“But who is he?”
“Just now when I said that I was seeking the criminal, I misled you a little, Percy. I did it because I wanted to collect my thoughts.” Hal paused: when he continued, his voice was sharper, his sentences falling like blows. “The criminal I've been telling you about is the superintendent of the mine—a man employed and put in authority by the General Fuel Company. The one who is being chased is not the one who sealed up the mine, but the one who proposed to have it opened. He is being treated as a malefactor, because the laws of the state, as well as the laws of humanity, have been suppressed by the General Fuel Company; he was forced to seek refuge in your car, in order to save his life from thugs and gunmen in the company's employ!”
SECTION 13.
Knowing these people well, Hal could measure the effect of the thunderbolt he had hurled among them. They were people to whom good taste was the first of all the virtues; he knew how he was offending them. If he was to win them to the least extent, he must explain his presence here—a trespasser upon the property of the Harrigans.
“Percy,” he continued, “you remember how you used to jump on me last year at college, because I listened to 'muck-rakers.' You saw fit to take personal offence at it. You knew that their tales couldn't be true. But I wanted to see for myself, so I went to work in a coal-mine. I saw the explosion; I saw this man, Jeff Cotton, driving women and children away from the pit-mouth with blows and curses. I set out to help the men in the mine, and the marshal rushed me out of camp. He told me that if I didn't go about my business, something would happen to me on a dark night. And you see—this is a dark night!”
Hal waited, to give young Harrigan a chance to grasp this situation and to take command. But apparently young Harrigan was not aware of the presence of the camp-marshal and his revolver. Hal tried again:
“Evidently these men wouldn't have minded killing me; they fired at me just now. The marshal still has the revolver and you can smell the powder-smoke. So I took the liberty of entering your car, Percy. It was to save my life, and you'll have to excuse me.”
The Coal King's son had here a sudden opportunity to be magnanimous. He made haste to avail himself of it. “Of course, Hal,” he said. “It was quite all right to come here. If our employés were behaving in such fashion, it was without authority, and they will surely pay for it.” He spoke with quiet certainty; it was the Harrigan manner, and before it Jeff Cotton and the two mine-guards seemed to wither and shrink.
“Thank you, Percy,” said Hal. “It's what I knew you'd say. I'm sorry to have disturbed your dinner-party—”
“Not at all, Hal; it was nothing of a party.”