Air Trust

by George Allan England

  CHAPTER XXX.

  TRAPPED!

  Brevard was the first to speak. "Gabriel," said he, "we have agreed thatyou must be the leader in this whole affair. The actual, personalleader. To begin with, you're younger and physically stronger than anyof us men. Your executive ability is, without any question whatever, farand away ahead of ours--for we are more in the analytical, compiling,organizing, preparing line. To cap all, your personality carries more,far more, with the mass of the comrades than any of ours. Your career,in the past, your conflict with Flint and Waldron, and your longimprisonment, have given you the necessary following. You, and youalone, must issue the final call, lead the last, supreme attack, andcarry the old flag, the Crimson Banner of Brotherhood, to the topmostbattlement of an annihilated Capitalism!"

  Gabriel demurred, but they overruled him. So, presently, he consented;and pledged his life to it; and thrilled with pride and joy at thoughtof what now lay written in the Book of Fate, for him to read.

  Catherine's eyes shone with a strange light, as she looked upon himthere, so modest yet so strong. And he, smiling a little as his gaze methers, foresaw other things than war, and was glad. His heart sang withinhim, that memorable and wondrous night, up there in the hiding-placeamong the Great Smokies--there with Catherine and the othercomrades--there planning the last great blow to strike away forever theshackles from the bleeding limbs of all the human race!

  But serious and urgent things were to be thought of, and at once, for onthe morrow Brevard was going down, disguised, to Louisville, in one ofthe two monoplanes, to attend a final secret meeting of the North-middleSection Committee. From this he would proceed to the refuge near PortColborne, Ontario.

  "Let us make that our meeting-place, one week from tonight," saidGabriel, "in case anything happens. Should we be detected, or should anyaccident befall, we must have some time and place to rally by. Is mysuggestion taken?"

  They all agreed, after some discussion.

  "But," added Mrs. Grantham, "let's hope we're still secure here, for awhile. It doesn't seem possible they could find us _here_, in this broadmountain wilderness!"

  Brevard, meanwhile, was spreading out diagrams and plans.

  "The plant at Niagara," said he. "Gabriel, study this, now, as you neveryet have studied anything! For on your intimate knowledge of theseplans--which, by the way, have been obtained only at the cost of eightlives of our comrades, and through adventures which alone would make awonderful book--depends everything. With all communications cut, andtroops kept away, and our own people storming the works, you will yetfail, Gabriel, unless you know every building, every courtyard, wall andpassage, every door and window, almost, I might say. For the place ismore than a manufacturing plant. It's a fortress, a city in itself, awonderful, gigantic center to the whole web of world-domination!

  "So now, to the plans!"

  For hours, while Gabriel took notes and listened keenly, asked questionsand made minute memoranda, Brevard explained the situation at the greatAir Trust works. The others looked on, listened, and from time to timemade suggestions; but for the most part they kept silent, unwilling todisturb this most important work.

  Carefully and with painstaking accuracy he showed Gabriel how the plantnow embraced more than two square miles of territory around the Falls,all guarded by tremendous barricades mounting machine-guns andsearch-lights. On both sides of the river this huge monster hadsquatted, effectually shutting out all sight of the Falls and deprivingthe people of their birthright of beauty, at the same time that it hadharnessed the vast waterpower to the task of enslaving the world.

  "From the Grand Trunk steel arch bridge up to and including the formerplant of the Niagara Falls Power Company," said Brevard, "you see theplant extends. And, on the Canadian side--or what was the Canadian,before 'we' absorbed Canada--it stretches from the Ontario PowerCompany's works to those of the Toronto-Niagara Power Company, includingboth. In addition to having absorbed these, it has taken over theNiagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company, the CanadianPower Company and half a dozen others, and has, as you see, establishedits central offices and plant on Goat Island.

  "Here Flint and Waldron have what may be called a citadel within acitadel--twelve acres of administration buildings, laboratories (incharge of your old friend Herzog, by the way!) and experimental works,including also the big steel chambers, vacuum-lined, where they arealready storing their liquid oxygen to be turned into their pipe-linesand tank-cars. This Goat Island central plant will be the real kernel inthe nut, Gabriel. Once _that_ is gone, you'll have ripped the heart outof the beast, smashed the vital ganglia, and given the world therespite, the breathing-space it must have, to free itself!"

  "And if I don't?" asked Gabriel. "If anything happens to upset ourblockading tactics, or if our attacking forces are defeated or ouraeroplanes shot down, what then?"

  "Then," said Brevard, slowly, "then the world had better die thansurvive under the abominable slavery now impending. Already thepipe-lines have been laid to Buffalo, Cleveland, Albany and Scranton.Already they're under way to New York City itself, and to Cincinnati.Already other plants have been projected for Chicago, Denver, SanFrancisco and New Orleans, to say nothing of half a dozen in the OldWorld. At this present moment, as we all sit here in this quiet room onthis remote mountain-slope, the world's air is being cornered! All theatmospheric nitrogen is planned for, by Flint and Waldron, to pass undertheir control--and with it, every crop that grows. All the oxygen willfollow. They're already having their domestic-service apparatusmanufactured--their cold-pipe radiators, meters, evaporators andrespirators. I tell you, comrades, this thing is close upon us, not as atheory, now, but as a terrible, an inconceivably ghastly reality!

  "Even as we talk this thing over, those devils in human form are atwork impoverishing the atmosphere, the very basis of all life. Myoxymeter, today, showed a diminution of .047 per cent. in the amount offree oxygen in the air right on this mountain. And their plant is hardlyrunning yet! Wait till they get it under full swing--wait till theirpipe-lines and tanks and instruments and all their vast, infernalapparatus of exploitation and enslavement are in operation! Even in aweek from now, or less, by the time you issue the call, Gabriel, you maysee wretches gasping in vain for breath, in some dark alley of Niagarawhere the air is being drained!"

  "Oh, devilish and infernal plot against the world!" said Gabriel,bitterly. "Yet in essence, after all, no different from the system often years ago, which kept food and shelter, light and fuel, under lockand key--and made the dollar the only key to fit the lock! Yet thisseems worse, somehow; and though I die for it, my last supreme blowshall be against such unutterable, such murderous villainy! So then,comrades--"

  He paused, suddenly, as Kate laid a hand on his arm.

  "Hark! What's that?" she whispered.

  Outside, somewhere, a sound had made itself heard. Then on the porch, aloose board creaked.

  Gabriel sprang to his feet. The others stood up and faced the door.

  "In heaven's name, what's that outside?" demanded Craig.

  On the instant, a heavy foot crashed through the panels of their door.The door, burst open, flew back.

  In the aperture, stood a man, in aviator's dress, with another dimlyvisible behind him. Both these men held long, blue-nosed,oxygen-bullet-shooting revolvers levelled at the little group around thetable.

  "My God! Air Trust spies!" cried Grantham, pale as death.

  "Hands up, you!" shouted the man in the doorway, with a wild triumph inhis voice. "You're caught, all of you! Not a move, you ---- ---- ----!Hands up!"