Part 51 (1/2)

Chapter x.x.x

THE LAST OF BUCK FOLEY

The letter which Foley read, while the union looked on, hardly breathing, was as follows:

All is over. The District Attorney will be told to-night you held them up, forcing them to give you the amount you received. They have all the evidence; you have none. Their hands are clean. Against you it is a perfect case of extortion.

Though the note was unsigned, Foley knew instantly from whom it came.

The contractors, then, were going to try to clear themselves, and he was to be made the scapegoat. He was to be arrested; perhaps at once. Foley had thought over his situation before, its possibilities and its dangers. His mind worked quickly now. If he came to trial, they had the witnesses as the note said--and he had none. As they would be able to make it out, it would be a plain case of extortion against him. He could not escape conviction, and conviction meant years in Sing Sing. Truly, all was over. He saw his only chance in an instant--to escape.

The reading of the note, and this train of thought, used less than a minute. Foley crushed the sheet of paper and envelope into a ball and thrust them into a trousers pocket, and looked up with the determination to try his only chance. His eyes fell upon what in the tense absorption of the minute he had almost forgotten--fifteen hundred men staring at him with fixed waiting faces, and one man staring at him with clenched fists in vengeful readiness.

At sight of Tom his decision to escape was swept out of him by an overmastering fury. He rushed toward Tom through the alleyway the men had automatically opened at Tom's command. But Petersen stepped quickly out, a couple of paces ahead of Tom, to meet him.

”Out o' the way, youse!” he snarled.

But Petersen did not get out of the way, and before Tom could interfere to save the fight for himself, Foley struck out savagely. Petersen gave back a blow, just one, the blow that had gained the fight for him a week ago. Foley went to the floor, and lay there.

This flash of action released the crowd from the spell that held them.

They were roused from statues to a mob. ”Kill him! Kill him!” someone shouted, and instantly the single cry swelled to a tremendous roar.

Had it not been for Tom, Foley would have come to his end then and there. The fifteen hundred men started forward, crus.h.i.+ng through aisles, upsetting the folding chairs and tramping over their collapsed frames, pus.h.i.+ng and tearing at each other to get to where Foley lay. Tom saw that in an instant the front of that vindictive mob would be stamping the limp body of the walking delegate into pulp. He sprang to Foley's side, seized him by his collar and dragged him forward into the s.p.a.ce between the piano and the end wall, so that the heavy instrument was a breastwork against the union's fury.

”Here Petersen, Pete, the rest of you!” he cried. The little group that had stood round him during the meeting rushed forward. ”In there!” He pushed them, as a guard, into the gap before Foley's body.

Then he faced about. The fore of that great tumult of wrath was already pressing upon him and the little guard, and the men behind were fighting forward over chairs, over each other, swearing and crying for Foley's death.

”Stop!” shouted Tom. Connelly, stricken with helplessness, completely lost, pounded weakly with his gavel.

”Kill him!” roared the mob. ”Kill the traitor!”

”Disgrace the union by murder?” Tom shouted. ”Kill him?--what punishment is that? Nothing at all! Let the law give him justice!”

The cries from the rear of the hall still went up, but the half dozen men who had crowded, and been crowded, upon the little guard now drew back, and Tom thought his words were having their effect. But a quick glance over his shoulder showed him Petersen, in fighting posture--and he knew why the front men had hesitated; and also showed him Foley leaning dizzily against the piano.

The hesitation on the part of the front rank lasted for but an instant.

They were swept forward by the hundreds behind them, and Foley's line of defenders was crushed against the wall. It was all up with Foley, Tom thought; this onslaught would be the last of him. And as his own body went against the wall under the mob's terrific pressure, he had a gasping wish that he had not interfered two minutes before. The breath was all out of him, he thought his ribs were going to crack, he was growing faint and dizzy--when the pressure suddenly released and the furious uproar hushed almost to stillness. He regained his balance and his breath and glanced dazedly about.

There, calmly standing on the piano and leaning against the wall, was Foley, his left hand in his trousers pocket, his right uplifted to command attention.

”Boys, I feel it sorter embarra.s.sin' to interrupt your little entertainment like this,” he began blandly, but breathing very heavily.

”But I suppose I won't have many more chances to make speeches before youse, an' I want to make about a remark an' a half. What's past--well, youse know. But what I got to say about the future is all on the level.

Go in an' beat the contractors! Youse can beat 'em. An' beat 'em like h.e.l.l!”

He paused, and gave an almost imperceptible glance toward an open window a few feet away, and moved a step nearer it. A look of baiting defiance came over his face, and he went on: ”As for youse fellows. The whole crowd o' youse just tried to do me up--a thousand or two again' one. I fooled the whole bunch o' youse once. An' I can lick the whole bunch o'

youse, too!--one at a time. But not just now!”