"Give me that gun!" he panted, but his deliverer held him off.
"I may need it myself, and I ain't got but the one here! Let's get
Clyde out of this."
Stepping over the motionless form at his feet, Fraser lifted the young club-man, who was huddled in a formless heap as if he had fallen from a great height, and together the two dragged him toward The Bedford Castle. As they went aboard, they were nearly run down by a body of reinforcements that Captain Peasley had finally mustered from between decks. Down the gang-plank and over the side they poured, grimy stokers, greasy oilers, and swearing deckhands, equipped with capstan-bars, wrenches, and marlin-spikes. Without waiting to observe the effect of these new-comers, Boyd and Fraser bundled Alton into the first cabin at hand, then turned back.
"Better stay here and look after him. You're all in, yourself," the adventurer advised. "I'm going to hunt up George."
He was away on the instant, with Boyd staggering after him, still weak and shaking, the vague discomfort of running blood at the back of his neck, muttering thickly as he went: "Give me your gun, Fraser! Give me your gun!"
The battle was still raging when the police arrived, after an interminable delay, and it ceased only at the rough play of night-sticks, and after repeated charges of the uniformed men had broken up the ranks of the strikers. The dock was cleared at length, and wagon-loads of bleeding, struggling combatants rolled away to jail, union and non-union men bundled in together. But work was not resumed that day, despite the fact that Big George, bruised, ragged, and torn, doubled his force of pickets and took personal charge of them.
That night, under glaring headlines, the evening papers told the story, reporting one fisherman fatally hurt, one striker dead of a gunshot wound, and many others injured.
CHAPTER XVIII
WILLIS MARSH SPRINGS A TRAP
The ensuing days were strenuous ones for the partners, working as they did, with a crippled force and under constant guard. Riot was in the air, and violence on every side. By the police, whose apathy disappeared only when an opportunity occurred of arresting the men they were supposed to protect, they were more handicapped than helped. The appearance of a fisherman at any point along the water-front became a sure signal for strife.