"That isn't the best I want. You knew Flynn and Jacobi were back in camp yesterday. Why didn't you tell me so?"
"I can't do nothin'. They've got friends here."
"And haven't you got friends here too? I sent those men out of camp. If they're here again I'll find the power to arrest them."
"I'd advise you not to try that."
"Why?"
"They're stronger than you think."
"I'll take my chances on that. But I want to know where you stand. Are you with me or against me?"
"Well," said Jesse, rubbing his head dubiously, "I'll do what I can."
"All right. We'll make a fresh start. Round up all hands. I'm going to talk to them at dinner time."
Jesse glanced at him, shrugged and went out and Peter went into the office where he spent the intervening time going over the books. It was there that one of the clerks, a man named Brierly, brought forth from the drawer of his desk a small pamphlet which he had picked up yesterday in the bunk-house. Peter opened and read it. It was a copy of the new manifest of the Union of Russian Workers and though written in English, gave every mark of origin in the Lenin-Trotzky regime and was cleverly written in catch phrases meant to trap the ignorant. It proposed to destroy the churches and erect in their stead places of amusement for the working people. He read at random. "Beyond the blood-covered barricades, beyond all terrors of civil war, there already shines for us the magnificent, beautiful form of man, without a God, without a master, and full of authority." Fine doctrine this! The pamphlet derided the law and the state, and urged the complete destruction of private ownership. It predicted the coming of the revolution in a few weeks, naming the day, of a general strike of all industries which would paralyze all the functions of commerce. It was Bolshevik in ideal, Bolshevik in inspiration and it opened Peter's eyes as to the venality of the gentleman with the black mustache. Brierly also told him that whisky had been smuggled into the camp the night before and that a fire in the woods had luckily been put out before it had become menacing. Brierly was a discharged soldier who had learned something of the value of obedience and made no effort to conceal his anxiety and his sympathies. He voiced the opinion that either Flynn or Jacobi had brought in the liquor. Peter frowned. Jesse Brown had said nothing of this. The inference was obvious.