Ridgway of Montana (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain)
Page 17
CHAPTER 17. THE ELECTION
At the very moment that the tramp of twenty thousand feet turned towardthe State-house, the report of the bribery investigating committee wasbeing read to the legislature met in joint session. The committeereported that it had examined seven witnesses, Yesler, Roper, Landor,James, Reedy, Kellor, and Ward, and that each of then had testifiedthat former Congressman Pelton or others had approached him on behalfof Warner; that an agreement had been made by which the eight votesbeing cast for Bascom would be give to Warner in consideration of$300,000 in cash, to be held in escrow by Yesler, and that thecommittee now had the said package, supposed to contain the bills forthat amount, in its possession, and was prepared to turn it over to thelegislature for examination.
Except for the clerk's voice, as he read the report, a dead silence laytensely over the crowded hall. Men dared not look at their neighbors,scarce dared breathe, for the terror that hung heavy on their hearts.Scores were there who expected their guilt to be blazoned forth for allthe world to read. They waited whitely as the monotonous voice of theclerk went from paragraph to paragraph, and when at last he sat down,having named only the bribers and not the receivers of bribes, a longdeep sigh of relief swept the house. Fear still racked them, but forthe moment they were safe. Furtively their glances began to go from oneto another of their neighbors and ask for how long safety would endure.
One could have heard the rustle of a leaf as the chairman of thecommittee stepped forward and laid on the desk of the presiding officerthe incriminating parcel. It seemed an age while the chief clerk openedit, counted the bills, and announced that one hundred thousand dollarswas the sum contained within.
Stephen Eaton then rose in his seat and presented quietly hisresolution, that since the evidence submitted was sufficient to convictof bribery, the judge of the district court of the County of Mesa berequested to call a special session of the grand jury to investigatethe report. It was not until Sam Yesler rose to speak upon that reportthat the pent-up storm broke loose.
He stood there in the careless garb of the cattleman, a strongclean-cut figure as one would see in a day's ride, facing withunflinching steel-blue eyes the tempest of human passion he had evoked.The babel of voices rose and fell and rose again before he could find achance to make himself heard. In the gallery two quietly dressed young,women, one of them with her arm in a sling, leaned forward breathlesslyand waited. Laska's eyes glowed with deep fire. She was living her hourof hours, and the man who stood with such quiet courage the focus ofthat roar of rage was the hero of it.
"You call me Judas, and I ask you what Christ I have betrayed. You callme traitor, but traitor to what? Like you, I am under oath to receiveno compensation for my services here other than that allowed by law. Tothat oath I have been true. Have you?
"For many weeks we have been living in a carnival of bribery, in adebauched hysteria of money-madness. The souls of men have been siftedas by fire. We have all been part and parcel of a man-hunt, an eager,furious, persistent hunt that has relaxed neither night nor day. Thelure of gold has been before us every waking hour, and has pursued usinto our dreams. The temptation has been ever-present. To some it hasbeen irresistible, to some maddening, to others, thank God! it has butproved their strength. Our hopes, our fears, our loves, our hates:these seducers of honor have pandered to them all. Our debts and ourbusiness, our families and our friendships, have all been used to houndus. To-day I put the stigma for this shame where it belongs--upon SimonHarley, head of the Consolidated and a score of other trusts, and uponWaring Ridgway, head of the Mesa Ore-producing Company. These are thedebauchers of our commonwealth's fair name, and you, alas! thetraffickers who hope to live upon its virtue. I call upon you to-day topass this resolution and to elect a man to the United States senate whoshall owe no allegiance to any power except the people, or to receiveforever the brand of public condemnation. Are you free men? Or do youwear the collar of the Consolidated, the yoke of Waring Ridgway? Thevote which you will cast to-day is an answer that shall go flying tothe farthest corner of your world, an answer you can never hope tochange so long as you live."
He sat down in a dead silence. Again men drew counsel from their fears.The resolution passed unanimously, for none dared vote against it lesthe brand himself as bought and sold.
It was in this moment, while the hearts of the guilty were like water,that there came from the lawn outside the roar of a multitude ofvoices. Swiftly the word passed that ten thousand miners had come to seethat Warner was not elected. That they were in a dangerous frame ofmind, all knew. It was a passionate undisciplined mob and to thwartthem would have been to invite a riot.
Under these circumstances the joint assembly proceeded to ballot for asenator. The first name called was that of Adams. He was an oldcattleman and a Democrat.
"Before voting, I want to resign my plate a few moments to Mr. Landor,of Kit Carson County," he said.
Landor was recognized, a big broad-shouldered plainsman with a leatheryface as honest as the sun. He was known and liked by everybody, even bythose opposed to him.
"I'm going to make a speech," he announced with the broad smile thatshowed a flash of white teeth. "I reckon it'll be the first I ever madehere, and I promise it will be the last, boys. But I won't keep youlong, either. You all know how things have been going; how men havebeen moving in and out and buying men here like as if they were cattleon the hoof. You've seen it, and I've seen it. But we didn't have thenerve to say it should stop. One man did. He's the biggest man in thisbig State to-day, and it ain't been five minutes since I heard youhollar your lungs out cursing him. You know who I mean--Sam Yesler."
He waited till the renewed storm of cheers and hisses had died away.
"It don't do him any harm for you to hollar at him, boys--not a mite. Iwant to say to you that he's a man. He saw our old friends falling bythe wayside and some of you poor weaklings selling yourselves fordollars. Because he is an honest, game man, he set out to straightenthings up. I want to tell you that my hat's off to Sam Yesler.
"But that ain't what I rose for. I'm going to name for the UnitedStates senate a clean man, one who doesn't wear either the Harley orthe Ridgway brand. He's as straight as a string, not a crooked hair inhis head, and every manjack of you knows it. I'm going to name aman"--he stopped an instant to smile genially around upon the circle ofuplifted faces--"who isn't any friend of either one faction or another,a man who has just had independence enough to quit a big job because itwasn't on the square. That man's name is Lyndon Hobart. If you want todo yourselves proud, gentlemen, you'll certainly elect him."
If it was a sensation he had wanted to create, he had it. The Warnerforces were taken with dumb surprise. But many of them were alreadyswiftly thinking it would be the best way out of a bad business. Hewould be conservative, as fair to the Consolidated as to the enemy.More, just now his election would appeal to the angry mob howlingoutside the building, for they could ask nothing more than the electionof the man who had resigned rather than order the attack on the Taurus,which had resulted in the death of some of their number.
Hoyle, of the Democrats, seconded the nomination, as also did Eaton, ina speech wherein he defended the course of Ridgway and withdrew hisname.
Within a few minutes of the time that Eaton sat down, the roll had beencalled and Hobart elected by a vote of seventy-three to twenty-four,the others refusing to cast a ballot.
The two young women, sitting together in the front row of the gallery,were glowing with triumphant happiness. Virginia was still clapping herhands when a voice behind her suggested that the circumstances did notwarrant her being so happy over the result. She turned, to see WaringRidgway smiling down at her.
"But I can't help being pleased. Wasn't Mr. Yesler magnificent?"
"Sam was all right, though he might have eased up a bit when he pitchedinto me."
"He had to do that to be fair. Everybody knows you and he are friends.I think it was fine of him not to let that make any difference in his
telling the truth."
"Oh, I knew it would please you," her betrothed laughed. "What do yousay to going out to lunch with me? I'll get Sam, too, if I can."
The young women consulted eyes and agreed very readily. Both of themenjoyed being so near to the heart of things.
"If Mr. Yesler will lunch with the debaucher of the commonwealth, weshall be very happy to join the party," said Virginia demurely.
Ridgway led them down to the floor of the House. Through the densethrong they made their way slowly toward him, Ridgway clearing a pathwith his broad shoulders.
Suddenly they heard him call sharply, "Look out, Sam."
The explosion of a revolver followed sharply his words. Ridgway divedthrough the press, tossing men to right and left of him as a steamyachtdoes the waves. Through the open lane he left in his wake, the youngwomen caught the meaning of the turmoil: the crumpled figure was Yeslerswaying into the arms of his friend, Roper, the furious drink-flushedface of Pelton and the menace of the weapon poised for a second shot,the swift impact of Waring's body, and the blow which sent the nextbullet crashing into the chandelier overhead. All this they glimpsedmomentarily before the press closed in on the tragic scene and cut offtheir view.