The recreation room was crowded to suffocation. Men of every degree in the work of the mill had foregathered. A hubbub of talk was going on.
Voices were raised. There was anger. There was argument, harsh-voiced argument which mainly expressed feeling. At the far end of the hall, on the raised platform designed for those who fancied their vocal attainments, a group of men were gathered about a table upon which was outspread the folios of an extensive doc.u.ment. The men at the table were talking eagerly.
The gathering had listened to the furious oratory of a pale-faced man, with long black hair and a foreign accent. It had listened, and agreed, and applauded. For he had talked Communism, and the overthrow of the Capitalists, and the possession of the wealth creating mills for those who operated them. It had listened to an appeal to the latent instinct in every human creature, freedom from everything that could be claimed as servitude, freedom, and possession, and independence for those who would once and for all rid themselves of the shackles which the pay-roll and time-sheet imposed upon them.
They had been called together to witness the iniquity of spending their lives in the degrading operation of filling the pockets of those who laboured not, by the toil in which their lives were spent. They had been told every flowery fairy tale of the modern communistic doctrine, which possesses as much truth and sanity in it as is to be found in an asylum for the mentally deficient. And they had swallowed the bait whole. The talk had been by the tongue of a skilled fanatic, who was well paid for his work, and who kept in the forefront of his talk that alluring promise of ease, and affluence, and luxury, which never fails in its appeal to those who have never known it.
But something approaching an impa.s.se had been reached when the would-be benefactors pa.s.sed over the demand that their deluded victims should sign the roll of Communal Brotherhood. The bait that had been offered had been all to the taste of these rough creatures who had never known better than an existence with a threat of possible unemployment overshadowing their lives. But in the signature to the elaborate doc.u.ment they scented the concealed poison in the honeyed potion. There was hesitation, reluctance. There was argument in a confusion of tongues well-nigh bewildering. A surge of voices filled the great building.
The agents were at work, men who posed as workers to attain their ends.
And the pale, long-haired creature and his satellites waited at the table. They understood. It was their business to understand. They knew the minds they were dealing with, and their agents were skilled in their craft. The process they relied on was the unthinking stupidity of the sheep. Every man that could be persuaded had his friends, and each friend had his friend. They knew friend would follow friend well-nigh blindly, and, having signed, native obstinacy and fear of ridicule would hold them fast to their pledge.
Presently the signing began. It began with a burly river-jack who laughed stupidly to cover his doubt. He was followed by a machine-minder, who hurled taunts at those who still held back. Then came others, others whose failure to think for themselves left them content to follow the lead of their comrades.
The stream of signatures grew. A pale youth, whose foolish grin revealed only his fitness for the heavy, unskilled work he was engaged upon, came up. The pen was handed him, and the name of Adolph Mars was scrawled on the sheet. The long-haired man at the table looked up at him. He smiled with his lips, and patted the boy"s hand. Then something happened.
It was movement. Sudden movement on the platform. The babel in the body of the hall went on. But the long-haired man and his supporters at the table turned with eyes that were concerned and anxious. A dozen men had entered swiftly through the door in rear of the platform. Bull Sternford led them. And he moved over to the table, with the swift, noiseless strides of a panther, and looked into the unwholesome face of the Bolshevist leader.
It was only for the fraction of a second. The man made a movement which needed no interpretation. His hand went to a hip pocket. Instantly Bull"s great hands descended. The man was picked up like a child. He was lifted out of his seat and raised aloft. He was borne towards the window where he was held while the master of the mill crashed a foot against its wooden sash. The next moment the black-clothed body was hurled with terrific force out into the snowdrift waiting to receive it. It was all so swiftly done. The whole thing was a matter of seconds only. Then Bull Sternford was back at the table, while his comrades, Bat and Lawton, and the men of loyalty they relied on, lined the platform.
As Bull s.n.a.t.c.hed up the doc.u.ment and held it aloft, a deathly silence reigned throughout the hall, and every eye was turned angrily upon the intruders. Bull yielded not a moment for those witless minds to recover from their shock. His voice rang out fiercely.
"Here," he cried, "d"you know what you"re doing, listening to that fool guy I"ve thrown through that window, and signing this crazy paper he"s set out for you? No. You don"t unless you"re just as crazy yourselves.
You"re declaring war. You"re starting a great fight to steal the property that hands you your living. You reckon you"ve got all you need of our brains, and your own brute force and darnation foolishness can run these great mills which are to hand you the big money you reckon it hands us. That means war. Maybe you fancy it"s the one-sided war you"d like to have it. Maybe you fancy there"s about a dozen of us, and we"re going to be made to work for the wage you figger to hand us. You"re dead wrong. It"s going to be a h.e.l.l of a war if you swallow the dope these fellows hand you. You"ve begun it, and we"re taking up the challenge.
We"ve fired the first shot, too. It"s not gun-play yet. No. Maybe it"ll come to that and you"ll find we can hand you shot for shot. No. We"re quicker than that. The mill"s closed down! Wages have ceased! And all power has been cut off! There"s not a spark of light or heat, for the whole of Sachigo. The vital parts of the power station have been removed, and you can"t get "em back. I"ve only to give the word and the _penstocks on the river will be cut so you can"t repair them_. It"s forty degrees below Zero out there, where I"ve shot that crazy Bolshie, and so you know just how you stand here on Labrador with no means of gettin" away until the thaw comes. You and your wives and kiddies"ll have to pay in the cold for the crime of theft you reckon to put through. We"re ready for you, whether it"s gun-play or any other sort of war you want to start. That"s the thing I"ve come here to tell you."
He paused for a moment to watch the effect of his words. It was there on the instant. A furious hubbub arose. There was not a man in the room who did not understand the dire threat which the _coup_ of the master mind imposed. Power cut off! Light! Heat! Power! Forty degrees below Zero!
The terror of the Labrador winter was in every man"s mind. Life would be unendurable without heat. There were the forests. Oh, yes. They could get heat of sorts. The sort of heat which the men on a winter trail were accustomed to. _Their electrically-heated houses were without stoves in which they could burn wood_.
Bull listened to the babel of tongues while his men watched for any act that might come. Every man on the platform was armed ready.
"Here!"
Bull"s voice rang out again, but he was interrupted.
A man shouted at him from the back of the hall.
"Who the h.e.l.l are you, anyway? You ain"t the guy owning these mills. We know where you come from--"
Like lightning Bull took him up.
"Do you?" he shouted back. "Then we know where you come from. The man who knew me before I became boss here must belong to the Skandinavia.
That"s the only place any lumber-jack could have known me. Here. Come up here. Stand out. Show yourself. And I"ll hand the boys your pedigree.
It"ll be easy. It"s the trouble with us just now, we"ve got too many stiffs from the Skandinavia, and you"ve got our own good boys paralysed.
They haven"t the guts to stand on the notions that have handed them the best wages in the pulp trade these fifteen years. Guess you"ve persuaded them they ain"t got swell houses, and good food, and cheap heat and light, and, instead are living like all sorts of swine in their hogpens.
It"s the way of the Skandinavia just now. The Skandinavia"s out for our blood. They want to smash us. Do you know why? Because they"re an alien firm who wants to steal these forests from the Canadians to fill their own pockets with our wealth. We"re for the Canadians, and we"ve built up a proposition that"s going to beat the foreigner right out into the sea.
But that don"t matter now. These guys, these long-haired, unwashed guys, that reckon to hand you boys these mills, are sent by the Skandinavia to wreck us. Well, go right over to "em. Help "em. Sign every darn doc.u.ment they hand you. They"ll be your own death warrants, anyway. You want war. You can have it. I"m here to fight. Meanwhile you best get home to your cold houses, for the mills are closed down. You"re locked out."
He turned without waiting a second and pa.s.sed through the back door by which he had entered. And his men followed on his heels.
Bull was in his office. For all the storm of the morning the rest of the day had pa.s.sed quietly. Now it was late at night. His stove was radiating a luxurious heat. He was quite unconcerned that the electrically-heated steam radiators were cold. He was alone. Harker and the engineer were still down at the mill. He was awaiting the report they would bring him later.
He had pa.s.sed some time in reading the pledge of Communal Brotherhood which he had brought away with him from the recreation room, and he had read the signatures that had been affixed to it. The latter were few, and every name inscribed was of foreign origin. But it was the doc.u.ment itself which concerned him most. If it were honest he felt that its authors were wild people who should be kept under restraint. If it were not honest, then hanging or shooting was far too lenient a fate to be meted out to them. It was Communism in its wildest, most unrestrained form.
In his final disgust he flung the papers on his desk. And as he did so a sound reached him from the outer office, which had long since been closed for the night by the half-breed, Loale.
He leapt to his feet. Without a second thought he moved over to the door and flung it wide.
"What the--?" He broke off. "Good G.o.d!" he cried. "You, Father?" He laughed. "Why I thought it was some of the Bolshies from down at the mill."
He withdrew the gun from his coat pocket in explanation. Then he stood aside.
"Will you come right in?"
The man Bull had discovered made no answer. But as he stood aside, tall, clad in heavy fur from head to foot, Father Adam strode into the room.
Bull watched him with questioning eyes. Then he closed the door and his visitor turned confronting him in the yellow lamplight.
"I"ve made more than a hundred miles to get you to-night," Father Adam said.
Then he flung back the fur hood from his head, and ran a hand over his long black hair, smoothing it thoughtfully.
"Yes?"
Bull"s eyes were still questioning.
"Won"t you shed your furs and sit?" he went on. "The c.h.i.n.k"s abed, but I"ll dig him out. You must get food."
The other glanced round the pleasant office, and his eyes paused for a moment at the chair at the desk.
"Food don"t worry, thanks," he said, his mildly smiling eyes coming back to his host"s face. "I"ve eaten--ten miles back. I rested the dogs there, too. I"ve maybe a ha"f hour to tell you the thing I came for.
There"s trouble in the woods. Bad trouble. If it"s not straightened out, why, it looks like all work at your mills"ll quit, and you"re going to get your forest limits burnt out stark."
CHAPTER XIX
THE HOLD-UP
Ole Porson took a final glance round his shanty. The last of the daylight was rapidly fading. There was still sufficient penetrating the begrimed double window, however, to reveal the littered, unswept condition of the place. But he saw none of it. It was the place he knew and understood. It was at once his office, and his living quarters; a shanty with a tumbled sleeping bunk, a wood stove, and a table littered with the books and papers of his No. 10 camp. He was a rough creature, as hard of soul as he was of head, who could never have found joy in surroundings of better condition.
He solemnly loaded the chambers of a pair of heavy guns. Then he bestowed them in the capacious pockets of his fur pea-jacket. He also dropped in beside them a handful of spare cartridges. In his lighter moments he was apt to say that these weapons were his only friends. And those who knew him best readily agreed. Drawing up the storm-collar about his face, he pa.s.sed out into the snow which was falling in flakes the size of autumn leaves. There was not a breath of wind to disturb the deathly stillness of the winter night.
Minutes later he was lounging heavily against the rough planked counter of Abe Risdon"s store. He was talking to the suttler over a deep "four-fingers" of neat Rye, while his searching eyes scanned the body of the ill-lit room. The place was usually crowded with drinkers when the daylight pa.s.sed, but just now it was almost empty.