Emma remembered that Jarlsen had liked him, and that he had called to ask for him once By the Tracks and twice on the Pastures. No Bentley had visited the Pastures before, and Emma felt the distinction keenly. She opened the door and went out, merely observing to the bystanders that they “hed no spring.”
Before she got to the stair’s head about six men had followed her, looking deeply ashamed of each other, but at present firm in their duty. Emma let them pass her, and slipped into the advancing crowd.
Bowa and three companions were standing on the tracks by two overturned ore cars. They seemed more sheepish than defiant, and Emma noticed with pride how neat Bowa looked as he tried not to flinch under Bentley’s contemptuous gaze. The rails were torn up for about twenty yards, and in the silence that preceded Bentley’s first words Emma realized that this meant prison.
“Did you do that?” he said at length. Then turning to the men at his back, he said very pleasantly, “I think we can put this right with”—his voice grew suddenly louder—“two more to help us.”
Two Soot City police appeared, and very quietly secured Bowa and his friends. They were too surprised to make any resistance, and went silent and sullen at Bentley’s curt bidding. Some one cried, “Shame!” at the plant owner. Martha Long answered “Nonsense!” very loud. But her tears fell for Bowa, and she pleaded for him in words.
“Mr. Bentley,” she said, “he was put up to that. He’s young for the shadder of a prison to fall on him. He’s as mild as new milk, and he’s had his taste, and he won’t want no more.”
“Martha,” Bentley answered, “I think making an example of a workman is making a martyr of him and an enemy of his labour organization. I don’t want any strikes, so I’ll probably let him off; but I wouldn’t promise any one.”
Martha went away well comforted, and Emma, when the darkness had fallen, set out for home. She considered the strike was over, and laughed as she made herself pictures of Quarry’s discomfiture; his plans would be henceforth unheeded, and, as he had not succeeded, the men would not fear him, and not fearing meant, under such conditions, shunning. She had had a diverting day; the silver jingled in her pocket, and her wish was that Jarlsen might have ears to hear all about it.
The cottage was dark, but before she came within a hundred yards of it, while it yet stood out black and square against the dark east, she heard Jarlsen calling, “Emma, hurry, girl!—Emma, girl, hurry!”
She ran to him, stumbling and in dread, and groped in the darkness of the room with tender hands that feared—she longed to know just what.