“Yes, his body is coming up now. All we know is, a watchman saw him standing at a window of the Wooddrop Mills after hours, and shot him for trespassing—spying on their process.” Alexander's first thought was not of the man just killed, but of old Conrad, longer dead. He had been a faithful, an invaluable, assistant; without him Hulings would never have risen. And now he had been the cause of his son's death! A sharp regret seized him, but he grew rapidly calm before the excitement of the inferior before him.
“Keep this quiet for the moment,” he commanded.
“Quiet!” the other cried. “It's already known all over the mountains. Wishon's workmen have quit coaling. They swear they will get Wood-drop's superintendent and hang him.”
“Where are they?” Hulings demanded.
The other became sullen, uncommunicative. “We want to pay them for this,” he muttered. “No better man lived than Wishon.”
Alexander at once told his wife of the accident. She was still surprisingly contained, though pale. “Our men must be controlled,” she asserted. “No further horrors!”
Her attitude, he thought, was exactly right; it was neither callous nor hysterical. He was willing to assume the burden of his responsibilities. It was an ugly, a regrettable, occurrence; but men had been killed in his employ before—not a week passed without an accident, and if he lost his head in a welter of sentimentality he might as well shut down at once. Some men lived, struggled upward. It was a primary part of the business of success to keep alive.
Gisela had correctly found the real danger of their position—the thing must go no further. The sky had clouded and a cold rain commenced to fall. He could, however, pay no attention to the weather; he rose from a partial dinner and departed on a score of complicated and difficult errands. But his main concern, to locate and dominate the mobbing charcoal burners, evaded his straining efforts. He caught rumors, echoed threats; once he almost overtook them; yet, with scouts placed, they avoided him.
He sent an urgent message to John Wooddrop, and, uncertain of its delivery, himself drove in search of the other; but Wooddrop was out somewhere in his wide holdings; the superintendent could not be located. A sense of an implacable fatality hung over him; every chance turned against him, mocked the insecurity of his boasted position, deepened the abyss waiting for his suspended fall.
He returned finally, baffled and weary, to his house; yet still tense with the spirit of angry combat. A species of fatalism now enveloped him in the conviction that he had reached the zenith of his misfortunes; if he could survive the present day.... A stableman met him at the veranda.