“Don’t know; they’ll be fools if they do. Anyhow, there’s going to be a mass meeting this afternoon, and maybe they’ll decide then.”
CHAPTER XIV
QUICK WIT AND COURAGE
Departing in haste, with ears purposely dulled against possible parental voices, the boys headed for the mine by the shortest possible route. The streets were singularly bare for a Saturday afternoon. Here and there a woman talked anxiously to another over a fence-rail, or there was a glimpse of children playing in a back yard. But there were scarcely any men to be seen.
“Gee! I hope we’re not too late,” commented Cavanaugh, as they turned the last corner and started up a steep, narrow street leading to the open space in front of the mine property. Suddenly he stopped. “Listen!” he said abruptly.
For a long moment they stood motionless. Down the narrow thoroughfare swept the dull, low, pulsating murmur of many voices rising and falling. The windows of the houses at the end of the street were filled with people all staring in the same direction.
They were vaguely stirred and a trifle uneasy. What little they had heard of the disturbances of the past week had passed mostly over their heads. Cavvy merely knew that certain outside agitators had been haranguing the men for the last few days. As they panted up the slope and reached the level they paused, startled at what lay before them.
The wide, open space was packed with men. Hundreds and hundreds in their greasy, ore-grimed working clothes, a week’s stubble, darkening their already swarthy faces, stood shoulder to shoulder in close-packed masses. That ominous rumble of voices had ceased. Only here and there sounded sibilant whispers or hoarse, low-voiced comment. For the most part they were listening intently to a speaker who stood on a box over by the big flag pole in the center of the space.
Cavvy could not see the man clearly, nor could he get the thread of what the fellow was saying. But there was a quality of harsh, sneering dominance in the stranger’s voice to which he took an instant dislike. He glanced at Micky, who had drawn closer to him.
“Come on over to those steps where we can see something,” he whispered, and, turning quickly, he began to skirt the crowd.
McBride nodded silently. The steps in question were already pretty well filled with late comers, but by dint of a little squeezing the two boys managed to gain a foothold where they could overlook the crowd.