“THAT'S a pretty good one. Tell us another.”
But for a long moment this was the only remark.
The silence widened, broken only by the sound of torn paper as Annixter, Osterman, old Broderson, Garnett, Keast, Gethings, Chattern, and Dabney opened and read their letters. They were all to the same effect, almost word for word like the Governor's. Only the figures and the proper names varied. In some cases the price per acre was twenty-two dollars. In Annixter's case it was thirty.
“And—and the company promised to sell to me, to—to all of us,” gasped old Broderson, “at TWO DOLLARS AND A HALF an acre.”
It was not alone the ranchers immediately around Bonneville who would be plundered by this move on the part of the Railroad. The “alternate section” system applied throughout all the San Joaquin. By striking at the Bonneville ranchers a terrible precedent was established. Of the crowd of guests in the harness room alone, nearly every man was affected, every man menaced with ruin. All of a million acres was suddenly involved.
Then suddenly the tempest burst. A dozen men were on their feet in an instant, their teeth set, their fists clenched, their faces purple with rage. Oaths, curses, maledictions exploded like the firing of successive mines. Voices quivered with wrath, hands flung upward, the fingers hooked, prehensile, trembled with anger. The sense of wrongs, the injustices, the oppression, extortion, and pillage of twenty years suddenly culminated and found voice in a raucous howl of execration. For a second there was nothing articulate in that cry of savage exasperation, nothing even intelligent. It was the human animal hounded to its corner, exploited, harried to its last stand, at bay, ferocious, terrible, turning at last with bared teeth and upraised claws to meet the death grapple. It was the hideous squealing of the tormented brute, its back to the wall, defending its lair, its mate and its whelps, ready to bite, to rend, to trample, to batter out the life of The Enemy in a primeval, bestial welter of blood and fury.
The roar subsided to intermittent clamour, in the pauses of which the sounds of music and dancing made themselves audible once more.
“S. Behrman again,” vociferated Harran Derrick.
“Chose his moment well,” muttered Annixter. “Hits his hardest when we're all rounded up having a good time.”
“Gentlemen, this is ruin.”