It was on the fourth day that Boyd espied the man in the gray suit
among the strikers and pointed him out to his three companions, Clyde
and Fraser having joined him and George in a spirit of curiosity. Clyde
was for immediately executing a sally to capture the fellow, explaining
that once they had him inside the dock-house they could beat him until
he confessed that Marsh was behind the strike, but his valor shrank
amazingly when Fraser maliciously suggested that he himself lead the
dash.
"No!" he exclaimed. "I'm not a fighting man, but I'm a good general.
You know, Napoleon was about my size."
"I never noticed the resemblance," remarked Fraser.
"All the same, your idea ain't so bad," said Balt. "There's somebody
stirring those fellows up, and I think it's that detective. I wouldn't
mind getting my hands on him, and if you'll all stick with me I'll go
out after him."
"Not for mine," hastily declared "Fingerless" Fraser. "I don't want to
fight anybody. I'm here as a spectator."
"You're not afraid?" questioned Emerson.
"Not exactly afraid, but what's the use of my getting mixed up in this
row? It ain't _my_ cannery."
Now, while a mob is by nature noisy and threatening, there is little
real danger in it until its diffusive violence is directed into one
channel by a leader. Then, indeed, it becomes a terrible thing, and to
the watchers at the dock it became evident, in time, that a guiding
influence was at work among their enemies. Sure enough, late in the
afternoon of the fourth day, without a moment's warning, the strikers
rushed in a body, bearing down the guards like reeds. They came so
unexpectedly that there was no time to muster reinforcements at the
gate; almost before the fishermen could drop their tasks, their enemies
were inside the building and pandemonium had broken loose. The
structure rocked to the tumult of pounding heels, of yells and
imprecations, the lofty roof serving to toss back and magnify the
uproar.
Emerson and his companions found themselves carried away before the
onslaught like chips in the surf, then sucked into a maelstrom where
the first duty was self-preservation. Behind locked doors and shivering
glass a terrified office-clerk, receiver to ear, was calling madly for
Police Headquarters, while in the main building itself the crowd
bellowed and roared and the hollow floor reverberated to the thunder of
trampling feet and the crash of tumbling freight-piles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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