The Coal War: A Novel by Sinclair Upton

Author:Sinclair, Upton [Sinclair, Upton]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781504026130
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

[18]

The General was puzzled by this remark—enough to let Hal go on; which was what Hal intended. “For seven weeks now I have lived in the Horton tent-colony, devoting myself to helping those people, to bringing a little order and decency into their lives. I have been sanitary officer and chief of police and international diplomat and captain of a baseball team. And for a month not a day has passed that I have not witnessed outrages. I have seen peaceable and decent-hearted peasant people driven about like cattle, deprived of every right guaranteed by our laws and our constitution—”

The General brought down his fist again. The “constitution” was a red rag to him. “That’s enough, I say! I’ll not listen to lectures from you.”

“Day after day I have seen these things, and sat impotent—”

“Young man!” roared the General. “Don’t make me lose my temper!”

Hal might have thought this funny, if he had not had such a desperate purpose in mind. “General Wrightman,” he answered, with the utmost solemnity, “I am perfectly willing that you should lose your temper!”

There was something so unexpected about this, that again the old man was disconcerted. “General,” persisted Hal, “will you permit me to ask you a question?”

“What is it?”

“Why have you never arrested me?”

“What?”

“You have arrested practically everybody else who has been active in the Horton tent-colony. Louie the Greek, for example—he has done exactly what I have done, no more and no less. Why is he being tortured in prison and threatened with death, while I am left at liberty?”

The General was like the master of a sail-boat who finds the wind blowing unexpected gusts, so that he does not know which way to put his helm. “Anybody would think, young man, that you had come here in order to be arrested!”

“A little over a year ago,” said Hal, “I was working as a ‘buddy’ in the North Valley mine. That’s how I come to know more about this strike than you do, General. While I was there, Jeff Cotton—you remember, he was camp-marshal at North Valley—threatened to send me to jail. I told him there were some people in the state who could not be sent to jail. He saw the point. Do you see it, General?”

The General saw it, beyond doubt; the blood rushed into his face, and he thrust a trembling finger out at Hal. “You impudent young puppy!” he cried.

“But General, that is not answering my question. And if there’s any other answer than the one I suggest, I want to know it. I have been watching the thing with wonder. I see your gunmen and troopers scowling at me as they pass, I hear them cursing me under their breath—but they let me alone. I go my way, I do what I please; I am protected by a mystic spell!”

The General’s shaking finger suddenly became a clenched fist. “I’ll show you!” he roared. “You think because you’ve got a rich father I’m afraid of you! You think

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