“Now for the strike!” said Jeremy to Andy Galpin.
But the strike did not come. Evidently the manipulators in the background would bide their own time.
CHAPTER XVII
BEHOLD, now, Miss Marcia Ames, conspiratress, seated in the depths of the Boot & Shoe Infirmary, deep in converse with Dr. Eli Wade, Surgeon of Soles and Healer of Leather. Opinion was always to be had at the Sign of the Big Shoe; often information; sometimes wisdom. Miss Ames was seeking light upon her problem wherever she might find it. Her scheme for Magnus Laurens had been successful; that in which Montrose Clark was to have played the Beneficent Influence, had prospered in part; yet The Guardian’s downhill pace had been only mitigated, not checked. Methods more radical must be found. Eli Wade proved at least a friendly, if not a broad-visioned consultant.
“A fighter, thet young man is,” said Eli Wade. “He don’t go stumblin’, any more. Straight, he goes. And if he falls at the end, it’ll be in the best fight any man ever made in this town against a gang of snakes and traitors.”
“But he must not fall, Eli!” cried the girl. “We must not let him fall.”
“Ah! Thet’s the talk! If them as had oughta stood by him had done so, he’d be all right to-day.”
“Who? Why have they failed him? Is it that they do not understand?”