The Walking Delegate Part 21

"It won't do, Smith. We'd never hear the last of it."

And yet Tom realized, with instant quickness, the hopelessness of the situation. Against Foley's organized ruffianism, holding hall and street, his unorganized supporters, standing on the outskirts, could do nothing. There was but one thing to be done--to get to his men, organize them in some way, wait till their number had grown, and then march in a body to the ballot-box.

Ten seconds after his discharge into the street Tom was springing away on this errand, when out of the tail of his eye he saw Foley come to the door and glance about. He wheeled and strode up to the walking delegate.

"Is this your only way of winning an election?" he cried hotly.

"Well! well! They're mixin' it up a bit, ain't they," Foley drawled, looking over Tom's head. "That's too bad!"

"Don't try any of your stage business on me! Stop this fighting!"

"What could I do?" Foley asked deprecatingly. "If I tried, I'd only get my nut cracked." And he turned back into the hall.

"Come on!" Tom cried to Smith; and together they plunged eastward, in which direction were the largest number of Tom's friends. Before they had gone a dozen paces they were engulfed in the fray. Several of his men swept in from the outskirts to his support; more Foley men rushed into the conflict; the fight that had before been waged in skirmishes was now a general engagement. For a s.p.a.ce that seemed an hour to Tom, but that in reality was no more than its quarter, it was struggle at the top of his strength. He warded off blows. He stung under fists. He struck out at dim faces. He swayed fiercely in grappling arms. He sent men down. He went down again and again himself. And oaths were gasped and shouted, and deep-lunged cries battered riotously against the street's high walls.... And so it was all around him--a writhing, striking, kicking, swearing whirlpool of men, over whose fierce turbulence fell the dusky light of bar-room and tenement windows.

After a time, when his breath was coming in gasps, and his strength was well-nigh gone, he saw the vindictive face of Jake Henderson, with the bar-room's light across it, draw nearer and nearer through the struggling mob. If Jake should reach him, spent as he was----He saw his limp, outstretched body as in a vision.

But Jake's vengeance did not then fall. Tom heard a cry go up and run through the crowd: "Police! Police!" In an instant the whirlpool half calmed. The cry brought to their feet the two men who had last borne him down. Tom scrambled up, saw the mob untangle itself into individuals, and saw, turning the corner, a squad of policemen, clubs drawn, Murphy marching at the captain's side.

The captain drew his squad up beside the doorway of the hall, and himself mounted the two steps. "If there's any more o' this rough house, I'll run in every one o' you!" he shouted, shaking his club at the men.

The Foleyites laughed, and defiance buzzed among them, but they knew the better part of valor. It was a Foley principle to observe the law when the law is observing you.

Five minutes later the captain's threat was made even more potent for order by the appearance of the reserves from another precinct; and in a little while still another squad leaped from clanging patrol wagons, making in all fifty policemen that had answered Murphy's call. Twenty of these were posted in the stairway, and the rest were placed on guard in the street.

A new order came from the bar-room, and Foley's men withdrew to beyond the limits of police influence and intercepted the men coming to vote, using blandishment and threats, and leading some into the bar-room to be further convinced.

Tom, who stood outside watching the restoration of order, now started back to the hall. On the way he glanced through the side door into the bar-room. It was heavy with smoke, and at the bar was a crowd, with Foley as its center. "I don't know what youse think about Keating callin' in the police," he was saying, "but youse can bet I know what Buck Foley thinks! A man that'll turn the police on his own union!" And then as a fresh group of men were led into the room: "Step right up to the counter, boys, an' have your measure taken for a drink. I've bought out the place, an' am givin' it away. Me an' Carnegie's tryin' to die poor."

Tom mounted to the hall with a secret satisfaction in the protection of the broad-chested bluecoats that now held the stairway. A fusillade of remarks from the men marking their ballots greeted his entrance, but he pa.s.sed up to the platform without making answers.

Pete's mouth fell agape at sight of him. "h.e.l.lo! You look like you been ticklin' a grizzly under the chin!"

Tom noted the relis.h.i.+ng grins of the Foley tellers. "The trouble downstairs is all over. I'll tell you all about it after awhile," he said shortly; and sat down just behind Pete to watch the voting.

Up to this time the balloting had been light. But now the hall began to fill, and the voting proceeded rapidly--and orderly, too, thanks to the policemen on stairway and in street. Tom, his clothes "lookin' like he tried to take 'em off without unb.u.t.tonin'," as a Foley teller whispered, his battered hat down over his eyes, sat tilted against the wall scanning every man that filed past the box. As man after man had his members.h.i.+p card stamped "voted," and dropped in his ballot, Tom's excitement rose, for he recognized the majority of the men that marched by as of his following.

At nine o'clock Pete leaned far back in his chair. "Lookin' great, ain't it?" he whispered.

"If it only keeps up like this." That it might not was Tom's great fear now.

"Oh, it will, don't you worry."

The line of voters that marched by, and by, bore out Pete's prediction, as Tom's counting eyes saw. He had the wild exultation and throbbing weakness of the man who is on the verge of success. But the possibility of failure, the cause of his weakness, became less and less as time ticked on and the votes dropped into the ballot box. His enthusiasm grew. Dozens of plans flashed through his head. But his eyes never left that string of men who were deciding his fate and that of the union.

At half past ten Tom was certain of his election. Pete leaned back and gripped his hand. "It's a cinch, Tom. It's a shame to take the money,"

he whispered.

Tom acquiesced in Pete's conviction with a jerk of his head, and watched the pa.s.sing line, now grown thin and slow, drop in their ballots, his certainty growing doubly sure.

Fifteen minutes later Foley entered the hall, whispered a moment with Hogan at the door, a moment with Connelly, and then went out again. Tom thought he saw anxiety showing through Foley's ease of manner, and to him it was an advance taste of triumph.

Tom wished eleven o'clock had come and the door was locked. The minutes pa.s.sed with such exhausting slowness. A straggling voter dropped in his ballot--and another straggler--and another. Tom looked at his watch. Two minutes had pa.s.sed since Foley's visit. Another straggling voter. And then four men appeared in a body at the hall door, all apparently the worse for Foley's hospitality. Tom saw the foremost present his card.

Hogan glanced at it, and handed it back. "You can't vote that card; it's expired," Tom heard him say.

"What's that?" demanded the man, threateningly.

"The card's expired, I said! You can't vote it! Get out!"

"I can't vote it, hey!" There was an oath, a blow--a surprisingly light blow to produce such an effect, so it seemed to Tom--and Hogan staggered back and went to the floor. There was a scuffle; the tables on which lay the ballots toppled over, and the ballots went fluttering. By this time Tom reached the door, policemen had rushed in and settled the scuffle, and the four men were being led from the room.

Hogan was unhurt, but Jackson was so dazed from a blow that Tom had to put another man in his place.

The minutes moved toward eleven with slow, ticking steps. Two stragglers ... at long intervals. At a few minutes before eleven the exhausting monotony was enlivened by the entrance of eight men, singing boisterously and jostling each other in alcoholic jollity. They marked their ballots and staggered in a group to the ballot-box. Two tried to deposit their ballots at once.

"Leave me alone, will youse!" cried one, with an oath, and struck at the other.

The ballot-box slipped across to the edge of the table. Connelly, who sat just behind the box, made no move for its safety. "Hey, stop that!"

cried Pete and sprang across to seize it. But he was too late. The one blow struck, the eight were all instantly delivering blows, and pus.h.i.+ng and swearing. The box was knocked forward upon the floor, and the eight sprawled pell-mell upon it.

Tom and the tellers sprang from behind the tables upon the scuffling heap, and several policemen rushed in from the hallway. The men, once dragged apart, subsided and gave no trouble. They were allowed to drop their ballots in the box, now back in its place on the table, and were then led out in quietness by the officers.

Pete turned about, struck with a sudden fear. "I wonder if that was a trick?" he whispered.

Tom's face was pale. The same fear had come to him. "I wonder!"

In another five minutes the door was locked and the tellers were counting the ballots. Among the first hundred there were perhaps a score that bore no mark except a cross before Foley's name. Pete looked again at Tom. With both fear had been replaced by certainty.

"The box's been stuffed!" Pete whispered.

Tom nodded.

His only hope now was that not enough false ballots had been got into the box to carry the election. But as the count proceeded, this hope left him. And the end was equal to his worst fears. The count stood: for walking delegate, Foley 976, Keating 763; for president, Keating 763, Foley's man 595; all the other Foley candidates won by a slight margin.

The apparent inconsistencies of this count Tom readily understood even in the first wild minutes. Foley's running ahead of his ticket was to be explained on the ground that the brief time permitted of a cross being put before his name alone on the false ballots; his own election to the unimportant presidency, and the failure of his other candidates, was evidently caused by several of his followers splitting their tickets and voting for the minor Foley candidates.

As the count had proceeded Tom had exploded more than once, and Pete had made lurid use of his gift. When Connelly read off the final results Tom exploded again.

"It's an infernal steal!" he shouted.

"Even if it is, what can we do?" returned Connelly.

Words ran high. But Tom quickly saw the uselessness of protests and accusations at this time. His great desire now was to take his heat and disappointment out into the street; and so he gave evasive answers to Pete and Barry, who wanted to talk it over, and made his way out of the hall alone.

Cheers and laughter were ascending from the bar-room. As he was half-way down the stairs the door of the saloon opened, and Foley came out and started up, followed by a number of men. Among them Tom saw several of the drunken group that had upset the ballot-box; and he also saw that they probably had not been more sober in years.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Tom!" Foley cried out on sight of him. "D'youse hear the election returns?"

Tom looked hard at Foley's face with its leering geniality, and he was almost overmastered by a desire to hurl himself upon Foley and annihilate him. "You infernal thief!" he burst out.