"Guess that's my name—has always been my name." Hendrie smoothed his mane of hair with one steady hand. "Folks used to call me Leo, because—of this. By the way, you apparently came to see me?"
The face of Austin Leyburn expressed a devilish hatred no words could have told. It was a hatred nursed and fostered through long years when his mind and energies were wholly turned upon profit extracted through the ignorance and passion of fellow-creatures of inferior mentality. It was an atmosphere in which such passionate bitterness might well be fostered.
But the calmness of his intended victim, for the moment, had a restraining effect. He felt the need for coolness.
So he laughed. There was no mirth in his laughter. It was a hollow sound that jarred terribly.
"Yes, I came here to find Alexander Hendrie, and not—Leo. I came to find the millionaire wheat grower, and challenge him with the injustices he is handing out to white agricultural labor, whose representative I am. I came to warn him that it was impossible for men of our union to work side by side with black labor, which earns white man's pay. I came to tell him that if he persisted, there is not a white man in the country will work for him, and that he must dismiss all black labor at once. I came to tell Alexander Hendrie these things, and I find—Leo."
Hendrie smiled into his face.
"You came to tell him all this, and you found, in his stead —Leo, the feller I guess you're not particularly well disposed toward. In fact, whom you—rather dislike. Well?"
Years of self-discipline had given Austin Leyburn a fine control of himself. But before that control had been acquired he had been robbed of all he possessed in the world by a man named Leo. He had been made to suffer by this man as few men are made to suffer, and after facing trials and hardships few men face successfully. These sufferings had ingrained into his heart a passionate hatred and desire for revenge no acquired control could withstand, and now the torrent of his bitter animosity broke out.
"Whom I hate better than any man on earth," Leyburn cried, in a low, passionate tone. "Listen to me, Leo. You're a great man now. You're among the rich of this continent, and so you're the more worth crushing. We both find ourselves in different positions now. Very different positions. You are powerful in the control of huge capital, founded upon the gold you stole from me twenty years ago on the Yukon trail. I—I control hundreds of thousands of workers in this country. That is no mean power. Hitherto my power has been exercised in the legitimate process of protecting that labor from men of your class. But from this moment all that is changed. Before all things in my life I have a mission to fulfill. It is my personal vengeance upon the man who robbed me twenty years ago, and left his mistress, bearing her unborn child, to starve on the long winter trail."
"It is a lie! She was not left to starve. She was provided for."