"He don't do any harm," Dawson confided to John McGue who had attached himself as the big man's private guard. "Let him spit fire if he wants to. My God, man! A state mining inspector as organizer! We'll have Paul Judson in the local yet!"
Sullenly the strikers held to their Hewintown homes, cowed by the armed guards from interfering with the spasmodic attempts of the convicts, negroes, and strike-breakers to keep the mine product up to normal. Formal notices of eviction came to them; but Ben Spencer reassured the disheartened committee. "They've got to follow the state law; that means delay. Tell the boys to sit steady till hell freezes over. They're sewed up."
Henry Tuttle rendered an exhaustive report upon the same matter to the managing committee of the directors. "We can go ahead, if you say——"
Paul Judson, at Judge Florence's nod, shook his decisive head. "Wait. We're not quite ready. When we are——"
After a thoughtful pause, the vice-president went on. "It's a good time to appropriate enough to outfit the State National Guard. We can't pay them directly, as the companies did in Colorado; the law's against that, Henry?"
The counsel nodded corroboration.
"But they'll appreciate new uniforms and guns.... You can never tell, you know.... I had a talk with Adjutant-General Rice last week; he approves heartily."
The matter was left to the vice-president, for action.
During these weeks of comparative inactivity, in spite of the details of strike work, Pelham found time to debate "Socialism the Remedy" with Burke Horton, an energetic lawyer-politician of near-radical views. The debate was the first of a newly opened community forum, under the auspices of Dr. Gulley's Free Congregation, which met in Edlin's Hall. The crowd was packed with Horton's followers, but the young Judson made his points tell.
This was one of the meetings to which Jane Lauderdale could go; she had followed every motion of Pelham's with her large, intimate eyes, from a wall seat to the right, not far from the platform. Continually his own eyes sought hers, to test the effectiveness of an argument, or to draw approbation and inspiration from the source that meant most to him. Whenever there had been opportunity, she had been in his strike audiences, a vivid, sparkling fountain of encouragement and enthusiasm. Pelham's watchfulness drew from his random hearers antagonism or sympathy, a groping for his meaning, a tardy stumbling after his flying feet; of her he drank cordial understanding and abounding love.