The Silver Horde Part 40

All that morning the three held their posts, refusing to admit any one who did not have business within, the while a considerable crowd a.s.sembled in the street. The first actual violence, however, occurred when the fishermen knocked off for the noon hour. Sensing the storm about to break, Boyd called up the Police Department from the dock-office, then summoned Big George, who appeared in quick time. It was with considerable difficulty that the non-union crew fought its way back to resume work at one o'clock.

During the afternoon the strikers made several attempts to enter the dock- shed, and it required a firm stand by the guards to restrain them. These growing signs of excitement pleased the fishermen intensely, and at each advance of the crowd it became as great a task to hold them back as it was to check the union forces. During one of these disturbances Captain Peasley made his way sh.o.r.eward from the s.h.i.+p to scan the scene, and the sight of his uniform excited the ire of the strikers afresh. After a glance over the mob, he remarked to Emerson:

"Bli'me! It looks like a b.l.o.o.d.y riot already, doesn't it? Four hundred pounds to those dock wallopers! Huh! You know if I allowed them to bleed me that way--"

At that instant, from some quarter, a railroad spike whizzed past the Captain's head, banging against the boards behind him with such a thump that the dignified Englishman ducked quickly amid a shout of derision. He began to curse them roundly in his own particular style.

"You'd better keep under cover, Captain," advised Emerson. "They don't seem to care for you."

"So it would appear," he agreed. "They're getting nawsty, aren't they? I hope it doesn't lawst."

"Well, I hope it does," said George Balt. "If they'll only keep at it and beat up some of our boys at quitting-time the whole gang will be here in the morning."

It seemed that his wishes bade fair to be realized, for, as the day wore on, instead of diminis.h.i.+ng, the excitement increased. By evening it became so menacing that Boyd was forced to send in an urgent demand for a squadron of bluecoats to escort his men to their lodgings, and it was only by the most vigorous efforts that a serious clash was averted. Nor was this task the easier since it did not meet with the approval of the fishermen themselves, who keenly resented protection of any sort.

True to George's prediction, the next morning found the non union men out in such force that they were divided into a night and a day crew, half of them being sent back to report later, while among the mountains of freight the work went forward faster than ever. But the night had served to point the anger of the strikers, and the dock owners, becoming alarmed for the safety of their property, joined with Emerson in establis.h.i.+ng a force of a dozen able-bodied guards, armed with clubs, to a.s.sist the police in disputing the sh.o.r.e line with the rioters. The police themselves had proved ineffective, even betraying a half-hearted sympathy with the union men, who were not slow to profit by it. Even so, the day pa.s.sed rather quietly, as did the next. But in time the agitation became so general as to paralyze a wide section of the water-front, and the city awoke to the realization that a serious conflict was in progress. The handful of fishermen, hidden under the roof of the great warehouse, outnumbered twenty to one, and guarded only by a thin line of pickets, became a centre of general interest.

As the violence of the mob, stimulated rather than checked by the indifference of the police, became more openly daring, so likewise did the reprisals of the fishermen, goaded now to a stubborn rage. They would not hear to having their food brought to them, but insisted daily on emerging in a body at noon and spending the hour in combat. Not to speak of the physical disabilities they incurred in these affrays, the excitement distracted them and affected their work disastrously, to the great concern of their employer.

It was on the fourth day that Boyd espied the man in the gray suit among the strikers and pointed him out to his three companions, Clyde and Fraser having joined him and George in a spirit of curiosity. Clyde was for immediately executing a sally to capture the fellow, explaining that once they had him inside the dock-house they could beat him until he confessed that Marsh was behind the strike, but his valor shrank amazingly when Fraser maliciously suggested that he himself lead the dash.

"No!" he exclaimed. "I'm not a fighting man, but I'm a good general. You know, Napoleon was about my size."

"I never noticed the resemblance," remarked Fraser.

"All the same, your idea ain't so bad," said Balt. "There's somebody stirring those fellows up, and I think it's that detective. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on him, and if you'll all stick with me I'll go out after him."

"Not for mine," hastily declared "Fingerless" Fraser. "I don't want to fight anybody. I'm here as a spectator."

"You're not afraid?" questioned Emerson.

"Not exactly afraid, but what's the use of my getting mixed up in this row? It ain't _my_ cannery."

Now, while a mob is by nature noisy and threatening, there is little real danger in it until its diffusive violence is directed into one channel by a leader. Then, indeed, it becomes a terrible thing, and to the watchers at the dock it became evident, in time, that a guiding influence was at work among their enemies. Sure enough, late in the afternoon of the fourth day, without a moment's warning, the strikers rushed in a body, bearing down the guards like reeds. They came so unexpectedly that there was no time to muster reinforcements at the gate; almost before the fishermen could drop their tasks, their enemies were inside the building and pandemonium had broken loose. The structure rocked to the tumult of pounding heels, of yells and imprecations, the lofty roof serving to toss back and magnify the uproar.

Emerson and his companions found themselves carried away before the onslaught like chips in the surf, then sucked into a maelstrom where the first duty was self-preservation. Behind locked doors and s.h.i.+vering gla.s.s a terrified office-clerk, receiver to ear, was calling madly for Police Headquarters, while in the main building itself the crowd bellowed and roared and the hollow floor reverberated to the thunder of trampling feet and the crash of tumbling freight-piles.

Boyd succeeded in keeping his footing and eventually fought his way to a backing of crated machinery, where he stooped and ripped a cleat loose; then, laying about him with this weapon, he cleared a s.p.a.ce. It was already difficult to distinguish friend from foe, but he saw Alton Clyde go down a short distance away and made a rush to rescue him. His pine slat splintered against a head, he dodged a missile, then struck with the fragment in his hand, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing Clyde by the arm, dragged him out from under foot. Battered and bruised, the two won back to Emerson's first position, and watched the tide surge past.

At the first alarm the fishermen had armed themselves with bale-hooks and bludgeons, and for a time worked havoc among their a.s.sailants; but as the fight became more general they were forced apart and drawn into the crowd, whereupon the combatants split up into groups, milling about like frightened cattle. Men broke out from these struggling cl.u.s.ters to nurse their injuries or beat a retreat, only to be overrun and swallowed up again in a new commotion.

Emerson saw the big, barefooted fisherman in the red underclothes, armed with a sledge-hammer, go through the ranks of his enemies like a tornado, only to be struck by some missile hurled from a distance. With a shout of rage the fellow turned and flung his own weapon at his a.s.sailant, felling him like an ox, then he in turn was blotted out by a surge of rioters. But there was little time for observation, as the scene was changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity and there was the ever-present necessity of self- protection. Seeing Clyde's helpless condition, Emerson shouted:

"Come on! I'll help you aboard the s.h.i.+p." He found a hardwood club beneath his feet--one of those cudgels that are used in pounding rope-slings and hawsers--and with it cleared a pathway for Clyde and himself. But while still at a distance from the s.h.i.+p's gangway, he suddenly spied the man in the gray suit, who had climbed upon one of the freight-piles, whence he was scanning the crowd. The man likewise recognized Emerson, and pointed him out, crying something unintelligible in the tumult, then leaped down from his vantage-point. The next instant Boyd saw him approaching, followed by several others. He endeavored to hustle Clyde to the big doors ahead of the oncomers, but being intercepted, backed against the shed wall barely in time to beat off the foremost.

His nearest a.s.sailant had armed himself with an iron bar and endeavored to guard the first blow with this instrument, but it flew from his grasp, and he sustained the main force of the impact on his forearm. Then, though Boyd fell back farther, the others rushed in and he found himself hard beset. What happened thereafter neither he nor Alton Clyde, who was half- dazed to begin with, ever clearly remembered, for in such over-charged instants the mental photograph is wont to be either unusually distinct or else fogged to such a blur that only the high-lights stand out clearly in retrospect.

Before he had recognized the personal nature of the a.s.sault, Emerson found himself engaged in a furious hand-to-hand struggle where a want of room hampered the free use of his cudgel, and he was forced to rely mainly upon his fists. Blows were rained upon him from unguarded quarters, he was kicked, battered, and flung about, his blind instinct finally leading him to clinch with whomsoever his hands encountered. Then a sudden blackness swallowed him up, after which he found himself upon his knees, his arms loosely encircling a pair of legs, and realized that he had been half- stunned by a blow from behind. The legs he was clutching tried to kick him loose, at which he summoned all his strength, knowing that he must go down no further; but as he struggled upward, something smote him in the side with sickening force, and he went to his knees again.

Close beside him he saw the club he had dropped, and endeavored to reach it; but before he could do so, a hand s.n.a.t.c.hed it away and he heard a voice cursing above him. A second time he tried to rise, but his shocked nerves failed to transmit the impulse to his muscles; he could only raise his shoulder and fling an arm weakly above his head in antic.i.p.ation of the crus.h.i.+ng blow he knew was coming. But it did not descend, Instead, he heard a gun shot--that sound for which his ears had been strained from the first--and then for an instant he wondered if it had been directed at himself. A weight sank across his calves, the legs he had been holding broke away from his grasp; then, with a final effort, he pulled himself free and staggered to his feet, his head rocking, his knees sagging. He saw a man's figure facing him, and lunged at it, to bring up in the arms of "Fingerless" Fraser, who cried sharply:

"Are you hurt, Bo?"

Too dazed to answer, he turned and beheld the body of a man stretched face downward on the floor. Beyond, the fellow in the gray suit was disappearing into the crowd. Even yet Boyd did not realize whence the shot had come, although the smell of powder was sharp in his nostrils. Then he saw a gleam of blue metal in Fraser's hands.

"Give me that gun!" he panted, but his deliverer held him off.

"I may need it myself, and I ain't got but the one here! Let's get Clyde out of this."

Stepping over the motionless form at his feet, Fraser lifted the young club-man, who was huddled in a formless heap as if he had fallen from a great height, and together the two dragged him toward _The Bedford Castle_. As they went aboard, they were nearly run down by a body of reinforcements that Captain Peasley had finally mustered from between decks. Down the gang-plank and over the side they poured, grimy stokers, greasy oilers, and swearing deckhands, equipped with capstan-bars, wrenches, and marlin-spikes. Without waiting to observe the effect of these new-comers, Boyd and Fraser bundled Alton into the first cabin at hand, then turned back.

"Better stay here and look after him. You're all in, yourself," the adventurer advised. "I'm going to hunt up George."

He was away on the instant, with Boyd staggering after him, still weak and shaking, the vague discomfort of running blood at the back of his neck, muttering thickly as he went: "Give me your gun, Fraser! Give me your gun!"

The battle was still raging when the police arrived, after an interminable delay, and it ceased only at the rough play of night-sticks, and after repeated charges of the uniformed men had broken up the ranks of the strikers. The dock was cleared at length, and wagon-loads of bleeding, struggling combatants rolled away to jail, union and non-union men bundled in together. But work was not resumed that day, despite the fact that Big George, bruised, ragged, and torn, doubled his force of pickets and took personal charge of them.

That night, under glaring headlines, the evening papers told the story, reporting one fisherman fatally hurt, one striker dead of a gunshot wound, and many others injured.

CHAPTER XVIII

WILLIS MARSH SPRINGS A TRAP

The ensuing days were strenuous ones for the partners, working as they did, with a crippled force and under constant guard. Riot was in the air, and violence on every side. By the police, whose apathy disappeared only when an opportunity occurred of arresting the men they were supposed to protect, they were more handicapped than helped. The appearance of a fisherman at any point along the water-front became a sure signal for strife.

Day by day the feeling on both sides grew stronger, till the non-union men were cemented together in a spirit of bitterest indignation, which materially lessened their zeal for work. Every act of violence intensified their rage. They armed themselves, in defiance of orders, tossed restraint to the winds, and sought the slightest opportunity of wreaking vengeance upon their enemies. Nor were the rioters less determined. Authority, after all, is but a hollow sh.e.l.l, which, once broken, is quickly disintegrated.

Fierce engagements took place, populating the hospitals. It became necessary to guard all property in the warehouse districts, and men ceased to venture there alone after dark.

One circ.u.mstance caused Boyd no little surprise and uneasiness--the fact that no vigorous effort had been made to fix the blame for the striker's death on that riotous afternoon. Surely, he reasoned, Marsh's detective must have witnessed the killing, and must recognize the ease with which the act could now be saddled upon him. If delay were their object, Emerson could not understand why they did not seek to have him arrested. The consequences might well be serious if Marsh's money were used; but, as the days slipped past and nothing occurred, he decided that he had been overfearful on this score, or else that the manager of the Packers' Trust had limits beyond which he would not push his persecution.

A half-mile from Captain Peasley's s.h.i.+p, the rival Company tenders were loading rapidly with union labor, and it seemed that in spite of Boyd's plan to be first at Kalvik, Marsh's force would beat him to the ground unless greater efforts were made. When he communicated these fears to Big George, the fisherman suddenly became a slave-driver. He pa.s.sed among his men, cajoling, threatening, bribing, and they began to work like demons, with the result that when the twentieth arrived he was able to announce to his partner that the work would be finished some time during the following morning.

The next day Emerson and Clyde drove down to the dock with Cherry in a closed carriage, experiencing no annoyance beyond some jeers and insults as they pa.s.sed through the picket line. Boyd had barely seen them comfortably established on board, when up the s.h.i.+p's gangway came "Fingerless" Fraser radiantly attired, three heavily laden hotel porters groaning at his back, the customary thick-waisted cigar between his teeth.

"Are you going with us?" Boyd inquired.

"Sure."

"See here. Is life one long succession of surprise parties with you?"

"Why, I've figgered on this right along."