“Boss or not, I don’t know as I’ve got any more stomach for one kind of a mastery than another—whether they call ’emselves reds and internationalists, or employers of labor! What do you suppose the G. M. G. wants anyhow? Fireworks—nothin’ but fireworks.”
“Well, but what’s the use o’ goin’ so far?” said another man, pacifically. “We can take a job where we like—we’ve liberty, anyhow.”
“Liberty!” cried James. “So’s a horse his oats. They’ve got the mines, an’ the mills, an’ they fix the wages, an’ we’ve got to live in the company’s tenements, an’ pay the company’s rents, an’ get up to the whistle, an’ wash our daughters’ faces when we’re bid; and if we don’t like it, the company’ll import a lot of dirt-eating foreigners, but we’ve got to pay our rent, just the same. And all that these fellers, who ain’t no better than we are, can have a good time and drink champagne at breakfast. I’ve had enough of republics and democracies; an’ I tell you we don’t want any kind of ’ocracy but just nothin’ at all!”
“H—l!” snarled Simpson, who had listened with impatience to Starbuck’s speech. “They ain’t no different from what we are; you were a boss yourself until a few weeks ago, and then you sang a different tune.” (It was true that Starbuck had lately been discharged, for his complicity in the mining strike.) “You’d like ter be a swell, like the rest of ’em, and your sister’s just the same.”
Starbuck compressed his pale lips, and his mouth worked violently. “Don’t you talk of my sister,” said he.
“Naw,” said Simpson, “we ain’t to talk of your fine sister; and yet we all know that you’re livin’ here on what she makes outside—Eh?”
For Starbuck had thrown himself upon him with an open knife; and driven the blade well into his side. Simpson fell, and the others, clasping Starbuck by the body, sought to drag him away; but his right arm still was disengaged, clenching the open blade, and with it he was sawing viciously at Simpson’s wrist.
Starbuck was the weakest man of all; but when he was at last torn away, the other’s cries had ceased, and he was lying huddled in the pool of blood, with a hiccough in his pallid throat.
Starbuck stood looking at him, panting; while the others bent over him, and tried to lift him to the bed. “You’ll swing for this night’s work, Jem Starbuck,” said one.
“I think not,” said another. “The first dig didn’t go very deep; and these flesh-wounds ain’t no account. Get away from here, Jem, before the cops get wind of it.”