At which Emerson seized him by the collar and quickly disproved the assertion, to the great delight of the fishermen. He marched his prisoner to the dock entrance and thrust him out into the street with the warning: "Don't you let me catch you in here again."
"I'm a union man and you can't load that ship with 'scabs!'" The stranger swore as he slunk off. "You'll be sorry for this." But Boyd motioned him away and summoned two of his men to stand guard with him.
All that morning the three held their posts, refusing to admit any one who did not have business within, the while a considerable crowd assembled in the street. The first actual violence, however, occurred when the fishermen knocked off for the noon hour. Sensing the storm about to break, Boyd called up the Police Department from the dock-office, then summoned Big George, who appeared in quick time. It was with considerable difficulty that the non-union crew fought its way back to resume work at one o'clock.
During the afternoon the strikers made several attempts to enter the dock-shed, and it required a firm stand by the guards to restrain them. These growing signs of excitement pleased the fishermen intensely, and at each advance of the crowd it became as great a task to hold them back as it was to check the union forces. During one of these disturbances Captain Peasley made his way shoreward from the ship to scan the scene, and the sight of his uniform excited the ire of the strikers afresh. After a glance over the mob, he remarked to Emerson:
"Bli'me! It looks like a bloody riot already, doesn't it? Four hundred pounds to those dock wallopers! Huh! You know if I allowed them to bleed me that way—"
At that instant, from some quarter, a railroad spike whizzed past the
Captain's head, banging against the boards behind him with such a thump
that the dignified Englishman ducked quickly amid a shout of derision.
He began to curse them roundly in his own particular style.
"You'd better keep under cover, Captain," advised Emerson. "They don't seem to care for you."
"So it would appear," he agreed. "They're getting nawsty, aren't they?
I hope it doesn't lawst."
"Well, I hope it does," said George Balt. "If they'll only keep at it and beat up some of our boys at quitting-time the whole gang will be here in the morning."
It seemed that his wishes bade fair to be realized, for, as the day wore on, instead of diminishing, the excitement increased. By evening it became so menacing that Boyd was forced to send in an urgent demand for a squadron of bluecoats to escort his men to their lodgings, and it was only by the most vigorous efforts that a serious clash was averted. Nor was this task the easier since it did not meet with the approval of the fishermen themselves, who keenly resented protection of any sort.