Luke Allan

“ And so Torrance, waving a boisterous hand from the low seat of his speeder to the young pair standing on the steps of the shack, threw open the gas and throbbed down the track to the end-of-steel village to add to his audience two Policemen and a train crew who were already crowing in anticipation of the end.
Adrian Conrad and Tressa saw him go without a worry in the world but that he would return too soon. Where only the three of them lived it was almost impossible for the two lovers to creep away by themselves. Even a sympathetic daddy becomes a burden in the springtime of youth. ”

“ A few of the men were on their feet now, mumbling, waving their soiled fists. Certain mysterious movements were significant to Conrad. Like a flash he had Koppy round the waist and was pressing a small automatic into his stomach.
"I want them to sit down, Koppy," ordered the foreman, "every one of them. You have till I count five. If I see a knife in the meantime, time's up. One—two—"
The Pole swallowed—shouted something in a foreign tongue, and every hand fell into the open, weaponless, every man sat down.
"You're a wise guy sometimes, Koppy," smiled Conrad. ”

“ The maddest fury of the fight seemed to have waned, yet Conrad knew that the danger to him and Torrance had increased. Italian and Hungarian, Pole and Swede, had forgotten their race feud in the greater hatred of their bosses. The noise, so hideous and snarling when they arrived, was stilled in unity of purpose.
Many had retired, some to nurse their wounds, others not yet blind enough to custom to ignore authority. Those who remained knew what they were doing. Murder was in their eyes. ”

“ Koppy had explained it to Tressa in fiery words; the Independent Workers of the World had found tilled soil in the breasts of these unthinking men. By feeding their smouldering bitterness against conditions due largely to themselves it had won their unreasoning fidelity; like dogs they crept to heel. Here at last was a medium in which to express their wrath. That it could profit them nothing mattered not. All they read was that, under-dogs as they were doomed to be, they might make their masters suffer.
Werner, more sensitive to the silences, grumbled at his leader's back. ”

“ And within that circle were only a handful he could call friends, and a camp of bohunks. He hated the shadows of the forest, where life was scarcer than in the Hills, where even keen wits were wasted.
Here the guns of his former enemies were supplanted by knives and knuckle-dusters and clubs; and the men who wielded them were cowardly, slinking foreigners whose very appearance was repugnant. Sneaky, underground, despicable crime it was, running the gamut from petty annoyance to senseless murder. None of the open-handed, bold and reasoned intelligence of the prairie criminal. ”

“ Had he not, at unguarded moments, been held down by momentary flashes of the old dreads he would have jumped on his little speeder and chugged away to the west to sing his satisfaction to the hundred and one contractors who were looking for him to open the way to their longest and heaviest trains of supplies, growing longer and heavier as grade crept into the mountains. He wanted to cry to them: "Run your trains—fifty cars at a time, if the rest of the line will bear 'em. As for the Tepee trestle, it's as steady as the mountains—and a blame sight bigger job." ”

“ Werner alone did not follow him. When five hundred fists thrust as many weapons into the air and cried for action, Werner felt the urge of action of his own. Slowly he slunk to the outskirts of the mob.
"This," he said to himself, "is where Hugo Werner takes to the tall timbers. I don't hypnotise worth a cent. All Koppy's eagle eye does to me is warn me I'm not bullet-proof. Me for the safe spots; they can get as maudlin as they like. I got a hunch this is no place for Hugo Werner." ”

“ Rasping voices lifted themselves in song. No laughter, no shouting—only the sounds of men whose memories are more sensitive than their feelings, who live in the past or the future, never in the present. Evening was fluttering gently down, mellowing line and tone.
Even to Big Jim Torrance at such an hour came the appeal of dimly reverent things. Here on the fringe of prairie and forest, in the vast spaces of Northern Canada where wolf met coyote, Torrance was waging a big fight. Last year he had brought the grade, a simple task, east of the mountains. ”

“ But when she beheld Koppy, hat in hand, standing at the edge of her retreat with head bowed, his humility seemed to call only for the sympathy always denied him. With maidenly modesty she gathered her work to tighter compass, but no other restraint did she feel in the presence of the man her friends accused of unthinkable crimes. The inheritance of her femininity assured her that she was in no danger. Koppy had always liked her—she knew that also by virtue of that inheritance; and every woman loves the strong thing that bends to her—loves, but perhaps does not respect. ”

“ She heard the familiar whistle break out far down the sloping path beyond the grade. Higher and higher it mounted, and with hand held she listened with smiling eyes. She would keep on with her mending as if she had not heard; and the whistle would grow more impatient as it approached, calling her to reply.
Now he was half way up the slope—now only a few yards beyond the grade. She grabbed her mending and began to work industriously. Now he was on the grade—he would see her sitting there working as if she had forgotten there was an Adrian Conrad. ”

“ Juno raised herself to give every inch of her stubby tail a chance. Blue Pete peered eagerly into the shadows along the shore.
"An' thar's yer missus, Juno," he cried joyfully. "Mira—our Mira!"
A few powerful movements of his arm swept the raft sideways against the bank. A woman, small and dainty, swarthy but without Indian blood, leaned eagerly forward—eager but shy. Waves of dark hair peeped from beneath her Stetson, and her green blouse blazed against the darker hue of the trees as she stood, one foot advanced, holding her arms toward the halfbreed. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII A TRAGEDY OF CONSTRUCTION Stretched on the dry grass beside the trestle, hanging perilously over the edge of the dizzy drop to the river bottom, Tressa watched the unceasing struggle with the hungry quicksands.
A hive of industry was below her—men and horses, huge tree trunks and masses of rock, network trestle and piled poles. Men swarmed everywhere, appearing from her height mere dots of movement, ridiculously unfit to cope with the force that was making her father so irritable these days. ”

“ A wave of crimson deepened the tan on Torrance's face. Whirling on the group beside him, he struck viciously, and Koppy hurtled over the log and lay as still as his dead companions. Instantly Conrad was on the Pole, running his hands swiftly over the unconscious body. With a satisfied smile he drew a knife from a leather sheath fastened inside the trouser-band, and thrust it into his own belt.
"You did well to strike quickly," he muttered to Torrance. "A bullet would be the proper thing, but we've no direct proof; the Police would ask questions. He'll be round in a minute." ”

“ Thereafter Torrance knew only that he was enjoying himself, as fist and boot struck snarling face or struggling body. Followed a few minutes of more careful fighting, as the roused bohunks began to retaliate; and then a sense of personal danger not to be countered by any amount of exertion.
As he threw himself into the fight he glowed with the satisfaction of knowing that every face before him belonged to an enemy. Normally slinking cowards before authority, the bohunks were now inflamed beyond anything but brute force. ”

“ A volley of curses from Torrance directed Mahon's eyes to the trestle. The bohunks had attacked at last! The contractor was struggling madly with two of them! Mahon searched anxiously for the Indian, but he was far up the grade now, shooting among the trees. Torrance was fighting it out alone on that dizzy height.
As the light broke, Ignace Koppowski, too, took stock. He knew he had only to maintain the siege long enough to win; but he also realised that his followers had little stomach for a long struggle. The rising sun, too, was against every precedent as a time to attack authority. ”

“ Werner's head appeared in the window space, smiled, pushed through, followed by a scrambling body. After him came Morani, Heppel, and eighteen villainous-looking companions. Werner, first to enter, as usual, selected the bunk, throwing himself on it with a cunning smile. He always thought too quickly for the others. His companions littered the floor, Koppy retaining the seat of state. Twenty-two vile-featured conspirators gathered in solemn conclave.
A twenty-third, not so vile-featured but swarthier of skin, sank softly against the logs at the rear of the shack, one ear pressed to a chink. ”

“ Koppy shrugged his shoulders; everything was in the lap of the gods; inspiration was one of his holds on his followers.
"'Cause every damn one of them will do what you say," Werner assured him, "from waiting to say grace before tackling the soup, to blowing that trestle to perdition. That is, if they can do it in the dark."
"In dark—it is our way," returned the leader crisply. "Laws? Bah! For the bosses they are, like everything else. We work down here." ”

“ Five hundred yards up the wide bottom of the valley the construction camp sprawled its ugly mass. From where he stood in the doorway he looked down on it over the grade—its straggling unformed planning; the flimsy shacks, half unhewn logs, half canvas, without respect for streets or angles or lines; its half-hearted struggle to lift itself up the slope to the sheltered forest above.
A disreputable, careless, disgusting picture of hardened man catering only to his simplest needs. ”

“ But Torrance's reaction had carried him too far—just too far. Tressa was safe. Heppel and eight cruel companions, as directed by Koppy, had gone on the trail of the two lovers. But when it came the moment to strike, Adrian Conrad was their master. In the darkness they slunk away. And the two lovers, arms entwined, scarcely knew that darkness was falling.
In the shack the Indian listened to the fading exhaust of the speeder. ”

“ Blue Pete, a name once on the lips of every rancher and cowboy, sheriff and Mounted Policeman, from the Montana Badlands to Medicine Hat—once cowboy and rustler, again cowboy and Mounted Police detective, then thrown back to rustling by the blindness of a political judge—was not now the model of physical fitness of a year ago when his rifle and rope were respected over a prairie Province and State. ”

“ Tressa came running round the nearest shack, rifle in one hand and a small automatic in the other. She saw the blood on Adrian's collar and made straight for him. For a moment her father frowned jealously.
"A man brings a daughter into the world," he sulked, "frets and stews and labours over her until she's old enough—to fall in love with some young fellow who never had a moment's worry about her."
"And so it has been since ribs ceased to become women," grinned Conrad. "It's only another beauty mark, Tressa. It's stopped bleeding already." He turned angrily on Koppy. ”

“ But Morani continued to whet his knife with smiling unction.
"You see boss," said Koppy, "and demand we boss ourselves—that I boss or job stops. We Workers know no boss; we please ourselves. We boss out here. If any one say no—slash!"
He struck downward with his right hand, as he would gladly strike when he had the chance. And Morani repeated the movement, only far more subtly and efficiently. Werner stumbled to his feet, his eyes on Morani's stiletto. ”

“ Failing use for his horse, Mahon spent much time in the forest. And after a time, the very shadows, and the secrecy breathed by the trees seemed to hint at revelations just round the corner. Down in the camp half a thousand bohunks, with brutal murder in their hearts, would, under Police eye, climb to their bunks as innocent in appearance as kittens. ”