Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California

CHAPTER XXIX
A TEST OF STRENGTH

When Catherine saw the furious look on Barbara's face as she descended from the platform the night of the election, she avoided a meeting and went to bed pleading a headache.

Early the next morning Barbara rapped for entrance, forced her way in, and stood, tense with anger, before the older woman, her eyes red from the long vigil of a sleepless night.

"You avoided me last night – "

Catherine laughed.

"My dear, I never saw you in quite such a rage. It might be serious if it were not so silly."

"You'll find it serious before you are through with this performance," Barbara retorted, angrily.

"Remember, I am in supreme authority now. Don't you dare speak to me in that manner, you ungrateful little wretch!"

"I'll dare to tell you the truth – even if you were the mother who bore me – even if I had not repaid you a hundredfold for every dollar you have spent on me."

"Hush, hush, my dear, I do not wish to quarrel," Catherine said, recovering herself. "I know your pride is wounded over your defeat. I've watched your growing vanity in high office with much amusement for the past year."

"I'm not thinking of myself," Barbara said with emphasis.

"Of course not – what woman ever does?" Catherine sneered.

"I am glad to be relieved of the annoyance of such a position. But your treatment of the brave and daring young spirit who conceived this colony and created its wealth and influence – "

"Am I responsible?"

"Yes. Herman is incapable of conceiving such a plot without your suggestion. It is your work. You have always loved luxury and power."

"Perhaps I love a man also," Catherine interrupted, as her full sensuous lips curled in a curious smile.

"Yes, I give you credit for that too," the girl admitted. "Though I confess the secret of your infatuation for that hulking brute has always been one of the black mysteries of life to me."

"When you're older," again the round lips quivered with a smile, "perhaps you will understand. And now, my child, I've been patient with you. But don't you ever again call Herman a brute in my presence."

"Take care he doesn't prove it to you!" the girl warned.

Catherine suddenly paled.

"What do you mean by that?" she whispered, glancing about the room.

"Nothing! nothing! nothing! Only that in every deed of the devil there is the seed of death. You have planted the seed. The harvest is sure."

"My dear – "

"Don't call me that again! I hate you!" Barbara spoke with deliberate passion.

"Have you gone mad?" Catherine cried, with impatience.

"Yes, mad with hatred. From to-day we are enemies, and I'll hate you forever!"

The older woman looked at her in astonishment and spoke with a deliberate sneer:

"As you like. Remember, then, from this moment that you are a servant under my command. I am no longer your foster-mother. Leave this room instantly, take your things to the domestic servants' quarters, and report to the head-woman for duty in the corridors of this wing of the building."

"And you think I'll submit to this?" Barbara gasped.

Catherine rang the bell, and Barbara gazed at her with a look of mingled terror and rage. A sudden light flashed in her brown eyes.

"You mean this?"

"I'll show you in a moment," was the calm reply.

"Then it's war between us," Barbara cried.

She sprang to the door and Catherine caught her arm.

"Where are you going?"

"To Herman."

"He cannot interfere with my decisions."

Barbara threw her off and bounded through the door crying:

"We shall see!"

The girl rushed past the guard at the door of Wolf's office, trembling with rage, her eyes filled with blinding tears.

Wolf sprang to his feet in astonishment and met her with outstretched hands.

"What's the matter, child?" he asked as his big coarse fists closed over the hot little fingers and his gray eyes lighted at the sight of her dishevelled hair and bare throat.

Barbara choked back the sobs, and looked appealingly into Wolf's face.

"We have quarrelled about last night. You understand, Herman. Catherine has ordered me to leave my room and join the servants in the halls. You – you will not allow me to be degraded thus – will you?"

Wolf drew the trembling girl into his arms, pressed her close a moment, stroked her curls with his gnarled hand, and his face flushed with a look of triumph.

"Don't worry, dear, I'll protect you," he answered, bending and kissing her forehead. "Go back to your room, and if any one dares to disturb you, call for me."

Barbara murmured through her tears:

"Thank you, Herman."

Wolf's eyes sparkled as he watched the graceful little figure proudly leave the room.

CHAPTER XXX
A VISION FROM THE HILLTOP

Catherine's fight with Wolf was long and bitter. For hours she struggled to force him to leave in her hands the discipline of the women members of the colony. Her tears and threats fell on ears equally deaf to all pleading. At last the guards listening outside heard only the low sobbing of a woman's voice near the door for a half hour without a sound from the man.

And then his short, sharp words came quick and curt and stinging:

"Are you done now with this fool performance?"

The answer was a sob.

"Understand once for all," the cold, hard voice went on, "I am the master here. Your office as regent is one of courtesy only as my wife. My word alone is supreme. When you cease to be my wife another regent will be chosen and I do the choosing. I not only propose to do the work of disciplining the women, but it is the one kind of work to which I shall devote myself with pleasure."

"Herman!" Catherine sobbed, as if she had sunk beneath a blow.

The man laughed with brutal enjoyment.

"You'd as well know this now as later. You can be getting used to it."

Her eyes red with weeping, her proud shoulders drooped for the first time in her life, Catherine slowly walked from Wolf's office back to her room.

Barbara passed her on the stairs without a word or a glance, and hurried again to see the regent, her whole being alert with quick intelligence.

The guard had received instructions that she was the one privileged person in the colony who could enter his office at all hours, day or night, without ceremony or delay. They showed her in immediately.

"I've just heard of your order sending Norman to the work of a common farm-hand, Herman," Barbara began.

Wolf scowled.

"You must not interfere in this little affair between my rival and myself, Barbara," he said, sternly.

"I will interfere," she quickly replied, "both for your sake and his. You've made a serious mistake, Herman. Correct it at once."

"I had to show him his place."

"It isn't fair. The men will resent it. You will make enemies. Your power is complete. You can afford to be generous."

Wolf looked at her with hungry, admiring gaze.

"Perhaps you're right," he said slowly.

"Of course I'm right!" she replied, "and you know it. You've made him a martyr and a hero on the first day of his fall from power. Your true policy is just the opposite. Let him do what he pleases for a time. Above all things don't put yourself in the position of his enemy. Your strength lies in standing as his patron and friend."

"By Jove, Barbara," Wolf cried, "what a wise head on your little shoulders! Come, be honest with me now – you're not in love with this man?"

The girl smiled demurely:

"He is with me, I think," she admitted.

"Yes, yes, of course – so we all are," he cried, with a smile. "But you have not accepted his love?"

"No."

"I thought you had better sense. I'll change my order at your suggestion."

"I knew you would," she cried, joyfully.

Wolf sat down at his desk and wrote:

"Comrade Norman Worth is transferred from the field to the foundry, with permission, after his day's work, to employ his time in the shops perfecting any invention in which he may be interested.

"Wolf —Regent."

He handed the order to Barbara.

"Take this to the youngster and tell him I did it at your suggestion, and hereafter give him a wide berth if you wish to be friendly with me."

Barbara dropped her eyes and Wolf touched her chin with his coarse, short fingers.

"A hint to the wise is sufficient, little girl. You understand?"

Barbara took the order, turned toward the door, paused and smiled coquettishly:

"I understand, Herman."

She found Norman at work with Methodist John cleaning out a stable. To her amazement he was whistling and joking about something with the old man. She stopped and listened a moment.

"But what on earth do you want a lightning-rod for, John?" Norman asked.

"That's my secret, sir," the old man answered, "but I must have one – won't you get it for me?"

"I'm sorry, John, but I have no more power now in the State of Ventura than you have."

"But didn't you get the million dollars and didn't you make all the money for 'em – a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the cantaloups the others didn't have sense enough to plant? Surely they'll give you enough to get me a thirty-foot lightning-rod?"

"I'm afraid not, John, still I'll do my best. I don't like to press you for the secrets of your inner life, old man, but I've immense curiosity to know what you want with that lightning-rod? You say you're not afraid of lightning?"

"No, sir, I'm not afraid of nothin'."

"Then why – "

"'Tain't no use in askin' sir, I can't tell ye. But I want it. I'm going to pray every night for it till I get it. Maybe the Lord will send me one by an angel – "

Barbara suddenly appeared in the door of the stall.

"Speaking of angels," Norman cried, laughing.

"I have an order for you," Barbara said, quickly.

Norman threw his pitchfork full of manure out of the window of the stall, stood the fork in the corner, brushed his hands, and bowed before Barbara.

"What an exquisite picture you make standing in the doorway there with that ocean of blossoming peach trees stretching up the slope until it kisses the sky line. I wish I were an artist."

She looked at him with amazement.

"I expected to find you with murder in your heart. I can't understand."

Norman took the note from her white fingers.

"Because I'm laughing?"

"Yes."

"Well, isn't the joke on me? I've been preaching, preaching, preaching, about the dignity of all labour. I kicked the first few moments, I confess. The medicine was bitter, but I soon began to find that it was good for the soul. I'm getting acquainted with myself – "

Norman paused, read Wolf's order, and looked tenderly into Barbara's eyes.

"So you heard of my fall and came to my rescue. It's worth the jolt to be rescued by such a hand."

He stooped and kissed the tips of her fingers.

"Come with me up the hill yonder among those blossoming trees," he said, leading her toward the orchard. "I want to tell you about a vision I saw in that stable a while ago while I wielded the pitchfork and talked to my old pauper friend, both of us now comrade equals."

They walked on in silence through the long, clean rows of fruit trees in full bloom, the air redolent with sweet perfume and quivering with the electric hum of growing life. On the top of the hill they paused and looked toward the sea that stretched away in solemn, infinite grandeur. Below, on the next plateau, rolled in apparently endless acres, the great white carpet of flowering plum trees and further on the tender budding grapes and beyond, lower still, the deep green valley with orange trees flashing their golden fruit.

"What a glorious world!" Barbara cried.

"Yes," he answered with a sigh, "a world of endless beauty in which after all there's nothing vile but man. And I once thought that in such a world angels only could live."

"Must we despair because one man or woman proves false," she asked.

"No," he answered cheerily, leading her to a boulder and taking his seat by her side.

"I don't despair. I've been seeing visions to-day – visions as old as the beat of the human heart, perhaps, yet always new."

He drew the order of Wolf from his pocket and looked at it.

"From the moment of my awakening last night from the fool's paradise in which I've been living the past year my mind has been at work on solving the one unsolved problem in this dredge to which he refers. It came to me like a flash while at work this morning."

"Your invention will succeed?" she interrupted.

"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," he said, with enthusiasm. "I didn't solve it before because I lacked the incentive to apply my mind to it."

"And you got the incentive in your defeat?" she asked, in surprise.

"Yes. Deprived of my toys, I came back to myself, the source of power."

"But your incentive – I don't understand – in such an hour?"

"A very simple, very old, but very powerful one, I'm beginning to think, the source of all human progress – the determination to build a home here in one of these flower-robed hills overlooking the sea, and bring my bride to it some glorious day like this when every tree is festooned with joy! I don't want a modest cottage. My bride was born a queen. Every line of her delicate and sensitive face proclaims her royal ancestry. She shall have a palace. Love, Beauty, Music, Art, and Truth shall be her servants. I shall be the magician who will create all this out of the dirt men are now trampling under foot along the beach."

Barbara drew a deep breath, trembled, and looked away.

"I promised her never to speak of love again until her own dear lips called me, and I will not, though I fear sometimes the waiting seems long."

"And if she never calls?" the girl asked, dreamily.

"Then my palace shall remain silent and empty. Her hand alone can open its doors."

"And if I do not see you often while your palace is building, you may know at least I have not forgotten – and you will understand?"

"Yes, I will understand," he answered, with elation.

CHAPTER XXXI
IN LOVE AND WAR

With untiring zeal Norman gave himself to work on the dredge. Wolf refused to modify his original order that a full day should first be given as a labourer in the foundry and machine shops before he could devote himself to his invention.

This proved an advantage rather than a hindrance. By his unfailing courtesy, good fellowship, skill, and wit, Norman won his fellow workmen as warm personal friends. He was able thus to secure all the assistance he needed in his work.

Within two months the big dredge was finished.

From the first the regent had regarded Norman's fad with contempt. That he could succeed in making money out of dirt containing but twenty cents' worth of gold to a ton was an absurdity on its face.

While the young inventor worked day and night with tireless energy the regent quietly perfected his grip on the life of the rapidly growing colony. To render escape from the island or communication with the coast more impossible than ever, he established the strict system of double patrol around each community. No member of the Brotherhood was allowed to leave his room at night without permission. Beyond the outer patrol a mounted guard was established and the entire line of beach was guarded by watchmen in relays who reported each hour, day and night, by telephone to the commandant.

At the end of two months of Wolf's merciless rule the efficiency of labour had so decreased, it was necessary to lengthen the number of hours from eight to nine. As every inducement to efficiency of labour had been removed there was no incentive to any man to do more than he must without a fight with his guard or overseer. No vote was permitted on the question of increasing the hours of labour. The board of governors passed the order which Wolf wrote out for them without a dissenting voice.

Norman had no trouble in getting a gang of willing hands to push the monster gold-digger into position on one of the sand-points inside the harbour.

It was mounted on a float twenty-five feet wide and sixty-five feet long. For power it carried two fifty-horse-power distillate engines. Tom was in charge of one and Joe of the other. For raising the sand and gravel containing the gold two big Jackson gravel-pumps were located on opposite corners at the front end of the float.

Old Tom blew the whistle, the engines started, and in an hour the pumps had raised a hundred tons of sand and gravel and deposited them in the concentrating flumes. Norman worked the dredge all night without a moment's pause and in twelve hours his pumps had lifted fifteen hundred tons of sand, showing a capacity of 3,000 tons per day. When the gold was extracted and weighed it was found that the dredge had averaged twenty cents from each ton of sand and that it would cost less than three cents a ton to operate the entire machinery of its production. The first experimental machine alone would net $500 dollars a day, or $150,000 a year. He could put five of these machines to work in three months and make $3,000 a day.

The invention stirred the colony to its depths. Norman's appearance was the signal for a burst of cheering wherever he went.

Wolf was dumfounded. He called his board of governors together at once and ordered them to enact a new law to meet the situation.

Norman announced in the Era that he would give the Brotherhood from the beginning one half the net earnings of his machines, and asked the board of governors at once to grant him the men needed to build and operate enough dredges to reduce the hours of labour from nine to seven.

Wolf met the emergency with prompt and vigorous action. He suspended the editor for printing the announcement and set him to work carrying a hod.

He issued a proclamation as regent that the dredge in the hands of its inventor threatened the existence of the State, declared the law of inventions under which it was built suspended, and ordered Norman to at once operate the machine for the sole benefit of the State and begin the construction of twenty dredges of equal capacity.

When Norman received this order he set to work without a moment's delay and made a half-dozen dynamite bombs, gave one each to Tom and Joe and their assistants, laid in a supply of provisions, erected a tent on the beach beside the dredge, and set the big machine to work for all it was worth.

Wolf promptly ordered his arrest. The men who attempted to execute the order fled in terror at the sight of the bombs and reported for instructions.

Wolf came in person at the head of a picked company of fifty guards.

Norman had stretched a rope a hundred feet from the dredge and posted a notice that he would kill any man daring to cross it without his permission.

Wolf paused at the rope. Norman stood alone on one of the big pumps with his arms folded watching his enemy in silence.

The captain of the guard laid his hand on the regent's arm:

"You'd better not try it."

"He won't dare," Wolf growled.

"Yes, he will," the captain insisted.

"I'll risk it," the regent snapped.

"Are you mad? What's the use? He'll blow it up. You can't rebuild the dredge – no one understands it. Use common sense. Send the girl with a flag of truce and ask for a conference."

"A good idea – if it works," Wolf answered hesitating.

"It's worth trying," the captain urged.

Wolf returned to the house with his men, and in a few minutes Barbara came to Norman, her face white with terror, her voice quivering with pleading intensity.

"Please," she gasped, "for my sake, I beg of you not to do this insane thing! The regent asks for a conference under a flag of truce. He recognizes that it is impossible that you should remain here after what has happened. He asks for a half-hour's talk with you to offer an adjustment under which you can resign and return to San Francisco."

"It's a trick and a lie. He's deceiving you," Norman replied, sullenly.

"No, I swear it's true. He is in earnest, Catherine is beside herself with fear lest he be killed. He swore to her as he swore to me to respect your wishes. I'll gladly give my life if he proves false."

Norman turned his face away and looked over the still, blue waters, struggling with himself as he felt the tug of her soft hand on his heart.

Suddenly a hundred men with Wolf at their head sprang over the steep embankment and rushed to the dredge. Tom leaped to his feet and lifted his bomb without a word.

Norman covered Barbara and grasped his uplifted arm.

"It's all over boys. I've surrendered!" he shouted.

Barbara faced Wolf with blazing eyes:

"You have betrayed my trust!"

Wolf brushed her aside and confronted Norman, who had thrown the bomb he had taken from Tom's hand into the sea.

Norman paid no attention to Wolf, and seemed to see only the girl's face convulsed with passion. His eyes never left her for a moment.

Wolf turned and secured the other men who had defended the dredge, marching them with their hands tied behind their backs between two rows of guardsmen off to jail.

Norman spoke at last to Barbara in low, cold tones:

"I congratulate you."

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"That you are a superb actress. You have played your part to perfection. Your rôle was very dramatic, too. A clumsy woman would have bungled it, and lost even at the last moment."

"You cannot believe that I willingly betrayed you?" she cried, in anguish.

"I wish I had died before I knew it," he answered, bitterly.

Barbara pressed close to his side and seized his hand fiercely. He turned away with a shudder.

"Look at me," she pleaded.

He turned and faced her with a look of anger.

"Words are idle. Deeds speak louder than words."

"Norman, you are killing me with this cruel doubt!" she sobbed. "I give up! I love you! I love you!"

She threw her arms around his neck and her head sank on his breast.

He resisted for a moment, then clasped her to his heart, bent and kissed her with passionate tenderness.

"You believe me now?" she cried, through her tears.

"God forgive me for doubting you for a moment!" he answered, earnestly.

The guard suddenly drew Norman from her arms, tied his hands, and led him away to prison while the little figure followed, sobbing in helpless anguish.

Wolf walked behind, his big mouth twitching with smiles he could not suppress.