Whack, whack, whack, fell the pick-handles upon the backs, shoulders, sometimes heads of rioters. It was like a systematic tattoo. Coleman's voice was heard directing, here and there, cool and dispassionate. A couple of locomotive headlights threw their glare upon the now disordered gangsters. Whack! Whack! Whack!
Suddenly the rioters, bleating, panic-stricken, fled like frightened sheep. They scattered in every direction leader*-less, completely routed. The fire engines resumed work. An ambulance came up and the work of attending the wounded began. The fight was over.
CHAPTER LXVII
DENNIS KEARNEY
Weeks went by and brought no further outbreak. Chinatown which, for a time, was shuttered, fortified, almost deserted, once again resumed its feverish activities. In the theaters, funny men made jokes about the labor trouble. In the East strikes had abated. All seemed safe and orderly again.
But San Francisco had yet to deal with Dennis Kearney.
Dennis, born in County Cork just thirty years before, filled adventurous roles since his eleventh year, mostly on the so-called "hell-ships" which beat up and down the mains of trade. In 1868 he first set foot in San Francisco as an officer of the clipper "Shooting Star." Tiring of the sea he put his earnings in a draying enterprise. This, for half a dozen years, had prospered.
Suddenly he cast his business interests to the winds. Became a labor agitator.
Francisco Stanley, who had sought him, questing for an interview since morning, cornered him at last in Bob Woodward's What Cheer House at Sacramento and Leidesdorff streets. It was one of those odd institutions found only in this vividly bizarre metropolis of the West. For "two bits" you could get a bed and breakfast at the What Cheer House, both clean and wholesome enough for the proudest. If you had not the coin, it made little difference. One room was fitted out as a museum and contained the many curious articles which had found their way into Woodward's hands. Another room was the hotel library; the first free reading room in San Francisco.