Ridgway of Montana Part 26

"Then, really, Mr. Yesler came to your rescue."

"That's about it, though he didn't intend it that way."

"And who is to be the senator?"

He gave her a cynical smile. "Warner."

"But I thought--why, surely he--" The surprise of his cool announcement took her breath away.

"No, he isn't the man our combination decided on, but the trouble is that our combination is going to fall through. Sam's an optimist, but you'll see I'm right. There are too many conflicting elements of us in one boat. We can't lose three votes and win, and it's a safe bet we lose them. The Consolidated must know by this time what we have been about all night. They're busy now sapping at our weak links. Our only chance is to win on the first vote, and I am very sure we won't be able to do it."

"Oh, I hope you are not right." A young woman was standing in the doorway, her arm in a sling. She had come in time to hear his prophesy, and in the disappointment of it had forgotten that he was a stranger.

Virginia remedied this, and they went in to breakfast. Laska was full of interest, and poured out eager questions at Ridgway. It was not for several minutes that Virginia recollected to ask again who was the man they had decided upon.

Her betrothed found some inner source of pleasure that brought out a sardonic smile. "He's a slap in the face at both Harley and me."

"I can't think who--is he honest?"

"As the day."

"And capable?"

"Oh, yes. He's competent enough."

"Presentable?"

"Yes. He'll do the State credit, or rather he would if he were going to be elected."

"Then I give it up."

He was leaning forward to tell, when the sharp buzz of the electric door-bell, continued and sustained, diverted the attention of all of them.

Ridgway put down his napkin. "Probably some one to see me."

He had risen to his feet when the maid opened the door of the dining-room.

"A gentleman to see Mr. Ridgway. He says it is very important."

From the dining-room they could hear the murmur of quick voices, and soon Ridgway returned. He was a transformed man. His eyes were hard as diamonds, and there was the bulldog look of the fighter about his mouth and chin.

"What is it, Waring?" cried Virginia.

"Trouble in the mines. An hour ago Harley's men rushed the Taurus and the New York, and drove my men out. One of my s.h.i.+ft-foremen and two of his drillers were killed by an explosion set off by Mike Donleavy, a foreman in the Copper King."

"Did they mean to kill them?" asked the girl whitely.

"I suppose not. But they took the chance. It's murder just the same--by Jove, it's a club with which to beat the legislators into line."

He stopped, his brain busy solving the problem as to how he might best turn this development to his own advantage. Part of his equipment was his ability to decide swiftly and surely issues as they came to him.

Now he strode to the telephone and began ma.s.sing his forces.

"Main 234--Yes--Yes--This the Sun?--Give me Brayton--h.e.l.lo, Brayton.

Get out a special edition at once charging Harley with murder. Run the word as a red headline clear across the page. Show that Vance Edwards and the other boys were killed while on duty by an attack ordered by Harley. Point out that this is the logical result of his course. Don't mince words. Give it him right from the shoulder. Rush it, and be sure a copy of the paper is on the desk of every legislator before the session opens this morning. Have a reliable man there to see that every man gets one. Scatter the paper broadcast among the miners, too. This is important."

He hung up the receiver, took it down again, and called up Eaton.

"h.e.l.lo! This you, Steve? Send for Trelawney and Straus right away. Get them to call a ma.s.s meeting of the unions for ten o'clock at the courthouse square. Have dodgers printed and distributed announcing it.

Shut down all our mines so that the men can come. I want Straus and Trelawney and two or three of the other prominent labor leaders to denounce Harley and lay the responsibility for this thing right at his door. I'll be up there and outline what they had better say."

He turned briskly round to the young women, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with a hard bright light. "I'm sorry, but I have got to cut out breakfast this morning. Business is piling up on me too fast. If you'll excuse me, I'll go now."

"What are you going to do?" asked Virginia.

"I haven't time to tell you now. Just watch my smoke," he laughed without mirth.

No sooner did the news of the tragedy reach Simon Harley than he knew the mistake of his subordinates would be a costly one. The foreman, Donleavy, who had directed the attack on the Taurus, had to be brought from the shafthouse under the protection of a score of Pinkerton detectives to safeguard him from the swift vengeance of the miners, who needed but a word to fling themselves against the cordon of police.

Harley himself kept his apartments, the hotel being heavily patrolled by guards on the lookout for suspicious characters. The current of public opinion, never in his favor, now ran swiftly against him, and threats were made openly by the infuriated miners to kill him on sight.

The members of the unions came to the ma.s.smeeting reading the story of the tragedy as the Sun colored the affair. They stayed sullenly to listen to red-hot speeches against the leader of the trust, and gradually the wrath which was simmering in them began to boil. Ridgway, always with a keen sense of the psychological moment, descended the court-house steps just as this fury was at its height. There were instant cries for a speech from him so persistent that he yielded, though apparently with reluctance. His fine presence and strong deep voice soon gave him the ears of all that dense throng. He was far out of the ordinary as a public speaker, and within a few minutes he had his audience with him. He deprecated any violence; spoke strongly for letting the law take its course; and dropped a suggestion that they send a committee to the State-house to urge that Harley's candidate be defeated for the senators.h.i.+p.

Like wild-fire this hint spread. Here was something tangible they could do that was still within the law. Harley had set his mind on electing Warner. They would go up there in a body and defeat his plans. Marshals and leaders of companies were appointed. They fell into ranks by fours, nearly ten thousand of them all told. The big clock in the court-house was striking twelve when they began their march to the Statehouse.

CHAPTER 17. THE ELECTION

At the very moment that the tramp of twenty thousand feet turned toward the State-house, the report of the bribery investigating committee was being read to the legislature met in joint session. The committee reported that it had examined seven witnesses, Yesler, Roper, Landor, James, Reedy, Kellor, and Ward, and that each of then had testified that former Congressman Pelton or others had approached him on behalf of Warner; that an agreement had been made by which the eight votes being cast for Bascom would be give to Warner in consideration of $300,000 in cash, to be held in escrow by Yesler, and that the committee now had the said package, supposed to contain the bills for that amount, in its possession, and was prepared to turn it over to the legislature for examination.

Except for the clerk's voice, as he read the report, a dead silence lay tensely over the crowded hall. Men dared not look at their neighbors, scarce dared breathe, for the terror that hung heavy on their hearts.

Scores were there who expected their guilt to be blazoned forth for all the world to read. They waited whitely as the monotonous voice of the clerk went from paragraph to paragraph, and when at last he sat down, having named only the bribers and not the receivers of bribes, a long deep sigh of relief swept the house. Fear still racked them, but for the moment they were safe. Furtively their glances began to go from one to another of their neighbors and ask for how long safety would endure.

One could have heard the rustle of a leaf as the chairman of the committee stepped forward and laid on the desk of the presiding officer the incriminating parcel. It seemed an age while the chief clerk opened it, counted the bills, and announced that one hundred thousand dollars was the sum contained within.

Stephen Eaton then rose in his seat and presented quietly his resolution, that since the evidence submitted was sufficient to convict of bribery, the judge of the district court of the County of Mesa be requested to call a special session of the grand jury to investigate the report. It was not until Sam Yesler rose to speak upon that report that the pent-up storm broke loose.

He stood there in the careless garb of the cattleman, a strong clean-cut figure as one would see in a day's ride, facing with unflinching steel-blue eyes the tempest of human pa.s.sion he had evoked.

The babel of voices rose and fell and rose again before he could find a chance to make himself heard. In the gallery two quietly dressed young, women, one of them with her arm in a sling, leaned forward breathlessly and waited. Laska's eyes glowed with deep fire. She was living her hour of hours, and the man who stood with such quiet courage the focus of that roar of rage was the hero of it.

"You call me Judas, and I ask you what Christ I have betrayed. You call me traitor, but traitor to what? Like you, I am under oath to receive no compensation for my services here other than that allowed by law. To that oath I have been true. Have you?

"For many weeks we have been living in a carnival of bribery, in a debauched hysteria of money-madness. The souls of men have been sifted as by fire. We have all been part and parcel of a man-hunt, an eager, furious, persistent hunt that has relaxed neither night nor day. The lure of gold has been before us every waking hour, and has pursued us into our dreams. The temptation has been ever-present. To some it has been irresistible, to some maddening, to others, thank G.o.d! it has but proved their strength. Our hopes, our fears, our loves, our hates: these seducers of honor have pandered to them all. Our debts and our business, our families and our friends.h.i.+ps, have all been used to hound us. To-day I put the stigma for this shame where it belongs--upon Simon Harley, head of the Consolidated and a score of other trusts, and upon Waring Ridgway, head of the Mesa Ore-producing Company. These are the debauchers of our commonwealth's fair name, and you, alas! the traffickers who hope to live upon its virtue. I call upon you to-day to pa.s.s this resolution and to elect a man to the United States senate who shall owe no allegiance to any power except the people, or to receive forever the brand of public condemnation. Are you free men? Or do you wear the collar of the Consolidated, the yoke of Waring Ridgway? The vote which you will cast to-day is an answer that shall go flying to the farthest corner of your world, an answer you can never hope to change so long as you live."

He sat down in a dead silence. Again men drew counsel from their fears.

The resolution pa.s.sed unanimously, for none dared vote against it lest he brand himself as bought and sold.

It was in this moment, while the hearts of the guilty were like water, that there came from the lawn outside the roar of a mult.i.tude of voices. Swiftly the word pa.s.sed that ten thousand miners had come to see that Warner was not elected. That they were in a dangerous frame of mind, all knew. It was a pa.s.sionate undisciplined mob and to thwart them would have been to invite a riot.