Gilbert Parker

“ Something had been roused which would have its price.
“All ready!” shouted a man running from the river.
“Down with the bridge!” cried a hundred voices.
Men crowded near. The sacrifice was beside the altar of labor—now for the knife!
The huge bulk of the anarchist shivered like a vessel that strikes a rock, and for a moment he appeared to clutch at something for support. ”

“ That was Terry Brennan—just weight and force and power that, looking gentle, could crush, crush, crush! Crush Jean Charron! If there was one being in the world she feared and had always loathed it was this cousin from Laval who had tortured her in childhood by word and deed. And Jean Charron was the cause of all this trouble at Askatoon. Well, he must be crushed. The man who was like a leviathan must do it. ”

“ Yet men still kept hoping that Terry Brennan would come in time. To their minds he alone could put things right; he alone could avert the disaster which the ruin of the bridge would bring. Never had the West been dishonored by such a spirit of disorder and destruction.
A detachment of the Mounted Police was also due from the east—the Riders of the Plains. But the strikers were armed—mostly rough French-Canadians, they were men who had spent their years chiefly in the winter lumber-camps and running the river in the summer with their pike-poles, their cribs and rafts and vast drives of logs. ”

“ To hell with the bridge!”
There was no time to rave, but Jean Charron had not command of himself. “I’ll kill him, that—”
The foulest name a man can be called came from his swollen lips, and a black flood swept away the ashen look in his face.
“It is no use. He is dying now. Save the bridge, stop this strike or—Father Fontaine will be here to-night! A word from him, and it will be the end of all for you. Quick—speak!”
They were now in a circle of wild men clamoring for the word to fire the dynamite. Now or never was the moment.
“Speak,” urged the girl again. “It is your only chance.” ”

“ With a stroke of his knife, Jean Charron cut the fuse near up to the dynamite, and stooped to do the last awful thing. That he would go with the bridge into space did not matter now. He would be revenged. He would be so much an anarch. But at the dreadful juncture three shots rang out almost simultaneously, and the anarchist fell in a heap beside the mine.
The girl had fired from the bridge, Terry Brennan had fired his pistol, also, and a rifle shot had rung out. In the body of the anarchist were two wounds—one made by a rifle bullet, another by a revolver bullet. ”

“ He had seen men return from the brink at the call of something they loved. The self-loving man so often dies because he ceases to love himself at the last, and, having no one else to love, slips away. ”

“ He is infidel, he is anarch, he say all English—that is the same as Irish—are bad, that all English hate the priest. He say it is French against English and Irish. He say lies, bagosh! The Irish are all Protestants from Ireland, except that one back there hurted. He is Catholic. This is the twelfth of July—the Orangemen’s day. That is enough out here. It is a strike for more pay, it is also because the foreman will not give holiday on saints’ days; it is because they are anarch—as Jean Charron teach them. And it is the twelfth of July. So it is altogether. It is money; it is religion ”

“ I like see a man stan’ up to Terry Brennan. Just one man he is—son of old Larry Brennan, but he not need no one else. If he do need it is a woman—sacré, that is a man for a woman! It would make no difference at him if she was a woodcutter’s girl—no, bagosh. ”

“ Charron, that Jean Charron, ’tis a terrible thing he means to do.”
Her heart stood still. Did he mean to kill Terry Brennan, maybe?
“What is it he means to do, that Jean?” she asked painfully.
“To blow up the new bridge with dynamite, that’s it. He’s an anarchist, one that’s got the divil in him. There’s no end to what he’ll go. The bridge, the fine, tall bridge that cost so much, and all the people waitin’ for it—all the farmers north wantin’ it so bad. ”

“ Eh, Angele, it is so, n’est ce pas?” he added, as the girl came from the house. She had not heard what he said about the bridge.
“But what is the good if M’sieu’ Terry not come?” she said in a low voice. “And one man against so many!” She shot a glance from under drooping lids at her brother, and waited to hear him say what would surely burst from him now. She was not disappointed. Jacques Charron rose to the bait.
“That man, that Terry Brennan, he is millionaire, but he is a man of the people. He is more rich as any, but he live like you or me. He does not care a damn little fig for pride. ”

“ You trust that Jean Charron—he is deep like a cat. But you—you mus’ to go at once. There will be more like him—in there.” He nodded toward the darkened room. “But if they blow up the bridge it will be worse than ten men killed. That bridge is worth half a million dollars. To blow it up stop the railroad to get to Fort Patrick. That is much millions more, becos the grain up north mus’ to wait two years for another bridge. It is such a damn ijit thing. Nom de Dieu! How I wish that Terry Brennan is come here!” ”

“ Nomads, without the binding influences of settled communities, they had been laws unto themselves mostly—obeying the harsh customs of the camp and the river, lawless when among the settled folk, yet not debased or degraded at heart. ”