The Man in the Twilight Part 51

"Why, I thought it was Gouter."

Bull's manner had suddenly changed. The danger signal in the girl's eyes had determined him. So he smiled, and there was laughter in his challenge.

"Say," he went on rapidly, "if you told that to Gouter he'd be crazy mad. He's the boss running shot on Labrador, and if you claimed responsibility for the killing of Laval you'd be dead up against it with him." He shook his head. "No, he's sort of grieved he didn't drop him plumb on the instant as it is. It won't do you talking that way with him around."

He watched for the effect of his words and realised a slight relaxing of the strained look in the hazel eyes. Forthwith he plunged into the thing he contemplated.

"I'm going to make a big talk with you before we eat," he said. "You see, I've wanted to right along, Nancy, but--Well, I want to tell you you're no more responsible for Laval's life, and the lives of those dogs, than I am. We're each playing our little parts in the things of life like the puppets we are. Our hands are clean enough, but it's not that way with the skunks that could send you, a girl, almost a child, to do the work, and live the life that boys like Gouter hardly know how to get through. That man, Peterman, is going to get it one day from me if I have luck. And I won't call it murder when I get my hands on his dirty alien throat. But never mind that. I want to ease that poor aching head of yours. I want to try and get you some peace of mind. That's why I tell you you've nothing to chide yourself for, nothing at all. It's true. You've played the game like the loyal adversary you are. And, for the moment, I'm top dog. You've handed me a bad nightmare by the wonderful courage and grit you've well-nigh shamed me, as a man, with.

True, true you haven't a thing to blame yourself with. You've fought a mighty big fight I'd have been pleased to fight. It's just circ.u.mstances pitched you into the muss up, and let you see the thing your folks have brought about. It's that that's worrying. Think, Nancy, think hard. This is their fight. Not yours. The blood of Laval is on Elas Peterman's head. His, and those other creatures who are ready to commit any crime to steal our country from us. Oh, I'm not preaching just my side. It's true, true. We at Sachigo were content to compete openly, honestly.

Peterman and those others saw disaster in our compet.i.tion. And so they got ready to murder--if necessary. It's the soulless crime of a gang of unscrupulous foreigners, and those hounds of h.e.l.l have left you to suffer for it just as sure as if they'd seared your poor gentle heart with a red hot iron. Say, Nancy," he went on, with persuasive earnestness, "put it all out of your mind. Forget it all. You're out of the fight now. And it just hurts me to see your eyes troubled, and that poor tender heart of yours all broken up. Won't you?"

The girl had turned away to the gaping valley again. But she answered him. And her tone was less dull, and it was without the dreadful pa.s.sion of moments ago.

"I--I've tried to tell myself something of that," she said, with the pathetic helplessness of a child.

"Then try some more."

Bull had drawn nearer. He laid one hand gently on her shoulder. It moved down and took possession of the soft arm under her furs. Nancy shook her head. But there was no decision in the movement.

"Oh, I wish--" she began.

But she could get no further. Suddenly she buried her face in her hands, and broke into a pa.s.sion of weeping.

Bull stood helplessly by. He gazed upon the shaking woman while great sobs racked her whole body. There was nothing he could do, nothing he dared do. He knew that. His impulse was to take her in his arms and protect her with his body against the things which gave her pain.

But--somehow he felt that perhaps it was good for her to weep. Perhaps it would help her. So he waited.

Slowly the violence of the girl's grief subsided. And after a while she turned to him and gazed at him through her tears.

"I'm--I'm--"

But Bull shook his head.

"Come. Shall we go and eat?"

He still retained his hold upon her arm. And as he spoke he led her unresistingly away towards the camp.

CHAPTER XXI

THE MAN IN THE TWILIGHT

Bat Harker pa.s.sed out of the house on the hillside. m.u.f.fled in heavy furs he stood for a moment filling up the storm doorway, gazing out over a desolate prospect, a scene of grave-like, significant stillness.

The mills he loved were completely idle. But that was not all. He knew them to be at the mercy of an army of men who had abandoned their work at the call of wanton political and commercial agitators. It was disaster, grievous disaster. And he told himself he was about to beat a retreat like some hard-pressed general, hastily retiring in face of the enemy from a position no longer tenable.

There was no yielding in the lumberman. But to a man of his forcefulness and headstrong courage the thought of retreat was maddening. He was yearning to fight in any and every way that offered. He knew that he was going to fight this thing out, that his present retreat was purely strategic. He knew that the whole campaign was only just beginning. But it galled his spirit that his first move must be a--retreat.

The late winter day was fiercely threatening, fit setting for the disaster that had befallen. The cold was bitterly intense, but no more bitter than the lumberman's present mood. There down below were the deserted quays with their mountains of baled wood-pulp buried deep under white drifts of snow. And the voiceless mills were similarly half buried. Look where he would the scene was dead and deserted. There was not one single stirring human figure to break up the desolation of it all.

It was a sad, white, desolate world, which for over fifteen years he had known only as a busy hive. Roadways should have been clear. Traffic should have been speeding, every service, even in the depth of winter, should have been in full running. The mills--those wonderful mills--should have been droning out their chorus of human achievement in a world set out for Nature's fiercest battle ground.

From the moment of that first encounter in the recreation hall Bat had known the strike to be inevitable. Bull's swift action at the outset had had its effect. For the moment it had checked the movement, and reduced it to a simmer. Heat and power had been restored, and work had been resumed, and outwardly there had been peace. But it was artificial, and the lumberman and the engineer had been aware that this was so.

Brief as was the respite it was valuable time to the men in control, and they used it to the uttermost. The leaders of the strike had been robbed of the advantage they had sought from a lightning strike. But they were by no means defeated. It was only that they had lost a move in the game they had prepared.

At the end of a week Bat awoke one morning to find the mills and all traffic at a standstill, and the workers skulking within the shelter of their own homes.

Then it was that the benefit of a week's respite was made plain. Every plan that had been prepared was forthwith put into operation. Power and heat were again cut off. The loyalists, which included a large number of the engineering staff, and the staff of the executive offices, were equipped with such weapons as would serve, and set guard over the food and liquor stores, and the essentials of the mills. And the power house was fortified for siege.

But the strikers gave no sign. There was no attempt at violence. There was no picketing, and no apparent attempt at coercion of the loyalists.

It almost seemed as if the objects of the leaders had been achieved by the simple cessation of work.

This silent condition of the strike had gone on for days with exasperating effect upon the defenders. Bat endeavoured by every means in his power to bring the leaders of the movement into the open to discuss the situation. But every effort ended negatively. The men would not contemplate the conference table, and finally, in headlong mood, the lumberman had committed the grave mistake of provocation. He threatened to cut off food supplies if the leaders continued in their refusal to confer.

Two weeks elapsed before his threat reacted. Two weeks of continued silence and apparent inaction by the strike leaders. The men's first terror at the loss of heat and power seemed to have pa.s.sed. As Bull had suggested they had resorted to the methods of the trail, and day and night mighty beacon fires burned along the fore-sh.o.r.es of the cove upon which their homes were built. The men and women came and went peaceably but silently between the food stores and their homes, purchasing such provisions as they needed. And the manner of it all, the cold silence, should have served a warning of the iron hand in exercise behind the strike.

The bombsh.e.l.l came at the end of the third week. It came in the form of a message crouched in the flamboyant phraseology beloved of the Communist fraternity. It was conveyed by a small youth some ten years of age, as though its authors were fearful lest a full grown bearer should be made to suffer for the temerity.

Bat had received it at the office, and his manner had been characteristic.

"Fer me, laddie?" he had said, as he took possession of the official-looking envelope. Then he gently patted the boy's shoulder.

"All right, sonny," he added. "You get right back to your folks. Pore little bit."

With the boy's departure he had lost no time in reading the ultimatum the message contained.

"A Soviet has been formed. The Workers will not submit to inteference with the food supplies of the people such as has been threatened by men who have no right over the life and death of their fellows. In view of this threat, the Soviet of the Workers has determined to possess itself of the mills and all properties pertaining thereto. The whole territories and properties. .h.i.ther controlled under a capitalist organisation will in future be administered by the Soviet or the Workers. You are required, therefore, to hand over forthwith all accountings, administration, and all funds, all legal doc.u.mentary t.i.tles such as are held by you of freeholds and forestry rights relating to Sachigo. Furthermore, it is required of you to restore intact the machinery of the new power station, and to hand over the whole premises in full running order. One week's grace will be permitted for the execution of this order. Failing absolute compliance, the ruling Soviet of the Workers reserves to itself the right of adopting such measures to enforce the Will of the Workers as it may deem necessary.

"On behalf of the Soviet of the Workers,

"LEO MURKO,

"Chief Commissionary."

At the finish of his reading Bat had looked up into the dark face of Pete Loale who was standing by.

"Leo Murko?" he said, in an ominously restrained tone. "Ther' ain't no guy o' that name on our pay-roll. Guess he'll be that feller Bull dropped out into the snow." Then with a sudden explosive force: "In G.o.d's name why in h.e.l.l didn't he break that skunk's neck?"

The week's grace had expired. It had been a week of further hasty preparations. Every day had been used to the uttermost, and even far into the night the work had gone on. The office on the hill, as well as the executive offices down at the mill, had been cleared out. Doc.u.ments, cash, books, safe. Everything of real importance had been removed to the citadel power house. The mining of the penstocks had been completed, and left ready to be blown sky high at a moment's notice. Whatever befell, the men who had given their lives to the building of the mills were determined that only a useless husk should fall into the hands of the strikers.

Now had come the Communists' final declaration of war. The message had been brought less than an hour ago by the same youth, who had again departed with Bat's smiling expression of pity. The letter was ominously brief.

"The Order of the Soviet of the Workers will be enforced forthwith. No mercy will be shown in the event of resistance."

Bat's fury had blazed as he read the message. Again it was signed "Leo Murko." How he hated that name. He had been alone in the office when the letter came, and had seized the 'phone and called up the engineer at the power house, and read the message to him. Skert Lawton's reply was as instant as it was characteristic.