Chapter XIV: A Foolish Strike

The next morning Jack Danby, arriving at the factory, found Pete Stubbs already there, for it was his duty that week to arrive a little in advance of the rest of the boys, and open up. He was wearing a glum face.

"Gee, Jack, here's a peck of trouble," he said. "I got down here and found that Mr. Simms, the big boss, and Mr. Carew, the manager, had been here since five o'clock."

"What's wrong, Pete?"

"I dunno, for sure, Jack, but I heard somethin' bein' said about a strike. And there ain't a man here yet!"

"Well, we're not on strike, Pete. I guess we'd better get busy and do our work just as if there wasn't anything wrong. Then _we'll_ be all right, anyhow."

They were busy for a few minutes, as the other office boys and the clerks began to appear.

"Keep quiet about anything you know or suspect, Pete," said Jack, warningly, as the rooms began to fill up. "It's all right to tell me, but you'd better let the others hear anything there is to be known from Mr. Carew. He'll tell us all, probably, when he gets ready."

But the morning was well advanced before the conference in Mr. Carew's room was over. There was an unusual silence about the big factory. None of the machinery was running, which was sufficiently out of the ordinary to excite a lot of talk and gossip, although Pete gave out none of the information with which he was almost bursting. Finally, however, Mr. Carew came out.

"This company," he said, when everyone had turned in silence to face him, "has done business for a good many years and has never had any sort of trouble, until now, with any of the people who have worked for it. Now, unfortunately, some malcontents among the hands here have spread their ideas, and a strike has been called. We have tried to reason with the men, but they have quit work, and this factory will be closed for at least a week, beginning to-day."

"Gee, Jack, that's just what I was afraid of," said Pete, his face falling. "That means a week's wages gone!"

Murmurs arose from all over the room. But Carew, a smile on his face, held up his hand for silence, and went on.

"The company has no intention of making you suffer," he said. "Your wages will go on just the same, and we will simply consider this week's lay-off as a sort of a vacation. That will be all for now. You will get notice when it is time for you to return to work."

There was a wild cheer then. A week's wages meant a great deal to most of the boys and clerks employed in and about the factory, and the revulsion of feeling when they learned that they were not to lose their pay was enough to justify even a louder cheer than they gave.

"Danby and Stubbs," said Mr. Carew next, "I wish you'd wait when the others go, and come into my office. I want to talk to you."

They waited accordingly, and when they went into Mr. Carew's room they found Mr. Simms, the president of the company, waiting there with the manager.

"This is very serious business, boys," said Mr. Simms, gravely. "A strike is one thing, and if the men stopped at a strike they would be entirely within their rights. Unfortunately, some of them, bad workers, who had been threatened with dismissal, and others who were discontented, for one reason or another, have succeeded in stirring up a lot of hard feeling. And there is no telling what may happen."

"Do you think they'll try to put the place on the bum, sir?" cried Pete, the irrepressible, his eyes flashing.

Both the men laughed, though their faces showed that they were too worried to do much laughing.

"I certainly hope they won't attempt anything of the sort, for their sake, as well as ours, Pete," said Mr. Simms. "If they were let alone, our old men, even if they were to go on strike, wouldn't make a move against the company's property. But these rascals who are leading them want to make it impossible for them to back down and come back to work. And I am afraid that there are no lengths at which they would stop in the effort to injure us."

"Here is the point, boys," said Mr. Carew. "We know, from past experience with you, that you are trustworthy, and loyal to us. Now, what we want to do is to get through this strike with as little trouble as possible. We don't want any shooting, as there might be if we brought in armed men to guard the property. What we want is to prevent any attempt to destroy the place by getting ample warning of anything that is tried."

"And you're going to let us look out for them?" cried Pete. "Gee, that's great, Jack! We can do it, too, can't we?"

"The idea we had," said Carew, "was that you boys, and perhaps some of your companions in the Boy Scouts, being used to tracking and trailing in the woods, could keep a better watch than our regular watchmen. They are faithful enough, and would mean well, but what we are afraid of is that a lot of clever scoundrels could get inside and set the place on fire before they knew it. They wouldn't expect boys to be on the lookout, and we can arrange to have the place protected amply if we can have a few minutes warning. In that way the plans of the violent ones among the men would be blocked, and at the same time there would be no danger of bloodshed, or of anyone being hurt. I would rather lose a year's pay than have a man of them all injured."

"And I a year's profits, or a good deal more," said Mr. Simms. "Understand me, boys, we want you to do this in a way that will not get you yourselves into any danger. Simply stay here tonight, after, the place is closed up. Mr. Carew and I and a few other men will be inside, but we don't want to show ourselves. I am having telephones put in all over the factory, with instruments out in the courtyards, so that you can get word to us without delay if you see anything suspicious. Now suppose you run home and get your Scout uniforms. We will have plenty to eat here, and we will have cots rigged up for you, too, so that you can sleep in the day time."

"This is almost as good as being in the militia, isn't it, Jack?" said Pete, as they hurried out.

"I think it's a lot better, Pete. In the militia, if there's a strike, the men sometimes have to fire into a crowd, and a lot of foolish people who don't mean any harm may get hurt or killed. I'd hate to have to do anything like that. I suppose it's necessary, but I'd feel like a murderer if I'd ever fired into a crowd that way, I know."

"Well, this is going to be a great lark, anyhow, Jack. I'd rather do this than work, any day!"

"It may be pretty hard work before we're through, Pete. Look over there!"

They were leaving the factory then, and across the street was a crowd of men, in their working clothes, sullen and unhappy in appearance. Two or three men, dressed more like brokers than workmen, were passing to and fro among them, and leaving a wake of scowls and curses wherever they passed.

"Strikers!" said Pete. "Gosh, but they don't look like the crowd that we see coming to work every morning, do they, Jack? They look different--like wild men, almost."

"It's too bad," said Jack. "I'm mighty sorry to see them go out, because I know that they're treated as well here as they would be anywhere in the state, and a lot better than at most places. It's men like Big Ed Willis, who never wants to work at all, who make the trouble."

"Just listen here, young feller," said a big man, who appeared suddenly from behind them, "keep a quiet tongue in yer head about me. I'm Big Ed, I am, and I'll smash your ugly face in for ye, if ye don't look out! There's a strike on for higher wages and shorter hours here, see, and we don't want no scabs, man or boy, goin' into that factory."

"We're not in the union, Ed Willis," said Jack, unafraid. "We make our own rules about working or not working, and don't you forget it! You can beat me up easily enough, if you want to, but you won't be much of a man if you try it."

"For two cents I'd smash you in the jaw, so I would!" said Willis, blustering, like the true bully he was.

"Let the kid alone, Ed," cried another man, coming across the street. "He ain't in the union. I think we're fools to strike ourselves. Don't go to making no more trouble without you need to."

"I'll let you off this time," said Big Ed, a little abashed. "But see to it that you keep away from the factory over there."

"You mind your business and we'll mind ours!" said Jack. "That'll keep you plenty busy enough, Ed Willis!"

"Gee, I thought he was going to hit you that time, Jack," said Pete Stubbs. "I'm pretty small, and if I hit him he'd never know it unless someone told him, but I was going to smash him behind the ear with a stone if he tried that."

"He's all bluff and talk," said Jack, disgustedly. "If he does any fighting, it'll be by letting someone else strike the blows while he looks on from a place where he knows he won't be hit. There's lots of fighters like that."

They hurried on home then, and changed from the clothes they wore every day to work in to their Boy Scout uniforms. Each of them took, too, his axe and Scout knife, in case of emergencies, though it was hard to imagine any use they were likely to have for them.

"Look here, Pete," said Jack, when they had changed their clothes and were ready to start back to the factory, "if we go in the way we came out they'll see us, and they're likely to watch for us to come out again. That wouldn't be much use, so I think we'd better try to get back without being seen."

"How can we do that, Jack?"

"I know a good way. We'll go down to the freight yard and find a car that is going to be shunted onto the private track. There's a car-load of wagon wheels due to-day, I know, and the chances are that we can find that and hide in it. The men at the freight yard would never know, and when we got inside we could get out and the strikers wouldn't know we were inside at all."

"That's a fine idea, Jack. We'll do that. Say, that'll be a great joke on Ed Willis and those other toughs he's got on his side, won't it?"

"I'll bet they'll never guess we're inside at all, Pete!"

Both boys knew their way around the freight yards very well indeed. Both had been sent there a good many times by Mr. Carew to look up delayed shipments, that were needed in the factory, and, as a consequence, the men at work in the yards, knowing that they worked in the factory, were not suspicious when Jack began asking about the wagon wheels. They found the car with little difficulty, and, once they had discovered that it was to be shunted into the private spur of track leading into the factory within an hour or two, they did not hesitate to get inside and hide themselves in one dark corner of the car.

There was plenty of room for them, and they crouched behind a case of wheels, and told one another stories. It was good fun, they thought, and they only wished that it was time for their ride to begin.

"Listen!" whispered Pete, suddenly. "That sounds like someone fumbling for the catch of the car door, Jack."

It was dark in the car, and suddenly, there was a stream of light as the door was pushed cautiously open.

"Right, oh, Ed," said a hoarse voice, trying to be quiet. "We can shove the stuff right in here. Then, about midnight, we can get in and let it off. They'll never open this car up tonight, and they won't know the stuff's in here."

"Not unless it goes off as she bumps over the frogs going into the spur," said Big Ed Willis, chuckling. "But if she lets go then there'll be a pretty big explosion, just the same. May leave a bit of the factory standing, but it'll take them a long time to make repairs. It would blow Number Four shop and this car to smithereens, anyhow."

Horrified, but unable to make a move, the two Scouts saw three heavy boxes being loaded gingerly onto the car and hidden under some sacking.

"There!" said Big Ed. "That's a good job, well done! And it looks mighty neat. No one'd ever guess, just to look at that sacking, that there was enough dynamite underneath it to blow half the town up if it was set properly."

Scarcely had the two men closed the door when the Scouts made a simultaneous leap for it. But, as they moved, they felt the bump of the freight engine against the car and a moment later it began to move. It was too late for them to get off, and they could only sit and watch that pile of sacking, with its deadly secret beneath it, wondering if every moment was not to be their last. Every time the car jolted over a frog in the rail they jumped, wondering why the deadly stuff did not explode, and Jack was not ashamed to admit afterward that he was sick with fear during the whole terrible ride. But it ended at last, with the dynamite still safe and undisturbed, and they breathed great sighs of relief as they realized that the first and probably the worst of their perils was really over.

Mr. Simms was incredulous when they reached him and told him of what they had discovered, but the dynamite was a witness not to be discredited, and he had to believe when he saw that. With the utmost care it was removed and placed in water, and then they began to make fresh plans.