by Rex Beach
BITTER ROOT BILLINGS, ARBITER
Billings rode in from the Junction about dusk, and ate his supper insilence. He'd been East for sixty days, and, although there lurkedabout him the hint of unwonted ventures, etiquette forbade itsmention. You see, in our country, that which a man gives voluntarilyis ofttimes later dissected in smoky bunk-houses, or roughly handledround flickering camp fires, but the privacies he guards areinviolate. Curiosity isn't exactly a lost art, but its practiceisn't popular nor hygenic.
Later, I found him meditatively whittling out on the porch, and, asthe moment seemed propitious, I inquired adroitly:--"Did you have agood time in Chicago, 'Bitter Root'?"
"Bully," said he, relapsing into weighty absorption.
"What'd you do?" I inquired with almost the certainty of appearinginsistent.
"Don't you never read the papers?" he inquired, with such evidentcompassion that Kink Martin and the other boys snickered. This from"Bitter Root," who scorns literature outside of the "ArkansasPrinting," as he terms the illustrations!
"Guess I'll have to show you my press notices," and from a hip pockethe produced a fat bundle of clippings in a rubber band. These hedisplayed jealously, and I stared agape, for they were front pages ofgreat metropolitan dailies, marred with red and black scare heads, inwhich I glimpsed the words, "Billings, of Montana," "'Bitter Root' onArbitration," "A Lochinvar Out of the West," and other things aspuzzling.
"Press Notices!" echoed Kink scornfully. "Wouldn't that rope ye? Hetalks like Big Ike that went with the Wild West Show. When a punchergets so lazy he can't earn a livin' by the sweat of his pony, hegrows his hair, goes on the stage bustin' glass balls with shotca'tridges and talks about 'press notices.' Let's see 'em, Billings.You pinch 'em as close to your stummick as though you held cards in astrange poker game."
"Well, I _have_ set in a strange game, amongst aliens," saidBillings, disregarding the request, "and I've held the high cards,also I've drawed out with honours. I've sailed the medium high seaswith mutiny in the stoke-hold; I've changed the laws of labour,politics and municipal economies. I went out of God's country rightinto the heart of the decayin' East, and by the application of arunnin' noose in a hemp rope I strangled oppression and put eightthousand men to work." He paused ponderously. "I'm an Arbitrator!"
"The deuce you are," indignantly cried "Reddy" the cook. "Who saysso?"
"Reddy" isn't up in syntax, and his unreasoning loyalty to Billingsis an established fact of such standing that his remarks afford noconjecture.
"Yes, I've cut into the 'Nation's Peril' and the 'Cryin' Evil' goodand strong--walkin' out from the stinks of the Union Stock Yards, ofChicago, into the limelight of publicity, via the 'drunk anddisorderly' route.
"You see I got those ten carloads of steers into the city all right,but I was so blame busy splatterin' through the tracked-up wastes ofthe cow pens, an' inhalin' the sewer gas of the west side that Inever got to see a newspaper. If I'd 'a' read one, here's what I'd'a' found, namely: The greatest, stubbornest, riotin'est strike everknown, which means a heap for Chicago, she being the wet-nurse oflabour trouble.
"The whole river front was tied up. Nary a steamer had whistledinside the six-mile crib for two weeks, and eight thousand men wasout. There was hold-ups and blood-sheddin' and picketin', which lastis an alias for assault with intents, and altogether it was a primeplace for a cowman, on a quiet vacation--just homelike and natural.
"It was at this point that I enters, bustin' out of the smoke of theStock Yards, all sweet and beautiful, like the gentle heeroine in theplay as she walks through the curtains at the back of the stage.
"Now you know there's a heap of difference between the Stock Yardsand Chicago--it's just like coming from Arkansas over into the UnitedStates.
"Well, soon as I sold the stock I hit for the lake front and began toground sluice the coal dust off of my palate.
"I was busy working my booze hydraulic when I see an arid appearin'pilgrim 'longside lookin' thirsty as an alkali flat.
"'Get in,' says I, and the way he obeyed orders looked like he'd hadmilitary training. I felt sort of drawed to him from the way hehandled his licker; took it straight and runnin' over; then soppedhis hands on the bar and smelled of his fingers. He seemed to justsoak it up both ways--reg'lar human blotter.
"'You lap it up like a man,' says I, 'like a cowman--fullgrowed--ever been West?'
"'Nope,' says he, 'born here.'
"'Well I'm a stranger,' says I, 'out absorbin' such beauties ofarchitecture and free lunch as offers along the line. If I ain'tkeepin' you up, I'd be glad of your company.'
"'I'm your assistant lunch buster,' says he, and in the course ofthings he further explained that he was a tugboat fireman, out on astrike, givin' me the follerin' information about the tie-up:--
"It all come up over a dose of dyspepsia--"
"Back up," interrupted Kink squirming, "are you plumb bug? Gettogether! You're certainly the Raving Kid. Ye must have stonebruised your heel and got concession of the brain."
"Yes sir! Indigestion," Billings continued. "Old man Badrich, ofthe Badrich Transportation Company has it terrible. It lands on hissolar every morning about nine o'clock, gettin' worse steady, andreaches perihelion along about eleven. He can tell the time of dayby taste. One morning when his mouth felt like about ten-forty-fivein comes a committee from Firemen & Engineers Local No. 21, with ademand for more wages, proddin' him with the intimations that if hedidn't ante they'd tie up all his boats."
"I 'spose a teaspoonful of bakin' soda, assimilated internally aroundthe environments of his appendix would have spared the strike andcheated me out of bein' a hero. As the poet might have said--'Uponsuch slender pegs is this, our greatness hung.'"
"Oh, Gawd!" exclaimed Mulling, piously.
"Anyhow, the bitterness in the old man's inner tubes showed in thebile of his answer, and he told 'em if they wanted more money he'dgive 'em a chance to earn it--they could work nights as well as days.He intimated further that they'd ought to be satisfied with theirwages as they'd undoubtedly foller the same line of business in thenext world, and wouldn't get a cent for feedin' the fires neither.
"Next mornin' the strike was called, and the guy that breathedtreachery and walk-outs was one 'Oily' Heegan, further submergedunder the titles of President of the Federation of Fresh WaterFiremen; also Chairman of the United Water-front Workmen, which lasttakes in everything doin' business along the river except thewharf-rats and typhoid germs, and it's with the disreputableness ofthis party that I infected myself to the detriment of labour and thetriumph of the law.
"D. O'Hara Heegan is an able man, and inside of a week he'd spreadthe strike 'till it was the cleanest, dirtiest tie-up ever known.The hospitals and morgues was full of non-union men, but the riverwas empty all right. Yes, he had a persuadin' method of arbitrationquite convincing to the most calloused, involving the layin' on ofthe lead pipe.
"Things got to be pretty fierce bye-and-bye, for they had the policebuffaloed, and disturbances got plentyer than the casualties at abutchers' picnic. The strikers got hungry, too, finally, because theprinciples of unionism is like a rash on your mechanic, skindeep--inside, his gastrics works three shifts a day even if hisoutsides is idle and steaming with Socialism.
"Oily fed 'em dray loads of eloquence, but it didn't seem to be realfillin'. They'd leave the lectures and rob a bakery.
"He was a wonder though; just sat in his office, and kept the shipowners waitin' in line, swearin' bitter and refined cuss-words about'ignorant fiend' and 'cussed pedagogue,' which last, for Kink'senlightenment, means a kind of Hebrew meetin'-house.
"These here details my new friend give me, ending with a eulogy onOily Heegan, the Idol of the Idle.
"'If he says starve, we starve,' says he, 'and if he says work, wework. See! Oh he's the goods, he is! Let's go down by theriver--mebbe we'll see him.' So me and Murdock hiked down WaterStreet, where they keep mosquito netting over the bar fixtures andspit at
the stove.
"We found him, a big mouthed, shifty, kind of man, 'bout as cynicallookin' in the face as a black bass, and full of wind as a toad fish.I exchanged drinks for principles of socialism, and doin' so happenedto display my roll. Murdock slipped away and made talk with afriend, then, when Heegan had left, he steers me out the back wayinto an alley. 'Short cut,' says he 'to another and a better place.'
"I follers through a back room; then as I steps out the door I'mgrabbed by this new friend, while Murdock bathes my head with agas-pipe billy, one of the regulation, strike promotin' kind, likethey use for decoyin' members into the glorious ranks of Labour.
"I saw a 'Burning of Rome' that was a dream, and whole cloudbursts ofshootin' stars, but I yanked Mr. Enthusiastic Stranger away from mysurcingle and throwed him agin the wall. In the shuffle Murdockshifts my ballasts though, and steams up the alley with mygreenbacks, convoyed by his friend.
"'Wow-ow,' says I, givin' the distress signal so that the windowsrattled, and reachin' for my holster. I'd 'a' got them both, onlythe gun caught in my suspender. You see, not anticipatin' any livebird shoot I'd put it inside my pants-band, under my vest, forappearances. A forty-five is like fresh air to a drowndingman--generally has to be drawed in haste--and neither one shouldn'tbe mislaid. I got her out at last and blazed away, just a secondafter they dodged around the comer. Then I hit the trail after 'em,lettin' go a few sky-shots and gettin' a ghost-dance holler off mystummick that had been troubling me. The wallop on the head made medizzy though, and I zigzagged awful, tackin' out of the alley rightinto a policeman.
"'Whee!' says I in joy, for he had Murdock safe by the bits, buckin'considerable.
"'Stan' aside and le'mme 'lectrocute 'im,' says I. I throwed the gunon him and the crowd dogged it into all the doorways and windowsconvenient, but I was so weak-minded in the knees I stumbled over thecurb and fell down.
"Next thing I knew we was all bouncin' over the cobble-stones in apatrol wagon.
"Well, in the morning I told my story to the Judge, plain andunvarnished. Then Murdock takes the stand and busts into song,claiming that he was comin' through the alley toward Clark Streetwhen I staggered out back of a saloon and commenced to shoot at him.He saw I was drunk, and fanned out, me shootin' at him with everyjump. He had proof, he said, and he called for the president of hisUnion, Mr. Heegan. At the name all the loafers and stew-bums in thecourt-room stomped and said, 'Hear, hear,' while up steps thisNapoleon of the Hoboes.
"Sure, he knew Mr. Murdock--had known him for years, and he wasperfectly reliable and honest. As to his robbing me, it waspreposterous, because he himself was at the other end of the alleyand saw the whole thing, just as Mr. Murdock related it.
"I jumps up. 'You're a liar, Heegan. I was buyin' booze for the twoof you;' but a policeman nailed me, chokin' off my rhetorics. Mr.Heegan leans over and whispers to the Judge, while I got chilblainsalong my spine.
"'Look here, kind Judge,' says I real winning and genteel, 'this manis so good at explainin' things away, ask him to talk off this bumpover my ear. I surely didn't get a buggy spoke and laminate myselfon the nut.
"'That'll do,' says the Judge. 'Mr. Clerk, ten dollars andcosts--charge, drunk and disorderly. Next!'
"'Hold on there,' says I, ignorant of the involutions of justice, 'Iguess I've got the bulge on you this time. They beat you to me,Judge. I ain't got a cent. You can go through me and be welcome tohalf you find. I'll mail you ten when I get home though, honest.'
"At that the audience giggled, and the Judge says:--
"'Your humour doesn't appeal to me, Billings. Of course, you havethe privilege of working it out.' Oh, Glory, the 'Privilege!'
"Heegan nodded at this, and I realized what I was against.
"'Your honour,' says I with sarcastic refinements, 'science tells usthat a perfect vacuum ain't possible, but after watching you I knowbetter, and for you, Mr. Workingman's Friend,--us to the floor,' andI run at Heegan.
"Pshaw! I never got started, nor I didn't rightfully come to till Irested in the workhouse, which last figger of speech is a pure andbeautiful paradox.
"I ain't dwellin' with glee on the next twenty-six days--ten dollarsand costs, at four bits a day, but I left there saturated with suchhatreds for Heegan that my breath smelted of 'em.
"I wanders down the river front, hoping the fortunes of war woulddeliver him to me dead or alive, when the thought hit me that I'dneed money. It was bound to take another ten and costs shortly afterwe met, and probably more, if I paid for what I got, for I figgeredon distendin' myself with satisfaction and his features withuppercuts. Then I see a sign, 'Non-Union men wanted--Big wages.' InI goes, and strains my langwidge through a wire net at the cashier.
"'I want them big wages,' says I.
"'What can you do?'
"'Anything to get the money,' says I. 'What does it take toliquidate an assault on a labour leader?'
"There was a white-haired man in the cage who began to sit up andtake notice.
"'What's your trouble?' says he, and I told him.
"'If we had a few more like you, we'd bust the strike,' says he, kindof sizin' me up. 'I've got a notion to try it anyhow,' and he smitesthe desk. 'Collins what d'ye say if we tow the "Detroit" out? Hercrew has stayed with us so far, and they'll stick now if we'll saythe word. The unions are hungry and scrapping among themselves, andthe men want to go back to work. It's just that devil of a Heeganthat holds 'em. If they see we've got a tug crew that'll go, they'llarbitrate, and we'll kill the strike.'
"'Yes, sir!' says Collins, 'but where's the tug crew, Mr. Badrich?'
"'Right here! We three, and Murphy, the bookkeeper. Blast thisidleness! I want to fight.'
"'I'll take the same,' says I, 'when I get the price.'
"'That's all right. You've put the spirit into me, and I'll see youthrough. Can you run an engine? Good! I'll take the wheel, and theothers'll fire. It's going to be risky work, though. You won't backout, eh?'"
Reddy interrupted Billings here loudly, with a snort of disgust,while "Bitter Root" ran his fingers through his hair beforecontinuing. Martin was listening intently.
"The old man arranged to have a squad of cops on all the bridges, andI begin anticipatin' hilarities for next day.
"The news got out of course, through the secrecies of policeheadquarters, and when we ran up the river for our tow, it lookedlike every striker west of Pittsburg had his family on the docks tosee the barbecue, accompanied by enough cobble-stones and scrap ironto ballast a battleship. All we got goin' up was repartee, but Ifiggered we'd need armour gettin' back.
"We passed a hawser to the 'Detroit,' and I turned the gas into thetug, blowin' for the Wells Street Bridge. Then war began. I leansout the door just in time to see the mob charge the bridge. The copsclubbed 'em back, while a roar went up from the docks and roof topsthat was like a bad dream. I couldn't see her move none though, andold man Badrich blowed again expurgatin' himself of as nobby a lineof cuss words as you'll muster outside the cattle belt.
"'Soak 'em,' I yells, 'give 'em all the arbitration you've got handy.If she don't open; we'll jump her,' and I lets out another notch, sothat we went plowin' and boilin' towards the draw.
"It looked like we'd have to hurdle it sure enough, but the policebeat the crowd back just in time. She wasn't clear open though, andour barge caromed off the spiles. It was like a nigger buttin' apersimmon tree--we rattled off a shower of missiles like an abnormalhail storm. Talk about your coast defence; they heaved everything atus from bad names to railroad iron, and we lost all our window glassthe first clatter, while the smoke stack looked like a pretzel withcramps.
"When we scraped through I looked back with pity at the 'Detroit's'crew. She hadn't any wheel house, and the helmsman was due to getall the attention that was comin' to him. They'd built up abarricade of potato sacks, chicken coops and bic-a-brac around thewheel that protected 'em somewhat, but even while I watched, somePolack filtered a brick thro
ugh and laid out the quartermaster cold,and he was drug off. Oh! it was refined and esthetic.
"Well, we run the gauntlet, presented every block with stuff rangin'in tensile strength from insults to asphalt pavements, andnoise!--say, all the racket in the world was a whisper. I caught aglimpse of the old man leanin' out of the pilot house, where a windowhad been, his white hair bristly, and his nostrils h'isted,embellishin' the air with surprisin' flights of gleeful profanity.
"'Hooray! this is livin' he yells, spyin' me shovelin' the deck outfrom under the junk. 'Best scrap I've had in years,' and just thensome baseball player throwed in from centre field, catching him inthe neck with a tomato. Gee! that man's an honour to the faculty ofspeech.
"I was doin' bully till a cobble-stone bounced into the engine room,makin' a billiard with my off knee, then I got kind of peevish.
"Rush Street Bridge is the last one, and they'd massed there on bothsides, like fleas on a razorback. Thinks I, 'If we make it throughhere, we've busted the strike,' and I glances back at the 'Detroit'just in time to see her crew pullin' their captain into the deckhouse, limp and bleedin'. The barricade was all knocked to piecesand they'd flunked absolute. Don't blame 'em much either, as it wassure death to stand out in the open under the rain of stuff that comefrom the bridges. Of course with no steerin' she commenced to swingoff.
"I jumps out the far side of the engine room and yells fit to bust mythroat.
"'Grab that wheel! Grab it quick--we'll hit the bridge,' but it waslike deef and dumb talk in a boiler shop, while a wilder howl went upfrom the water front as they seen what they'd done and smelledvictory. There's an awfulness about the voice of a blood-maddenedclub-swingin' mob; it lifts your scalp like a fright wig,particularly if you are the clubee.
"'We've got one chance,' thinks I, 'but if she strikes we're gone.They'll swamp us sure, and all the police in Cook County won't saveenough for to hold services on.' Then I throwed a look at theopening ahead and the pessimisms froze in me.
"I forgot all about the resiliency of brickbats and the table mannersof riots, for there, on top of a bunch of spiles, ca'm, masterful andbloated with perjuries, was Oily Heegan dictatin' the disposition ofhis forces, the light of victory in his shifty, little eyes.
"'Ten dollars and costs,' I shrieks, seein' red. 'Lemme crawl upthem spiles to you.'
"Then inspiration seized me. My soul riz up and grappled with thecrisis, for right under my mit, coiled, suggestive and pleadin', wasone of the tug's heavin' lines, 'bout a three-eighths size. I slipsa runnin' knot in the end and divides the coils, crouchin' behind thedeck-house till we come abeam of him, then I straightened, give it aswinging heave, and the noose sailed up and settled over him fine anddaisy.
"I jerked back, and Oily Heegan did a high dive from Rush Street thatwas a geometrical joy. He hit kind of amateurish, doin' what we usedto call a 'belly-buster' back home, but quite satisfyin' for a maideneffort, and I reeled him in astern.
"Your Chicago man ain't a gamey fish. He come up tame and squirtingsewage like a dissolute porpoise, while I played him out where he'dget the thrash of the propeller.
"'Help,' he yells, 'I'm a drownding.'
"'Ten dollars and costs," says I, lettin' him under again. 'Do youknow who you're drinkin' with this time, hey?'
"I reckon the astonishment of the mob was equal to Heegan's; anyhowI'm told that we was favoured with such quietness that my voicesounded four blocks, simply achin' with satisfactions. Thenpandemonium tore loose, but I was so engrosed in sweet converse Inever heard it or noticed that the 'Detroit' had slid through thedraw by a hair, and we was bound for the blue and smilin' lake.
"'For God's sake, lemme up,' says Heegan, splashin' along andlook-in' strangly. I hauls him in where he wouldn't miss any of myironies, and says:--
"'I just can't do it, Oily--it's wash day. You're plumb nasty withboycotts and picketin's and compulsory arbitrations. I'm goin' toclean you up,' and I sozzled him under like a wet shirt.
"I drug him out again and continues:--
"'This is Chinamen's work, Oily, but I lost my pride in theBridewell, thanks to you. It's tough on St. Louis to laundry you upstream this way, but maybe the worst of your heresies 'll be purifiedwhen they get that far.' You know the Chicago River runs up hill outof Lake Michigan through the drainage canal and into the St. Louiswaterworks. Sure it does--most unnatural stream I ever see aboutdirection and smells.
"I was gettin' a good deal of enjoyment and infections out of himwhen old man Badrich ran back enamelled with blood and passe tomatojuice, the red in his white hair makin' his top look like one ofthese fancy ice-cream drinks you get at a soda fountain.
"'Here! here! you'll kill him,' says he, so I hauled him aboard,drippin' and clingy, wringin' him out good and thorough--by the neck.He made a fine mop.
"These clippings," continued "Bitter Root," fishing into his pocket,"tell in beautiful figgers how the last seen of Oily Heegan he washolystoning the deck of a sooty little tugboat under theadmonishments and feet of 'Bitter Root' Billings of Montana, and theystate how the strikers tried to get tugs for pursuit and couldn't,and how, all day long, from the housetops was visible a tugboat madlycruisin' about inside the outer cribs, bustin' the silence withjoyful blasts of victory, and they'll further state that about darkshe steamed up the river, tired and draggled, with a bony-lookin'cowboy inhalin' cigareets on the stern-bits, holding a three-footknotted rope in his lap. When a delegation of strikers met her,inquirin' about one D. O'Hara Heegan, it says like this," andBillings read laboriously as follows:--
"'Then the bronzed and lanky man arose with a smile of rarecontentment, threw overboard his cigarette, and approaching theboiler-room hatch, called loudly: "Come out of that," and thePresident of the Federation of Fresh Water Firemen dragged himselfwearily out into the flickering lights. He was black and drenchedand streaked with sweat; also, he shone with the grease and oils ofthe engines, while the palms of his hands were covered with painfulblisters from unwonted, intimate contact with shovels and drawbars.It was seen that he winced fearfully as the cowboy twirled the ropeend.
"'"He's got the makin's of a fair fireman,'" said the stranger, "'allhe wants is practice.'"
"Then, as the delegation murmured angrily, he held up his hand and,in the ensuing silence, said:--
"'"Boys, the strike's over. Mr. Heegan has arbitrated."'"