The Way of the Strong

Hendrie smiled into his face.

"You came to tell him all this, and you found, in his stead – Leo, the feller I guess you're not particularly well disposed toward. In fact, whom you – rather dislike. Well?"

Years of self-discipline had given Austin Leyburn a fine control of himself. But before that control had been acquired he had been robbed of all he possessed in the world by a man named Leo. He had been made to suffer by this man as few men are made to suffer, and after facing trials and hardships few men face successfully. These sufferings had ingrained into his heart a passionate hatred and desire for revenge no acquired control could withstand, and now the torrent of his bitter animosity broke out.

"Whom I hate better than any man on earth," Leyburn cried, in a low, passionate tone. "Listen to me, Leo. You're a great man now. You're among the rich of this continent, and so you're the more worth crushing. We both find ourselves in different positions now. Very different positions. You are powerful in the control of huge capital, founded upon the gold you stole from me twenty years ago on the Yukon trail. I – I control hundreds of thousands of workers in this country. That is no mean power. Hitherto my power has been exercised in the legitimate process of protecting that labor from men of your class. But from this moment all that is changed. Before all things in my life I have a mission to fulfill. It is my personal vengeance upon the man who robbed me twenty years ago, and left his mistress, bearing her unborn child, to starve on the long winter trail."

"It is a lie! She was not left to starve. She was provided for."

Hendrie was driven to furious denial by the taunt.

"Ah, that's better!" cried Leyburn. "Much better. I've cut through your rough hide. I say you left her to starve – for all you cared. And I've set myself up as the champion of her cause as well as my own. I'm going to carry it through with all the power at my command. Oh, I know no law will help me to my vengeance. That highway robbery is just between ourselves. Well, I guess I don't need any one's help to avenge it."

Hendrie had himself well under control again. He nodded as the man paused.

"Go on," he said.

"I intend to," Leyburn cried, his face livid and working with the fury that drove him. "I'm going back now to Toronto to set the machinery working. And that machinery will grind its way on till you are reduced to the dust I intend to crush you into. It will not be Labor against Capital. But Labor against Alexander Hendrie."

"And what shall I be doing?" Hendrie's eyes were alight with something like amusement.

"You – you? I'll tell you what you'll be doing when I've finished. You'll be wishing to God you had never stolen a dead man's gold."

Hendrie started. His eyes grew tigerish. But he remained silent. Leyburn saw the change and understood it.

"Oh, God, it was a low-down game, something about parallel to the ghoul on the battlefield stealing money and accouterments from the dead soldiers. Now you are going to pay for it as you deserve. Don't make any mistake. By God, Leo, I'm going to smash you!"

Austin Leyburn turned away and hurried down the trail.

CHAPTER XI

LEYBURN'S INSPIRATION

Feverish activity was going forward in all the labor controls which acknowledged Austin Leyburn's leadership. Everywhere was agitation and ferment among the rank and file of the workers, while controlling staffs worked night and day.

Austin Leyburn had projected the greatest coup ever attempted in the country. At one stroke he intended to paralyze all trade. East and west, north and south, it was his purpose to leave the moving world at a standstill.

There were many nominal causes for the upheaval. They could be found every day, in almost every calling, each one, in itself, of a trivial nature, perhaps, but, collectively, an expression of tyranny and injustice on the part of the employers that he, Leyburn, and those others interested in the labor movement, declared could not be borne by the worker. So the latter awoke to learn of the many injustices he had been enduring, and of which, before, he had been utterly unaware.

The real cause of the forthcoming struggle lay far deeper. It found its breeding ground in the fertile realms of human nature, the human nature of the men who led the movement. They required self-aggrandizement and profit, and beneath the cloak of Principle they hid their unworthy desires from the searchlight of publicity. Principle – since democracy had struggled from beneath the crushing heel of the oppressor the word had become enormously fashionable. Its elasticity had been its success. It could be molded by the individual to suit every need. But in these days, it had become far more the hall-mark of hypocrisy than the expression of lofty ideals.

Years ago Austin Leyburn had declared his belief that some of the overflow from the world's pockets could be diverted into his own, by methods far less strenuous than those of the great Leo. Since then he had endeavored to prove his assertion.

That he had been successful there could be no doubt. He was far better equipped with this world's goods than he would have cared to proclaim from the platform to one of his labor audiences. He kept his private life hidden by a very simple process, and so much noise and bustle did he contrive in his calling that no one gave him credit for possessing any – private life.

But herein the world was mistaken. The life he displayed to his colleagues was simple and unpretentious. He lived in a cheap suite of apartments in the humbler quarters of Toronto. He ate in restaurants where he rubbed shoulders with men of the labor world. In his business he walked, or rode in the street cars. To carry added conviction his clothes were always of the ready-made order, and he possessed a perfect genius for reducing the immaculateness of a low, starched collar.

But there was another Austin Leyburn when the claims of his business released him for infrequent week-ends. He was an affluent sort of country squire. A man who reveled in the possession of an ample estate and splendid mansion, hidden away in the remotenesses of a natural beauty spot some twenty-five miles outside Toronto. Here he enjoyed the luxuries and comforts which in others were anathema to him. His cellar was well stocked with wines of the choicest vintages. His cigars were the best money could buy. He possessed a modest collection of works of art, and his house was furnished with all those things valued for their age and associations.

To this place he would adjourn at long intervals. And at such times even his name would be left behind him in the city, in company of his ready-made clothing, his scarcely immaculate collar, and the memory of fly-ridden restaurants, lest there should be a jarring note to his enjoyment as he lounged back in his powerful automobile, which was never permitted to cross the city limits.

All these things were bought and paid for by a method of making money almost devilish in its inception. Leyburn was a gambler on the stock market. He gambled in Labor strikes.

This was the great final coup he now contemplated. He cared not one jot for the injustices meted out to labor. He cared nothing for the sufferings, the privations it had to endure. Long ago he and many others of his associates had learned the fact that all strikes more or less affected the financial market. Nor were they slow to take advantage of it.

A general transport strike would send shares crashing to bed-rock prices; would send them tumbling as they had never fallen before, as even international war would not affect them. And when they had fallen sufficiently, when, in his own phraseology, the bottom had dropped out of the market, then he and his fellow-vultures would plunge their greedy beaks into the flesh of the carcass and gorge themselves. Then, and not till then, the starving worker might return to his work.

Just now he was in Calford and hard at work. While his subordinates lived in a whirl of organization, his it was to contrive that the news of the labor troubles reached the world at large in a sufficiently alarming type. And his gauge of the alarm achieved would be the state of the financial markets.

He had only that morning returned from Deep Willows, and it was not until long after his mid-day meal that he found leisure to turn his thoughts definitely to the fresh plans he had decided upon, on his journey back to Calford.

Now, as he sat before his desk, he picked up the receiver of the telephone and spoke sharply.

"Is Frank Smith in the office?" he demanded. "Yes. I said Smith. Oh! Then tell him to come to me at once."

He replaced the instrument and leaned back in his chair. He felt that Fate had played an extraordinarily pleasant trick upon him. In his cynical way he admitted grudgingly that for once she had been more than kind. The chance of it. A loose end. Yes, he had actually found himself with a loose end, and had promptly decided to fill up the time with a visit to the greatest wheat grower in the country in the interests of his new toy, the Agricultural Labor Society. It had led him – whither?

His narrow eyes smiled. But the smile died almost at its birth, lost in a bitter hatred for the man who had robbed him upon the Yukon trail twenty years ago.

The door of his room opened and Frank hurried in. His manner was nervous, quite unlike his usual manner. He was changed in appearance, too. Nor was it a change for the better. He looked older. His eyes were painfully serious. His dress wore an air of neglect. Whatever else the work of a labor organizer had done for him there was no outward sign of improvement.

"You sent for me?" he demanded, a look of nervous expectation in his serious eyes.

"Sure." Leyburn nodded. His manner was final. It was also the manner of an employer to a subordinate. The intimacy between these two had somehow died out.

Leyburn gazed at him thoughtfully, and the superiority of his position was displayed therein. Frank experienced a feeling of irritation. Leyburn frequently irritated him now. When they had first met, the boy's enthusiasm had made him regard this leader as something in the nature of a god. Since then he had discovered a good deal of clay about the feet of his deity.

"Guess I'm going to hand you a change of work, boy," Leyburn said at last, his manner deliberately impressive. "Say, you weren't a big hit with the railroaders." Frank winced perceptibly, and the other saw that his thrust had gone home. "Oh, I don't blame you a hell of a lot," he went on patronizingly. "You've never been a railroader – that's where it comes in. I'd say the feller that talks to those boys needs to be one of 'em. We got plenty without you, and – so I'm going to hand you a change, to the farming racket." Then he smiled. "Guess you're a bit of a mossback yourself. You'll understand those boys, and be able to talk 'em their own way."

Frank's face had flushed with the poignancy of his feelings over his failure. He felt even more the crudeness of this man's manner.

"I'll do my best," he said briefly.

There was none of his earlier enthusiasm in his assurance. Truth to tell, something of his enthusiasm had died on the night of his failure at the railroaders' meeting, and it had died after Alexander Hendrie had left him.

"That's right," said Leyburn, with some geniality. "I don't like your 'cocksures.' Give me the man out to do his damnedest. You'll make good, lad – this time. Say, I'm going to set you chasing up the work among the farms. See it's going ahead. Ther's men out to do the gassing. You'll just have to see they gas right. Get me? There's going to be a strike around harvest – this year. It's going to happen along with the transporters."

Frank was startled. There was to have been no serious movement this year on the agricultural side. Only preparations. Why this sudden change of plans?

"This year?" he said.

"That's how I said," returned Leyburn dryly.

"But I thought – "

"I'll do the thinking, boy," said Leyburn quickly. Then he grinned. "Guess I've done most of it already. You're on?"

"Why, yes." Frank was perplexed. Nor had he any definite objection.

"Good." Leyburn picked his teeth with a match. Then he went on: "You'll make your headquarters at Everton. That's where Hendrie's place is. I've got men at work there. They've been there quite a while. We're taking up that nigger question there, and punching it home for all we're worth. It's a good lever for running up wages on. The wheat men will be easy – their crops are perishable. If Hendrie don't squeal quick, he's got miles of wheat growing," he said significantly. "Of course he's only one. But he's good to work on. Now, just watch around there. Don't do a heap of big talk. The other'll do that. You'll go around the farms, the smaller ones, and do some private talk. You'll superintend the whole of that section. Guess there's a hundred and more farms in it. I'll hand you a schedule of 'em."

As Leyburn finished speaking, Frank stirred uneasily.

"Must I go on this work?" he asked hesitatingly.

Leyburn looked up sharply. There was a sparkle in his eyes.

"Sure," he said coldly.

"Couldn't you hand me another section?" Frank asked, after an awkward pause, while Leyburn regarded his averted face closely.

"Why?" The demand rapped out. It was full of a sudden, angry distrust. Leyburn was not in the habit of having his orders questioned in his own office.

But Frank's hesitation and nervousness vanished under the other's intolerable manner. Leyburn's attitude was not one he was prepared to submit to. He felt it would not have been displayed, but for his failure with the railroaders. If that was the sort of man Leyburn was – well —

"I can't do the work you want me to, round about Deep Willows," he said, with deliberate coldness.

"Why?" Again came the monosyllabic inquiry. But this time it was in genuine surprise, and possessed no resentment.

Frank found it easier to explain in consequence.

"You see, Mon – Mrs. Hendrie is – is my foster mother," he said simply. "I owe her nothing but good. I can never tell you of the sacrifices she has made for me, and of her devotion. I shouldn't like to hurt her."

Leyburn stared. There was no resentment in him now – only amazement.

"Then – then – Hendrie is – "

"Hendrie is the man who sent me to the penitentiary for five years."

Frank turned away as he made the admission. Leyburn emitted a low whistle.

"You see," Frank went on. "I had told you my story without telling you any names. I should not tell you now, only that it becomes necessary to explain my reasons for refusing to accept the work."

But Leyburn was not listening. He suddenly pointed at a chair.

"Sit, boy," he cried, his manner suddenly assuming a pleasant geniality. "Sit right down – and let's talk this thing out."

Frank was glad enough to accept the invitation. He owed this man a good deal in spite of his slight change of feelings towards him. Nor was he one to shrink from paying his debts.

"It's the queerest thing ever," Leyburn went on thoughtfully, as Frank drew up a chair. Then, in answer to the other's look of inquiry: "Why, that I should chose you to go and deal with our – organization – in Hendrie's neighborhood. Seems almost like Fate pitching him into your hands for what he's – done to you. He's hurt you, and now – now, why, your turn's coming along."

"But curiously enough, I have no desire for any retaliation," said Frank simply. "One time I might have been pleased to – hurt him. But now – well – somehow I seem to understand what drove him to it, and – I don't blame him so much. Besides – "

"Besides?" Leyburn's eyes were watchful.

"That sort of thing doesn't fit in with my ideas of Brotherhood," Frank concluded simply.

Leyburn nodded. His expression had become absurdly gentle.

"Maybe you're right, boy," he said. "You see, I'm an old campaigner. Guess I'm a bit hardened."

"That's natural, too." Frank was glad at the change in the man. He was glad, too, that he could agree with him.

"But there's no real hurt coming to Hendrie, if – he's reasonable," Leyburn went on thoughtfully. "You see, boy, maybe it looks that way, but this process of ours is only a sharpish way of teaching these monopolists that they've got to remember there are other folks in the world who need to live. That there is such a thing as brotherhood. I'd say Hendrie's a pretty good man, but he's headstrong – as you know. He won't be told a thing. All we need from him is his example, showing all those smaller folk he understands the needs of humanity, and is prepared to do his slice for it. What are we going to do? Why, when the time comes, the time most vital to him, we're going to show him he's dependent on us, and needs to treat us right. That's all. If he treats us right, then there's no harm done. This war – you hate the word – can be run on peaceful lines if both parties are not yearning to scrap. All we've got to do is to be ready to scrap. You won't be hurting Mrs. Hendrie. You won't be hurting a soul. But you'll just stand by to defend labor if they're out to hurt us. Get me?"

Frank nodded.

"Yes. It is right enough what you say," he replied. "I know all that. But it's this strike, and all the damage it does, makes me feel sick about it."

Leyburn laughed.

"If I know Hendrie, there'll be no strike. All we've got to do is to be ready for one. Say, lad, you're a bit sensitive. I tell you we're just going to bluff Hendrie into doing what he doesn't want to do. That's giving a living wage to folk who work for him. He'll give it when the bluff's put up."

"You think so?" Frank's eagerness sounded pleasantly in Leyburn's ears.

"Sure. They all do – in the end. Wheat men are easier than railroad companies. Their crops are perishable. There'll be no real strike. So Mrs. Hendrie's your – foster mother. Say, it beats hell."

"Yes." Frank looked up. "She's a sort of aunt, too," he said unguardedly, flushing as he remembered that he could claim no real relationship with any one. "Her sister was my – mother. I don't know who my father was – exactly. I know he was called Leo, but – "

"Leo!" Leyburn started. It was with difficulty he could keep himself from shouting the name. "Leo – you said? Then you are – " It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Frank he was Hendrie's son. But a sudden inspiration checked the impulse.

"I am – what?" demanded Frank, caught by the others excitement.

But Leyburn was equal to the occasion.

"Not necessarily, though," he said, with an assumption of thoughtfulness. "I was going to say Italian. Maybe Leo was just his first name."

Frank shook his head.

"I don't know. I don't think I'm Italian, though," he said unsuspiciously. "You see, Mrs. Hendrie is American, as, of course, was my mother. She had been an actress. Audrey Thorne, I think she called herself, but her real name was Elsie Hanson. Still, these details can't interest you," he finished up a little drearily.

Leyburn stared out of the window for some moments. He was thinking hard. He was piecing all he had just learned together, and striving to see how he might turn it all to account in the purpose he had in his mind. If he had been amazed before on learning the name of the man who had injured Frank – amazed, and fiendishly delighted, it was nothing to his feelings now. Hendrie, Frank's father! Audie's son! Audie! Yes, more than ever Frank must be enlisted in this work. It would delight his, Leyburn's, revengeful nature if Hendrie could be made to suffer through his own son. It was a good thought, and very pleasant to him.

He turned a smiling, kindly face upon his victim.

"It's all devilish hard luck on you, boy – to be born, in a manner of speaking, without father or mother. The world certainly owes you a big debt. A debt so big you'd wonder how it could ever pay it. But the world has its own little ways of doing things. It's sometimes got a queer knack."

Frank shook his head. His smile was tinged with sadness.

"I don't seem to feel that way either," he said slowly. "I don't seem to feel any one owes me anything. Maybe I did a while back, but I don't now."

"Not even Hendrie?"

Frank shook his head seriously.

"Least of all – Hendrie. I rather fancy he's been paid all he can bear for what he did to me."

Leyburn sighed with pretended sympathy.

"You're a good boy," he said kindly. "Too good for the hard knocks life likes handing around. Maybe you'll get – compensation. However," he went on, sitting up, and assuming a business-like alertness, "we've got to put this business through. We've got to make these people give a fair wage to their workers, a wage that will leave them a margin of comfort and happiness in a dreary sort of life. Nigger labor is cutting them out, and it can't be tolerated. We're not out to injure these employers. By God, we're not! We're out with as good a purpose by them as any church parson. That's what I can't get folks to see. Our methods may be rough, but the end justifies it. They are our only ways of doing it. I tell you, boy, in this fight we are having, of man against himself – and that's what it amounts to – we have got to put all sentiment aside. Our duty lies clear before us. And when the war is over, Hendrie, and all men like him, will be the first to see the righteousness of our cause – and thank us. We take out a tooth, boy, because it aches, and it is painful to do it, but it leaves us with everlasting peace. You don't feel you can do this work I want you to do? Well, I won't press it. But" – he turned a sidelong glance upon the other's ingenuous face, now so expressive of the struggle going on within his simple mind – "but I think the teaching for Hendrie would have come well from you. Yes, it surely would." He smiled. "Good for evil, eh? And it is for his good. It is almost a duty – feeling as you do. He is a good man, but – passionate. And his passions run away with him. Seems to me it would be good to point the right road to him. Then, too, you understand his kind. S'pose I threw a hard-shouting, leather-lunged hobo at him – we wouldn't get so good a result. Not by a lot. It would be doubling the risk of trouble. Well, where would you like to work – instead?"

Frank rose from his seat and began to pace the room. Leyburn silently watched him. The smile behind his eyes was well hidden. He knew his man. He felt it to be hard work persuading him, but it was worth while.

At last Frank abruptly came to a stand before him.

"I'll do the work," he cried, with a gulp. "I tell you, Leyburn, I'd rather do anything else, but I – I believe, as you say, it's my duty to do this. Yes, I'll go, and I'll do my very best. But I warn you, if trouble threatens Mrs. Hendrie, directly or indirectly, I'll do my best to help her, if all labor in the world has to suffer for it."

CHAPTER XII

HENDRIE SELLS

Alexander Hendrie's mood was one of doubt and almost indecision, as he rode over the hard, white trail intersecting the miles of wheat surrounding Deep Willows. He had spent an unpleasant morning with his manager. He had listened to bad reports of Monica's condition, and added to these were many unpleasant reflections upon the visit of the man Tug – whom he now knew to be the great labor leader – Austin Leyburn – to Deep Willows.

Now that the harvest was drawing near he found himself surrounded by a wonderful picture of golden glory. Under ordinary circumstances he must have reveled in the sight, for, before all things, the growing of wheat represented the chief factor in his life. But now he found little enough pleasure in the contemplation of an abundant harvest. His mind was beset with so many things which could rob him of such joy, and it was almost as if the brilliant sunlight, shining on the wealth of gold about him, had been obscured by storm clouds of a drab, depressing hue.

Angus Moraine's tale of trials and portentous happenings had been a long one. The unrest among the hundreds of workers employed upon the farms was paralyzing efficient work. The imported black labor was both unsatisfactory as regards work, and a constant source of worry in its relation with the white. Only the night before a fierce encounter had occurred between the two colors, which, but for his own timely intervention, must have ended in bloodshed, if not in some sort of deliberate lynching of six drunken blacks. He warned Hendrie with the utmost solemnity that he was riding for a serious fall, and that unless the matter was looked into at once, the threatened strike would be child's play to the brutal warfare that was daily brewing.