Why had they not struck? Because they were afraid? No. They had not struck because their fathers had taught them a fear and respect of the law. They had depended upon law. And here was law for them: the hills in ashes, their families scattered and going hungry!
If no man would go with him, he would ride alone down to the end of the rails and sell his life singly to drive back the work as far as he could, to rouse the hill people to fight for themselves and their own.
If ten men would come with him they could drive back the workmen for days, days in which the hill people would come rallying back into the hills to them. The people were giving up in despair because nothing was being done. Show them that even ten men were ready to fight for them and their rights and they would come trooping back, eager to fight and to hold their homes. There was yet wealth in the hills. If the railroad was willing to fight and to defy law and right to get it, were there not men in the hills who would fight for it because it was their own?
If fifty men would come with him they could destroy the railroad clear down below the line of the hills and put the work back for months. They would have sheriffs’ posses out against them. They would have to fight with hired fighters that the railroad would bring up against them. In the end they would perhaps have to fight the State militia, but there were men among them, he shouted, who had fought more than militia. Would they not dare face it now for their homes and their people!
Some men would die. But some men always 276 died, in every cause. And in the end the people of the whole State would judge the cause!
Would one man come? Would ten? Would fifty?
Seventy-two grim, sullen men looked over the knobs and valleys of ashes where their homes had been, took what food the French people could spare them, and mounted silently behind him.
Up over the ashes of Leyden road, past the cellars of the homes of many of them, for half the day they rode, saving every strain they could upon their horses. A three-hour rest. Then over the southern divide and down the slope they thundered to strike the railroad at Leavit’s bridge.