Three kinds of meetings were held by the strikers. Public meetings, open to everybody, union meetings, open to any member of the several organizations engaged in the strike, and secret sessions held by the various Brotherhoods, to which only members of that particular order were admitted.
Many things were said and done at these secret sessions that were never printed, or even mentioned outside the lodge-room, save when a detective happened to be a member, or when a member happened to be a detective.
At one of these meetings, held by the striking firemen, the head of that organization startled the audience with the declaration that the strike was going to end disastrously for the strikers. In fact, he said, the strike was already lost. They were beaten. The only point to be determined was as to the extent of the thrashing. This red rag, flung in the faces of the "war faction," called forth hisses and hoots from the no-surrender element. A number of men were on their feet instantly, but none with the eloquence, or even the lung power to shut the chief off. Many of the outraged members glanced over at Cowels, who always sat near the little platform at the end of the hall in order that he might not keep his admirers waiting when they called for a speech. The greatest confusion prevailed during the address of the head of the house. Cowels, the recognized leader of the war party, sat silently in his place, though frequently called upon to defend the fighters. As their chief went on telling them of the inevitable ruin that awaited the strikers, the more noisy began to accuse him of selling them out. One man wanted to know what he got for the job, but the master, feeling secure in that he was doing his duty, gave no heed to what his traducers were saying. Amid all the turmoil Cowels sat so quietly that some of the more suspicious began to guess, audibly, that he was "in with the play." But there was no play, and if there had been Cowels would not have been in with it. Cowels was thinking. Suddenly he leaped upon his chair and yelled: "Throw 'im out!" He did not use the finger of scorn upon the master, or even look in his direction. He merely glared at the audience and commanded it to "Throw 'im out!"
"We are fighting a losing fight," repeated the chief, "and you who fight hardest here will be first to fall," and he looked at Cowels as he spoke. "It could not be pleasant to me, even with your respectful attention, to break this news to you. I do it because it is my duty. But now, having said what I had to say, let me assure you that if a majority of you elect to continue the fight, I will lead you, and I promise that every man of you shall have his fill."
This last declaration was rather a cooler for Cowels. It took a vast amount of wind out of his sails, but he was on his feet and so had to make a speech. He was not very abusive, but managed to make it plain that there were others ready and able to lead if their leader failed to do his duty. When he had succeeded in getting his train of thought out over the switches his hearers, especially the no-surrenderers, began to enthuse. His speech was made picturesque by the introduction of short rhymes, misquotations from dead poets, and tales that had never been told in type. "If," he exclaimed dramatically, "to use a Shakesperian simile, the galled wench be jaded, let him surrender his sword to some one worthy of the steel."
The orator worked the Shakesperian pedal so hard that some of his hearers expressed a desire to know more about the distinguished poet. Finally, when he became too deep for them, a man with a strong clear voice shouted a single word—the name of a little animal whose departure from a sinking ship makes sailors seek the shore—and Cowels closed like a snuff-box.
Now the casual observer would say of the great orator: he has money; his family is not in want. But the statement would have been incorrect.
The Cowelses, like hundreds of other families, were without money, without credit, and would shortly be without food. The last money they had received from the Brotherhood had gone to pay the interest on the money due the Benevolent Building Association, for fuel, and to pay the milkman who was bringing milk for the baby. It would be forty or fifty days before another assessment could be made and the money collected. The outlook was gloomy. Mr. Hawkins had called again and offered ten dollars a month for the little spare room on the second floor, but Cowels would not consent.
But at the very moment when he was making this speech his wife was returning empty-handed from the bakery. Bennie had been watching, waiting at the window for her, and when she saw him staring at her, saw the tears come into his innocent eyes, she took him in her arms and wept as she had not wept before. They had breakfasted on bread and water. It was now past noon and they were all hungry. She gave Bennie some of the baby's milk, and then sat down to think. The door-bell rung. "I was just passing by," said Mr. Hawkins, "and thought I'd stop and see if there was any show to get that room. I work for the plumber in the next block, so you see it would be handy for me."
"Would you pay in advance?" asked Mrs. Cowels.
"I shouldn't mind," said the plumber, "if it would be of any advantage to you."
"Then you can have the room."
"Very well," said the man, apparently delighted with his bargain, and he gave her a crisp ten-dollar note. He also gave Bennie a big, red apple, and looked surprised when the boy began to bite great chunks out of it.
That evening when Cowels came home he found the house filled with the fumes of boiled beef, and it put him in a good humor at once. He was hungry, having had nothing all day but a glass of beer and a free lunch.
"They's a man up-stairs," said Bennie, shoving his empty plate up for another load of boiled beef. Mrs. Cowels smiled a faint smile, and her husband asked:
"Who is this fellow?"
"He's a plumber," was the reply, "and he seems like a very nice man."
"Did he pay a month in advance?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't like the idea of having strangers in the house," said Cowels, "and I wish you had not taken him in."
"I dislike it too, George," said Mrs. Cowels, "but the baker had refused me a loaf of bread, the children were hungry and you might as well know now that I can never see my babies suffer for want of food, and you need not be surprised at anything I may do to supply their wants."
Cowels had never seen his wife display so much spirit and it surprised him. "It's all very well," she went on, "to prate about honor and loyalty to the Brotherhood, but an obligation that entails the suffering of innocent women and children is not an honorable obligation and ought not to exist. A man's first duty is to his family. My advice to you would be to miss a few meetings and go and try to find something to do. Think how we have denied ourselves in order to have a place of our own, and now it's all to be taken from us, and all because of this senseless and profitless strike."
"By George, she's a cracker-jack!" said Hawkins, who had been listening down the stove-pipe.
Cowels made no reply to his wife, but he was thinking. In fact, he had been thinking all the way home. He had been interrupted twice that day while addressing the meeting. One fellow had asked who the devil Shakespeare was, and if he had ever done anything for the Union. Another man had said "rats," and the orator was sore.
Now, when he had thought it all over, he surprised his wife as much as she had surprised him. "They're all a lot of unliterate ingrates," said Cowels, "and for two cents I'd shake the whole show and go to work. If they turn me down at the convention, and this strike is not settled, I'll take an engine."
Mr. Hawkins gave a low whistle.
"No, you must never do that, George, after all you've said against such things; it would not do."
"Then they must not drive me to it," said Cowels. "I've tried to show them the way to success, even to lead them, and they have the nerve to guy me. I'll fool 'em yet if they trifle with me."
"That's what I thought all along," mused Hawkins. "It was not the Brotherhood that Mr. Cowels was working so hard for, but Mr. Cowels. Well, he will be just as eager to succeed in another direction—he's ambitious."
The great strike, like a receding sea, revealed heaps of queer wreckage. Men who had once been respected by their fellows, but who had drifted down the river of vice now came to claim the attention of the strikers or the company. Most conspicuous among them was drunken Bill Greene. Three months ago he would have been kicked out of a company section house or passed by a Brotherhood man without a nod. Then he was "Old Bill;" now they called him Billy.
In his palmy days he had wooed, and won the heart of Maggie Crogan, a pretty waitress in the railway eating-house at Zero Junction. Maggie was barely eighteen then, a strawberry blonde with a sunny smile and a perpetual blush. In less than a year he had broken her heart, wrecked her life and sent her adrift in the night. His only excuse was that he was madly in love with Nora Kelly, but Nora, having heard the story of Maggie's miserable life, turned her back on Greene and married George Cowels, then a young apprentice in the shops. Inasmuch as it was about the only commendable thing he ever did, it should be put to Greene's credit that he did really love Nora Kelly; but, being a coward with an inherited thirst, he took to drink the day she turned him down; and now, after a few wasted years he and Maggie—old red-headed Mag they called her—had drifted together, pooled their sorrows and often tried to drown them in the same can of beer. She worked, when she worked at all, at cleaning coaches. He borrowed her salary and bought drink with it. Once he proposed marriage, and ended by beating her because she laughed at him.
Before the strike he had been forced to keep sober four days out of a week. Now he was comfortably tanked at all times. He had been a machinist and round-house foreman, and the company saw in him a fair "emergency" engineer, and was constantly watching for an opportunity to try him on one of the fast express trains.
At last he was called to take out a passenger run. The round-house foreman had gone personally to fetch "Billy" from the bar-room near the Grand Pacific where he was waiting for a Brotherhood man to drop in and buy him a drink. When told that he was wanted to take out the Pacific express, the bum straightened up, hitched his suspenderless trousers and asked: "Who're you?"
"I'm the foreman; come and have a bite o' breakfast and let's be off."
"Well—folks gen'ly drink afore they eat—come on, le's have a horn. Here, bar-keep, give us a couple o' slugs."
"Got any dough?"
"Now don't git gay—I'm goin' down to take me run out—here's me foreman."
"But you must not drink," broke in the official, "when you are going out on an express train."
"What?"
"You must not drink."
"Then I don't work. Th' Brotherhood 'll pay me four dollars a day to sit right here and keep three gages an' a flutter in the stack—go on with yer damn ol' railroad—"
"Come now, Billy," pleaded the foreman, "this is an opportunity—"
"Billy! Month ago Stonaker's nigger threw me down the steps."
"Give 'm a drink," said the foreman, and the bar-keeper set out two glasses and a large red bottle. While the foreman's back was turned and the bar-man waited upon another customer, Billy did the honors. He filled both glasses and had emptied one when the foreman, having unearthed a quarter, turned and remarked to the liquor man that he did not drink. The man was in the act of removing the glass when Billy grabbed it, and with a quick crook of his elbow pitched the whiskey down his neck.
"Now will you go and eat?"
"Naw—go t' work," said Greene, hitching up his trousers.
Off they went together, but at every saloon (and there are dozens of them in Chicago), the new engineer of the Pacific express insisted upon drinking. By hard coaxing the foreman had succeeded in passing three or four of them when they were met by a couple of strikers.
"Hello Billy," said one of the men. "Where you goin'?"
"Goin' t' take me run out," said Greene, with another hitch.
"Now you fellows break away," said the foreman, for the strikers had turned and were walking with the others.
"Reckon you don't own the sidewalk, do you?" said one of the men, and the foreman was silent.
"Didn't think you'd shake us like this Billy," began the striker. "We intended to take you into the order to-day an' end up with a good big blow-out to-night. It's all right Billy. You go out on your run and when you get in come round to the Pacific an' we'll square you with the boys."
"An' we'll have a bowl together, eh?" said Billy, for the liquor was beginning to make him happy.
The foreman was white with rage, but he was powerless.
"You bet we will, Billy," said the man who had done the talking.
"Hur—what's this, boss?"
"Come along now," urged the foreman, tugging at Billy's arm.
"Never run by a tank," said Billy, setting the air and coming to a dead stall at the open door of a beer saloon. The silent striker had entered the saloon, the other paused in the door, looked back, nodded and asked: "Have something, Billy, b'fore you go?"
"Will I?" cried Billy, as he twisted from the foreman's grasp.
"Police—here—officer!" cried the foreman, and when the copper came he found Billy just swallowing his second straight.
"Here," said the foreman, excitedly, "I want you to arrest these men."
"Better get a warrant first," said one of the strikers coolly. "We simply came in here to have a drink," he explained to the officer.
"Phat's th' row hier, Tony?" asked the policeman.
"Th' ain't no row as I can see," said the bar-keeper, "these gents is 'aving a quiet drink w'en 'ees nibs there pips in an' calls fer a cop."
"This is one of our engineers," explained the foreman, "and I was on the way to the station with him when these strikers took him away."
"Begad, he's a bute," said the officer, folding his arms over his ample stomach and gazing with mirthful curiosity at the bum.
"Now, ye's fellies must not interfere with men as wants to make an honest living—let th' ingineer go t' 'is ingine," and he gave Billy a shove that sent him into the arms of the waiting foreman.
"What's ittoyou," shouted the angry engine-driver, "who wants to work—who said I wanted t' make a' honest livin'?—Go t' 'ell," and he struck the foreman in the face.
"Here! Here!!" cried the officer, seizing the fighter, "you'll go to work or go to jail," and Billy went away between the copper and the foreman with his wheels sliding.
After much coaxing and cursing by the foreman, who was often asked to come out in the alley and settle it, Billy was loaded into an engine cab. While the foreman was selecting a fireman from the hard-looking herd of applicants sent down from the office of the master-mechanic, the gentle warmth of the boiler-head put Billy to sleep. It was a sound, and apparently dreamless sleep, from which he did not wake the while they rolled him from the engine, loaded him into a hurry-up wagon and carried him away to the cooler.
When he had sobered up Greene went to the round-house and offered his services to the company, but the foreman would not talk to him. Finally Greene became abusive, and the foreman kicked him out of the round-house and across the turntable. From that day Greene was a striker, and a very troublesome one.
Two weeks had passed when the Philosopher met Patsy, now in deep disgrace. Patsy had been expelled from the Brotherhood for aiding a scab. "O! it's nothing," said Patsy.
"That's right. It won't be worth much to belong to the Union when this cruel war is over."
"Only a fellow hates to get the worst of it when he really tries to tote fair."
"The best you can get is the worst of it when you are bound by oath to an organization that is engaged in a hopeless fight. The president offered yesterday to take back seventy-five per cent. of the men, and immediately they said he was running. This morning the offer is for sixty per cent., but they won't have it. Have they offered to balm you with promotion?"
"Yes."
"Varnished cars, eh?"
"Yep—finest train on the road."
"And you told them?—"
"No."
"Well, I think you did right. Shall we go and peck?"
"Have you been working?"
"No. I've been vag'd. When the police got through with me, and returned my pie-card I turned it in for a commutation ticket, and there are still a few feeds to the good on it. The commutation ticket is the proper card for a gentleman in straitened circumstances. You are not obliged to gorge yourself at early morn with a whole twenty-cent breakfast when all you really need is a cup of black coffee and a roll. Besides, when a man is not working he should not eat so much. I frequently edge in with a crowd of other gentlemen and procure a nice warm lunch at one of the beer saloons, omitting the beer. By the way, the free lunch room is a good place for the study of human nature. There you will see the poor working man fish up his last five cents to pay for a beer in order to get a hot lunch, and if you look closely, spot a two-by-four-shopkeeper, for instance, as he enters the front door, and keep your eye on him until he goes out again, you will observe that he hasn't lost a cent. A little dark man who runs a three-ball in La Salle Street makes a business of this, and of loaning money at fifty per cent. and seems to be doing quite well."
When they had reached a "Kohlsaat" the two men sat down, or up, and when they had finished Patsy paid for the meal.
"If you see a man who has wood to saw or a piano to tune or anything that isn't scabbin' I wish you'd give me a character and get me the job," said the Philosopher when they had reached the sidewalk.
"You follow my smoke," said Patsy, after a moment's meditation, and he strolled down the crowded street, turning and twisting through the multitude like a man trying to lose a dog, but he couldn't lose the Philosopher. Presently he stepped in front of a big building, waited for his companion, and they went in together.
"Mr. Stonaker," said Patsy when he had been admitted to the general manager's private office, "I have a favor to ask. I want you to give a friend of mine a job. He's a switchman, and a good trainman, but he will not take the place of a striker."
"Can you vouch for his honesty, Patsy?" asked the official.
"I think I can."
"Very well, we want a reliable watchman here in the building; bring your friend in."
When the Philosopher had been informed as to his new duties, and learned that he was to have charge of the entire building, he asked if Patsy had given his history.
"I have vouched for you," said Patsy, a little embarrassed.
The general manager pressed a button and when the stenographer came in instructed him to take the man's personal record, in accordance with a well-known rule. This information is intended chiefly as a guide to the management in notifying the relatives or friends of an employee in case of accident or death. The manager did the questioning and when the man had given his name and declared that he had no relatives, no home, no friends—except Patsy—the official showed some surprise and asked:
"Where did you work last?"
"In the workhouse."
"When?" queried the general manager, casting a quick glance at Patsy, who was growing nervous.
"'Bout a year ago now."
"At what particular place have you lived or lodged since that time?"
"In jail."
"What were you in jail for?"
"Stealing a meal-ticket, this coat and cap from Patsy."
"I gave the things to him, sir," said Patsy, "and he was discharged."
"Where have you been living since you left the workhouse?"
"In the streets and in the fields."
"Do you drink?"
"No, sir."
"Do you mean to tell me that an experienced yardman, strong and intelligent as you appear to be, can sink so low without being a drunkard?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you have been foreman in the Buffalo yards? What else have you been?"
"A Union man, tramp, bum, vag, thief, and a scab."
"Huh!" said the general manager, pushing out his lips, "is this your notion of a reliable man, Patsy?"
"Yes, sir, I still vouch for him."
The general manager looked puzzled. "But you could hardly expect me to employ, in a responsible position, a self-confessed criminal?"
"And yet," said the Philosopher, "if I had lied to you I might have gained a good place, but having told the truth I suppose I must go."
The general manager, who had left his seat, began to pace the floor.
"It may be possible for an honest man to be a tramp—even a vag, but why did you steal?"
"For the same reason that I took the place of a striker the other day—because I was hungry," said the Philosopher looking the general manager full in the face.
"But what brought you to this condition? that's what I want to know," said the official earnestly. "And if you can explain that, you can have the place, provided you really want to reform."
"I'm not so anxious to reform," said the Philosopher. "What I want is a show to earn an honest living, and let the balance of the world reform. But if you want to know what brought me to my present condition I can tell you—this is the instrument." And the man lifted from the manager's desk a slip of paper, full of names, across the top of which was printed "Black List."
"It's the blight of the black-list that is upon me, sir, and it gives me pleasure to be able to present to you a sample of the class of citizens you and your associates are turning out," said the Philosopher with much feeling, and he turned to go.
"Stay," said Patsy. "Mr. Stonaker, you told me yesterday that if I ever needed your assistance in any way to make my wants known."
"And do you still vouch for this man?"
"I do."
"Very well, then—he can have the place!"
Mr. Hawkins had been in his new lodgings nearly a week and had frequently discussed the strike with the great labor leader, when he made bold one evening to state that he had no use for the Brotherhood and that he had it from inside sources that a number of the old engineers were going to return to work, and that the strike would soon be a thing of the past, as would the comfortable jobs that the strikers had left.
Cowels, of course, was indignant, but he was interested. Mr. Hawkins had expected as much.
"I'm going out firing myself," he went on, "and I'm promised promotion as soon as I can start and stop. If I had your experience and your ability, generally, I could get the best run on the road with a cinch on a job as M. M. at the first opening. A good man who goes to the company's rescue now won't want for anything. If he's hard up he can get all the money he needs—that is a few hundred at least—advanced to him."
Cowels listened attentively.
Mr. Hawkins lighted a fresh ten-cent cigar and gave one to his landlord.
"Of course, it's different with you," resumed the lodger, "you own your home and have saved your money, perhaps, but a whole lot of the strikers are being pinched and they're going to weaken. They'll be cursed a little bit by the Brotherhood, but the public is dead against the strikers—read the Chicago papers to-day."
"But the papers are owned body and soul by the Burlington," said Cowels.
"Well, what do you fellows own? That only shows which is the winning side. You take my advice and let go while you've got plenty."
"Plenty?" echoed Cowels. "Do you suppose I'd take a stranger into my home—do you think for a minute that I would sit here and let you talk to me as you have done if I could help myself? Plenty! I'm a beggar."
Hawkins knew that, but he expressed surprise. When they had smoked in silence for a while the plumber handed an unsealed letter to his landlord and watched his face closely as he read it.
The letter was from one of the Burlington officials and it stated plainly that the bearer was empowered to make terms with the gentleman addressed looking to his return to the service of the company.
Mr. Cowels was very indignant, at first, but finally consented to discuss the matter. Mr. Hawkins was very cool, explaining that it made no difference with him one way or the other. The official happened to be a personal friend of his and had trusted him with this commission. "If you ask my advice," said the plumber, "I should say take whatever they offer and go to work. No man can hold out against such odds for any great length of time; sooner or later you will be as hard up as the rest, your wife will be in need of the actual necessaries of life, your children will be crying for food, and how can you answer them if you let this opportunity pass? To-morrow, I am told, is to be the last day of grace, so you might better heel yourself and let the Brotherhood walk the floor for a while. The probabilities are that the strike will simply be declared off, the old employees to be taken back only as their services are required, and as new men. Every day that passes adds to the strength of the company. Labor organizations, like bands of Indians, are ever at each other's throats. When the Knights of Labor struck on the Reading those haughty aristocrats of the working world, the Engineers' Brotherhood, took their places, and now the Knights of Labor engineers are coming here in carload lots to fill the cabs of the Burlington. If the engineers were offered their old places back to-day they would bolt for the round-house nor cast one longing, lingering look for their old friends. Finally, when the strike is settled it will be by the engineers. If it is to be declared off, the unconditional surrender of all the forces will be made by them. If the terms of settlement suit them, your followers will take their medicine and look pleasant. Bring the matter nearer home,—to your own experience. You have given your time, neglected your family, and worked unceasingly for the advancement of the cause. Your eloquence, your genius and your influence have held the men in line when they have wavered and would have broken, and what has your own order done for you, and what will it do at the coming convention? They have guyed you in public and they will throw you down hard when the time comes. It's nothing to me, only I hate to see a good man turned down. I dislike to see real talent and personal worth wasted upon a lot of loud-mouthed, uneducated coyotes who don't know who Shakespeare is. You're too big a man, Cowels, that's the trouble; you're out of your sphere. When you are master-mechanic, with your hands full of promotions, they will look up to you, and it is all within easy reach. If you will report for duty to-morrow morning you can go out on Blackwings to-morrow night, with the Denver Limited, the finest train in the West, behind you. The best run on the road will be the meanest position you will ever be asked to fill. But I must say no more, for I don't want to persuade you to take a step which you might regret in after years. I only ask you to think it over to-night and choose between what you call loyalty to the Brotherhood, and your plain duty to your family—Good-night."
Hawkins possessed, in a remarkable degree, the rare faculty of knowing how and when to let go.
When Cowels had made the foregoing facts known to his wife, she was greatly surprised that he would entertain such a proposition for the smallest fraction of a second, for she had always regarded him as the soul of honor, and wholly unselfish. Now each pondered in silence over the proposition. From her point of view it was a choice between the Brotherhood and her home. Between temporary disgrace for her husband, and hunger for her children, and she was not long in making up her mind. The baby had been without milk that day. It had gone to bed hungry for the first time in its life, and the thought of it made her desperate.
To Cowels's way of reasoning it was simply a question of choice between the position of master of the Brotherhood and master-mechanic. Which was nearest, and which would last longest and pay best? These were the points he was considering, and he chose what appeared to him to be the surest and quickest way. To be sure, he suffered not a little at the thought of deserting his comrades, but his personal ambition and selfishness helped him to determine to report on the following morning, and to go out with the fast express behind him on the following night. He tried not to think of the Brotherhood, and to fashion to himself the glory of success, of fast runs with Blackwings, and future promotion.
The night winds moaned among the empty freight cars. The arc lamps hummed and sputtered, making the flying frost look like diamond dust dropping from the grinding stars. Out of a shadowy alley a bent man crept, crouching under the snow-hung eaves. Far down the track, at a crossing, the man saw the flash of a helmet and the glint of brass buttons, and dodged among the cars. The man had committed no crime against the law, but he was willing to, and so avoided the silent guardian of the peace, pacing his beat. Beyond the track he came to the street door of a two-story building, struck a match, read the number on the transom, and entered the hall. At the top of the first flight of stairs a door stood open. Beneath a gas jet in the open room Dan Moran sat reading a book. He had heard the unsteady footsteps on the stair, but had not allowed them to disturb him. Now the prowler paused, steadied himself against the door-jamb, coughed, hiccoughed, hello'd in a whisper, and Moran looked up.
"Well, Greene," said Dan, "what brings you abroad on a night like this?"
"Business!" was the half-whispered reply, "Business, ol' man."
Now the rum-crazed rambler left the door, put a trembling hand on the table in the centre of the room, glanced back toward the stairs, and peered into the face of the old engineer. "We are betrayed!" he whispered, leaning heavily upon the stand. His wrist shook violently, causing the table to quiver. The smoking outfit upon the table made a low, rumbling noise. "What's that?" he asked, glaring about.
Having satisfied himself that all was right he put both hands upon the table, and gazing again into the face of Moran, repeated: "We are betrayed. Cowels is goin' out with Blackwings on the Denver Limited to-morrow night. The plumber told the foreman an hour ago—I heard 'im. Least they think he's goin', but he ain't. He's goin' to—"
"Oh, Greene, you're drunk. Go home and have a good sleep."
"Home! Did you say home? I ain't got no home. Drunk? Yes, I been drunk lots o' times, but I ain't drunk now. Honest, I ain't teched a drop to-day. Got a bot about you, ol' man? Say, if you have, fur th' love o' life gimme a drop—half a drop—Dan, I'm all afire inside."
It was an awful picture that Moran looked upon now. The bloated face, the sunken, blood-shot eyes, the blazing, hideous nose, burning in the iron-gray stubble, all topped by a shock of tousled, unkempt hair, made a picture horrible in the extreme.
"Say!" Greene began again, glancing toward the door, "meet me at seven thirty to-morrow night, on the 'rep' track near the round-house, an' I'll show you a trick."
"What sort of trick will you show me?"
With another look over his shoulder at the door the drunkard leaned over the table and whispered. When the old engineer had gathered what the man had said he got to his feet, took his midnight caller by the collar and lead him to the top of the stairs. Greene was opposed to leaving the cheerful room, so Moran was obliged to go with him to the street door. Having put the wreck out into the frosty night the engineer went back to his book. But he could not read. That awful face into which he had looked, and the black soul that he had seen as well, haunted him. He sat with his feet upon the table and smoked pipe after pipe, in a vain effort to drive the frightful picture from his mind. The news that Greene had brought disturbed him also. His fireman was going to desert the Brotherhood, and take their old engine out.
Blackwings! How he loved that locomotive, and how absurd it seemed now for a man to become so attached to a mere machine! But she was not inanimate. She lived, moved, breathed. How often, as they swept beneath the stars of an autumn night, had he felt her hot breath upon his face, heard the steel singing beneath her feet and felt her tremble, responsive to his lightest touch. How wild and free and glad she had seemed, let loose in the moonlight with the Limited behind her. How gracefully, easily, she lifted the huge, vestibuled train from swale to swell. How she always passed station after station on the tick of the clock, keeping to the time-card, unvarying as the sun. Proud and queenly, yet gentle, she always answered the signals of the less fortunate locomotives that stood panting on the side tracks, with their heavy loads. Even the Meteor, the engine that wore white flags and pulled the president's private car, always took the siding and saluted Blackwings as she swept by majestically with the Limited.
More than once Moran had refused promotion that would take him from his engine—from the open fields and free, wide world in which they lived and moved together—to the cares and anxieties of a stuffy office. He had been contented and happy with Blackwings, his books and his briar-root pipe. He did not share the troubles of his less fortunate brothers, who hugged and exaggerated their grievances until they became, to them, unbearable. But when they quit he climbed down, took off his overclothes, folded them carefully and carried them away with him. He had nothing to gain by the strike, but he had much to lose by remaining at his post—the confidence and respect of his fellow-toilers. Besides he, in common with the rest, regarded the classification of engineers as unfair to the men and to the travelling public. If a man were competent to handle a passenger train, said the strikers, he ought to have first-class pay. If he were incompetent he ought to be taken off, for thousands of lives were in the hands of the engineer during the three years through which, at reduced pay, he was becoming competent. These were the arguments advanced by the men. This business upon the one hand, and a deep longing upon the part of the management to learn just how far the men could go in the way of dictating to the officials, in fixing the load for a locomotive, and the pay of employees, caused the company, after years of sparing, to undertake the chastisement of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.[3]
[3]The Burlington officials claim that, by resolutions in the lodge room at Lincoln, the engineers fixed the load for certain classes of engines, together with the penalty for pulling more. They argue that if allowed to do this the men would want to make the time-cards and fix freight rates. They certainly had as much right to do the one as the other.
It is to be presumed that the generals, colonels and captains in the two armies fought for what they considered right. At all events they were loyal and obedient to their superiors. But each had found a foe vastly more formidable than had been expected. They had not dreamed that the fight could become so bitter. Life-long friends became enemies. Family ties were severed, homes were ruined, men's lives were wrecked, women's hearts were broken, and out of the shadow of the awful strife came men fit for murder. It was these things that had kept Dan Moran awake far into the morning.
Presently he heard a whistle, opened his eyes, looked at his watch and then undressed and went to bed, while other workmen, more happily situated, passed under his window on the way to work.
"Brush the snow off the headlight!"
"What?"
"Brush the snow off the headlight!"
It was the first time the engineer had spoken to the fireman since they left Chicago. When they crossed the last switch and left the lights of the city behind them he had settled down in his place, his eyes, with a sort of dazed look in them, fixed upon the front window. The snow was driving from the north-west so hard that it was impossible for the engineer, even when running slowly through the country towns, to put his head outside the cab, and now they were falling out into the night at the rate of a mile a minute.
It was Barney Guerin's first trip as a fireman. He was almost exhausted by the honest effort he had been making to keep the engine hot, and now he looked at the engineer in mingled surprise and horror. He could not believe that the man expected him to go out over the wet and slippery running-board to the pilot and wipe the snow from the headlight glass. He stood and stared so long that the fire burned low and the pointer on the steam gauge went back five pounds. For the next two or three minutes he busied himself at the furnace door, and when he finally straightened up, half-blinded by the awful glare of the fire-box, half-dazed by being thrown and beaten against the sides of the coal tank, the engineer said:
"Brush the snow off theheadlight!"
The fireman opened the narrow door in front of him and the storm came in so furiously that he involuntarily closed it again. Again he tried and again was beaten back by the wind. Pulling his cap tight down he faced about and stepped out with his back to the storm. Holding to the hand railing he worked his way to the front end. One sweep of his gloved hand swept the snow away and the great glare of the headlight flashed up the track.
"My God! how she rolls!" exclaimed the engineer.
And she did roll.
Never before in the history of the road had the Denver Limited been entrusted to a green crew, for the engineer was also making his maiden trip. The day coach was almost empty. In the chair car, with four chairs turned together, the newly-made conductor, the head brakeman, a country editor, and the detective sent out to spot the crew, played high five. The three or four passengers in the sleeper were not asleep. They were sitting silently at the curtained windows and occasionally casting anxious glances at the Pullman conductor who seemed to be expecting something to happen. Where were all the people who used to travel by this splendid train? The road was now considered, by most people, as unsafe and the people were going round it. Public opinion, at the beginning of the strike, was about equally divided between the men and the company. Now and then a reckless striker or sympathizer would blow up a building, dope a locomotive or ditch a train, and the stock of the strikers would go down in the estimation of the public. Burlington stock was falling rapidly—the property was being wrecked.
On nearly every side track could be seen two or three dead engines that had been ruined and abandoned by amateur engine-drivers, and now and then at way-stations the smouldering ruins of a freight train, whose blackened skeleton still clung to the warped and twisted track. At every station great crowds of people blocked the platforms, for the Limited had not been able to leave Chicago for more than a month. The engineer had scarcely touched the whistle, deeming it safer to slip quietly through the night, and the light train was now speeding noiselessly over the snow-muffled earth. They had left Chicago two hours late, and as they had a clear track, so far as other trains were concerned, the young driver was letting her go regardless of danger. At any moment they might expect to be blown into eternity, and it was just as safe at seventy miles an hour as at seventeen.
Besides, George Cowels was desperate. For five long years he had fired this run with the same locomotive. He knew all her tricks and whims, her speed and power, and the road was as familiar to him as was his mother's face. He knew where the "old man" used to cut her back and ease off on the down grades. He knew that he ought to do the same, but he did not. "Let her roll," he would say to himself; and she did roll, and with every swing the bell sounded a single note, low and mournful, like a church bell tolling for the dead. It seemed to the unhappy engineer that it tolled for him, for that day he had died to all his friends.
Although he had only been out a little over an hour now, he knew that in that hour the story of his desertion had flashed out to every division of the various brotherhoods in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and that a hundred thousand men and women would curse him that night before they slept. He recollected what a vigorous striker he had been in the beginning, how he had shouted, "Put him out" when the grand master had said: "We are fighting a losing fight." He recalled with some bitterness that their leader had looked him straight in the face when he added: "And you who fight hardest here will be first to fall."
Then the face of his ten-year-old boy rose up before him, as it had appeared from the street as he was leaving his home that evening, all bruised and bleeding, with soiled and torn clothes, and he heard the brave child's explanation: "Mamma, I wouldn't 'ave fit, but Dugan's boy said my papa was a scab."[4]
[4]The reader must pardon the use of this vulgar word, for we must use it here or spoil this story.
Ordinarily it would require a great deal of "sand" to enable a man to take out a train of this kind and run at such a high rate of speed through a country full of anarchy, but in Cowels's case it required nothing in the way of bravery. The great sacrifice he had made in abandoning all that he held to be honorable,—the breaking of his vow, the violation of his oath, had left him utterly indifferent to personal danger.
It will be difficult for those unacquainted with the vast army of daily toilers to appreciate the sufferings of this youthful engine-driver. A king, who in a night's debauch loses an empire, loses no more than the man who abandons all that he holds sacred. The struggles and disappointments of the poor mean as much to them as similar sorrows mean to the rich. The heart of a Bohemian milkmaid beats as wildly, aches as sorely and breaks as surely as does the heart of the proudest princess. This man and his wife, on the day they abandoned the cause of his comrades—of the Brotherhood of which he had been so proud, of whose strength he had boasted in many a crowded hall—made a great sacrifice. To stand disgraced in their little world was to be disgraced before all the people of all the earth, for in that world were the only people they knew and cared about.
When the fireman returned to the cab he was almost overcome with terror. More than once, as he worked his way along the side of the rolling, plunging engine, he had nearly been dashed to death. The very machine, he fancied, was striving to shake him from her. Once he had lost his footing on the running board and only saved himself by clinging to the hand rail while the rolling steed beat and thrashed him against her iron side.
"Never ask me to do that again," he shouted, as he shook his clenched fist at the engineer. The latter laughed, then asked:
"Why?"
"Because it is dangerous; I nearly lost my life."
"And what if you had?" said the engineer, and he laughed again. "Why, don't you know that thousands would rejoice at the news of your death and scarcely a man would mourn? Don't you know that at thousands of supper-tables to-night, working men who could afford to buy an evening paper read your name and cursed you before their wives and children? Nearly lost your life! Poor, miserable, contemptible scab."
"Never apply that name to me again!" shouted Guerin, and this time it was not his fist but the coal-pick he shoved up into the very face of the engineer.
"Why?"
"Because it is dangerous; you nearly lostyourlife."
The engineer made no reply.
"And what if you had?" the fireman went on, for it was his turn to talk now.
"If my action makes me contemptible in the eyes of men, how much more contemptible must yours make you? I take the place of a stranger—you the place of a friend; a man who has educated you, who has taught you all you know about this machine. Right well I know how I shall be hated by the dynamiters who are blowing up bridges and burning cars, and I tell you now that it does not grieve me. Can you say as much? Here's a copy of the message that went out to your miserable little world to-night—read it, it will do you good. I fancy your friends will be too busy cursing you this evening to devote any time to mere strangers."
Cowels took the message with a jerk, turned the gauge lamp to his corner and read:
The Denver Limited left to-night, two hours late, Fireman George Cowels as engineer, and Time-keeper Guerin as fireman. Cowels is the man who wanted the grand master thrown out of a hall in Chicago. He was a great labor agitator and his desertion is a great surprise.Hogan.
Hogan.
Later—
It is now understood that Cowels, the scab who went out on engine Blackwings to-night, was bought outright by a Burlington detective. This fact makes his action all the more contemptible. He is now being burned in effigy on the lake front, and the police are busy trying to keep an infuriated mob from raiding and burning his house. The action of Guerin was no surprise, as he was employed in the office of the master-mechanic, and has always been regarded as a company man—almost as an official.Hogan.
Hogan.
Guerin, having put in a fresh fire, stood watching the face of his companion, and when the engineer crumpled the message in his hand and ground his teeth together the fireman shoved another message under the nose of the unhappy man. This message was on the same subject, but from quite another source, and varied slightly from those we have just read.
Official Bulletin:Burlington RouteThe Denver Limited went out on time to-night with a reasonably well-filled train, Engineer Cowels in the cab. Mr. Cowels has been many years in the service of the company and is highly esteemed by the officials. Although he was, for a time, a prominent striker, he saw the folly of further resistance on the part of the employees, and this morning came to the company's office and begged to be allowed to return to his old run, which request was granted. Cowels is a thoroughly competent engineer and has been on this same run for five years, and up to the time of the strike had never missed a trip. It is expected that his return to his engine will be the signal for a general stampede. The company has generously agreed to reïnstate all old employees (unless guilty of some lawless act) who return before noon to-morrow.Stonaker.
The Denver Limited went out on time to-night with a reasonably well-filled train, Engineer Cowels in the cab. Mr. Cowels has been many years in the service of the company and is highly esteemed by the officials. Although he was, for a time, a prominent striker, he saw the folly of further resistance on the part of the employees, and this morning came to the company's office and begged to be allowed to return to his old run, which request was granted. Cowels is a thoroughly competent engineer and has been on this same run for five years, and up to the time of the strike had never missed a trip. It is expected that his return to his engine will be the signal for a general stampede. The company has generously agreed to reïnstate all old employees (unless guilty of some lawless act) who return before noon to-morrow.
Stonaker.
It would be difficult to say which of these dispatches distressed him most. The first said he had sold himself for so much money, the second that he had gone to the company and begged to be reïnstated. Slowly he opened the first crumpled message and read down to the word "scab." "George Cowels, the scab,—burned in effigy—a great mob about his house." All these things passed swiftly before him, and the thought of his wife and baby being in actual danger, his boy being kicked and cuffed about, almost made him mad. He crushed the crumpled messages in his right hand while with his left he pulled the throttle wide open. The powerful Blackwings, built to make time with ten cars loaded, leaped forward like a frightened deer. The speed of the train was now terrific, and the stations, miles apart, brushed by them like telegraph poles. At Mendota a crowd of men hurled sticks and stones at the flying train. As the stones hailed into the cab, and the broken glass rained over him, the desperate driver never so much as glanced to either side, but held his place, his hand on the throttle and his eye on the track. For the first time he looked at his watch. He was still more than an hour late. He remembered how the old engineer had said, an hundred times perhaps: "George, an express train should never be late; she should be on time or in the ditch."
It was the first time Blackwings had ever been an hour late anywhere, and with all his greater sorrows this grieved the young engineer. Now at the way stations the crowd that awaited them invariably fell back as the wild train dashed by, or, if they hurled their missiles, those aimed at the locomotive struck the sleeper or flew across the track behind it, so great was the speed of the train. Cowels yielded at last to the irresistible desire to see how his companion was taking it, but as he bent his gaze in that direction it encountered the grinning face of the fireman, into which he threw the crumpled paper. Then, as he continued to grin, the infuriated engineer grabbed a hard-hammer and hurled it murderously at Guerin's head. The latter saved his life by a clever dodge, and springing to the driver's side caught him by the back of the neck and shoved his head out at the window and held it there. They were just at that moment descending a long grade down which the most daring driver always ran with a closed throttle. Blackwings was wide open, and now she appeared to be simply rolling and falling through space. Although we have no way of knowing how fast she fell, it is safe to say she was making ninety miles an hour. While the fireman held on to the engineer, squeezing and shaking away at the back of his neck, the speed of the train was increasing with every turn of the wheels. Gradually the resistance of the engineer grew feebler until all at once he dropped across the arm-rest, limp and lifeless. Guerin, finding himself alone on the flying engine, had presence of mind enough to close the throttle, but with that his knowledge of the locomotive ended. He reasoned that in time she must run down and stop of herself, and then the train crew would come forward and relieve his embarrassment. It never occurred to him for a moment that he might be regarded as a murderer, for he had only held the engineer down to the seat, with no more violence than boys use toward each other in play. And while he stood staring at the still form of the driver that hung out of the window like a pair of wet overalls, the engine rolled, the snow drifted deeper and deeper on the headlight, and with every roll the bell tolled! tolled!! like a church bell tolling for the dead. The train, slowing down, rolled silently over the shrouded earth, the fire in the open furnace blackened and died, the cold air chilled her flues and the stream of water from the open injector flooded the boiler of Blackwings and put the death-rattle in her throat. When at last the train rolled slowly into Galesburg the fireman stood on the deck of a dead locomotive, with snow on her headlight, and, as the crowd surged round him, pointed to the limp form of the young engineer that hung in the window, dead.