say, the small handful of men who today own the whole world and
everything in it.

"Your father, as President of that world-corporation which potentially
controls two thousand millions of human beings--and which will,
tomorrow, absolutely control them, is no longer any father of yours.

"He is a world-emperor, and his few associates are princes of the royal
house. Your life and thought have forever broken with him. No more can
bonds and ties of blood hold you. Your larger duty calls to battle
against this man. Treachery? A thousand times, no! Treason to tyrants
is obedience to God! Or, if not God, then to mankind!"

He paused and looked at her. They had now reached a little park, some
half mile from the grim and dour old walls of the Federal Pen. Trees and
grass and playing children seemed to invite them to stop and rest.
Though strong, moreover, Gabriel had for so long been unused to walking,
that even this short distance had tired him a little. And the oppressive
heat had them both by the throat.

"Shall we sit down here and wait a little?" asked he. "Plan a little,
see where we are and what's to be done next?"

She nodded assent.

"Of course," she said, "even if I could have got word in to you, I
wouldn't have given you our real plans."

"Hardly!" he exclaimed. Then, coming to a fountain, they sat down on a
bench close by. Nobody, they made sure, was within ear-shot.

"Thank God," he breathed, "that you, Kate, and only you, met me as I
came out! It was a grand good idea, wasn't it, to keep my time of
liberation a secret from the comrades? Otherwise there might have been a
crowd on hand, and various kinds of foolishness; and time and energy
would have been used that might have been better spent in working for
the Revolution!"

She looked at him a trifle curiously.

"You forget," said she, "that all public meetings have been prohibited,
ever since last April. Federal statute--the new Penfield Bill--'The
Muzzler' as we call it."

"That's so!" he murmured. "I forgot. Fact is, Kate, I _am_ out of touch
with things. While you've been fighting, I've been buried alive. Now, I
must learn much, before I can jump back into the war again. And above
all, I must lose my identity. That's the first and most essential thing
of all!"

"Of course," she assented. "They--the Air Trust World-corporation--will
trail you, everywhere you go. All this, as you know, has been provided
for. You must vanish a while."

"Indeed I must. If they 'jobbed' me like that, in 1921, what won't they
do now in 1925?"

"They won't ever get you, again, Gabriel," she answered, "if your wits
and ours combined, can beat them. True, the Movement has been badly shot
to pieces. That is, its visible organization has suffered, and it's
outlawed. But under the surface, Gabriel, you haven't an idea of its
spread and power. It's tremendous--it's a volcano waiting to burst! Let
the moment come, the leader rise, the fire burst forth, and God knows
what may not happen!"

"Splendid!" exclaimed Gabriel. "The battle calls me, like a
clarion-call! But we must act with circumspection. The Plutes, powerful
as they now are, won't need even the shadow of an excuse to plant me for
life, or slug or shoot me. Things were rotten enough, then; but today
they're worse. The hand of this Air Trust monopoly, grasping every line
of work and product in the world, has got the lid nailed fast. We're all
slaves, every man and woman of us. Even our Socialists in Congress can
do nothing, with all these muzzling and sedition and treason bills, and
with this conscription law just through. Now that the government--the
Air Trust, that is to say--is running the railways and telegraphs and
telephones, a strike is treason--and treason is death! Kate, this year
of grace, 1925, is worse than ever I dreamed it would be. Oh, infinitely
worse! No wonder our movement has been driven largely underground. No
wonder that the war of mass and class is drawing near--the actual,
physical war between the Air Trust few and the vast, toiling, suffering,
stifling world!"

She nodded.

"Yes," said she, "it's coming, and soon. Things are as you say, and even
worse than you say, Gabriel. I know more of them, now, than you can
know. Remember London's 'Iron Heel?' When I first read it I thought it
fanciful and wild. God knows I was mistaken! London didn't put it half
strongly enough. The beginning was made when the National Mounted Police
came in. All the rest has swiftly followed. If you and I live five years
longer, Gabriel, we'll see a harsher, sterner and more murderous
trampling of that Heel than ever Comrade Jack imagined!"

"Right!" said he. "And for that very reason, Kate, I've got to go into
hiding till my beard and hair grow and I can reappear as a different
man. Don't look, just now, but in a minute take a peek. Over on that
third bench, on the other side of the park, see that man? Well, he's a
'shadow.' There were three waiting for me, at the prison gates. You
couldn't spot them, but I could. One was that Italian banana-seller that
stood at the curb, on the first corner. Another was a taxi driver. And
this one, over there, is the third. From now till they 'get' me again,
they'll follow me like bloodhounds. I can't go free, to do my work and
take part in the impending war, till I shake them. Look, now, do you
see the one I mean?"

Cautiously the girl looked round, with casual glance as though to see a
little boy playing by the fountain.

"Yes," she murmured. "Who is he? Do you know his name?"

"No," answered Gabriel. "His name, no. But I remember him, well enough.
He's the larger of the two detectives I knocked out, in that room in
Rochester. Beside his pay, he's got a personal motive in landing me back
in 'stir,' or sending me 'up the escape,' as prison slang names a
penitentiary and a death. So then," he added, "what's the first thing?
Where shall I go, and how, to hide and metamorphose? I'm in your hands,
now, Kate. More than four years out of the world, remember, makes a
fellow want a little lift when he comes back!"

She smiled and nodded comprehension.

"Don't explain, Gabriel," said she. "I understand. And I've got just the
place in mind for you. Also, the way to get there. You see, comrade,
we've been planning on this release. When can you go?"

"When? Right now!" exclaimed Gabriel, standing up. "The quicker, the
better. Every minute I lose in getting myself ready to jump back into
the fight, is a precious treasure that can never be regained!"

"Go, then," said she, with pride in her eyes. "I will wait here. Don't
think of me; leave me here; I am self-reliant in every way. Go to the
Cuthbert House, on Desplaines Street. Everything has been arranged for
your escape. Every link in the chain is complete. Remember, we are
working more underground, now, than when you were sentenced. And our
machinery is almost perfect. Register at the hotel and take a room for a
week. Then--"

"Register, under my own name?" asked he.

"Under your own name. Stay there two days. You won't be molested so
soon, and things won't be ready for you till the third day. On that
day--"

"Well, what then?"

"A message will come for you, that's all. Obey it. You have nothing more
to do."

He nodded.

"I understand," said he. "But, Kate--who's paying for all this? Not
_you_? I--I can't have _you_ paying, now that every dollar you have must
be earned by your own labor!"

She smiled a smile of wonderful beauty.

"Foolish, rebellious boy!" said she. "Have no fear! All expense will be
borne by the Party, just as the Party paid your fine. It needs you and
must have you; and were the cost ten times as great, would bear it to
get you back! Remember, Gabriel, the Party is far larger than when you
were buried alive in a cell. Even though in some ways outlawed and
suppressed, its potential power is tremendous. All it needs is the
electric spark to cause the world-shaking explosion. All that keeps us
from power now is the Iron Heel--that, and the clutch of the Air Trust
already crushing and mangling us!

"Go, now," she concluded. "Go, and rest a while, and wait. All shall be
well. But first, you must get back your strength completely, and find
yourself, and take your place again in the ranks of the great,
subterranean army!"

"And shall I see you soon, again?" he asked, his voice trembling just a
little as their hands clasped once more, and once more parted.

"You will see me soon," she answered.

"Where?"

"In a safe place, where we can plan, and work, and organize for the
final blow! Now, you shall know no more. Good-bye!"

One last look each gave the other. Their eyes met, more caressingly than
many a kiss; and, turning, Gabriel took his way, alone, toward
Desplaines Street.

At the exit of the park, he looked around.

There Catherine sat, on the bench. But, seemingly quite oblivious to
everything, she was now reading a little book. Though he lingered a
moment, hoping to get some signal from her, she never stirred or looked
up from the page.

Sighing, with a strange feeling of sudden loneliness and a vast, empty
yearning in his heart, Gabriel continued on his way, toward what? He
knew not.

The detective on the other side of the park, no longer sat there.
Somehow, somewhere, he had disappeared.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN THE REFUGE.


Far on the western slopes of Clingman Dome in the great Smoky Mountains
of North Carolina, a broad, low-built bungalow stood facing the setting
sun. Vast stretches of pine forest shut it off from civilization and the
prying activities of Plutocracy. The nearest settlement was Ravens,
twenty miles away to eastward, across inaccessible ridges and ravines.
Running far to southward, the railway left this wilderness untouched.
High overhead, an eagle soared among the "thunder-heads" that presaged a
storm up Sevier Pass. And, red through the haze to westward, the great
huge sunball slid down the heavens toward the tumbled, jagged mass of
peaks that rimmed the far horizon.

Within the bungalow, a murmur of voices sounded; and from the huge stone
chimney a curl of smoke, arising, told of the evening meal, within, now
being made ready. On the wide piazza sat a man, writing at a table of
plain boards roughly pegged together. Still a trifle pale, yet with a
look of health and vigor, he sat there hard at work, writing as fast as
pen could travel. Hardly a word he changed. Sheet by sheet he wrote, and
pushed them aside and still worked on. Some of the pages slid to the
porch-floor, but he gave no heed. His brow was wrinkled with the
intensity of his thought; and over his face, where now a disguising
beard was beginning to be visible, the light of the sinking sun cast as
it were a kind of glowing radiance.

At last the man looked up, and smiled, and eyed the golden mountain-tops
far off across the valley.

"Wonderful aerie in the hills!" he murmured. "Wonderful retreat and
hiding-place--wonderful care and forethought to have made this possible
for me! How shall I ever repay all this? How, save by giving my last
drop of blood, if need be, for the final victory?"

He pondered a moment, still half-thinking of the poem he had just
finished, half-reflecting on the strange events of the past week--the
secret ways, by swift auto, by boat, by monoplane which had brought him
hither to this still undiscovered refuge. How had it all been arranged,
he wondered; and who had made it possible? He could not tell, as yet. No
information was forthcoming. But in his heart he understood, and his
lips, murmuring the name of Catherine, blessed that name and tenderly
revered it.

At last Gabriel bent, picked up the pages that had fallen, and arranged
them all in order.

"Tomorrow this shall go out to the world," said he, "and to our
press--such of it as still remains. It may inspire some fainting heart
and thrill some lagging mind. Now, that the final struggle is at hand,
more than guns we need inspiration. More than force, to meet the force
that has ravished our every right and crushed Constitution and Law,
alike, we need spiritual insight and integrity. Only through these, and
by these, come what may, can a true, lasting victory be attained!"

In the doorway of the bungalow a woman appeared, her smile illumined by
the sunset warmth.

"Come, Gabriel," said she. "We're waiting--the Granthams, Craig, and
Brevard. Supper's ready. Not one of them will sit down, till you come."

"Have I been delaying you?" asked Gabriel, turning toward the woman,
with a smile that matched her own.

"I'm afraid so, just a little," she answered. "But no matter; I'm glad.
When you get to writing, you know, nothing else matters. One line of
your verse is worth all the suppers in the world."

"Nonsense!" he retorted. "I'm a mere scribbler!"

"We won't argue that point," she answered. "But at any rate, you're
done, now. So come along, boy--or the comrades will begin 'dividing up'
without us; for this mountain air won't brook delay."

Gabriel took a long breath, stretched his powerful arms out toward the
mountains, and raised his face to the last light of day.

"Nature!" he whispered. "Ever beautiful and ever young! Ah, could man
but learn thy lessons and live close to thy great heart!"

Then, turning, he followed Catherine into the bungalow.

Beautiful and restful though the outside was, the interior was more
restful and more charming still.

In the vast fireplace, to left, a fire of pine roots was crackling. The
room was filled with their pitchy, wholesome perfume, with the dancing
light of their blaze and with the warmth made grateful by that mountain
height.

Simple and comfortable all the furnishings were, hand-wrought for use
and pleasure. Big chairs invited. Broad couches offered rest. No
hunting-trophies, no heads of slaughtered wild things disfigured the
walls, as in most bungalows; but the flickering firelight showed
pictures that inspired thought and carried lessons home--pictures of
toil and of repose, pictures of life, and love, and simple joy--pictures
of tragedy, of reality and deep significance. Here one saw Millet's
"Sower," and "Gleaners" and "The Man with the Hoe." There, Fritel's "The
Conquerors," and Stuck's "War." A large copy of Bernard's "Labor,"--the
sensation of the 1922 Paris Salon--hung above the mantelpiece, on which
stood Rodin's "Miner" in bronze. Portraits of Marx, Engels, LaSalle and
Debs, with others loved and honored in the Movement, showed between
original sketches by Walter Crane, Balfour Kerr, Art Young and Ryan
Walker. And in the well-filled bookshelves at the right, Socialist books
in abundance all told the same tale to the observer--that this was a
Socialist nest high up there among the mountains, and that every thought
and word and deed was inspired by one great ideal and one alone--the
Revolution!

At a plain but well-covered table near the western windows, where fading
sunlight helped firelight to illumine the little company, sat three
men--two of them armed with heavy automatics--and a woman. Another
woman, Catherine, was standing by her chair and beckoning Gabriel to
his.

"Come, Comrade!" she exclaimed. "If you delay much longer, everything
will be stone cold, and _then_ beg forgiveness if you dare!"

Gabriel laughed.

"Your own fault, if you wait for me," he answered, seating himself. "You
know how it is when you get to scribbling--you never know when to stop.
And the scenery, up here, won't let you go. Positively fascinating,
that view is! If the Plutes knew of it, they'd put a summer resort
here, and coin millions!"

"Yes," answered Craig, once Congressman Craig, but now hiding from the
Air Trust spies. "And what's more, they'd mighty soon confiscate this
resting-up place of the Comrades, and have us back behind bars, or
worse. But they _don't_ know about it, and aren't likely to. Thank
Heaven for at least one place the Party can maintain as an asylum for
our people when too hard-pressed! Not a road within ten miles of here.
No way to reach this place, masked here in the cliffs and mountains,
except by aeroplane. Not one chance in a thousand, fellows, that they'll
ever find it. Confusion take them all!"

The meal progressed, with plenty of serious and earnest discussion of
the pressing problems now close at hand. Brevard, a short, spare man,
editor of the recently-suppressed "San Francisco Revolutionist" and now
in hiding, made a few trenchant remarks, from time to time. Grantham and
his wife, both active speakers on the "Underground Circuit" and both
under sentence of long imprisonment, said little. Most of the
conversation was between Catherine, Craig and Gabriel. Long before the
supper was done, lamps had to be brought and curtains lowered. At last
the meal was over.

"Dessert, now, Gabriel!" exclaimed Grantham. "Your turn!"

"Eh? What?" asked Armstrong. "My turn for what?"

"Your turn to do your part! Don't think that you're going to write a
poem and then put it in your pocket, that way. Come, out with it!"

Gabriel's protests availed nothing. The others overbore him. And at
last, unwillingly, he drew out the manuscript and spread it open on his
knee.

"You really want to hear this?" he demanded. "If you can possibly spare
me, I wish you would!"

For all answer, Craig pushed a lamp over toward him. The warm light on
Gabriel's face, now slightly bearded, and on his strong, corded throat,
made a striking picture as he cast his eyes on the manuscript and in
vibrant and harmonious voice, read:


_I SAW THE SOCIALIST_

I saw the Socialist sitting at a great Banquet of Men,
Sitting with honored leaders of the blind, unwitting Multitude;
I saw him there with the writers, editors, painters, men of letters,
Legislators and judges, the Leaders of the People,
Leaders flushed with the wines of price, eating costly and rare
foods,
Making loud talk, and boastful, of that marvel, American Liberty!
Thinking were they no thought of hunger and pinching cold;
Of the blue-lipped, skinny children, the thin-chested, coughing men,
The dry-breasted mothers, the dirt, disease and ignorance,
The mangled workmen, the tramps, drunkards, pickpockets,
prostitutes, thieves,
The mad-houses, jails, asylums and hospitals, the sores, the blood
of war,
And all the other wondrous blessings that attend our civilization--
That civilization through which the wines and foods were given them.

I saw the Socialist there, calm, unmoved, unsmiling, thoughtful,
Sober, serious, full of dispassionate and prophetic vision,
Not like the other men, the all-wise Leaders of the People.
The political economists, the professors, the militarists, heroes
and statisticians;
Not like the kings and presidents and emperors, the nobles and
gold-crammed bankers,
But mindful, more than they, of the cellars under the House of Life
Where blind things crawl in the dark, things men and yet not human,
Things whose toil makes possible the Banquets of the Leaders of Men,
Things that live and yet are not alive; things that never taste of
Life;
Things that make the rich foods, themselves snatching filthy crumbs;
Things that produce the wines of price, and must be content with
lees;
Things that shiver and cringe and whine, that snarl sometimes,
That are men and women and children, and yet that know not Life!

I saw the Socialist there; I sat at the banquet; beside him,
Listened to the surging music, saw all the lights and flowers,
Flowers and lights and crystal cups, whereof the price for each
Might have brought back from Potter's Field some bloodless,
starving baby.
I heard the Leaders' speeches, the turgid oratory,
The well-turned phrases of the Captains, the rotund babble of
prosperity,
(Prosperity for whom? Nay, ask not troublesome questions!)
The Captains' vaunting I heard, their boasts of glory and victory,
While red, red, red their hands dripped red with the blood of the
butchered workers.
I heard the Judges' self-glorification, Quixotic fighting of
windmills,
Heard also the unclean jests that those respected Leaders told.
And as I looked and listened, I still observed the Socialist,
Unmoved and patient and serious, calm, full of sober reflections.

Then there spake (among many others) an honored and full-paunched
Bishop.
Rubicund he was, and of portly habit of body,
Shepherd of a well-pastured flock, mightily content with God,
Out of whose omnipotent Hand (no doubt) the blessings of his life
descended.
I heard this exponent of Christ the Crucified, Christ the Carpenter,
Christ the Leader of Workingmen, the Agitator, the Disturber,
Christ the Labor-organizer, Christ the Archetypal Socialist,
Friend of the dwellers in the pits of Life, Consoler of earth's
exploited,
Who once with the lash scourged from the Temple the unclean
graft-brood of usurers.
And the rotund Bishop's words were as the crackling of dry thorns
Under a pot, bubbling without use in the desert of dreary
platitudes.
The story he told was spiced and garnished with profane words,
Whereat the Leaders laughed in their cups, making great show of
merriment,
So that the banquet-hall rang, and wine was spilt on the linen.
Wine as red as blood--the blood of the shattered miner,
Blood of the boy in the rifle-pits, blood of the coughing
child-slave,
Blood of the mangled trainman, blood that the Carpenter shed.

And still I watched the Socialist. Sober, judicial, observant
And full of greater wisdom he was than to laugh with the tipsy
Leaders.
His eyes were fixed on the Bishop, vice-regent of God upon earth.
And as I watched the Socialist, the unmoved, the contemplative one,
He thoughtfully took his pencil, he took the fine and large card
Whereon the names of the rich foods and all the costly wines were
printed,
And made a few notes of the feast, notes of the Bishop's speech,
Notes to remind him to search the slums for the great, God-given
prosperity,
Which all the Judges, Lawmakers, Captains and Leaders knew to be
"our" portion;
Notes of the flowers, the wine, the lights, the music, the splendor,
Notes of the Leaders' oratory, notes of the Bishop's deep-voiced
unctiousness,
Notes he made; and as I looked at the notes he was carefully
writing,
The words ran red like wine and blood, they blazed like the blazing
lights!
Words they were of blood and fire, that spread, that filled the
banquet-hall.
Words of old, I read them--"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSHIN!--
Weighed in the Balance you are, ye Leaders respected of men,
You Statesmen, Lawmakers, Judges, Captains, Bishops, vice-regents of
God!
Weighed and tried and found wanting. Give way, now, to what shall
come after!
Make ye way for the Men who shall do what ye have but neglected and
shirked!
Make ye way for a Time which hath more than Power and Greed for its
watchwords!
Soon your day shall decline forever, your sun shall sink and shall
vanish.
Then from the Cellars of Life the darkness-dwellers shall issue,
Greeting another daunt which shall have more than pain for its
portion.
Then no more shall the humble, the lowly, the friends of the
Nazarene Carpenter
Be starved, be mangled for gold, be crucified, slaughtered, bled.
Make ye way!...Make ye way!..."

Such was the message I read, the words of that fire-writ warning.
Then peace came back to my spirit, calm peace, and hope and
patience:
Then, through my anger and heat, I thought of the Retribution.
But even more clearly I saw the New Birth of this weary world,
This world now groaning in chains, with the bloody sweat of
oppression.
These things and many more, such as were hard to write of,
I read in the words of the Socialist, patient, peaceful and sober,
Full of prophetic vision, above all things hopeful and patient,
Written in living flame at the Feast of the Leaders of Men....




CHAPTER XXIX.

"APRÈS NOUS LE DÉLUGE!"


As Gabriel's voice fell to silence, after the last words, a stillness
came upon the lamp-lit room, a hush broken only by the snapping of the
pine-root fire on the hearth and by the busy ticking of the clock upon
the chimneypiece. Then, after a minute's pause, Craig reached over and
took Gabriel by the hand.

"I salute you, O poet of the Revolution now impending!" he cried, while
Catherine's eyes gleamed bright with tears. "Would God that _I_ could
write like that, old man!"

"And would God that my paper was still being issued!" Brevard added,
making a gesture with the pipe that, in his eagerness to hear, he had
allowed to die. "If it were I'd give that poem my front page, and fling
its message full in the faces of Plutocracy!"

Gabriel smiled a bit nervously.

"Don't, please don't," he begged. "If you really do like it help me
spread it. Don't waste words on praise, but plan with me, tonight, how
we can get this to the people--how we can perfect our final
arrangements--what we must do, now, at once, to meet the Air Trust and
defeat it before its terrible and unrelenting grip closes on the throat
of the world!"

"Right!" said Craig. "We must act at once, while there's yet time.
today, all seems safe. The Air Trust spies haven't ferreted this place
out. A week from now, they may have, and one of the most secure and
useful Socialist refuges in the country may be only a heap of
ashes--like the ones at Kenwyck, Hampden, Mount Desert and Loftiss.
Every day is precious. Every one helps to perfect Gabriel's disguise and
adds materially to his strength."

"True," assented Gabriel. "We mustn't wait too long, now. That last
report we got yesterday, by our wireless, ought to stimulate us.
Brainard says, in it, that the Air Trust people are now putting the
finishing touches on the Niagara plant. That will give them condensing
machinery for over 90,000,000 horsepower, all told. As I see the thing,
it looks absolutely as though, when _that_ is done, the whole Capitalist
system of the world will center right there--focus there, as at a point.
Let kings and emperors continue to strut and mouth vain phrases; let our
own President and Congress make the motions of governing; even let Wall
Street play at finance and power. All, all are empty and meaningless!

"Power has been sucked dry, out of them all, comrades. You know as well
as I know--better, perhaps--that all real power in the world, today,
whether economic or political--nay, even the power of life and death,
the power of breath or strangulation, has clotted at Niagara, in the
central offices of the Air Trust; nay, right in Flint and Waldron's own
inner office!"

Gabriel had stood up, while speaking; and now, pacing the floor of the
big living-room, glanced first at one eager and familiar face, then at
another.

"Comrades," said he, "we should not sleep, tonight. We should get out
all our plans and data, all the dispatches that have come to us here,
all the information at hand about our organization, whether open or
subterranean. We should make this room and this time, in fact, the place
and the hour for the planning of the last great blow on which hangs the
fate of the world. If it succeed, the human race goes free again. If it
fail--and God forbid!--then the whole world will lie in the grip of
Flint and Waldron! With our other centers broken up and under espionage,
our press forced into impotence--save our underground press--and
political action now rendered farcical as ever it was in Mexico, when
Diaz ruled, we have but one recourse!"

"And that is?" asked Catherine. "The general strike?"

"A final, general, paralyzing strike; and with it, the actual, physical
destruction of the colossal crime of crimes, the Air Trust works at
Niagara!"

A little silence followed. They all drew round the reading-table, now,
near the fireplace. Mrs. Grantham brought a lamp; and Brevard, opening a
chest near the book-case, fetched a portfolio of papers, dispatches,
plans, reports and data of all kinds.

"Gabriel's right," said he. "The time is ripe, now, or will be in a week
or so. Nothing can be gained by delaying any longer. Every day adds to
their power and may weaken ours. Our organization, for the strike and
the attack on the works, is as complete as we can make it. We must come
to extreme measures, at once, or world-strangulation will set in, and we
shall be eternally too late!"

"Extreme measures, yes," said Gabriel, while Brevard spread the papers
out and sorted them, and Craig drew contemplatively at his pipe. "The
masters would have it so. Our one-time academic discussion about ways
and means has become absurd, in the face of plutocratic savagery. We're
up against facts, now, not theories. God knows it's against the dictates
of my heart to do what must be done; but it's that or stand back and see
the world be murdered, together with our own selves! And in a case of
self-defense, no measures are unjustifiable.

"Whatever happens our hands are clean. The plutocrats are the attacking
force. They have chosen, and must take the consequences; they have sown,
and must reap. One by one, they have limited and withdrawn every
political right. They have taken away free speech and free assemblage,
free press and universal suffrage. They have limited the right to vote,
by property qualifications that have deprived the proletariat of every
chance to make their will felt. They have put through this National
Censorship outrage and--still worse--the National Mounted Police Bill,
making Cossack rule supreme in the United States of America, as they
have made it in the United States of Europe.

"Before they elected that tool of tools, President Supple, in 1920, on
the Anti-Socialist ticket, we still had some constitutional rights
left--a few. But now, all are gone. With the absorption and annexation
of Canada, Mexico and Central America, slavery full and absolute settled
down upon us. The unions simply crumbled to dust as you know, in face of
all those millions of Mexican peons swamping the labor-market with
starvation-wage labor. Then, as we all remember, came the terrible
series of strikes in 1921 and 1922, and the massacres at Hopedale and
Boulder, at Los Angeles and Pittsburg, and, worst of all, Gary. That
finished what few rights were left, that killing did. And then came the
army of spies, and the proscriptions, and the electrocution of those
hundred and eleven editors, speakers and organizers--why bring up all
these things that we all know so well? _We_ were willing to play the
game fair and square, and _they_ refused. Say that, and you say all.

"No need to dwell on details, comrades. The Air Trust has had its will
with the world, so far. It has crushed all opposition as relentlessly as
the car of Juggernaut used to crush its blind, fanatical devotees. True,
our Party still exists and has some standing and some representatives;
but we all know what _power_ it has--in the open! Not _that_ much!" And
he snapped his fingers in the air.

"In the open, none!" said Craig, blowing a cloud of smoke. "I admit
that, Gabriel. But, underground--ah!"

"Underground," Gabriel took up the word, "forces are now at work that
can shatter the whole infernal slavery to dust! This way of working is
not our choice; it is theirs. They would have it so--now let them take
their medicine!"

"Yes, yes," eagerly exclaimed Catherine, her face flushed and intense.
"I'm with you, Gabriel. To work!"

"To work, yes," put in Craig, "but with system, order and method. My
experience in Congress has taught me some valuable lessons. The
universal, all-embracing Trust made marionettes of us, every one. Our
strength was, to them, no more than that of a mouse to a lion. Their
system is perfect, their lines of supply and communication are without a
flaw. The Prussian army machine of other days was but a bungling
experiment by comparison with the efficiency of this new mechanism. I
tell you, Gabriel, we've got to give these tyrants credit for being
infernally efficient tyrants! All that science has been able to devise,
or press and church and university teach, or political subservience make
possible, is theirs. And back of that, military power, and the courts
and the prisons and the electric chair! And back of all _those_, the
power to choke the whole world to submission, in a week!"

Gabriel thought, a moment, before replying. Then said he:

"I know it, Craig. All the more reason why we must hit them at once, and
hit hard! These reports here," and he gestured at the papers that
Brevard had spread out under the lamp-light, "prove that, at the proper
signal, every chance indicates that we can paralyze transportation--the
keynote of the whole situation.

"True, the government--that is to say, the Air Trust, and _that_ is to
say, Flint and Waldron--can keep men in every engine-cab in the country.
They can keep them at every switch and junction. But this isn't France,
remember, nor is it any small, compact European country. Conditions are
wholly different here. Everywhere, vast stretches of track exist. No
power on earth--not even Flint and Waldron's--can guard all those
hundreds of thousands of miles. And so I tell you, taking our data
simply from these reports and not counting on any more organized
strength than they show, we have today got the means of cutting and
crippling, for a week at least, the movements of troops to Niagara. And
that, just that, is all we need!"