The Vagrant Duke

by George Gibbs

  CHAPTER XIX

  YAKIMOV REVEALS HIMSELF

  It was with some misgivings that Peter left his cabin, leaving HawkKennedy there to sleep off the effects of his potations, but thesituation at the lumber camp was so hazardous that his presence wasurgently required. Hawk had awakened early, very early, and verythirsty, but Peter had told him that there was no more whisky andthreatened to throw over the whole affair if he didn't sober up andbehave himself. And so, having exacted a promise from Hawk Kennedy toleave the Cabin when he had had his sleep out, Peter had gotten the"flivver" from McGuire's garage (as was his custom) and driven rapidlydown toward the camp.

  He had almost reached the conclusion that the copy of the partnershipagreement which Hawk had held as a threat over McGuire had ceased toexist--that it had been lost, effaced or destroyed. But he wanted to bemore certain of this before he came out into the open, showed his handand McGuire's and defied the blackmailer to do his worst. He felt prettysure now from his own knowledge of the man that, desperate though he wasin his intention to gain a fortune by this expedient, he was absolutelypowerless to do evil without the signature of McGuire. The question asto whether or not he would make a disagreeable publicity of the wholeaffair was important to McGuire and had to be avoided if possible, forPeter had given his promise to bring the affair to a quiet conclusion.

  Until he could have a further talk with McGuire, he meant to lead HawkKennedy on to further confidences and with this end in view and with thefurther purpose of getting him away from the Cabin, had promised to meethim late that afternoon at a fork of the road to the lumber camp, theother prong of which led to a settlement of several shanties where Hawkhad managed to get a lodging on the previous night and on several otheroccasions. In his talk with the ex-waiter he learned that on hisprevious visits the man had made a careful survey of the property andknew his way about almost as well as Peter did. It appeared that he alsoknew something of Peter's problems at the lumber camp and thedifficulties the superintendent had already encountered in getting hissawed lumber to the railroad and in completing his fire-towers. Indeed,these difficulties seemed only to have begun again, and it was withgreat regret that Peter was obliged to forego the opportunity of seeingBeth that day, perhaps even that evening. But he had told her nothing ofhis troubles the night before, not wishing to cloud a day so fair forthem both.

  The facts were these: Flynn and Jacobi, the men he had dismissed, hadappeared again at the camp in his absence, bent on fomenting trouble,and Shad Wells, already inflamed against the superintendent, had fallenan easy prey to their machinations. Accidents were always happening atthe sawmills, accidents to machinery and implements culminating at lastin the blowing out of a tube of one of the boilers. It was thismisfortune that had held the work up for several days until a spareboiler could be installed. Peter tried to find out how these accidentshad happened, but each line of investigation led up a blind alley. JesseBrown, his foreman, seemed to be loyal, but he was easy-going and weak.With many of his own friends among the workers both at the camp andmills he tried to hold his job by carrying water on both shoulders andthe consequences were inevitable. He moved along the line of leastresistance and the trouble grew. Peter saw his weakness and would havepicked another man to supersede him, but there was no other available.The truth was that though the men's wages were high for the kind of workthat they were doing, the discontent that they had brought with them wasin the air. The evening papers brought word of trouble in everydirection, the threatened railroad and steel strikes and the prospect ofa coalless winter when the miners went out as they threatened to do onthe first of November.

  At first Peter had thought that individually many of the men liked him.He had done what he could for their comfort and paid them the highestprice justifiable, but gradually he found that his influence was beingundermined and that the good-natured lagging which Peter had at firsttried to tolerate had turned to loafing on the job, and finally to overtacts of rebellion. More men had been sent away and others with even lessconscience had taken their places. Some of them had enunciatedBolshevist doctrines as wild as any of Flynn's or Jacobi's. Jonathan K.McGuire stood as a type which represented the hierarchy of wealth andwas therefore their hereditary enemy. Peter in a quiet talk at thebunk-house one night had told them that once Jonathan K. McGuire hadbeen as poor, if not poorer, than any one of them. But even as he spokehe had felt that his words had made no impression. It was what McGuirewas _now_ that mattered, they told him. All this land, all this lumber,was the people's, and they'd get it too in time. With great earnestness,born of a personal experience of which they could not dream, Peterpointed out to them what had happened and was now happening in Russiaand painted a harrowing picture of helplessness and starvation, but theysmoked their pipes in silence and answered him not at all. They werenot to be reasoned with. If the Soviet came to America they were willingto try it. They would try anything once.

  But Shad Wells was "canny" and Peter had never succeeded in tracing anyof the accidents or any of the dissensions directly to his door. Withoutevidence against him Peter did not think it wise to send him out ofcamp, for many of the men were friendly to Shad and his dismissal wassure to mean an upheaval of sorts. Peter knew that Shad hated him forwhat had happened at the Cabin but that in his heart he feared to comeout into the open where a repetition of his undoing in public mightdestroy his influence forever. So to Peter's face he was sullenlyobedient, taking care to give the appearance of carrying out his orders,while as soon as Peter's back was turned he laughed, loafed andencouraged others to do the same.

  And for the last week Peter had not liked the looks of things. At thelumber camp the work was almost at a standstill, and the sawmills weresilent. Jesse Brown had told him that Flynn and Jacobi had been at thebunk-house and that the men had voted him down when the foreman hadtried to send them away. It was clear that some radical step would haveto be taken at once to restore discipline or Peter's authority andusefulness as superintendent would be only a matter of hours.

  It was of all of these things that Peter thought as he bumped his way inthe "flivver" over the corduroy road through the swampy land which ledto the lower reserve, and as he neared the scene of these materialdifficulties all thought of Hawk Kennedy passed from his mind. There wasthe other danger too that had been one of the many subjects of theletter of Anastasie Galitzin, for Peter had no doubt now that theforeigner with the dark mustache who had followed him down from NewYork and who some weeks ago had been sent out of the camp was no otherthan the agent of the Soviets, who had forwarded to London theinformation as to his whereabouts. Peter had not seen this man since theday of his dismissal, but he suspected that he was in the plot withFlynn, Jacobi and perhaps Shad Wells to make mischief in the lumbercamp.

  The opportunity that Peter sought to bring matters to a focus was notlong in coming, for when he reached the sawmills, which had resumeddesultory operations, he found Flynn and Jacobi, the "Reds," calmlyseated in the office, smoking and talking with Shad Wells. Peter hadleft his "flivver" up the road and his sudden entrance was a surprise.The men got up sullenly and would have slouched out of the door butPeter closed it, put his back to it, and faced them. He was cold withanger and held himself in with difficulty, but he had taken theirmeasure and meant to bring on a crisis, which would settle their statusand his own, once and for all time.

  "What are you doing here?" he began shortly, eying Flynn.

  The Irishman stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged impudently.

  "That's my business," he muttered.

  "H-m. You two men were discharged because you were incompetent, becauseyou were getting money you didn't earn and because you were trying topersuade others to be as worthless and useless as yourselves. You wereordered off the property----"

  "Ye can't keep us off----"

  "I'll come to that in a moment. What I want to say to you now is this,"said Peter, planting his barbs with the coolness of a matador baitinghis bull. "Some men go wrong because they've bee
n badly advised, somebecause they can't think straight, others because they'd rather gowrong than right. Some of you 'Reds' believe in what you preach, thatthe world can be made over and all the money and the land divided up ina new deal. You two don't. You don't believe in anything except gettinga living without working for it--and trying to make honest men do thesame. You, Jacobi, are only a fool--a cowardly fool at that--who hidesbehind the coat-tails of a man stronger than you----"

  "Look-a here, Mister----"

  "Yes, Flynn's your master, but he isn't mine. And he isn't the master ofany man on this job while I'm superintendent----"

  "We'll see about that," said Flynn with a chuckle.

  "Yes, we will. Very soon. _Now_, as a matter of fact----"

  "How?"

  "By proving which is the better man--you or me----"

  "Oh, it's a fight ye mean?"

  "Exactly."

  The Irishman leered at him cunningly.

  "I'm too old a bird to be caught wit' that stuff--puttin' you wit' theright on yer side. We're afther sheddin' no blood here, Misther Nichols.We're on this job for peace an' justice fer all."

  "Then you're afraid to fight?"

  "No. But I'm not a-goin' to----"

  "Not if I tell you you're a sneak, a liar and a coward----"

  Flynn's jaw worked and his glance passed from Jacobi to Wells.

  "I'll make ye eat them names backwards one day, Misther Nichols--but notnow--I'm here for a bigger cause. Stand away from the door."

  "In a moment. But first let me tell you this, and Shad Wells too.You're going out of this door and out of this camp,--all three of you.And if any one of you shows himself inside the limits of this propertyhe'll have to take the consequences."

  "Meanin' what?" asked Wells.

  "Meaning _me_," said Peter, "and after me, the law. Now go."

  He stood aside and swung the door open with one hand, but he didn't takehis eyes from them.

  They laughed in his face, but they obeyed him, filing out into the open,and strolled away.

  Peter had hoped to coax a fight out of Flynn, thinking that the Irishblood in him couldn't resist his taunts and challenge. But Flynn hadbeen too clever for him. A defeat for Flynn meant loss of prestige, avictory possible prosecution. Either way he had nothing to gain. Perhapshe was just a coward like Jacobi or a beaten bully like Shad. Whateverhe was Flynn seemed very sure of himself and Peter, though apparentlymaster of the situation for the present, was conscious of a sense ofdefeat. He knew as Flynn did that no matter what forces he called to hisaid, it was practically impossible to keep trespassers off a property ofthis size, and that, after all, the success of his logging operationsremained with the men themselves.

  But he breathed more freely now that he had made his decision withregard to Shad Wells. He spent a large part of the morning going overthe mills, getting the men together and giving them a little talk, thenwent up to the camp in search of Jesse Brown. The news of his encounterwith Shad and the "Reds" had preceded him and he saw that trouble wasbrewing. Jesse Brown wagged his head in a deprecating way and tried toside-step the entire situation. But Peter had reached a point where hewas tired of equivocation.

  "I say, Jesse," he said at last, "you've let things get into a prettybad mess down here."

  "I'm a peaceable man, Mr. Nichols," said Jesse. "I've tried to steerthis camp along easy-like, 'til this bit of woods is cleared up and hereyou go stirrin' up a hornet's nest about our ears."

  Peter frowned. "You know as well as I do that the men are doing just asthey please. At the rate they're going they wouldn't have this sectionfinished by Christmas. I'm paying them for work they don't do and youknow it. I put you in here to see that McGuire gets what he's payingfor. You haven't done it."

  "I've done the best I could," muttered Jesse.

  "That isn't the best I want. You knew Flynn and Jacobi were back in campyesterday. Why didn't you tell me so?"

  "I can't do nothin'. They've got friends here."

  "And haven't you got friends here too? I sent those men out of camp. Ifthey're here again I'll find the power to arrest them."

  "I'd advise you not to try that."

  "Why?"

  "They're stronger than you think."

  "I'll take my chances on that. But I want to know where you stand. Areyou with me or against me?"

  "Well," said Jesse, rubbing his head dubiously, "I'll do what I can."

  "All right. We'll make a fresh start. Round up all hands. I'm going totalk to them at dinner time."

  Jesse glanced at him, shrugged and went out and Peter went into theoffice where he spent the intervening time going over the books. It wasthere that one of the clerks, a man named Brierly, brought forth fromthe drawer of his desk a small pamphlet which he had picked up yesterdayin the bunk-house. Peter opened and read it. It was a copy of the newmanifest of the Union of Russian Workers and though written in English,gave every mark of origin in the Lenin-Trotzky regime and was cleverlywritten in catch phrases meant to trap the ignorant. It proposed todestroy the churches and erect in their stead places of amusement forthe working people. He read at random. "Beyond the blood-coveredbarricades, beyond all terrors of civil war, there already shines for usthe magnificent, beautiful form of man, without a God, without a master,and full of authority." Fine doctrine this! The pamphlet derided the lawand the state, and urged the complete destruction of private ownership.It predicted the coming of the revolution in a few weeks, naming theday, of a general strike of all industries which would paralyze all thefunctions of commerce. It was Bolshevik in ideal, Bolshevik ininspiration and it opened Peter's eyes as to the venality of thegentleman with the black mustache. Brierly also told him that whisky hadbeen smuggled into the camp the night before and that a fire in thewoods had luckily been put out before it had become menacing. Brierlywas a discharged soldier who had learned something of the value ofobedience and made no effort to conceal his anxiety and his sympathies.He voiced the opinion that either Flynn or Jacobi had brought in theliquor. Peter frowned. Jesse Brown had said nothing of this. Theinference was obvious.

  At the dinner-shed, Peter was to be made aware immediately of thedifficulty of the task that confronted him, for dour looks met him onall sides. There were a few men who sat near him whom he thought hemight count on at a venture, but they were very few and their positionsdifficult. Some of the men still showed the effects of their drink andhurled epithets about the room, obviously meant for Peter's ear, but hesat through the meal patiently and then got to his feet and demandedtheir attention.

  As he began he was interrupted by hoots and cat-calls but he waitedcalmly for silence and seeing that they couldn't ruffle him bybuffoonery they desisted after a moment.

  "Men, I'm not going to take much of your time," he said. "A short whileago I came down here and talked to you. Some of you seemed to befriendly toward me and those are the men I want to talk to now. Theothers don't matter."

  "Oh, don't they?" came a gruff voice from a crowd near the door. Andanother, "We'll see about that."

  Peter tried to find the speakers with his gaze for a moment and thenwent on imperturbably. "I'm going to talk to you in plain English,because some things have happened in this camp that are going to maketrouble for everybody, trouble for me, trouble for McGuire, but moretrouble for you."

  "That's what we're lookin' for--trouble----," cried the same voice, andPeter now identified it as Flynn's, for the agitator had come back andstolen in unawares.

  "Ah, it's you, Flynn," said Peter easily. "You've come back." And thento the crowd, "I don't think Flynn is likely to be disappointed if he'slooking for trouble," he said dryly. "Trouble is one of the few thingsin this world a man can find if he looks for it."

  "Aye, mon, an' without lookin' for it," laughed a broad-chested Scot atPeter's table.

  "That's right. I met Flynn a while ago over in the office. I made him anoffer. I said I'd fight him fair just man to man, for our opinions. Herefused. I also told him he was a coward, a sneak an
d a liar. But hewouldn't fight--because he's what I said he was."

  "I'll show ye, Misther----," shouted Flynn, "but I ain't ready yet."

  "You'll be ready when this meeting is over. And one of us is going outof this camp feet first."

  "We'll see about that."

  "One of us will. And I think I'll do the seeing."

  A laugh went up around Peter, drowned immediately by a chorus of jeersfrom the rear of the room.

  But Peter managed to be heard again.

  "Well, _I_ didn't come on this job looking for trouble," he went oncoolly. "I wanted to help you chaps in any way I could." ("The Hell youdid.") "Yes, I did what I could for your comfort. I raised your wagesand I didn't ask more than an honest day's work from any one of you.Some of you have stuck to your jobs like men, in spite of the talkyou've heard all about you, and I thank you. You others," he cried,toward the rear of the room, "I've tried to meet in a friendly spiritwhere I could, but some of you don't want friendship----" ("Not withyou, we don't.") "Nor with any one else----" Peter shouted backdefiantly. "You don't know what friendship means, or you wouldn't try tomake discontent and trouble for everybody, when you're all getting agood wage and good living conditions." ("That ain't enough!")

  Peter calmly disregarded the interruptions and went on. "Perhaps youfellows think I don't know what socialism means. I do. To the truesocialist, socialism is nothing else but Christianity. It's justfriendship, that's all. He believes in helping the needy and the weak.He believes in defending his own life and happiness and the happiness ofothers." ("That's true--that's right.") "And he believes that the worldcan be led and guided by a great brotherhood of humanity seeking justlaws and equality for all men." (Conflicting cries of "That's notenough!" and "Let him speak!") "But I know what anarchy means too,because less than six months ago I was in Russia and I saw the hellishthing at work. I saw men turn and kill their neighbors because theneighbors had more than they had; I saw a whole people starving, womenwith children at the breast, men raging, ready to fly at one another'sthroats from hunger, from anger, from fear of what was coming next. Thatis what anarchy means."

  "What you say is a lie," came a clear voice in English, with a slightaccent. A man had risen at the rear of the room and stood facing Peter.He was not very tall and he was not in working clothes, but Peterrecognized him at once as the man with the dark mustache, the mysteriousstranger who had followed him to Black Rock. Peter set his jaw andshrugged. He was aware now of all the forces with which he had to deal.

  "What does anarchy mean, then?" he asked coolly.

  "You know what it means," said the man, pointing an accusing finger atPeter. "It means only the end of all autocracy whether of money or ofpower, the destruction of class distinction and making the workingclasses the masters of all general wealth which they alone produce andto which they alone are entitled."

  A roar of approval went up from the rear of the room and cries of, "Goit, Bolsche," and "Give him Hell, Yakimov."

  Peter waited until some order was restored, but he knew now that thistype of man was more to be feared than Flynn or any other professionalagitator of the I. W. W. When they had first come face to face, thisRussian had feigned ignorance of English, but now his clearly enunciatedphrases, though unpolished, indicated a perfect command of the language,and of his subject. That he should choose this time to come out into theopen showed that he was more sure of himself and of his audience thanPeter liked. And Peter had no humor to match phrases with him. Whateverhis own beliefs since he had come to America, one fact stood clear: Thathe was employed to get this work done and that Yakimov, Flynn and otherswere trying to prevent it. It was to be no contest of philosophies butof personalities and Peter met the issue without hesitation.

  "You are a communist then and not a socialist," said Peter, "one whobelieves in everybody sharing alike whether he works for it or not--oran anarchist who believes in the destruction of everything. You're anagent of the Union of Russian Workers, aren't you?"

  "And what if I am----?"

  "Oh, nothing, except that you have no place in a nation like the UnitedStates, which was founded and dedicated to an ideal, higher than any youcan ever know----"

  "An ideal--with money as its God----"

  "And what's your God, Yakimov?"

  "Liberty----"

  "License! You want to inflame--pillage--destroy--And what then?"

  "You shall see----"

  "What I saw in Russia--no wages for any one, no harvests, factoriesidle, blood--starvation--if that's what you like, why did you leavethere, Yakimov?"

  The man stood tense for a second and then spoke with a clearness heardin every corner of the room.

  "I came for another reason than yours. I came to spread the gospel oflabor triumphant. _You_ came because----" Here the Russian leanedforward, shaking his fist, his eyes suddenly inflamed and hissing hiswords in a fury. "_You_ came because you believed in serfs and humanslavery--because your own land spewed you out from a sick stomach,because you were one of the rotting sores in its inside--that had madeRussia the dying nation that she was; because it was time that yourcountry and my country cleansed herself from such as you. That's whyyou came. And we'll let these men judge which of us they want to leadthem here."

  The nature of the attack was so unexpected that Peter was taken for amoment off his guard. A dead silence had fallen upon the room as theauditors realized that a game was being played here that was not on thecards. Peter felt the myriads of eyes staring at him, and beyond themhad a vision of a prostrate figure in the corner of a courtyard, theblood reddening his blouse under the falling knout. They were allMichael Kuprins, these foreigners who stared at him, all the grievancesborn of centuries of oppression. And as Peter did not speak at once,Yakimov pursued his advantage.

  "I did not come here to tell who this man is," he shouted, "this man whotells you what liberty is. But you ought to know. It's your right. Youknow why Russia rose and threw off the yoke of bondage of centuries. Itwas because this man before you who calls himself Peter Nichols andothers like him bound the people to work for him by terrible laws, taxedthem, starved them, beat them, killed them, that he and others like himmight buy jewels for their mistresses and live in luxury and ease, onthe sweat of the labor of the people. And he asks me why I came toAmerica! It was for a moment such as this that I was sent here to findhim out that I might meet him face to face and confront him with hiscrimes--and those of his father--against humanity."

  Yakimov paused suddenly in his furious tirade for lack of breath and inthe deathly silence of the room, there was a sudden stir as a richbrogue queried anxiously of nobody in particular:

  "Who in Hell _is_ he, then?"

  "I'll tell you who he is," the Russian went on, getting his breath."He's one of the last of a race of tyrants and oppressors, the worstthe world has ever known--in Russia the downtrodden. He fled to Americato hide until the storm had blown over, hoping to return and take hisplace again at the head of a new government of the Democrats and theBourgeoisie--the Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch!"

  The uproar that filled the room for a moment made speech impossible. Butevery eye was turned on Peter now, some in incredulity, some inmalevolence, and some in awe. He saw that it was now useless to deny hisidentity even if he had wished to do so, and so he stood squarely on hisfeet, staring at Yakimov, who still leaned forward menacingly, shriekingabove the tumult, finally making himself heard.

  "And this is the man who dares to talk to you about a brotherhood ofhumanity, just laws and equality among men! This tyrant and son oftyrants, this representative of a political system that you and men likeyou have overthrown for all time. Is this the man you'll take yourorders from? Or from the Union of Russian Workers which hates and killsall oppressors who stand in the way of the rights and liberties of theworkers of the world!"

  A roar of negation went up from the rear of the room, and an ominousmurmur spread from man to man. Only those grouped around Peter, someAmericans, the Scot, Brierly, the ex-so
ldier, Jesse Brown, and one ortwo of the Italians remained silent, but whether in awe of Peter or ofhis position could not be determined. But Peter still stood, his handsin his pockets, firm of jaw and unruffled. It has been said that Peterhad a commanding air when he chose and when he slowly raised a hand forsilence the uncouth "Reds" at the rear of the room obeyed him, themenacing growl sinking to a mere murmur. But he waited until perfectsilence was restored. And then quietly,

  "What this man has said is true," he announced calmly. "I _am_ PeterNicholaevitch. I came to America as you have come--to make my way. Whatdoes it matter who my fathers were? I am not responsible for what myfathers did before me. I am only responsible for what I am--myself. Ifthis man in whom you put your trust would speak the truth, he would tellyou that I tried to bring peace and brotherhood into the part of Russiawhere I lived----"

  "He lies----"

  "I speak the truth. There people knew that I was their friend. They cameto me for advice. I helped them----"

  "Then why did they burn down your castle?" broke in Yakimovtriumphantly.

  "Because people such as you from the Soviet came among honest andpeaceful men, trying to make them as mad as you--I came from Russia tofind new life, work, peace and happiness. I came to build. You came todestroy. And I intend to build and you shall not destroy. If the madnessof Russia comes to Black Rock it will be because mad dogs come foamingat the mouth and making others mad----"

  A savage cry went up and a glass came hurtling at Peter's head, but itmissed him and crashed against the wall behind him. That crash of glassliberated the pent-up forces in the hearts of these men, for in a momentthe place was in a furious uproar, the men aligning themselves in twocamps, that of Peter and his friends much the smaller.

  Peter retreated a pace or two as a shot was fired from a revolver, butthe Scot and Brierly and two of the Americans joined him and met thefirst onslaught bravely. The handful of men was forced back against thewall by sheer weight of numbers, but they struck out manfully with theirfists, with chairs, and with their feet, with any object that came tohand, and men went down with bleeding heads. Peter was armed but he didnot wish to kill any one--his idea being to make a successful retreat tothe office, where the telephone would put him in touch with May'sLanding and reinforcements. Yakimov stood at the edge of the crowd,waving a revolver, when a well-aimed missile from the hand of the Scotsent him sprawling to the floor among the benches.

  Peter and his crowd had fought their way to the door, when Flynn andJacobi who had led a group of men by the other door, fell on them fromthe rear. Between the two groups their position was hopeless but Peterfought his way out into the open, dodging a blow from Jacobi and usingthe terrible _savate_ in Flynn's stomach, just as Shad Wells rushed athim from one side. Peter saw the blow coming from a broken axhandle--buthe had no time to avoid it. Instinctively he ducked his head and threwup his left arm, but the bludgeon descended and Peter fell, rememberingnothing more.