This programme was a convenient one for Hal; but as he was to find almost at once, it had been adopted too late. He and Jerry started after the crowd, which had stopped in front of one of the company buildings; and as they came nearer they heard some one making a speech. It was the voice of a woman, the tones rising clear and compelling. They could not see the speaker, because of the throng, but Hal recognised her voice, and caught his companion by the arm. “It's Mary Burke!” Mary Burke it was, for a fact; and she seemed to have the crowd in a kind of frenzy. She would speak one sentence, and there would come a roar from the throng; she would speak another sentence, and there would come another roar. Hal and Jerry pushed their way in, to where they could make out the words of this litany of rage.
“Would they go down into the pit themselves, do ye think?”
“They would not!”
“Would they be dressed in silks and laces, do ye think?”
“They would not!”
“Would they have such fine soft hands, do ye think?”
“They would not!”
“Would they hold themselves too good to look at ye?”
“They would not! They would not!”
And Mary swept on: “If only ye'd stand together, they'd come to ye on their knees to ask for terms! But ye're cowards, and they play on your fears! Ye're traitors, and they buy ye out! They break ye into pieces, they do what they please with ye—and then ride off in their private cars, and leave gunmen to beat ye down and trample on your faces! How long will ye stand it? How long?”
The roar of the mob rolled down the street and back again. “We'll not stand it! We'll not stand it!” Men shook their clenched fists, women shrieked, even children shouted curses. “We'll fight them! We'll slave no more for them!”
And Mary found a magic word. “We'll have a union!” she shouted. “We'll get together and stay together! If they refuse us our rights, we'll know what to answer—we'll have a strike!”
There was a roar like the crashing of thunder in the mountains. Yes, Mary had found the word! For many years it had not been spoken aloud in North Valley, but now it ran like a flash of gunpowder through the throng. “Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!” It seemed as if they would never have enough of it. Not all of them had understood Mary's speech, but they knew this word, “Strike!” They translated and proclaimed it in Polish and Bohemian and Italian and Greek. Men waved their caps, women waved their aprons—in the semi-darkness it was like some strange kind of vegetation tossed by a storm. Men clasped one another's hands, the more demonstrative of the foreigners fell upon one another's necks. “Strike! Strike! Strike!”
“We're no longer slaves!” cried the speaker. “We're men—and we'll live as men! We'll work as men—or we'll not work at all! We'll no longer be a herd of cattle, that they can drive about as they please! We'll organise, we'll stand together—shoulder to shoulder! Either we'll win together, or we'll starve and die together! And not a man of us will yield, not a man of us will turn traitor! Is there anybody here who'll scab on his fellows?”
There was a howl, which might have come from a pack of wolves. Let the man who would scab on his fellows show his dirty face in that crowd!
“Ye'll stand by the union?”
“We'll stand by it!”
“Ye'll swear?”
“We'll swear!”
She flung her arms to heaven with a gesture of passionate adjuration. “Swear it on your lives! To stick to the rest of us, and never a man of ye give way till ye've won! Swear! Swear!”
Men stood, imitating her gesture, their hands stretched up to the sky. “We swear! We swear!&rd............