " Down with 'em ! " 
 
 " Why don't you fire into 'em ? " ran the shouts 
 from the landing above. 
 
 " Don't let your men point their guns this way," 
 Llewellyn's voice went on, with a great oath, as 
 he saw some of the militiamen getting ready to 
 defend themselves. " It'll be the worse for them if 
 they do. We're peaceful men" (they looked it), 
 " but we won't stand everything. There don't any 
 
SUCKED DOWN 349 
 
 militia camp in the hills around Iroquois. We've 
 not broken the law, and we don't propose to be 
 treated with criminals. Take your damned, mur- 
 dering dough-boys back down-stream! " 
 
 Nobody knows who fired that first shot. Nobody 
 ever does know, when all is over. The miners will 
 claim, to the end of time, that the shot came from 
 the State troops. These, on their part, asserted that 
 it struck the side of their boat, and was fired from 
 the landing above. Be that as it may, it was the 
 signal for a short range fusilade. 
 
 The militia were taken unaware, a fatal error 
 in a soldier, and hardly possible to regular troops 
 inured to actual warfare. Three were killed, a dozen 
 more wounded, and six jumped into the water. 
 Those that remained returned the fire with some 
 coolness and better aim than the miners had used. 
 
 As for the strikers, they ran to the edge of their 
 boat, hoping to board the launch, and attack the 
 troops at close quarters — apparently not a man on 
 board either craft had presence of mind enough to 
 think of grappling the two boats to prevent careen- 
 ing. 
 
 " Look out ! " yelled the man at the wheel, as the 
 big shell dipped and heeled over frightfully under 
 the suddenly shifted weight. 
 
 A great, sleek wave of muddy water heaved up 
 
350 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 between the two boats. The aim of even those 
 miners who retained their guns was destroyed ; the 
 militia were still firing at them; and their friends 
 from the landing above, who had concluded it was 
 time to come to their assistance, rendered their 
 peril still greater, since the two craft were so close 
 together, and so unsteady, that a shot aimed at one 
 was quite liable to hit the other. As the boat 
 careened, the men drew back with a concerted out- 
 cry; yet, though a voice yelled "Trim her!" no 
 one actually moved from the inner side, but all 
 crouched there, seemingly paralyzed. 
 
 Every movable article on board slid to the lower 
 side. Two men went overboard, and sank between 
 the boats. A pandemonium of cries, groans, and 
 screamed advice, commands and entreaties, burst 
 forth and raged. The big shell trembled a moment, 
 half on its side; the water rushed in; it dropped 
 lower, and, while the yells, shrieks, curses, and 
 groans rose wilder and madder, filled and sank. 
 Then there was an instant of heartsick silence. 
 
 " Now — now ! " said Strong. " If the troops 
 will pick those fellows up — it will break the 
 strike." 
 
 As Strong always did, he had seen straight to the 
 centre of the coil. This was indeed the psycholog- 
 ical moment. The simple movement of humanity 
 
SUCKED DOWN 351 
 
 suggested by him would have proved the key to 
 all the seemingly insoluble problems then forming, 
 and struggled over for terrible months afterward. 
 
 But there was no one on the troop boat who saw 
 as Mark Strong saw. Nothing, it would seem, was 
 further from its captain's thought than such an 
 action as the little man in gray had proposed. He 
 ran his launch coolly past the drowning men, and 
 made fast to the landing. 
 
 And so the old, old seed of hate — hate between 
 the classes — was passed on ; here it was sown again, 
 and 'in fertile ground, which would have received 
 and nourished, as well, the planting for peace. 
 
 A queer, long, shrill, animal-like wail went up 
 from those on shore. Then there was an instant's 
 hush. And then, men cursed the barbarous act aloud. 
 Women screamed and fainted, or begged those about 
 them to go to the aid of father, husband, or brother, 
 drowning before their eyes. Many who could swim 
 leaped in to their comrades who were plainly unable 
 to do so. 
 
 " We must get you ashore, Julia," said Strong. 
 " This boat is a tight fit for three ; and if I had it 
 alone, I could help some of those fellows." 
 
 They ran the small craft in to the landing close 
 beside the larger launch. The shore was a wild 
 mass of confused figures. The drowning miners 
 
352 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 were being helped from the water ; those who could 
 do so were swimming out. 
 
 " Quick ! " whispered Strong, watching the 
 struggling forms in the river, as he stood up in the 
 boat to help Julia ashore. 
 
 As she rose to her feet to obey, she suddenly 
 became aware of her son in the crowd on the land- 
 ing. And at the same instant Bob saw Van Dorn. 
 Hate blazed in his young face, and sounded in the 
 exultant voice with which he shrilled to some one 
 behind him : 
 
 " That's him ! There he is ! Give me my gun ! " 
 
 For one frozen second of time the woman could 
 not move. Then she flung herself upon the breast 
 of her old lover, interposing her body between him 
 and the death which she thought threatened him. 
 
 " No — no ! " she screamed. " No, no, Bob ! 
 Not him — me!" Then came the pistol-shot. Her 
 hold relaxed; her glowing eyes filmed, clouded, 
 and Strong's arms closed about her and supported 
 her. She sank against him, blood flowing down 
 to mingle with the wine stains on her white robe, 
 and to trickle warm over the hands that held her. 
 
 Van Dorn had watched these things — which 
 take so much longer to tell than they did to happen 
 — like a man in a dream. His one thought, when he 
 saw Bob Llewellyn living and vengeful, threatening 
 
SUCKED DOWN 353 
 
 him from the bank, was a desperate anxiety to get to 
 the boy and silence him before those lips could 
 pronounce the ruin which they were prepared to 
 call down upon his late employer. 
 
 Strong eased Julia gently down, keeping his arm 
 beneath her face, and searching swiftly, desperately, 
 with the fingers of his free hand to stanch the 
 bleeding, which seemed to proceed from her right 
 shoulder. He let her sink on to her side — almost 
 on her face — and, having found the spot of 
 the welling blood, pressed his folded handkerchief 
 firmly against it. 
 
 Meantime, Van Dorn caught sight of a familiar 
 face among the troops going across the gangplank. 
 Without a look at the bleeding woman or her 
 ministrant, he stepped over the prostrate form, 
 leaping to the edge of the little boat, rocking it 
 perilously, and sprung upon the launch's gangway, 
 grasping this officer's arm, crying: 
 
 " There. Lieutenant Birkett. There's the man 
 that fired the shot." 
 
 And he pointed to Bob. The boy was frantically 
 fighting his way down to the water's edge to get to 
 his mother. He had seen with agonized eyes, her 
 action, and its consequence. 
 
 " I'll see her ! God ! she's my mother, I tell you ! 
 I don't care if they do take me! I'll go to her! 
 
354 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Leave loose of me! " he cried to those who were 
 restraining him. 
 
 The case was plain. Birkett considered that he 
 did no more than his duty when he seized the strug- 
 gling lad and hurried him away with a squad which 
 was marching toward the road that led into the 
 hills. 
 
 " That's it," muttered Van Dorn, feverishly, in 
 the soldier's ear. " We'll have military law pro- 
 claimed here to-morrow, if the rioting continues, 
 as it's bound to do — as we have word that it's 
 planned to do. The governor has promised me that 
 if things run to a certain height here, he will let 
 you fellows have a chance to straighten us up. 
 You take that young devil out with you, and he'll 
 be in the military prison to-morrow." 
 
 Once ashore, Birkett formed his men; but the 
 spirit was all out of the strikers. Two bodies had 
 been recovered from the river, and the mates of the 
 men were working over them trying to resuscitate 
 them. Women were weeping, wringing their hands, 
 asking wildly for those who had not been found. A 
 douche of cold water is wonderfully cooling to the 
 passions of a mob. 
 
 And Van Dorn was hurrying up into the streets 
 of the town, without a look to cast behind him 
 toward the woman he had sworn he loved so madly, 
 
SUCKED DOWN 355 
 
 and who lay, apparently bleeding to death, back in 
 the little boat, her head upon the knees of her old 
 lover. After all, when it comes to the pinch, a 
 man of Van Dorn's sort fights the hardest for his 
 own skin. 
 
 The streets of Iroquois, aside from the hurry 
 and lament incident to the calamity at the river 
 front, were apparently quiet, when, suddenly, at 
 seven different points upon the hillsides about, shot 
 up a tongue of flame. The head towers of the seven 
 mines were being burned. Well, there was matter 
 enough in the town itself to keep those within its 
 boundaries from hastening to any of the fires. 
 
 Strong addressed the first face that came within 
 the circle of his vision, which had anything but panic 
 fright written upon it. 
 
 " Here, you," he said, gently, but peremptorily. 
 " Is there a doctor about ? " 
 
 " There's one over there where they're rolling 
 Dempsey on a barrel," faltered the owner of the 
 semi intelligent countenance. 
 
 " Bring him here," ordered Strong. 
 
 He sat, almost deserted, in the mad rush toward 
 the spectacle of the rescued or drowning men. 
 
 " I don't know if I'll get him," faltered the other, 
 dubiously. 
 
 " He'll come," said the even, quiet voice. " Tell 
 
356 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 him that Mark Strong says he must come here and 
 look after Mrs. Llewellyn. She has been shot." 
 
 A moment later saw the physician bending over 
 the unconscious form, and examining the wound. 
 
 "How is it, doctor?" Strong asked pleadingly. 
 
 " Well, the right shoulder-blade is pretty badly 
 shattered — I see she was shot from behind," the 
 physician made answer. " I can't tell much about 
 the internal damage. The heart's all right. The 
 ball went high. I rather hope there's no deep injury 
 at all; but the loss of blood is terrible. We must 
 get this bleeding stopped, and then get her moved." 
 
 He had been working while he talked. Strong 
 helped him to tear bandages from the edge of the 
 white robe; he gave no little assistance in putting 
 these bandages in place, and then the stretcher 
 which he had sent for was ready, and she was carried 
 up into the town. 
 
 As Mark followed the stretcher up the bank, 
 somebody came running breathlessly after him to 
 gasp, " Mr. Strong, the head tower of your mine 
 is burning out ! " 
 
 If he heard, he gave no sign of having done so. 
 His eyes were on the motionless form carried before 
 him; his mind was with that other night, when 
 Julia had come to warn him — and the warning 
 had so nearly cost him his life. How ready he had 
 
SUCKED DOWN 357 
 
 been to believe the worst of her. Poor girl ! She 
 had apparently given her own life to-night to prove 
 that she was innocent of any evil intent toward him 
 that other time, as well as to save him now. 
 
 At the head of the street, again one running over- 
 took them. 
 
 " You're needed back there, Doc," the messenger 
 panted, laying importunate hands on the young 
 physician. " We've just hauled a man out of the 
 water that's been shot. He's lost a lot of blood, and 
 you've got to come and look after him. And 
 Dempsey — he's in an awful way. They said fer 
 God's sake to come." 
 
 The young fellow turned a perplexed countenance 
 upon Strong. 
 
 " Will it do to carry her far? " Mark asked. 
 
 " It won't hurt a bit," the physician gave his 
 opinion. " I shouldn't dare try to find that ball 
 to-night. You'll have to get somebody else to attend 
 her, anyhow. Well, I'll go, then ; " and he turned 
 back. 
 
 Strong had seen Bob among the rioters, and, later, 
 dragged away by the militia; he saw Owen Llew- 
 ellyn go down in the muddy water, and he had no 
 knowledge of a rescue. If Julia were left in Iro- 
 qUois, she must face tragic disaster as soon as con- 
 sciousness returned; and who, in all that panic- 
 
358 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 stricken town, full of its own griefs and disasters, 
 would nurse and care for her? 
 
 As if in answer to the query, old Pat Carmody, 
 with a bloody bandage around his head, pushed 
 through the crowd. 
 
 " Julia Llewellyn ? " he cried, looking at the in- 
 jured woman,, as she lay so white and still. " Take 
 her to my shanty, Mr. Strong," he urged. " Kitty 
 will nurse her, if. she's livin' ; and we'll give her a 
 wake that shall be remembered, if she's dead. God 
 bless her for the sweetest woman that iver came 
 trough a man's door whin there was throuble in 
 his house ! " 
 
 He had scarcely completed this invitation, when 
 two or three militiamen swooped down on him and 
 carried him away, still calling back unintelligible 
 offers to the owner of the Twin Brothers. 
 
 Strong had ' a competent surgeon at the mine 
 whom he had brought from Chicago a few weeks 
 before to attend some of his men who were injured 
 about their work. He did not know what scene 
 of violence he might be running into out there, but 
 he was confident of his own power to keep things 
 in order inside the dead-line, and it was his Intention 
 to carry Julia to' his own house — the house which 
 should have been hers — and secure for her the 
 
SUCKED DOWN 359 
 
 peace, quiet, and attention which he saw no chance 
 of getting elsewhere. 
 
 The only ambulance the little town afforded was 
 brought into requisition. The journey was made 
 swiftly and easily, Strong sitting in the vehicle 
 beside the patient, holding her hand. Twice she 
 roused- from the semiconscious condition into which 
 she had fallen ; once to say only, " It's dark in here," 
 and once to whisper, with an evident realization of 
 where she was and who was with her: 
 
 " You know, now, Mark, that I never meant — " 
 
 " Yes, Julia, dear girl," Strong answered. " I 
 know that you never meant to harm me. I know 
 that you thought they were going to attack me in 
 the road that — that night." The anguish of his 
 heart forbade further speech, to even his disciplined, 
 contained nature. 
 
 They carried her through that doorway which she 
 should have entered as a bride, across which her foot 
 had never passed. They bore her up the broad stair- 
 way, and laid her on the bed, which poor, stumbling 
 Demas had made ready. 
 
 "Where's the Captain?" asked Strong, as soon 
 as he entered the house. 
 
 " He's over at the mine. The strikers set the head 
 lower on fire, and if we hadn't had a good fire 
 brigade we'd have lost the new washer," said Demas, 
 
360 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 importantly. " Tell you, Mr. Strong, them niggers 
 jist worked like men." 
 
 Strong's doctor had been summoned by a mes- 
 senger who ran ahead of the ambulance, and he 
 arrived at the house almost as soon as his patient. 
 
 For half an hour the upper floor was given over 
 to the wizardry of modern surgery, with its scientific 
 paraphernalia of sterilized instruments, aseptic dress- 
 ing, and inexorable calm. Emotion was not merely 
 at a discount; it was strictly prohibited. After a 
 rebandaging, which was an endorsement of the 
 younger man's decision not to search for the ball 
 that night, the physician came to Strong with his 
 cheerful professional manner, saying: 
 
 " I'll need one good nurse here, if not two. Maybe 
 some of those negro women would do, at a pinch." 
 
 Strong shook his head. " I'll telephone to 
 Chicago," he said, briefly; "but, meantime, I think 
 maybe I could help you. I'm a good nurse." 
 
 The doctor looked in some wonder at this hard- 
 headed man of business, who proposed to shut him- 
 self in a sickroom, to nurse an injured woman, 
 while the town was in a state of riot, and his property 
 was being burned. 
 
 " Well," he said, finally, " I can send Mrs. Atchley 
 over from the boarding-house. She would stay until 
 morning, and maybe part of to-morrow." 
 
SUCKED DOWN 361 
 
 " Yes," assented Strang, absently. " Will you 
 telephone for exactly what you want in the way of 
 a nurse ? " 
 
 He followed the doctor into the library where the 
 telephone was. 
 
 " Don't spare anything, doctor," he said. " Act 
 just as though I were the patient in question." 
 
 And then he turned again to the room where 
 Julia lay, white, with closed eyes, upon her bed. 
 
 The telephone brought Mrs. Atchley, a big, 
 motherly woman, with an aptitude for nursing, and 
 much experience. Strong's clerical force were 
 white men, of course; and some of the twenty-five 
 or thirty non-Union miners who, attracted by the 
 better work afforded in the Twin Brothers, had stuck 
 by him, were single men. Such of these as needed 
 a boarding-place made their home with Mrs. Atch- 
 ley; she had kept a boarding-house at the Twin 
 Brothers mine since Mark Strong had been its 
 superintendent and general manager. She bustled 
 about the house now, going to Mrs. Graves's room 
 and seeking proper wear for the wounded woman; 
 opening the sewing-machine and setting it a-whir 
 to contrive from soft, fine, old linen sheets, a gar- 
 ment which could be slipped upon her without mov- 
 ing her arm or shoulder. When all was done, she 
 came down-stairs to Mark to report : 
 
362 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " She's just as comfortable as I can make her. 
 If the doctor didn't talk so solemn about that ball, 
 and the ' developments ' there may be when he goes 
 to try to get it out, I shouldn't be a mite uneasy 
 about her. But, Mr. Strong, I've got to go back 
 home to-night. I've got a right sick child. You'll 
 know that I'm at the end of the telephone ; if you 
 want me for anything, just you call me. I'll be over 
 here about sun-up — and that isn't more than an 
 hour and a half, now," she finished. 
 
 Mark saw her go, and went back to sit by the side 
 of his one-time love. There she lay, the girl he had 
 thought to make his wife, the woman he had not 
 cared to seek when, later, he. might have done so. 
 Those mobile lips, so prone to smiles and speech, 
 were closed now; yet they plead eloquently with 
 Mark Strong. Poor Julia, she had had a hard time. 
 It had been easy for him to say, " Let the error lie. 
 Things are better as they are." He had succeeded. 
 He spoke from the hills of victory. But poor Julia, 
 in the valley of humiliation and defeat, had it been 
 equally easy for her to be passed over? 
 
 He had left it for people to say that Mark Strong 
 had outgrown his early love for Julia Copeland. 
 He had been ready to believe her in the wrong when 
 appearances were against her, and it seemed that 
 she had assisted in an attempt upon his life. Look- 
 
SUCKED DOWN 363 
 
 ing at her face, lying there on the pillow, it seemed 
 the maddest of fancies that he ever could have be- 
 lieved such a thing of her. 
 
 If she got well — suddenly that " if " seemed to 
 spread and fill his whole world with its chill doubt. 
 With this thought weighing upon his heart, he 
 could not bear to be so far from her. He went and 
 knelt by the bed, and took her passive hand in his. 
 It was at once a keen pain, and the only comfort left 
 him, to gaze thus upon her. 
 
 And so he remained until the dawn, stealing in, 
 began to pale the artificial lights. Then her clear 
 eyes suddenly unclosed and regarded him. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 MARK S WAY 
 
 " Dear," Strong's quiet voice faltered, " can you 
 hear me? Do you understand when I speak to 
 you?" 
 
 She turned her head upon the pillow, with a 
 lovely smile, which was his best answer. Yet it was 
 an answer that brought tears to> his eyes. Those 
 brown orbs — lamps of love, he had once called 
 them — seemed to say to him : 
 
 " I should hear you if I were even nearer the 
 other world than I am." 
 
 " Julia, love, you are in your own house — in 
 your home. You are with me, who love you. We'll 
 fight death off, together; won't we, dear girl? " 
 
 There was no power of utterance ; but the full lips 
 shaped themselves to " yes." 
 
 " You'll live, for me, because I haven't done what 
 was right by you — "a sob rent his speech in twain. 
 " You should have been my wife years ago — but 
 we'll make it right now, won't we? " 
 
 364 
 
"MARK'S WAT" 365 
 
 Again her eyes lightened upon him, and her lips 
 seemed as though they would have uttered assent. 
 
 " Do you understand, dear girl, that I am asking 
 you to be married now — here — to-day ? " 
 
 Something like a smile flitted over her face. She 
 whispered, unintelligibly, as he bent close to catch 
 the words : 
 
 " My ... so like . . . Mark. . . ." 
 
 Yet it pierced his heart to see the tender satisfac- 
 tion in her eyes ; to find that, facing death as she 
 was, there was room for a little pride that she was to 
 be made Mark Strong's wife before she went. 
 
 In all his assured, self-sufficient life, he had re- 
 ceived no such lesson. He took it quietly; though 
 his soul rocked and quivered and ached with it, it 
 was not in him to make loud demonstration of his 
 feelings. He told those about him that he and Mrs. 
 Llewellyn were to have been married, and that the 
 wedding would be hastened so that he might have the 
 privilege of nursing her. That was the only ex- 
 planation offered for this strange bridal. And he 
 went to the 'phone and added some orders for things 
 which he desired to have the nurse bring with her 
 from Chicago. 
 
 When her lover asked her this question in the 
 dawn, there was still vitality enough that Julia could 
 smile upon him and look her answer. But as the 
 
366 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 day wore on — Mark watching always for sign of 
 a rally from the shock, some revival of strength — 
 she sank more and more into a state that was little 
 better than coma, a condition which all about her 
 save Strong believed to be but the presage of death. 
 
 It was here as it had been in the more material 
 crises of his life; none believed with him, none 
 supported him in his belief; he was left to bear 
 alone the burden of his own griefs, and the added 
 burden of their doubts and fears. 
 
 And the indomitable soul in this slender, under- 
 sized body took up these burdens as it had those 
 others, and carried them unfalteringly, almost cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 The nurse from Chicago did not arrive until the 
 late dusk was closing in ; she had delayed an hour 
 or so to make the desired purchases in the city. 
 When she came it had been decided to hold the 
 ceremony at once; by Mark, because he saw there 
 was no hope of a more favourable time; by the 
 doctor and the others, in the fear that, if it were not 
 hastened, Strong would be cheated of even this poor 
 solace. Demas had been sent to fetch Julia's 
 pastor. 
 
 " Shall you probe for the ball before or after?" 
 Miss Hepburn had asked when she first arrived. 
 
 The doctor answered not at all in words; he 
 
"MARK'S WAY" 367 
 
 shook his head almost imperceptibly, and led her 
 glance with his own to where that death-like face 
 lay on the pillow.- 
 
 While Mark and the doctor waited outside for 
 Demas to return with young Edwards, the two 
 women, making poor Julia and her room ready for 
 the strange ceremony, murmured together in 
 lowered voices. 
 
 " I talked to Mr. Strong myself over the 
 wire," said Miss Hepburn, the nurse, as she and 
 Mrs. Atchley laid out her purchases. " I should 
 have known him anywhere, by his voice — it's so 
 peculiarly earnest. He told me they were to be mar- 
 ried, and asked me to bring something for her to 
 wear. He said he wanted everything very fine, yet 
 it would have to be suited for a sick-bed. But I got 
 the idea she was much less seriously hurt than 
 she is." 
 
 " She'll never get well in the world," murmured 
 Mrs. Atchley. " We'll just about dress her in some 
 of these beautiful things for her coffin — poor girl ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid so," Miss Hepburn rejoined, with 
 unprofessional tears in her eyes. " He doesn't seem 
 to see it, but I'm afraid he's only marrying a heart- 
 ache." 
 
 " He sees it," corrected Mrs. Atchley, solemnly ; 
 " Mark Strong sees anything there is to see. He 
 
368 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 just refuses to accept this. He's all his life made 
 things come round as he wanted them ; and now he 
 believes, poor soul, that he can keep Julia from 
 dying, if he's only determined enough to do so." 
 
 Julia's splendid body had been drained of blood 
 till, as she lay with closed eyes, she looked not a 
 dying woman, but one already dead. When the 
 women had slipped the pale hands through the 
 sleeves, and settled the delicate tracery of lace about 
 her throat, she was, indeed, beautiful, but with a 
 beauty not of this world. Her long hair lay across 
 her pillow as Mrs. Atchley had braided it in two 
 great braids, for that wrestle with death which she 
 had realized was before her. 
 
 Mark entered with the young preacher; behind 
 them came the doctor, and Demas with Captain Mc- 
 Clintock. The earnest young fellow whom Celia 
 Van Dorn had thought too much of a boy to be con- 
 sulted in serious matters bore himself like a chaplain 
 in time of war. He had come from scenes calcu- 
 lated to try his fibre, and he had not failed. Some 
 of his parishioners were dead, some dying; some 
 stood accused of murders ; and many more of mur- 
 derous and vindictive acts. Julia Llewellyn's strange 
 marriage, in its tragic setting, came as the finish to 
 the wild experiences which had been crowded upon 
 him in the past two days. 
 
"MARK'S WAT" 369 
 
 With a quick, sympathetic look at the faces about 
 him, a glance at the arrangement of the bed, he 
 moved silently round behind it, sat down upon its 
 farther edge, and, opening his book at the marriage 
 service, leaned over toward the white figure upon the 
 pillows. 
 
 Strong knelt beside her, his face almost on a level 
 with hers. He lifted her waxen hand and held it 
 clasped in his, 
 
 " I think we are ready now, Mr. Edwards," he 
 said, in a firm, quiet voice. 
 
 Stooping his lips almost to the transparent ear, 
 the young clergyman began the service. In a remote 
 corner Mrs. Atchley and Miss Hepburn were drawn 
 together, tearful, holding each other's hands. 
 Near the doorway, with the doctor, were the Captain 
 and Demas, with pale faces, and the look of people 
 under a painful stress of feeling, which they sought 
 vainly to escape. 
 
 Young Edwards proceeded with the few simple 
 questions to which he had reduced the stately mar- 
 riage ceremony. Mark answered in a low voice, but 
 one which lacked nothing of firmness. 
 
 When the first demand was made of the stark 
 figure between the priest and bridegroom, intense 
 silence followed it; Miss Hepburn's professional 
 calm deserted her unexpectedly, and a little stifled 
 
37Q THE GRAPPLE 
 
 sob sounded upon the stillness. That which shook 
 them all with a fear that was almost horror was the 
 thought that the question might have been put to a 
 woman already dead. 
 
 Then — as though in answer to the look her lover 
 bent upon her, those eyelids fluttered weakly up, the 
 clear eyes turned slowly upon him. He glanced at 
 the preacher with an almost imperceptible nod, and 
 Edwards replied with a slight affirmative movement. 
 Poor Julia's response was held sufficient. 
 
 It was at the conclusion of this strange and piteous 
 ceremony, when poor Julia had made her last re- 
 sponse, seemingly calling her fluttering spirit back 
 from the borders of the Infinite to answer Mark 
 Strong's entreaty — it was when the preacher's 
 low, grave voice had pronounced the marriage itself, 
 and the benediction thereon, that these eyes opened, 
 for once, of themselves, and widely. She even 
 moved her head a little from side to side, looking 
 intently and questioningly first upon her lover, then 
 upon the clergyman bending over her, book in hand. 
 A strange light dawned over her face, something 
 more beautiful than a smile; and Strong felt the 
 cool, almost transparent hand that lay in his tremble 
 a little, and the fingers strive to close themselves 
 about his fingers. 
 
 His own eyes were lifted to young Edwards's, in 
 
"MARK'S WAT" 371 
 
 a look of quick entreaty, that was instantly compre- 
 hended. He motioned backward with his free hand 
 to those in the room ; and they withdrew instantly 
 and noiselessly, at the same time that the young 
 preacher rose and joined them. And Mark Strong's 
 head dropped upon the pillow beside Julia's. 
 
 There was no soul of those about them who be- 
 lieved for a moment that Julia would live. Even 
 the doctor, in his secret heart, deemed it impossible 
 that her exhaustion should ever be able to endure 
 the removal of the bullet, the rebuilding of mangled, 
 destroyed tissues. She had bled so terribly. Her 
 splendid, vigorous frame was despoiled of its ruddy 
 tide of life; all strength and vitality were out of 
 her. She seemed only not to take the last little step, 
 only not to cease utterly to breathe; her heart yet 
 beat faintly — and that was about all. 
 
 Even Strong admitted to himself that the struggle 
 before them was to the uttermost ; and he went to it 
 in his own characteristic fashion. 
 
 Mark Strong had ruled his world not with loud 
 noise, but through a still, compelling spirit which 
 fashioned conditions unfalteringly to his will, and 
 drew or drove men where he would. Now, with 
 Julia, his wife, lying before him almost as one 
 already dead, those material issues with which he 
 
372 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 had concerned himself, became as nothing to him. 
 Now Mark's angel was bidden in from all those 
 activities that had engrossed the man for so many 
 years. They were dropped from his hands as un- 
 considered toys, erased with one sweep from the 
 tablets of his mind. This spirit, so strong to pur- 
 suade and to command, abode all day and all night 
 at Julia's pillow. Its unseen presence was that which 
 held back her own soul, fluttering its doubtful wings 
 for flight. Its hands clung fast to her trembling 
 hands. Its powerful arms were under her sinking 
 spirit. 
 
 Her life would seem to be utterly defeated. 
 Surely there was not enough left in the fountain 
 to repel the inroads of the dusty desert ; not enough 
 oil in the lamp to keep the little flickering flame from 
 expiring, and the great dark from engulfing all. 
 But when her weary, conquered spirit would have 
 whispered, " Death — defeat," the strong angel cried 
 to her instead, " Life — victory." 
 
 In the weeks that followed, the Captain was left 
 to hold up Tawney's hands as best he could, in the 
 administration of the Twin Brothers. 
 
 " Just do what you can, Captain," Strong said to 
 him, with a little kindly smile. " I shall never make 
 any reflections — not even any comments. You, 
 
"MARK'S WAY" 373 
 
 and Tawney, and Suter, and the others, are to go 
 ahead and do as best you can. Don't tell me any- 
 thing about it — this will be the last words we have 
 on the subject — till — till Julia's out of danger." 
 (He never admitted the other possibility.) " I don't 
 want to think — or even to know — anything about 
 it all. I'm willing to trust you fellows." 
 
 He scarcely left her bedside; his world came to 
 be bounded by the four walls of that room ; all the 
 affairs of life were petty and of no account beside 
 the question of Julia's temperature, the matter 
 of her broth or her beef tea, the wonderful, wonder- 
 ful occurrence when she looked at him, knew him, 
 and smiled ! 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 TULLEY VAN DORN SETS FORTH 
 
 When the news of Mark Strong's marriage to 
 Julia reached Van Dorn it rendered him desperate. 
 The only ray of hope for him lay in the fact that 
 she was reported to hang between life and death, 
 with the chances against her recovery. 
 
 The insurance companies investigated his case. 
 Their objections to paying his insurance policies 
 were couched in perfectly parliamentary language, 
 but they were none the less humiliating to a man of 
 Van Dorn's temper. 
 
 " We will not go into the matter of your ultimate 
 intentions in all this new building, Mr. Van Dorn," 
 the lawyer had said to him, smoothly. " It may be 
 that you intended to complete these various struc- 
 tures on the inside, to install machinery and make 
 improvements which would have rendered your poli- 
 cies no more than sufficient — that's what we'll say. 
 But the fact remains that these structures were, as 
 yet, merely shells." 
 
 374 
 
VAN DORN SETS FORTH 375 
 
 " The fact," echoed Van Dorn. 
 
 " A fact which the company will have no trouble 
 in proving," pursued the lawyer, civilly. " Now 
 you don't want this matter investigated in the courts. 
 I think you don't. I should not, were I in your 
 position. The company seeks nothing but its 
 rights. The company is willing to go into court — 
 if you are." 
 
 " The company be d d !" said poor, tormented 
 
 Van Dorn. Indeed, he was a very unskilled crimi- 
 nal ; and he accepted the moiety of his policies which 
 they adjudged to him. 
 
 It was not the money loss alone in this case; it 
 was the sense of defeat, the feeling that this was the 
 opening gun of a fight in which he was to lose all. 
 This, growing strong upon him, led down through 
 steps of desperation, to that night when he heard, 
 a week after the event, that Julia was married to 
 Mark Strong. 
 
 During the ensuing weeks he hearkened with 
 tremulous eagerness to the reports of the sick 
 woman's condition. It is a sorry commentary on 
 that emotion which men of the Van Dorn stamp 
 call love, that his heart sank, and sank, as the bulle- 
 tins were more favourable, and that when word came 
 finally that she was probably out of danger, it found 
 him desperate. 
 
376 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Bob Llewellyn, released from prison, taken to 
 Mark Strong, and peace made between the two men 
 — Van Dorn never doubted for a moment that Julia 
 would reconcile them ; this was the grisly phantom 
 which fronted him. He was no longer planning to 
 leave Iroquois. The edifice of his plans had crum- 
 bled in many directions; the remainder of Celia's 
 fine property was more desirable, more necessary 
 to her husband now than the entire estate had ever 
 seemed to him before. He must stay, he must grasp 
 what shreds of respectability remained, and draw 
 them about him. He began to pay an awkward, 
 reluctant, grudging court to his wife's opinion. She 
 could do much for him, if she would but endorse 
 him fully. 
 
 Little by little the plan took shape in his mind 
 to get Bob secretly from the Bull Pen, and smuggle 
 him down the river to New Orleans ; there he could 
 be shanghaied on some tramp steamer and carried 
 to the uttermost parts of the earth. It would be 
 charitable to believe that his design, in its inception, 
 was no worse than this. 
 
 He had arranged with Colonel Harbury, from the 
 first, that Bob should be kept in ignorance of the 
 fact that his mother was not killed instantly by the 
 shot which struck her down. Now he made his bar- 
 gain with the river captain, told Harbury that he 
 
FAN DORN SETS FORTH 377 
 
 would be responsible for young Llewellyn, and that 
 there was certain information he could get from 
 Bob, if he were allowed to take him from the stock- 
 ade. Things military were done, God wot, in most 
 unmilitary fashion in the Iroquois district, those 
 days. 
 
 Bob Llewellyn was brought to Van Dorn in the 
 colonel's tent. A thin, changed, indefinably im- 
 proved Bob this was. 
 
 " They say I'm to go with you, Mr. Van Dorn," 
 the boy said, keeping a dark gaze upon his former 
 employer. 
 
 " Yes, Bob, you are to lead me to a certain place 
 — you know ? " 
 
 This last with a meaning glance which intimated 
 that it was said for the benefit of the guard who 
 still waited. 
 
 " I'll be glad to get anywhere, out of this old 
 Pen," Bob said, quietly; and with a nod to the 
 guard, Van Dorn set off with his prisoner. 
 
 " What about mother ? " the boy asked, as soon as 
 they were out of ear-shot. 
 
 " You know she's dead," Van Dorn flung over 
 his shoulder. Bob was walking behind him. 
 
 " I know that I've been told she was dead every 
 day for more than six weeks," young Llewellyn 
 returned, doggedly. " I've been told that, and I've 
 
378 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 been told that I killed her. Neither one of them is 
 true." 
 
 Van Dorn turned, came back, and grasped the 
 boy's arm. 
 
 " See here, Bob, you are going to have the truth 
 from me to-night. Your shot didn't kill your mother 
 right at the time, as you've been informed it did. 
 Colonel Harbury suggested that we tell you that, 
 to see if we couldn't get you to give some of the 
 strikers away who were accessory to that explosion 
 in the Culleoka. I didn't object, because everybody 
 knew she wouldn't get well. She died last night. 
 They'll hang you for it ; and ever since I knew that 
 she was really gone, I have been trying to plan how 
 you could be helped out." 
 
 The boy muttered some inarticulate reply. His 
 very flesh crawled at Van Dorn's touch; and yet, 
 for the present, his safety lay in sticking close to 
 this man. Robert Llewellyn had been developing 
 fast in the past weeks. He had faced death; he 
 had been accused of the murder of his mother ; and 
 had apprehended, while he knew himself innocent, 
 that he might be hung for this murder. He had 
 felt treachery, lies, suspicion, all about him. He, the 
 petted only child of an indulgent woman, had learned 
 at last to rely on no living soul save himself. 
 
 Owen Llewellyn was back there in the stockade — 
 
VAN DORN SETS FORTH 379 
 
 a half-lunatic old man, raving and cursing. The 
 Welshman's discipline had broken, and not trained 
 him. No counsel was to be expected from this 
 source by his nephew. So Bob thought out his own 
 problems ; and the one now before him was — 
 would Van Dorn really care if he were hanged? 
 Wouldn't Van Dorn be glad to have him put out of 
 the way in any fashion ? If Van Dorn said that his 
 mother was dead, was it not likely that she was 
 living ? 
 
 Suddenly the thought came to him that Van Dorn 
 would not trouble to get him out of the way unless 
 Julia had recovered, or was recovering. Bob be- 
 lieved that his mother would know that he had not 
 fired the shot which struck her. He felt sure that the 
 accusation of her death was the only one which 
 could silence him and put him out of Van Dorn's 
 path. Things began to be clear to him. He had 
 been walking with bent head ; now he aroused him- 
 self to hear Van Dorn saying : 
 
 " I've got a little money together for you, and 
 I've paid a safe man to carry you down the river. 
 When you get to New Orleans, there's a sea-captain 
 who will take you on board. You'll have to work 
 your way, but an able young fellow like you ought 
 to do well." 
 
380 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Van Dorn had talked so earnestly that he had 
 half-way convinced himself. 
 
 " We'll get over to the river here, below my 
 house," he went on, " and then we'll float to the 
 landing in my launch." 
 
 Bob looked up at the bright windows of Van 
 Dorn's home, where the lamplight shone through the 
 trees. Should he make a bolt and try to get there ? 
 No, he was a prisoner out on leave. There was a 
 possibility that what Van Dorn said might be true. 
 In any case, he would be retaken and carried back 
 to the stockade. He followed his guard quietly, only 
 seeking some pretext for escape. 
 
 The night was dark with a little drizzle of rain; 
 the air cool, with the approach of autumn; even 
 a few dead leaves rustled under foot, and drops 
 struck upon them with an intermittent patter. 
 
 They reached the boat-house, and Van Dorn drew 
 back for Bob to enter first. He was already inside 
 when he heard a man's voice say : 
 
 " Mr. Van Dorn, I want a word with you." 
 
 Van Dorn closed the door on Bob, and went 
 quickly back, as though the voice were familiar, and 
 he knew who it was that was addressing him, and 
 upon what errand. 
 
 " Well? " he said, impatiently. " I've got an im- 
 
VAN DORN SETS FORTH 381 
 
 portant piece of business on hand. Be quick about 
 whatever you've got to say." 
 
 The two men drew away from the door, which the 
 owner had been careful to close, that their conver- 
 sation might not be overheard. Yet, as their tem- 
 pers waxed, scraps of their speech drifted in to the 
 waiting boy. 
 
 " I told you I wouldn't stand for it," the new- 
 comer said. Van Dorn plainly made some pacific 
 reply, to which the other answered, " No you don't 
 
 — you're fixin' up another dirty piece of business 
 
 — and then you'll want to saddle the blame of it on 
 me. I tell you, Mr. Van Dorn, you've got to walk 
 a chalk-line from this out. I've got my eye on you." 
 
 Rage rendered Van Dorn incautious. 
 
 " I was a fool," he said, " when I trusted you 
 with any knowledge. I might have known you'd 
 blackmail me." 
 
 " 'Tain't blackmailin' to make you behave your- 
 self," growled the other; and Bob recognized Has- 
 kett's voice. 
 
 The boy tried the door softly. Was there a possi- 
 bility that he might slip away while they quarrelled ? 
 It yielded. He was outside, and running swiftly up 
 the bank toward the road, when he heard their loud, 
 angry voices culminating in the sounds of a scuffle. 
 There was a splash — something had been thrown 
 
382 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 into the water. Well, so much the better chance for 
 him to escape, and he ran, head down, and elbows 
 pressed close to his sides, straight up the road in the 
 direction of the sycamore-tree. So running, and 
 resting at intervals, he covered the three miles to the 
 boundary of Strong's land. He passed across the 
 dead-line, and made direct for the Twin Brothers. 
 
 He had last seen his mother in Mark Strong's 
 arms. If she were dead, Mark Strong would tell 
 him the truth. If she were living — it was charac- 
 teristic of the effect Strong had on all those about 
 him that the boy expected no less than justice, and 
 hoped for no mercy from the little man in gray. 
 
 Meanwhile, all was silent back at the landing, 
 where the boat-house door swung open; the little 
 launch bumped at her moorings, and no man came 
 to loosen the chain, nor send her down the river. 
 And yet her owner had set out on a journey ; Tulley 
 Van Dorn was going, as he had often planned to go, 
 down the river, and out toward the ocean. Perhaps 
 he was set for as far a coast as that South American 
 shore of which he had once spoken to the boy run- 
 ning, at this moment, hard up the hill toward Mark 
 Strong's house. 
 
 Be that as it may, he and Haskett had gone to- 
 gether. The inferior criminal had uttered a word 
 too much, pressed his advantage a little too far; 
 
VAN PORN SETS FORTH 383 
 
 and Tulley Van Dorn's wild temper did the rest. 
 There was a blow, a struggle, and the two men 
 rolled, locked in each other's arms, into the river. 
 
 Twisting, fighting, strangling, clutching for each 
 other's throats, they went down, rose again, and 
 again sank. The current carried them into mid- 
 stream, and, hampered each with the grasp of the 
 other, neither could swim. 
 
 It was weeks before a ghastly something was 
 found, a hundred miles down-stream, which made it 
 possible for Tulley Van Dorn's widow to collect his 
 insurance policies. The papers in the pockets told 
 of that mysterious South American fund, which 
 came like manna from heaven, to save the poor, 
 robbed, crippled Gloriana to Celia and her little 
 children. 
 
 Instead of a dreaded presence, a distressing 
 reality, Van Dorn was henceforth to be in their 
 lives a carefully respected memory — a conventional 
 regret. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE ONLY SON 
 
 It is a rare thing, but it does sometimes happen 
 that a man makes a better nurse than any woman 
 can. His strong, trained nerves, used to enduring 
 the strain of business, the stress of danger and 
 anxiety, sustain him here. A man's physical 
 strength is in his favour also; and in Mark's case 
 that resolution of soul that Julia should live and not 
 die, added incalculably to his value. 
 
 As time went on, and the dense shadow over her 
 receded a little, as it came to be that she was awake 
 and asleep like other living people, and not merely 
 a white, motionless, barely breathing shape, he 
 began to plead his case with her, herself. 
 
 If she waked in the night she found him always 
 at her bedside, his eyes upon her eyes, his hands 
 holding hers. As intelligent recognition dawned in 
 her look, he would press her hand softly, and say: 
 
 " You're better, aren't you, Julia? You are much 
 stronger. You are getting well every hour." 
 
 384 
 
THE ONLT SON 385 
 
 Having gained her attention, however vague and 
 feeble, he would go on : 
 
 " You must get well, you know. You must do 
 it. You promised me that you would live, dear. 
 You are mine, now — my wife. You daren't go 
 and leave me, Julia. I will not let you go. You 
 are to stay — you are to live for me." 
 
 And Julia the assenting, Julia the loyal, the loving, 
 the docile, with her great eyes opened fully to his, 
 seemed to respond, to obey, as a fragment of life 
 — a bit of formless protoplasm — may obey its 
 Creator. More and more every day, she lived. 
 Even when she had seemed least conscious, nearest 
 to the confines of Oblivion, her silent, motionless 
 lips had never refused the nourishment which Mark 
 held to them. She drank life, both figuratively and 
 in the simple material sense, from his hand. 
 
 When two weeks were gone, though none could 
 have said when any change took place, it was very 
 plain to all that a change was there. And at the 
 end of a month the ball had been extracted, there 
 was no longer any fever, she was conscious much 
 of the time, and clearly recognized those about her. 
 A delicate tinge of colour had crept into her trans- 
 parent cheeks. Her hand, when Mark lifted it, 
 hung not so helpless in his grasp. The tide of life 
 had turned; it was flowing back upon her. 
 
386 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 From that time on the change was clearly per- 
 ceptible day by day. Now, when Mark knelt by her 
 pillow at night and whispered to her that she must 
 live, must grow strong and well for him, she 
 answered with a little half-whispered laugh, and 
 obediently drifted into quiet sleep again. And a 
 little later this tireless love, this unflagging courage 
 and faith began to meet with reward due, as she 
 turned her lips to his cheek, her eyes to his eyes, at 
 these moments. 
 
 One night Strong was sitting by the bedside of 
 his wife, who slept profoundly. The little ground- 
 glass lamp on the table made a soft glow; it had 
 rained earlier in the evening, and the sweet, fresh air 
 came in through the open window. The man was 
 glad of the coolness; all things in nature and the 
 universe resolved themselves into factors in the 
 recovery of the dear invalid. The change in tem- 
 perature would do her good. He rearranged some 
 small matters upon the stand, with that nicety of 
 touch, that absolute deftness, which proclaims the 
 perfect nurse. 
 
 Suddenly he smiled a little; the poplar-tree at 
 the corner of the house was groaning softly against 
 the window-sill; the wind must be rising. As if 
 to confirm this, something struck lightly against the 
 
THE ONLT SON 387 
 
 screen; and then above the sound of the tree came 
 a hoarse, boyish whisper : 
 
 "Mr. Strong! Mr. Strong! It's me — Bob." 
 
 Mark laid down the spoon in his hand ; he would 
 never have dropped it with a clatter, whatever hap- 
 pened. Stepping noiselessly to the window, he said, 
 gently : 
 
 " Go down to the side door ; I'll let you in." 
 
 As the boy swung himself from the porch roof 
 to the ground those words were sweet in his ears, — 
 " I'll let you in." It was not what he had expected. 
 
 In spite of them, Strong looked him over very 
 sharply, as the two stood in the lighted side hall. 
 
 " You've broken jail," he said, briefly. 
 
 Without offering any immediate reply or assent, 
 the boy asked, with a painful, restrained eager- 
 ness: 
 
 " How is my mother? I know she's living — if 
 she hadn't been, Van Dorn would never have taken 
 the trouble to come to the Pen and tell me that she 
 was dead; it would have been the truth." 
 
 " Well, she's living — and no thanks to you," 
 agreed Strong, in a voice whose lowered tone did 
 not rob it of sternness. It was too much to ask of 
 Mark to forget that this was the hand which had laid 
 his poor Julia low, that had dealt to her such hours 
 
388 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 of weakness and anguish, and well-nigh snuffed the 
 light of joy out, in his own existence. 
 
 " No thanks to me," repeated Bob, humbly. 
 " But I didn't shoot at her, nor at you. Van Dorn 
 pretended to think that I'd fired the shot. He knew 
 I didn't. I didn't get my gun in time to fire at any- 
 body. But it was just a chance. I meant to shoot 
 Van Dorn, and I might have missed him, and hit 
 her. I'm not begging off." 
 
 Strong looked at the boy curiously. Nobody 
 could see Robert Llewellyn and mistake him for a 
 liar. 
 
 " See here, young man," he said, with some abate- 
 ment of his sternness. " You've twice, that I know 
 of, made an attempt on my life. Never mind ex- 
 plaining that it was a matter of principle, and you 
 thought you were serving the ends of the Union," 
 as Bob uttered a swift exclamation. " There it 
 stands ; you've twice attempted my life. What was 
 I to think when your mother called your name, and 
 threw herself between me and the bullet, but that 
 it was your bullet ? that you'd made the attempt the 
 third time?" 
 
 The boy nodded. " Of course you would," he 
 said, a little wistfully ; " and she would, too." 
 
 Something in his contained bearing, in his refrain- 
 
THE ONLT SON 389 
 
 ing from all appeal, or demonstration, struck hope- 
 fully upon the elder man's mind. 
 
 " This is a pretty muddle, anyhow," the owner 
 of the Twin Brothers began, not unkindly. "I — " 
 
 He broke off abruptly, turned his face so as to 
 look up the lighted stairway, listened intently for 
 an instant, and, seemingly satisfied with the un- 
 broken stillness above-stairs, opened the dining- 
 room door behind them. 
 
 " Come in here," he commanded, with a sort of 
 cheerful brusqueness. " I must talk to you a little. 
 I've been intending for a week to go over to the 
 Pen and see what I could do about your release, and 
 have a talk with you. But she's been in too critical 
 a condition for me to leave her. This is the first 
 night I've had the heart to think of anything but 
 her." 
 
 Bob followed wonderingly. 
 
 " Is it somebody sick up-stairs ? " he asked. " I 
 thought I saw you — " 
 
 He broke off, and clung to the back of a chair, 
 staring at the elder man with a face like ashes, as 
 a thought flashed suddenly into his mind. 
 
 " I supposed you knew," answered Strong. " I 
 thought of course that was why you came here to- 
 night. Your mother and I were — " 
 
 " Wait ! " interrupted the boy, and sat down. 
 
39° THE GRAPPLE 
 
 He looked up with so piteous a countenance that 
 Strong smiled a little. 
 
 " We were married the day after she was shot," 
 he concluded. " I've been nursing her. She's had 
 a hard fight of it, poor girl." 
 
 Bob caught at the kindly tone. 
 
 "Can I see her?" he asked, eagerly. "Is she 
 out of danger, yet? " 
 
 " Yes, she's out of danger ; but she's asleep now." 
 
 Strong smiled suddenly, and his face looked 
 positively beautiful to the hungry eyes bent upon it. 
 
 " She's sleeping like a baby ; and I wouldn't have 
 her sleep disturbed for anybody or anything," he 
 said, softly. " But if you'll follow me up without 
 making a bit of noise, you can look into the room 
 and see her." 
 
 The Captain was abed ; they tiptoed past his door ; 
 Strong, reflecting that his champion and defender 
 lay within, unconscious of these on-goings, confessed 
 to a curious, whimsical sense of disloyalty in escort- 
 ing Bob Llewellyn up-stairs. 
 
 The door was open, as Mark had left it, a faint 
 glow of light pervaded the sickroom; and the two 
 stole forward, breathing softly, and looked at the 
 peaceful face on the pillow. 
 
 They stood a moment so; then Strong, turning 
 to whisper to the boy, found that he was gone! 
 
THE ONLT SON 391 
 
 A sense of weary vexation swept over him. Then 
 with a sigh he put the whole matter from him, 
 picked up the spoon he had laid down to admit 
 Robert, and measured out and administered the 
 medicine which was due at this hour. As he put 
 matters to rights upon the little medicine-stand, a 
 small, muffled sound from the hall outside attracted 
 his attention. He went softly to the stair head; 
 and there upon the upper step sat Bob, his face in 
 his hands, his broad shoulders shaking. 
 
 " I couldn't look at her," the boy said, in a poor, 
 broken, choking voice. " They've been telling me 
 for nearly two months that she was dead — and 
 that I killed her. I wouldn't give down — to them ; 
 I held my head up before them. And then Colonel 
 Harbury'd say I was an unnatural young scoundrel, 
 and he'd be glad to cut the rope for my hanging! " 
 
 The next moment the bitterness melted out of the 
 young voice, leaving only quivering pain. 
 
 " She looked so white," he whispered. " Is she 
 going to get well ? " and he gazed miserably up into 
 Strong's face, his own frankly convulsed with a 
 child's grief. After all, he was just a very 
 wretched, frightened boy. 
 
 " I expect you're hungry," Strong suggested ; and 
 they both laughed a little, softly, together in the 
 silence. 
 
392 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 " I am," Bob admitted. " I haven't had anything 
 to eat since morning. They only feed us twice a 
 day, and Van Dorn came for me before we'd had 
 supper." 
 
 And as they stole down-stairs together, Strong 
 murmured, reassuringly : 
 
 " Of course she's going to get well. She's looked 
 much worse than that." 
 
 He switched on the lights, and led the way to the 
 refrigerator. 
 
 " I guess I can hunt you up something," he said. 
 " We've had to live any way that we could here 
 since the strike, and before your mother was brought 
 home. I've got a girl from Chicago now ; and I've 
 warned the intelligence office to keep one on hand 
 to take her place when she gets scared and leaves 
 us. I think we've had three in a week sometimes; 
 but there's generally something to eat." 
 
 As he spoke he was getting out milk and cold 
 meat. He found crackers and bread somewhere else, 
 and the boy sat down to eat, in that house which he 
 had never expected to enter. 
 
 Strong sat perched lightly on the edge of the 
 table, and watched his stepson make the first good 
 meal he had had in many days. The owner of the 
 Twin Brothers looked at the goodly proportions 
 of this new member of his family, and was glad. 
 
THE ONLT SON 393 
 
 " Anyhow, he's had a chance to grow up ; he's 
 a fine specimen, physically," was the unspoken 
 thought. 
 
 Then he noted some trick of manner, some motion 
 of the head or hands, which was Julia's own ; and 
 his heart softened to the boy. Suddenly Bob's dark 
 eyes flashed up into the quiet gray ones fixed so 
 intently upon him. 
 
 " You think I'm a pretty bad lot, don't you, Mr. 
 Strong?" he asked. 
 
 " I don't know," debated Strong, kindly ; " your 
 mother's son ought not to be that." 
 
 " I didn't mean that I was," returned Bob, with 
 characteristic frankness ; " I guessed that you'd 
 think so." 
 
 He returned to his bread and meat, glancing up 
 once or twice again, with surprise, to see how Strong 
 laughed over this last remark. 
 
 " I expect if you let me be about any, and see my 
 mother sometimes — and you'll have to do that — 
 that you'll be wanting me to give up the Union," 
 Bob hazarded. 
 
 "Well, if I did?" 
 
 " You might think I'd be glad to do that," the 
 boy went on. " It's been the ruin of Uncle Owen — 
 not the Union, but this strike has. I've never got 
 anything but trouble and abuse out of belonging 
 
394 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 to it. It scares me to hear the way Uncle Owen 
 talks. If they turn him loose, he'll kill somebody. 
 He'd think anything he did to the mine owners was 
 justifiable. I don't know what's to become of men 
 like that. Such things as go on in that Pen would 
 make a good many men feel that way; and I don't 
 know that they are responsible individuals to be 
 punished — yet they are being punished — fearfully. 
 But, Mr. Strong, I couldn't even give up the Union 
 to please my mother, and I'd do more for her than 
 for anybody living. She used to think almost as 
 much of it as I did; but now she's married you," 
 the son choked a little, then went on bravely, " now 
 that she's your wife, a good many things will be 
 different, of course." 
 
 " I hope so," said Strong, gently. " I hope that 
 she has seen the worst of her trouble in this world — 
 she'll never see any that I can keep off of her from 
 this on. But I guess you don't understand how I 
 feel about the Union. I always told the men that 
 I would like to keep my membership, if it hadn't 
 been made impossible by my becoming an employer. 
 I'm as much interested in the success — the legiti- 
 mate and proper success — of the Union, as you are, 
 Bob." 
 
 The bpy's eyes were fixed upon the face of his 
 stepfather; their gaze was desperately eager; if 
 
THE ONLT SON 395 
 
 there was one grain of falsehood in this statement, 
 Bob meant to know it. 
 
 " You turned 'em out of the Twin Brothers," he 
 said at last. 
 
 " Bob," said Strong, leaning forward and bring- 
 ing his near-sighted eyes closer to the young face, 
 " you're just a boy ; but I believe you can be made 
 to understand this thing, where I haven't been able 
 to make older men see it. What I did was to force 
 the Union to take its own medicine, swallow it, and 
 keep it down. Nobody else has ever done that. 
 For that reason they've never learned what a 
 strike really means, till they struck in the Twin 
 Brothers. They said they'd take their men out of 
 my mine. I let them go -^ and made them stay 
 gone. I've stayed right here, ready to arbitrate, 
 ready to talk to them, ready to pick up the negotia- 
 tions exactly where they were dropped ; and all the 
 time I've been getting out more coal than any mine 
 in my district, and making more money than I ever 
 made before. Doing this, you understand, without 
 any help from the Union. Do you see what I mean 
 about making them take their own medicine ? " 
 
 " You mean that if they say they're going to 
 quit — like they do in a strike — the owners ought 
 to make them quit," Bob said, thoughtfully. 
 
 The proposition appealed to his common sense. 
 
396 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 Strong's objection to a strike that it was a bluff, a 
 lie, instead of a plain business proposition, came 
 back to his mind. He gnawed on the thing for a 
 few moments, then put it by till he should be less 
 engrossed with his own affairs. 
 
 " Then, even if I stay in the Union — and I'm 
 going to — you'd let me come to see my mother — 
 sometimes ? " 
 
 Strong turned his back, under pretence of closing 
 the cupboard doors. 
 
 " I guess you'd better talk to your mother herself, 
 about that," he suggested. " I told you that I 
 wanted her to be happy. I guess she thinks a good 
 deal of you — I should if you were my boy. She'll 
 want to see you, sometimes, and between times, 
 likely enough." 
 
 If Bob had dared to believe it, he would have 
 thought he saw the twinkle of Mark Strong's rare 
 smile, in the fleeting glimpse the boy had of his step- 
 father's side face. Certainly it was a very kindly 
 voice that bade him : 
 
 " Go ahead, toward the stairs now, while I 
 switch off the lights. I'm going to put you in the 
 little room across from your mother's for to-night 
 (I believe she'll be able to see you to-morrow. If 
 she can, it'll surely do her a lot of good) and we'll 
 go over, in the course of a day or two, and have 
 
THE ONLT SON 397 
 
 a talk with Harbury about you and your Uncle 
 Owen." 
 
 But, as events shaped themselves, it was a week 
 later that Mark drove over with the boy and Captain 
 McClintock to Colonel Harbury's headquarters. 
 Leaving the two in the buggy outside, he went in 
 alone to have his talk with the militia colonel. 
 Bob's affairs were readily arranged by Strong's 
 becoming surety for the lad's appearance when 
 wanted. 
 
 " Owen Llewellyn," repeated Colonel Harbury, 
 in answer to Mark's inquiries concerning the older 
 man. " The fellow's in the hospital. I feel uneasy 
 about him, Mr. Strong. I wish they would take him 
 at the State asylum, for I believe he is deranged; 
 but I expect their doctors wouldn't see it that way." 
 
 Strong nodded. Harbury's small, handsome head, 
 the typical head of the fighter, which may be seen 
 topping the huge trunk and brawny neck of many 
 a pugilist, was evidently getting an idea or two ham- 
 mered into it. 
 
 " I'm glad to hear that he's in the hospital," said 
 the visitor. " I'm glad to see that you are doing the 
 best you can for him. I think the man is honest in 
 his beliefs. He made a bitterer fight on me than he 
 ever did on any mine owner in the district; and 
 yet I never thought him a sneak — only a man with 
 
398 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 wrong ideas of things: There were some personal 
 reasons for his dislike of me, and I always gave 
 him full credit for the belief that the Union was 
 right, and that the justice of its cause would be its 
 salvation." 
 
 Harbury looked thoughtfully down, and trifled 
 with the paper-knife which he held in his hands. 
 
 " Mr. Strong," he began, in a low tone, " I served 
 through the Spanish War. I don't believe anybody 
 ever said I was a coward." 
 
 Strong smiled. It was his impression that if Har- 
 bury had been a little less of a fighter and a little 
 more of a coward, matters would have gone better in 
 the Iroquois district. The colonel perhaps misinter- 
 preted Strong's mirth; he reddened and went on: 
 
 " I can fight men — soldiers — but I'll be hanged 
 if I like fighting families, and it's what we've had 
 to do here. The matter is all mixed up with women 
 and children and neighbourhood affairs; the men 
 are not soldiers; and if they do any fighting, it's 
 some dirty work like the explosion at the Culleoka, 
 or attacking some fellow that's on his way after a 
 doctor for his child ; and I'm — I'm sick of it. I 
 believe the governor made a mistake when he sent us 
 in here." 
 
 " It was Van Dorn's fault," said Strong. 
 
 The disappearance of the owner of the Gloriana 
 
THE ONLT SON 399 
 
 was freely talked about; and that ghastly some- 
 thing had not yet been stopped, down-stream, on its 
 journey toward the ocean. Colonel Harbury raised 
 a hand in evident dread of what the little man in 
 gray might add. 
 
 " I ought to tell you, before you characterize poor 
 Van Dorn's action as perhaps it deserves," he said, 
 " that I am to marry his sister." 
 
 So site was going to marry the middle-aged, com- 
 monplace, hardware merchant, who was a colonel of 
 militia, and not even a man of means! Well, one 
 might think that it could scarce be possible even to 
 Jane Van Dorn's hardihood and insensibility, and 
 Celia's long-suffering patience, for the house which 
 had been Mrs. Van Dorn's father's, and was now the 
 property of her and her children, to be the home of 
 Tulley's sister. And Jane was no longer young. 
 She had taken what she could get; and Harbury 
 was evidently moved by her condescension. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 The first day that Julia — Julia Strong — could 
 come down-stairs, the old mare with the young gaits 
 was hitched to a comfortable carriage and brought 
 around for her to enjoy an outing. 
 
 The Captain watched Mark settling the wraps 
 about his wife. He noted with satisfaction that "deep 
 inner light of joy which burned always steadily in 
 the eyes of the little man in gray in these days. As 
 they drove off he heard Strong laugh out suddenly, 
 like a boy. 
 
 " Lord," he said, shading his eyes to look after 
 them, " I reckon I'll have to get somebody else to 
 listen to my goat stories and my folding bed yarns 
 and such; Mark's too happy to need any chirking 
 up from me." 
 
 He turned to the porch where Bob, who had 
 assisted in the embarkation, still stood. 
 
 " Well, come on," he called, cheerily, " I guess we 
 two left-overs better go up to the mine. I want 
 
 400 
 
AFTERMATH 40£ 
 
 to show you the practical workings of that thing 
 before you leave for Chicago." 
 
 For Bob was to try what a course in a polytechnic 
 would do for him. 
 
 " We'll just drive inside of our own land," Julia's 
 husband suggested, gently, as they moved away. 
 
 " Let's go as far as the sycamore-tree, anyhow," 
 Julia begged. " You can see the whole valley from 
 there." 
 
 Strong chuckled, and glanced sidewise at his 
 wife. 
 
 " Maybe that's just what I didn't want you to 
 see," he suggested. " We have peace here, my dear. 
 There may be a little war around the edges where 
 the dead-line runs, and where the sentry marches; 
 but we have peace at the core." 
 
 " Do you mean that they have war in the valley? " 
 Julia asked, opening startled eyes upon her husband. 
 "Did the militia stay?" 
 
 Julia's beauty had not waned during her illness; 
 rather it had suffered a change, an apotheosis into 
 something more ethereal, more perfect than her 
 glowing loveliness of old. She was pale, and thin ; 
 but the light that shone from her countenance more 
 than made up for the lack of colour and roundness. 
 Strong looked at her with fond eyes. 
 
 " I expect I'd better tell you, before we get in 
 
402 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 sight of the tents," he began, putting out a loving 
 hand to clasp hers. " You know Van Dorn was 
 bringing the militia in the night you were shot. The 
 seven head towers were burned that night — just as 
 you said they would be; and an attempt was made 
 on the head tower and the washers at the Twin 
 Brothers. Every mine in the Iroquois district — 
 except the Twin Brothers — was put out of business 
 for months by that night's work. Yes, the soldiers 
 were kept here. You don't wonder at that, do 
 you? It wasn't strange." 
 
 He searched her face with an eager yet reassuring 
 gaze. That face was desperately anxious. 
 
 " There was something worse," she urged. " Tell 
 me just what," she entreated. " It will do me less 
 harm to know than to imagine all sorts of things." 
 
 " Well," Strong went on, rather reluctantly, and 
 with a watchful eye upon his companion, " there 
 was an explosion in the Culleoka." 
 
 " And lives were lost," supplied Julia, in a tone 
 that was almost one of relief. She could feel sure 
 that Bob was not concerned in anything which hap- 
 pened at the Culleoka that night. 
 
 Her husband nodded. " Sixteen non-Union 
 miners were killed," he said. " There was no reason 
 that the men should have been in the mine on the 
 night of the Fourth. And now the operators assert 
 
AFTERMATH 403 
 
 that their detectives have located the persons who 
 lured them there, and that they have the guilty one 
 in the Pen. Of course the Union is claiming that 
 the operators procured the crime themselves, so 
 that the strikers might be accused of it. You know 
 how such things go." 
 
 Julia bent her head in assent — she did indeed 
 know how such things went. 
 
 " Then there was the Gloriana," Strong went on. 
 " Everybody was out of the mine, and there was 
 no loss of life; but the fire made a clean sweep of 
 the outside plant. The Black Diamond burned for 
 nearly a week — new fires were set ; its timbering 
 caught, and the coal got to burning. The mine had 
 to be flooded, before the fire could be stopped. The 
 stockholders lost heavily." 
 
 Strong looked solicitously at his pale wife. 
 
 " Perhaps I had better not tell you any more, 
 just now," he suggested, gently. 
 
 " Let me hear it all," Julia answered. " I've been 
 guessing things almost as bad, when you wouldn't 
 talk at all about the strike. You know, Mark, I've 
 been through some dreadful times. This isn't new 
 to me." 
 
 " Well, the governor is a great friend of Van 
 Dorn's. Van Dorn had been up at the capital 
 almost as much as he'd been in Iroquois. I don't 
 
404 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 say that he influenced Aiken unduly, but I do say 
 that if I were the chief executive of this State I 
 wouldn't send troops to a locality which I had not 
 personally investigated. I think it is only fair that 
 the head of the commonwealth should, at least, 
 hear both sides. I'm afraid Governor Aiken has 
 only heard one, and that one Van Dorn's version. 
 We have had State troops sent in here, till people 
 who were not at first in sympathy with the strikers 
 have gone over to them. And the last thing is that 
 martial law has been declared in the Iroquois dis- 
 trict." 
 
 Julia cried out softly; the matter was so much 
 worse than she had expected. 
 
 " Where's Owen ? " she asked, in a low voice. 
 
 " Well, Owen had it pretty hard," Strong said. 
 " He was hurt that night when the boats collided, 
 and the shooting took place. They arrested him the 
 next day, and although he was not able to be moved, 
 they carried him out to the stockade that they have 
 in the hills back of the Gloriana. The men call it 
 the Bull Pen. I guess they've got no decent accom- 
 modations for the sick out there. Some folks got 
 together and represented this matter to the local 
 authorities" (Strong did not tell his wife that he 
 himself had been chief mover in this), " and Owen 
 was taken out. But they got him back again, and 
 
AFTERMATH 405 
 
 he's there yet. I don't think he'll ever be a well man 
 again. I'm afraid his health is permanently broken. 
 An effort is being made to get him into the State 
 asylum. I really believe he belongs there." 
 
 He glanced covertly at Julia's face, and passed 
 hastily from the particular and personal to the 
 general. " They — the militia, I mean — searched 
 houses, and insulted, browbeat, and mistreated the 
 families of miners, till the feeling between troops 
 and strikers is terribly exasperated; and, as I said, 
 nearly all the public's sympathy has gone over to the 
 men." 
 
 " Searched their houses — for what ? " asked 
 Julia, breathlessly. 
 
 " For arms and ammunition," Strong answered. 
 . " You see, when we have martial law, the people 
 are not permitted to bear arms. I guess the militia 
 have been impertinent in these matters — they 
 usually are. They ripped out those little cabins like 
 rats' nests, and they would quarrel with the wives 
 and daughters of these men — treat them, in short, 
 as though they were criminals. Then, if a man 
 interfered, they marched him off to the Eull Pen." 
 
 " They have no legal right," began Julia, and 
 there was no lack of colour in her cheeks now. 
 
 " They are their own law," her husband inter- 
 rupted. " Martial law. We have learned, in this 
 
406 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 State, that martial law is above the judiciary, and 
 even above the will of the people which has created 
 it. Oh, we have seen some strange times. They 
 have taken lately to deporting the strikers — they 
 carry them across the State line and fling them, 
 like superfluous puppies or kittens, into some other 
 commonwealth's back yard. Then the men crawl 
 home, and the fight is all to do over again. Bob 
 says they torture miners in the stockade there, to 
 extract information. That seems hard to believe, 
 for free America; but I guess Bob knows. The 
 old charge is made here afresh, that the owners have 
 procured crimes (arson, the destruction of property, 
 in which lives were incidentally lost) that they might 
 be laid at the door of the strikers." 
 
 At the mention of her son's name, the tears which 
 had brimmed Julia Strong's eyes overflowed. 
 
 " Oh, it's awful — awful — awful ! " she breathed. 
 
 " No, dear, it isn't," Strong reassured her. " It's 
 just the working out of the inevitable law. Our 
 Union miners took the sword, and the Book of 
 Books is authority for stating that they shall perish 
 by the sword. To put it more simply, if they hadn't 
 announced their determination to strike, they 
 wouldn't have been struck. You see, Julia, all the 
 brutal lawlessness which the mine owners and the 
 militia have used toward them — I don't deny that 
 
AFTERMATH 407 
 
 the men have wrongs now; I call it brutal law- 
 lessness; and it's done in the name of law, martial 
 law, but it's only crime on a large scale — well, 
 every crime that the owners have committed against 
 the strikers is an echo and reflection of their own 
 violence as planned against the employers." 
 
 "No, no — you must not say that!" Julia re- 
 monstrated, leaning forward, her beautiful eyes 
 alight with pity through their tears. " It isn't fair. 
 They never planned such dreadful things, unless — 
 unless — after they struck." 
 
 Strong smiled at the gentle feminine logic. 
 
 " They didn't plan them till after they struck, eh ? 
 Well, dearest, you admit, when you say that, that 
 a strike includes such schemes of violence. None of 
 the men will deny that there has never been a great, 
 wide-spread strike, which did not include arson, 
 murder, and all sorts of secret and diabolical vio- 
 lence. They know that before they strike — and 
 yet they strike." 
 
 The carriage had skirted the hill now, and the 
 camp was in full sight. 
 
 " That's only part of the troops we have here," 
 Strong said, looking down at them with disfavour. 
 " Poor old Joe Ackerman has been in that stockade 
 twice. I went over and helped to get him out. He 
 came near being pulled to pieces on the street one 
 
408 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 day, because he struck one of their officers. I guess 
 the old man was half-wild, and felt that he had 
 provocation ; anyhow, seven of- those dough-boys 
 got him pinned in between some cars at the station 
 and pretty nearly clubbed him to death with their 
 gun butts. They'd have killed him sure, if they had 
 been where they could swing up their guns." 
 
 Julia shuddered. 
 
 " Let's drive around to the other side of the hill," 
 she said, in a broken voice. " I can't tell, Mark, 
 which one you think is right — the owners or the 
 strikers." 
 
 Strong's arm went quickly around her, his eyes — 
 those clear, steadfast eyes — looked into hers with 
 deep tenderness; he drew her to him, kissing her 
 delicate cheek. 
 
 " Being human, dear," he said, " they are both 
 right, and both wrong. The owners have failed to 
 keep some of their agreements with the men. The 
 men have often failed to keep their agreements with 
 their employers. But when that last and worst of 
 arguments, the strike, was brought into use, such 
 passions have been developed, and such murderous 
 rage has been let loose between the two, that justice 
 was lost sight of. It has been a war of reprisals 
 and revenge. It has been that bitterest and most 
 terrible of wars, a factional fight." 
 
AFTERMATH 409 
 
 "And what's to come of it?" murmured Julia, 
 looking up into his quiet face. 
 
 " What's to come of it ? " he repeated. " Why, 
 nothing but good. It's been a bitter lesson, but I 
 firmly believe it is well taught. It must have been 
 needed by both parties to the struggle, or it wouldn't 
 have come. We're to have the commissioner of 
 labour out here; and he'll investigate us, and tabu- 
 late us, and let the world at large know where the 
 heavy balance of blame should rest. But my hearty 
 and earnest belief is that such an outburst as this, 
 at the time when the Mine Workers' Union includes 
 as many men of intelligence as it does, will mean the 
 end of striking to adjust labour difficulties. We may 
 not have seen the last strike; there may be a few 
 more ; things in this world don't end abruptly ; but 
 I believe that our industrial affairs are ready to 
 settle down to that more conservative pace which 
 has proven successful elsewhere; I believe our 
 difficulties will be arbitrated hereafter." 
 
 Julia's fond heart was bleeding for her poor 
 people, friends of her youth, those whom she had 
 helped through times of trouble, those who had given 
 her the helping hand when she most needed it. 
 
 " I can't make it seem right," she said. " Those 
 people were good folks ; and I never saw anything 
 dreadful in any of the owners of the mines — how 
 
4io THE GRAPPLE 
 
 could such an evil thing as this grow up between 
 them?" 
 
 The sunlight was gone from hill and valley for 
 Julia Strong, and by and by she asked, sighingly, 
 to be driven home. 
 
 Strong watched her with tender solicitude, yet 
 half-amused ; he knew that some plan was growing 
 in her mind. It was not uttered till they were sitting 
 alone in the parlour which had been prepared for 
 the bride so many years before. Bob was still at 
 the mine with Captain McClintock. Then she 
 began : 
 
 " You must come around to the Union, Mark," 
 she pleaded, with wet eyes. " Think what it's done 
 for the men. It isn't every one that can lift himself 
 out of the pit as you have ; they need the Union to 
 help them." 
 
 Strong shook his head smilingly. 
 
 " Come around to the Union ? " he said. " Never ! 
 I say that because I don't need to come around. I 
 think as well of the Union as you, dear girl, — and a 
 long sight better than the people who believe it can 
 be made an engine to lift a man up to where he 
 doesn't belong." 
 
 " Why, Mark ! " And the dark eyes looked re- 
 proach. " I never expected to hear such a speech 
 
AFTERMATH 4n 
 
 as that from you. A man belongs as high as he 
 can get — doesn't he ? " 
 
 " Yes, love, but not as high as some outside 
 force can sling him. The Union has worked for the 
 eight-hour day — and got it. It has worked to make 
 mine owners put in better ventilating apparatus — 
 and it's triumphant. We've got State laws that we 
 wouldn't have had, but for it. Every place the 
 Union went to work at its own business, it's made 
 a success of the thing — " 
 
 " Let them make a success of unionizing the Twin 
 Brothers," she urged. " Take them back in the 
 mine, Mark, dear, and show all these other cruel men 
 that your heart is with those who toil for you. 
 Put them to shame, by your generosity." 
 
 " And undo all the good I've done," objected her 
 husband, sturdily. " Not I. Never — never while 
 my head's hot. The Union can run its own business 
 and succeed — it's a deadly failure when it attempts 
 the business of Mark Strong. And don't you see, 
 dear, that I'm the best thing that ever happened to 
 it? I'm the best friend it ever had. These other 
 owners are in such a position, they have so much 
 to answer for, that the Union seems justified in strik- 
 ing on them or doing anything else to them. But 
 I'm the only man in these United States that has held 
 out against them, without aggressions or reprisals, 
 
412 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 and that will hold out against them till they see the 
 point." 
 
 She looked at him fondly, but her woman's wis- 
 dom was not stern enough to follow where he led. 
 If the Union was a good thing, why not hu- 
 mour its whims? Thus she had brought up her 
 boy. She said something of the sort, a little wist- 
 fully. 
 
 " Dearest," argued her husband, " it's a long 
 sight bigger question than just the Miners' Union; 
 it's the vast modern problem of labour and capital. 
 Now let me put that so it will be plain to you. To 
 my mind capital is the man, in this industrial world, 
 and labour is the woman. For any productiveness, 
 or the carrying on of our civilization, there must 
 be a marriage of the two. This marriage always has 
 been, and always will be ; and, like many other good 
 things, it has been degraded and abused. Capital, 
 like a man, thinks it is the stronger, glories in its 
 strength, and has robbed, oppressed, and beaten 
 down its mate. Labour is really the great power 
 of the industrial world, just as woman is the great 
 power of the social and spiritual world, without 
 whom the race must cease, but with whom it would 
 go on if every man now living were stricken out of 
 it. Just so, if all the accumulated money were 
 dumped in the sea to-morrow, labour — not the 
 
AFTERMATH 413 
 
 brain work of the capitalist, but the labour of the 
 man who works with his hands — would replace 
 it." 
 
 Julia nodded. 
 
 " It's a new way of putting it, but I see the point," 
 she said. " Of course I am looking to the wrongs 
 that labour has suffered from capital, and women 
 have borne from men — I'm the advocate of the 
 oppressed." 
 
 " And your oppressed classes are trying their 
 prettiest to become the oppressor," suggested her 
 husband, genially. " You women are just beginning 
 to find that you can take the world in your two 
 hands and shake it till its teeth rattle; but would 
 you — or it — or its teeth — be any better off for 
 the performance? Labour is up to the same trick. 
 When the labouring man was isolated, and his 
 grievances were single, he depended upon the good- 
 will of his employer. Now, he has found what 
 power there is in organization, and he is making 
 his world over. It's all right, for the women and 
 the labour Unions, so long as they demand only 
 their rights ; but when they begin to infringe upon 
 the rights of others, when they retain the position 
 of one protected, fostered, and supported, whether 
 the employer wants that particular individual or not, 
 
41 4 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 and seek to add to their retention of this position, 
 despotic conditions, why, they will, at least, run up 
 against me." 
 
 She sat long musing, her eyes on the glowing 
 coals. 
 
 " And you think the Twin Brothers will never be 
 a Union mine again," she said, wistfully. 
 
 " No — no — no! " objected the man ; " I think 
 nothing of the sort. I want the Union — and I 
 never wanted a thing right bad in my life, but I 
 got it." 
 
 He came over and knelt beside his wife's chair, 
 raising that small, homely face of his, which grew 
 to be handsomer to those who loved him than mere 
 animal beauty could have made it, and went on, with 
 his arm laid lovingly about her waist. 
 
 " See, Jule, I say it is like husband and wife. 
 Look at you and me; we're both human, and we 
 both have faults ; you shut me out once, and I took 
 it as unkindly as some of these owners have been 
 taking the strike of the Union; I acted the selfish, 
 overbearing part." 
 
 She hushed his speech with a kiss. 
 
 " You are not to lay blame on my man," she 
 said, softly. 
 
 " Well, I'll repeat, then, that we were both to 
 
AFTERMATH 415 
 
 blame; and yet, because we needed each other, 
 here you are in this chair by my fireside. Since 
 you came back to me, I can hope for everything 
 else." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 Cameron of Lochiel 
 
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 edition first appeared under the title of " Les Anciens Cana- 
 diens " in 1862, and was later translated and appeared in an 
 American edition now out of print. 
 
 Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality, 
 a just pride of race, and a loving memory for his people's 
 romantic and heroic past, are the dominant chords struck 
 by the author throughout the story. 
 
 Castel del Monte 
 
 By Nathan Gallizier. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards. 
 
 Library i2mo, cloth $1-5° 
 
 A powerful romance of the fall of the Hohenstaufen dy- 
 nasty in Italy, and the overthrow of Manfred by Charles of 
 Anjou, the champion of Pope Clement IV. The Middle Ages 
 are noted for the weird mysticism and the deep fatalism 
 characteristic of a people believing in signs and portents 
 and the firm hand of fate. Mr. Gallizier has brought out 
 these characteristics in a marked degree. 
 
6 L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S LIST OF NEW FICTION 
 
 Slaves of Success 
 
 By Elliott Flower, author of " The Spoilsmen," etc. With 
 
 twenty illustrations by different artists. 
 
 Library i2mo, cloth $1-50 
 
 Another striking book by Mr. Flower, whose work is al- 
 ready so well known, both through his long stories and his 
 contributions to Collier's, the Saturday Evening Post, etc. 
 Like his first success, " The Spoilsmen," it deals with politics, 
 but in the broader field of state and national instead of 
 municipal. The book has recently appeared in condensed form 
 as a serial in Collier's Magazine, where it attracted wide- 
 spread attention, and the announcement of its appearance 
 in book form will be welcomed by Mr. Flower's rapidly in- 
 creasing audience. The successful delineation of characters 
 like John Wade, Ben Carroll, Azro Craig, and Allen Sidway 
 throws new strong lights on the inside workings of American 
 business and political "graft." 
 
 Silver Bells 
 
 By Col. Andrew C. P. Haggard, author of "Hannibal's 
 Daughter," "Louis XIV. in Court and Camp," etc. With 
 cover design and frontispiece by Charles Livingston Bull. 
 
 Library i2mo, cloth $i.S° 
 
 Under the thin veneer of conventionality and custom lurks 
 in many hearts the primeval instinct to throw civilization 
 to the winds and hark back to the ways of the savages in the 
 wilderness, and it often requires but a mental crisis or an 
 emotional upheaval to break through the coating. Geoffrey 
 Digby was such an one, who left home and kindred to seek 
 happiness among the Indians of Canada, in the vast woods 
 which always hold an undefinable mystery and fascination. 
 He gained renown as a mighty hunter, and the tale of his 
 life there, and the romance which awaited him, will be heart- 
 ily enjoyed by all who like a good love-story with plenty of 
 action not of the " stock " order. " Silver Bells," the Indian 
 girl, is a perfect " child of nature." 
 
Selections from 
 
 L. C. Page and Company's 
 
 List of Fiction 
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS 
 Captain Ravenshaw ; or, the maid of 
 
 Cheapside. (40th thousand.) A romance of Elizabethan 
 London. Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other artists. 
 
 Library 12010, cloth #1.50 
 
 Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we 
 had anything so good in the blended vein of romance and 
 comedy. The beggar student, the rich goldsmith, the roisterer 
 and the rake, the fop and the maid, are all here : foremost 
 among them Captain Ravenshaw himself, soldier of fortune 
 and adventurer, who, after escapades of binding interest, 
 finally wins a way to fame and to matrimony. 
 
 Philip WinWOOd. (7°th thousand.) A Sketch of 
 the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of 
 Independence, embracing events that occurred between and 
 during the years 1763 and 1785 in New York and London 
 Written by his Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant 
 in the Loyalist Forces. Presented anew by Robert Neil- 
 son Stephens. Illustrated by E. W. D Hamilton. 
 
 Library l2mo, cloth #1-50 
 
 " One of the most stirring and remarkable romances that have 
 
 been published in a long while, and its episodes, incidents, and 
 
 actions are as interesting and agreeable as they are vivid and 
 
 dramatic." — Boston Times. 
 
 The Mystery of Murray Davenport. (30th 
 
 thousand.) By Robert Neilson Stephens, author of 
 " An Enemy to the King," " Philip Winwood," etc. 
 Library i2mo, cloth, with six full-page illustrations by H. C. 
 
 Edwards $1.50 
 
 "This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done. 
 
 Those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of 
 
 this praise, which is generous." — Buffalo News. 
 
 " Mr. Stephens won a host of friends through his earlier volumes, 
 
 but we think he will do still better work in his new field if the 
 
 present volume is a criterion." — N. Y. Com. Advertiser. 
 
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S 
 
 An Enemy to the King. (6oth thousand.) From 
 
 the "Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la 
 
 Toumoire." Illustrated by H. De M. Young. 
 
 Library i2mo, cloth $ 1.50 
 
 An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing 
 the adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of 
 Henry III., and on the field with Henry of Navarre. 
 
 " A stirring tale." — Detroit Free Press. 
 
 " A royally strong piece of fiction." — Boston Ideas. 
 
 " Interesting from the first to the last page." — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 " Brilliant as a play ; it is equally brilliant as a romantic novel." — 
 Philadelphia Press. 
 
 The Continental Dragoon : a romance of 
 
 Philipse Manor House in 1778. (43d thousand.) Illus- 
 trated by H. C. Edwards. 
 
 Library 1 2mo, cloth $1.50 
 
 A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid 
 in and around the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, 
 which at the time of the story was the central point of the so- 
 called " neutral territory " between the two armies. 
 
 The Road to Paris : a story of adventure. 
 
 (25th thousand.) Illustrated by H. C. Edwards. 
 
 Library i2mo, cloth ...... $1.50 
 
 An historical romance of the 18th century, being an account 
 of the life of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite 
 ancestry, whose family early settled in the colony of Pennsyl- 
 vania. 
 
 A Gentleman Player : his adventures on a 
 
 Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth. (38th thou- 
 sand.) Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. 
 
 Library l2mo, cloth 81.50 
 
 "A Gentleman Player" is a romance of the Elizabethan 
 period. It relates the story of a young gentleman who, in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, falls so low in his fortune that he joins 
 Shakespeare's company of players, and becomes a friend and. 
 prote'ge' of the great poet.