Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb 1914 - Sep 1916 (assorted issues))

THOSE WHO TOIL 71 The half-dozen watchmen, swinging rifles from the crook of their elbows, raised the weapons high above their heads, and a chorus of shouts arose as when a pack of half-fed dogs see food. "Fire the wells ! Serve old Jameson his own sauce ! Come on, boys !" Jane Brett faced the rising tide of mobfury over folded arms. She knew the men as only a child of the people can know; knew their individual cowardice, their purposelessness, their child-passions — easily roused, easily soothed. She knew that a word from her could quench the spark of rebellion as cold water puts out a smouldering conflagration, but she stood silent, withholding the word. Let Jameson lose a few paltry dollars ; let him see the powers of the slave forces he had sneered at ; let him lose an hour or so of his peaceful sleep! It was not much of a price to pay for the blood and youth and hope he had stolen. Thru the jostling, muttering mob a young fellow, tall, slenderly fashioned, but with the ripple of smooth muscles flowing under the shoulders of his gray workman's blouse, fought his way to Jane Brett's side. She glanced at him with a flicker of curiosity in her restless eyes. A new hand, evidently, for she had never seen him before. She was suddenly conscious that if she had seen that face, with its honest, steady, glancing, brown eyes and clear boy-skin, she would not have forgotten it easily. "Are you going to let this thing go on?" he asked quietly. "You can stop it if you want to." "How do you know?" Defiance edged her voice. Unsmilinglv, he returned her regard. Yet there was that in his face that sent the thick, jealous tide of blood to the foots of Jake Morgan's wiry hair. "You are a very remarkable woman, ' said the newcomer, coolly. There was no flattery in the words ; yet, suddenly, Jane's eyes fell. Morgan saw it, and pushed the girl violently aside, thrusting his undershot jaw, blue with bristles, into the speaker's face. "I'll learn ye who's boss round here, ye fresh dude!" he growled. "Wot business is these oil-wells o' yourn, or the gal's, either?" "It is the business of every decent citi zen to see that the law is obeyed," said the stranger, without raising his voice. "Strike if you want to — well and good; but do it openly like men, not in the dark like cowards. At least wait a day or two and act reasonably instead of in the heat of anger." "Ye talk like a d — d capitalist," began Morgan, thickly, but Jane's clear voice cut across the words. She had stepped to the stranger's side and was facing the mob of workmen. "Let's do the thing decently," she said. "Let's go home now and think it over and count up the consequences, and then meet again a week from now and decide what to do. Put your gun down, Toby Slawson — and yours, Alike Mahoney. And now, all of you, go home ! And remember, men, your women-folks have stood as many troubles as you. Ask your wives what to do !" The men slouched out of the room, muttering, but for the time harmless. Jake Morgan turned in the doorway. His small eyes almost disappeared under his shelving forehead as he saw Jane talking earnestly to the new workman. "He dont sound like one of us, d — n him!" he thought. "He dont look like one of us — he's too blamed clean ! An' he's shinin' up to my gal. H — 11 ! I'll run him out o' camp, I will, an' spoil his beauty, mebbe, first — the manicured, mealy-mouthed son of a — !" "Have you ever been cold and hungry ?" Jane was saying slowly. "/ have. Not just fur-coat cold or late-to-dinner hungry, but chilled to the bone — blue, numb, and the kind of hungry when you'd fight with a dog for his ham-bone. If not, you cant understand us who work in Jameson's wells." "No," said the stranger, slowly, "I haven't been cold ever, nor hungry, but it seems to me that destroying Jameson's property will not help cure those things. There must be ways — better ways ! Will you help me find them, Jane Brett?" Again their eyes met, and a strange current of understanding passed between them. Slow, faint color stained the girl's cheeks, and her hard, bright eyes softened. She was almost pretty in her new humility. "I suppose I dont understand the big