_ CHAPTER XXI. BLUE PETE WORKS ALONE
Koppowski and his three friends climbed through the window of the shack on the top of the bank and were swallowed in the forest. And around them other shadows moved silently in the same direction.
They were on their way to the big meeting of the season. Except for a mere dozen of practised ubiquity the camp was empty; for that night, which was to seal the fate of the trestle--perhaps--Koppy was less concerned than usual that the three up on the grade should be deceived.
For days he had been polishing up the details of his plan. And of the two methods open to him for passing those details on to his followers, like a true leader he chose personal delivery. Eloquence was a never-failing inspiration of his in the face of crowds, and hysteria, his best ally, worked only at its highest pitch in the mob. Besides, there was a gratifying pomp in the meeting; the thrill he so readily imparted to his audience returned to him double-fold and opened the gates to further honours in the inner councils of the I.W.W.
Without underestimating the gravity of failure before such a gathering as he would face that night, self-confidence never deserted him; never yet had it let him down. As a born gambler he had no compunctions at staking everything on one throw.
Directly away from the grade he led deep into the woods, and all about them was movement, silent, individual, wrapped in the promise of the meeting. Presently Koppy made a peremptory motion of his hand.
"Wait!" He left them there, moving ponderously forward to the heart of a small clearing, where he paced up and down, chin in hand. The three followers watched from a distance.
"Nap--or was it Wellington--at Waterloo or somewhere!" jeered Werner in a low voice. "The mutt thinks the whole world is watching . . . and I ain't sure it ain't."
Koppy waved his hand, and they rejoined him.
Patches of darkness already filled the forest, but a late sun filtered through the tree tops in the thinner spaces and wove a pattern of colour on the brown leaves and dead green moss, the slender spruce needles and straight-standing trunks. Nature was in a gentle glow; the pure clear air of falling evening draped the earth in sweetness. Yet through it wound long lines of ghoulish men who felt it not, held to fiendish things by mistaken ambitions, by an unjustified bitterness that fed on its own helplessness. For, after all, the varying moods of nature are but constituents of a formula of which each man provides for himself the other half--else would the Eskimo be a paragon, the hunter a saint.
Koppy had explained it to Tressa in fiery words; the Independent Workers of the World had found tilled soil in the breasts of these unthinking men. By feeding their smouldering bitterness against conditions due largely to themselves it had won their unreasoning fidelity; like dogs they crept to heel. Here at last was a medium in which to express their wrath. That it could profit them nothing mattered not. All they read was that, under-dogs as they were doomed to be, they might make their masters suffer.
Werner, more sensitive to the silences, grumbled at his leader's back.
"Cheerful sport, this. A real hi-larious way to end a dull day."
Morani's lip curled.
"It's all right for you, Chico," muttered Werner. "All you got to do to get your blood running fresh is to slip that stiletto into somebody's ribs. They don't expect any better of a Dago. Me? They'd fasten a rope under my ears and wish me pleasant voyage."
The Italian expectorated noisily.
"I suppose," continued Werner, "you might's well do that as spit macaroni talk at me. You get me roused and I'll tear off chunks of German and throw them--"
Koppy's hand went up for silence. The men plodded on.
At the place of meeting not a man was in sight; a great silence seemed to have stifled life itself. But as Koppy raised himself on a slight eminence in the centre of the clearing and made a gesture with his expressive hands, throngs of his followers crowded about him with no sound but shuffling feet.
As Koppy looked about on their massed faces a disturbing memory of those strange moments with Tressa Torrance almost unnerved him. He understood these men; he knew the forces that had brought them down to railway work. And the flick of a still faintly breathing conscience made him pale. The daily sight of Tressa Torrance and her simple acceptance of him as a fellow-creature had roused within him thoughts he imagined he had long since stifled. There were times when he contemplated the possibility of carrying her away and leaving all else behind. Never before in America had a decent woman looked at him in such a kindly way. The many women he had known he had been willing to pay for, as was expected of him; here was one he could not buy, yet she was almost within reach for nothing.
Sometimes of late his mind had roved beyond a crude camp of logs, with filthy bunks in tiers, with filthy straw on which to lie. Carpeted rooms, with pictures on the walls, and shiny chairs and tables; smart clothes and clean hands; evenings of mental peace in a home of his own. And a woman to manage it and him. That was the bewildering part of it--he wanted a woman to order him about, some one gentle and sweet, to blot from his warped mind the hideous nightmare of strife and scheming amidst which he seemed always to have moved. He longed to have to change his clothes after the day's work, to wash and brush himself, to smile and converse in his best of English. He owed nothing to the I.W.W. that he had not repaid a hundredfold. He was a bit weary of his own passions and the direction of others.
But from beneath his shaggy brows, as he stood towering above his followers in the semi-darkness of the clearing, he read expectation--nay, even demand--in every upturned face. And the old surge of pride, the sordid memories that had kept him to his meanest tasks and sometimes convinced him of a divine mission, bent him back to his big plans. In long silence he returned their gaze, moving his head sharply from side to side to fix every eye. None knew better than he the value of silences, of the ponderous manner. Every art of the leader of mobs was his.
As if delving to their very hearts he stared into every face. And they recognised his leadership by stifled sighs and sudden breaths. Dull to reason, as to pain and pleasure, their nerves were denied the protective covering of sanity that comes with education. What they did not know was less than what they imagined. In such an atmosphere respect became reverence, irritation fury, fear panic, a sense of injustice justification for any crime. Before the piercing gaze of their leader their lips opened, their bloodshot eyes shifted, and breath came uncertainly. It was a form of mesmerism.
And when at last he burst out in an impassioned jargon that did duty as common language, they rose to him hysterically.
Truth to tell, he had called the meeting with no intention of spurring to immediate action. So much hung on the final decision that was to culminate their year's work that Koppy hesitated to give the order. The meeting had been conceived as nothing more than a preliminary test of their loyalty and determination; perhaps he might raise their ardour to the point where it would be safe to let them know the scheme in general. The details would reach them later through trusted mouthpieces. But most of all he wanted to feel their hands on his.
But when, in the mellow light of the setting sun, he read their mad recklessness he reacted to it. Carried from his feet, he spoke fiercely; passionately, as one inspired. The passive, underground resistance of the past few weeks swept swiftly in a few sentences to open rebellion. Hesitation looked cowardly then, caution tawdry, waiting an insult to their dignity.
Werner alone did not follow him. When five hundred fists thrust as many weapons into the air and cried for action, Werner felt the urge of action of his own. Slowly he slunk to the outskirts of the mob.
"This," he said to himself, "is where Hugo Werner takes to the tall timbers. I don't hypnotise worth a cent. All Koppy's eagle eye does to me is warn me I'm not bullet-proof. Me for the safe spots; they can get as maudlin as they like. I got a hunch this is no place for Hugo Werner."
Behind him the low murmur of excitement grew to hysteria. They demanded to do something, to destroy and smash and rend. Another two minutes and nothing could hold them back. To and fro swayed five hundred hot bodies, back and forward shook five hundred threatening hands.
Koppy knew that he was master of their very souls, that there before him five hundred men awaited his direct orders without question. Thrills tingled scalp. With fists uplifted he shrieked at them:
"Now, now is the time! We are five hundred; they are two. They are ours. These oppressors, who have for years ground our faces to the dust, are trembling before us. Let us strike--strike! We rush, five hundred of us; we smash and wreck. Then we are masters, not slaves.
The trestle must go--now!"
"Me, too," murmured Werner from the shadows. "Damn glad I got a start. Wonder how far it is to my next meal."
"Come closer, men, closer!" Koppy was holding out his arms to them. "Let me feel your strong hands before we strike. It is almost time. It is dark. From the crawling shadows five hundred--"
He had overdone it. Five hundred pairs of eyes tore themselves from their leader's face and shifted fearfully to the lurking, crawling shadows that closed them in.
And at the instant a dismal howl struck through the night, unplacable, all-pervading, unearthly. At the top of its most hideous note it crashed to silence.
Five hundred pairs of eyes sought each other with the blankness of terror-numbed minds. Five hundred bodies trembled. Transfixed, they waited.
It came again, louder, crushing menace in its tone. Two piercing whistles cut it short, and some huge, unearthly creature crashed out from the darkness toward the place where they stood. A roar of cannon seemed to tear their ear-drums--another--and another--everywhere about them. With one mind five hundred imaginative workmen dropped their weapons from nerveless hands and fled, bumping, tumbling, fighting each other. A voiceless flow of chaotic clamour marked their course toward the camp.
Koppy, teeth gnashing, threw up his hands and slunk into the darkness.
And from the shadows moved one solitary Indian and his squaw, one inoffensive little broncho, one great mongrel Russian wolf hound.
"Phew!" breathed the Indian, as he snapped his rifle shut and reached up to fondle the horse's ears. _