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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Comrades, by Thomas Dixon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Comrades
+       A Story of Social Adventure in California
+
+Author: Thomas Dixon
+
+Illustrator: C. D. Williams
+
+Release Date: March 1, 2011 [EBook #35447]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMRADES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |
+    | been preserved.                                           |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |
+    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Comrades
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thomas Dixon JR.
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: NORMAN CLASPED HER IN HIS ARMS.]
+
+
+
+
+  COMRADES
+
+  _A STORY OF SOCIAL ADVENTURE
+  IN CALIFORNIA_
+
+  BY
+  THOMAS DIXON, Jr.
+
+  Illustrated by
+  C.D. WILLIAMS
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+  GROSSET & DUNLAP
+  Publishers  ::  New York
+
+
+
+
+  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
+  INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THOMAS DIXON, JR.
+  PUBLISHED, JANUARY, 1909
+
+
+
+
+  DEDICATED TO
+  THE DEAREST LITTLE
+  GIRL IN THE WORLD, MY DAUGHTER
+  LOUISE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                      PAGE
+
+       I. The Woman in Red                                      3
+
+      II. A New Joan of Arc                                    19
+
+     III. The Birth of a Man                                   31
+
+      IV. Among the Shadows                                    37
+
+       V. The Island of Ventura                                48
+
+      VI. The Red Flag                                         56
+
+     VII. Father and Son                                       73
+
+    VIII. Through the Eyes of Love                             85
+
+      IX. A Faded Picture                                      90
+
+       X. Son and Father                                       93
+
+      XI. The Way of a Woman                                  103
+
+     XII. A Royal Gift                                        105
+
+    XIII. The Burning of the Bridges                          110
+
+     XIV. The New World                                       118
+
+      XV. For the Cause                                       123
+
+     XVI. Barbara Chooses a Profession                        130
+
+    XVII. A Call for Heroes                                   134
+
+   XVIII. A New Aristocracy                                   151
+
+     XIX. Some Troubles in Heaven                             166
+
+      XX. The Unconventional                                  181
+
+     XXI. A Pair of Cold Gray Eyes                            186
+
+    XXII. The Fighting Instinct                               192
+
+   XXIII. The Cords Tighten                                   207
+
+    XXIV. Some Interrogation Points                           212
+
+     XXV. The Master Hand                                     224
+
+    XXVI. At the Parting of the Ways                          235
+
+   XXVII. The Fruits of Patience                              246
+
+  XXVIII. The New Master                                      257
+
+    XXIX. A Test of Strength                                  269
+
+     XXX. A Vision from the Hilltop                           274
+
+    XXXI. In Love and War                                     283
+
+   XXXII. A Primitive Lover                                   291
+
+  XXXIII. Equality                                            295
+
+   XXXIV. A Brother to the Beast                              306
+
+    XXXV. Love and Locksmiths                                 313
+
+   XXXVI. The Shining Emblem                                  318
+
+
+
+
+LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
+
+_Scene_: California. _Time_: 1898-1901
+
+  NORMAN WORTH            An Amateur Socialist
+  COLONEL WORTH           His Father
+  ELENA STOCKTON          The Colonel's Ward
+  HERMAN WOLF             A Socialist Leader
+  CATHERINE               His Affinity Wife
+  BARBARA BOZENTA         A New Joan of Arc
+  METHODIST JOHN          A Pauper
+  TOM MOONEY              A Miner
+  JOHN DIGGS              A Truth Seeker
+  ROLAND ADAIR            Bard of Ramcat
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "Norman clasped her in his arms"                 _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                      FACING PAGE
+
+  "'Lift the flag back to its place!'"                         72
+
+  Barbara                                                     214
+
+  "Wolf grasped her"                                          292
+
+
+
+
+COMRADES
+
+
+
+
+COMRADES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WOMAN IN RED
+
+
+"Fools and fanatics!"
+
+Colonel Worth crumpled the morning paper with a gesture of rage and
+walked to the window.
+
+Elena followed softly and laid her hand on his arm.
+
+"What is it, Guardie? I thought you were supremely happy this morning
+over the news that Dewey has smashed the Spanish fleet?"
+
+"And so I am, little girl," was the gentle reply, "or was until my eye
+fell on this call of the Socialists for a meeting to-night to denounce
+the war--denounce the men who are dying for the flag. Read their
+summons."
+
+He opened the crumpled sheet and pointed to its head lines:
+
+"Down with the Stars and Stripes--up with the Red Flag of
+Revolution--the symbol of universal human brotherhood! Come and bring
+your friends. A big surprise for all!" The Colonel's jaws snapped
+suddenly.
+
+"I'd like to give them the surprise they need to-night."
+
+"What?" Elena asked.
+
+"A serenade."
+
+"A serenade?"
+
+"Yes, with Mauser rifles and Gatling guns. I'd mow them down as I
+would a herd of wild beasts loose in the streets of San Francisco."
+
+"Merely for a difference of opinion, Governor?" lazily broke in a
+voice from the depths of a heavy armchair.
+
+"If you want to put it so, Norman, yes. Opinions, my boy, are the
+essence of life--they may lead to heaven or hell. Opinions make
+cowards or heroes, patriots or traitors, criminals or saints."
+
+"But you believe in free speech?" persisted the boy.
+
+"Yes. And that's more than any Socialist can say. I don't deny their
+right to speak their message. What I can't understand is how the
+people who have been hounded from the tyrant-ridden countries of the
+old world and found shelter and protection beneath our flag should
+turn thus to curse the hand that shields them."
+
+"But if they propose to give you a better flag, Governor?" drawled the
+lazy voice. "Why not consider?"
+
+"Look, Elena! Did the sun ever shine on anything more beautiful? See
+it fluttering from a thousand house-tops--the proud emblem of human
+freedom and human progress! Dewey has lifted it this morning on the
+foulest slave-pen of the Orient--the flag that has never met defeat.
+The one big faith in me is the belief that Almighty God inspired our
+fathers to build this Republic--the noblest dream yet conceived by the
+mind of man. Dewey has sunk a tyrant fleet and conquered an empire of
+slaves without the loss of a single man. The God of our fathers was
+with him. We have a message for the swarming millions of the East----"
+
+"Pardon the interruption, Governor, but I must hold the mirror up to
+nature just a moment--your portrait sketched by the poet-laureate of
+the English-speaking world. He speaks of the American:
+
+    "Enslaved, illogical, elate.
+      He greets the embarrassed gods, nor fears
+    To shake the iron hand of Fate
+      Or match with Destiny for beers.
+
+    "Lo! imperturbable he rules,
+      Unkempt, disreputable, vast--
+    And in the teeth of all the schools
+      I--I shall save him at the last!"
+
+The Colonel smiled.
+
+"How do you like the picture?"
+
+"Not bad for an Englishman, Norman. You know we licked England
+twice----"
+
+"And we kin do it again, b' gosh, can't we?" blustered the younger man
+with mock heroics.
+
+"You can bet we can, my son!" continued the Colonel, quietly. "The
+roar of Dewey's guns are echoing round the world this morning. The
+lesson will not be lost. You will observe that even your English poet
+foresees at last our salvation.
+
+    "'And in the teeth of all the schools
+      I--I shall save him at the last!'"
+
+"Even in spite of the Socialists?" queried the boy, with a grin.
+
+"In spite of every foe--even those within our own household. War is
+the searchlight of history, the great revealer of national life, of
+hidden strength and unexpected weakness. I saw it in the Civil
+conflict--I've seen it in this little struggle----"
+
+"Then you do acknowledge it's not the greatest struggle in
+history--that's something to be thankful for in these days of
+patriotism," exclaimed Norman, rising and stretching himself before
+the open fire while he winked mischievously at Elena.
+
+"It's big enough, my boy, to show us the truth about our nation. Our
+old problems are no longer real. The Union our fathers dreamed has
+come at last. We are one people--one out of many--and we can whip
+Spain before breakfast----"
+
+"With one hand tied behind our back!" laughed the boy.
+
+"Yes, and blindfolded. It will be easy. But the next serious job will
+be to bury a half million deluded fools in this country who call
+themselves Socialists."
+
+The Colonel paused and a look of foreboding clouded his face as he
+gazed from the window of his house on Nob Hill over the city of San
+Francisco, which he loved with a devotion second only to his
+passionate enthusiasm for the Union.
+
+Elena sat watching him in silent sympathy. He was the one perfect man
+of her life dreams, the biggest, strongest, tenderest soul she had
+ever known. Since the day she crept into his arms a lonely little
+orphan ten years old she had worshipped him as father, mother,
+guardian, lover, friend--all in one. She had accepted Norman's love
+and promised to be his wife more to please his father than from any
+overwhelming passion for the handsome, lazy young athlete. It had come
+about as a matter of course because Colonel Worth wished it.
+
+The Colonel turned from the window, and his eyes rested on Elena's
+upturned face.
+
+"It will be bloody work--but we've got to do it----"
+
+Elena sprang to her feet with a start and a laugh.
+
+"Do what, Guardie? I forgot what you were talking about."
+
+"Then don't worry your pretty head about it, dear. It's a job we men
+will look after in due time."
+
+He stooped and kissed her forehead. "By-by until to-night--I'll drop
+down to the club and hear the latest from the front."
+
+With the firm, swinging stride of a man who lives in the open the
+Colonel passed through the door of the library.
+
+"Norman, I can't realize that you two are father and son--he looks
+more like your brother."
+
+"At least my older brother----"
+
+"Yes, of course, but you would never take him for a man of
+forty-eight. I like the touch of gray in his hair. It means dignity,
+strength, experience. I've always hated sap-headed youngsters."
+
+"Say, Elena, for heaven's sake, who are you in love with anyhow--with
+me or the Governor?"
+
+A smile flickered around the corners of the girl's eyes and mouth
+before she slowly answered:
+
+"I sometimes think I really love you both, Norman--but there are
+times when I have doubts about you."
+
+"Thanks. I suppose I must be duly grateful for small favours, or else
+resign myself to call you 'Mother.'"
+
+"Would such a fate be intolerable?"
+
+Elena drew her magnificent figure to its full height and looked into
+the young athlete's face with laughing audacity.
+
+"By George, Elena, if I'm honest with you, I'd have to say no. You are
+tall, stately, dignified, beautiful from the crown of your black hair
+to the tip of your dainty toe--the most stunning-looking woman I ever
+saw. I never think of you as a girl just out of school. You always
+remind me of a glorious royal figure in some old romance of the Middle
+Ages----"
+
+"Now I'm sure I love you, Norman--for the moment at least."
+
+"Then promise to go with me on a lark to-night," he suddenly cried.
+
+"A lark?"
+
+Elena's gray-blue eyes danced beneath their black lashes.
+
+"Yes, a real lark, daring, adventurous, dangerous, audacious."
+
+"What is it--what is it? Tell me quick."
+
+The girl seized Norman's arm with eager, childish glee.
+
+"Let's go to that Socialist meeting and beard the lion in his den."
+
+Elena drew back.
+
+"No. Guardie will be furious!"
+
+"Ah, who's afraid? Guardie be hanged!"
+
+"Go by yourself."
+
+"No, you've got to go with me."
+
+"I won't do it. You just want to worry your father and then hide
+behind my skirts."
+
+"You can see yourself that's the easiest way to manage it. If he has a
+fit, I can just say that your curiosity was excited and I had to go
+with you."
+
+"But it's not excited."
+
+"For the purposes of the lark I tell you that it is excited. There's
+too much patriotism in the air. It's giving me nervous prostration. I
+want something to brace me up. I think those fellows can give me some
+good points to tease the Governor with."
+
+"Tease the Governor! You flatter yourself, Norman. He doesn't pay any
+more attention to your talk than he would to the bark of a six weeks'
+old puppy."
+
+"That's what riles me. The Governor's so cocksure of himself. I don't
+know how to answer him, but I know he's wrong. The fury with which he
+hates the Socialists rouses my curiosity. I've always found that the
+good things in life are forbidden. All respectable people are
+positively forbidden to attend a Socialist--traitors'--meeting. For
+that reason let's go."
+
+"No."
+
+"Ah, come on. Don't be a chump. Be a sport!"
+
+"I'd like the lark, but I won't hurt Guardie's feelings; so that's the
+end of it."
+
+"Going to be a surprise, they say."
+
+"What kind of a surprise?"
+
+"Going to spring a big sensation."
+
+Elena's eyes began to dance again.
+
+"The woman called the Scarlet Nun is going to speak, and Herman Wolf,
+the famous 'blond beast' of Socialism, will preside. They are
+mates--affinities."
+
+"Married?"
+
+"God knows. A hundred weird stories about them circulate in the
+under-world."
+
+"I won't go! Don't you say another word!" Elena snapped.
+
+Norman was silent.
+
+"Are you sure it would be perfectly safe, Norman?" the girl softly
+asked.
+
+"Perfectly. I know every inch of that quarter of the city--went there
+a hundred times the year I was a reporter."
+
+"I won't go!"
+
+"It's the wickedest street in town. They say it's the worst block in
+America."
+
+"I don't want to see it." Elena laughed.
+
+"And the hall is a famous red-light dancing dive in the heart of
+Hell's Half Acre."
+
+"Hush! Hush! I tell you I won't--_I won't_ go! But--but if I _do_--you
+promise to hold my hand every minute, Norman?"
+
+"And keep my arm around your waist, if you like."
+
+Elena's cheeks flushed and her voice quivered with excitement as she
+paused in the doorway.
+
+"I'll be ready in twenty minutes after dinner."
+
+"Bully for my chum! I'll tell the Governor we've gone for a stroll."
+
+As the shadows slowly fell over the city, Norman led Elena down the
+marble steps of his father's palatial home and paused for a moment on
+the edge of the hill on which were perched the seats of the mighty.
+Elena fumbled with a new glove.
+
+"Are you ready to descend with me to the depths, my princess in
+disguise?" he gaily asked.
+
+"Did you ever know me to flunk when I gave my word?"
+
+"No, you're a brick, Elena."
+
+Norman seized her arm and strode down the steep hillside with sure,
+firm step, the girl accompanying his every movement with responsive
+joy.
+
+"You're awfully wicked to get me into a scrape of this kind, Norman,"
+she cried, with bantering laughter. "You know I was dying to go
+slumming, and Guardie wouldn't let me. It's awfully mean of you to
+take advantage of me like this."
+
+He stopped suddenly and looked gravely into her flushed face.
+
+"Let's go back, then."
+
+"No! I won't."
+
+Norman broke into a laugh. "Then away with vain regrets! And remember
+the fate of Lot's wife."
+
+Elena pressed his hand close to her side and whispered:
+
+"You are with me. The big handsome captain of last year's football
+team. Very young and very vain and very foolish and very lazy--but I
+do think you'd stand by me in a scrap, Norman. Wouldn't you?"
+
+"Well, I rather think!" was the deep answer, half whispered, as they
+suddenly turned a corner and plunged into the red-light district. His
+strong hand gripped her wrist with unusual tenderness.
+
+"So who's afraid?" she cried, looking up into his face just as a
+drunken blear-eyed woman staggered through an open door and lurched
+against her.
+
+A low scream of terror came from Elena as she sprang back, and the
+woman's head struck the pavement with a dull whack. Norman bent over
+her and started to lift the heavy figure, when her fist suddenly shot
+into his face.
+
+"Go ter hell--I can take care o' myself!"
+
+"Evidently," he laughed.
+
+Elena's hand suddenly gripped his.
+
+"Let's go back, Norman."
+
+"Nonsense--who's afraid?"
+
+"I am. I don't mind saying it. This is more than I bargained for."
+
+The woman scrambled to her feet and limped back into the doorway.
+
+Elena shivered. "I didn't know such women lived on this earth."
+
+"To say nothing of living but a stone's throw from your own door," he
+continued.
+
+"Let's go back," she pleaded.
+
+"No. A thing like this is merely one more reason why we should keep
+on. This only shows that the world we live in isn't quite perfect, as
+the Governor seems to think. These Socialists may be right after all.
+Now that we've started let's hear their side of it. Come on! Don't be
+a quitter!"
+
+Norman seized her arm and hurried through the swiftly moving throng of
+the under-world--gambling touts, thieves, cut-throats, pick-pockets,
+opium fiends, drunkards, thugs, carousing miners, and sailors--but
+above all, everywhere, omnipresent, the abandoned woman--painted,
+bedizened, lurching through the streets, hanging in doorways, clinging
+to men on the sidewalks, beckoning from windows, singing vulgar songs
+on crude platforms among throngs of half-drunken men, whirling past
+doors and windows in dance-halls, their cracked voices shrill and
+rasping above the din of cheap music.
+
+Elena stopped suddenly and clung heavily to Norman's arm.
+
+"Please, Norman, let's go back. I can't endure this."
+
+"And you're my chum that never flunked when she gave her word?" he
+asked with scorn. "We are only a few feet from the hall now."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Right there in the middle of the block where you see that sign with
+the blazing red torch."
+
+"Come on, then," Elena said, with a shudder.
+
+They walked quickly through the long, dimly lighted passage to the
+entrance of the hall. It was densely packed with a crowd of five
+hundred. Elena closed her eyes and allowed Norman to lead her through
+the mob that blocked the space inside the door. At the entrance to the
+centre aisle he encountered an usher who stared with bulging eyes at
+his towering figure. Norman leaned close and whispered:
+
+"My boy, can you possibly get us two seats?"
+
+"Can I git de captain er de football team two seats? Well, des watch
+me!"
+
+The boy darted up the aisle, dived under the platform, drew out two
+folding-chairs, placed them in the aisle on the front row, darted
+back, and bowed with grave courtesy.
+
+"Dis way, sir!"
+
+Norman followed with Elena clinging timidly and blindly to his arm. In
+a moment they were seated. He offered the boy a dollar.
+
+The youngster bowed again.
+
+"De honour is all mine, sir. But you can give it to the Cause when
+they pass the box."
+
+Norman turned to Elena. "Well, doesn't that jar you? A
+sixteen-year-old boy declines a tip, and says give it to the Cause!"
+
+The boy darted up the steps of the platform and whispered to the
+chairman:
+
+"Git on to his curves! Dat's de captain o' de football--de bloke dat's
+worth millions, an' don't give a doggone!"
+
+A woman dressed in deep red who sat beside the chairman leaned close
+and asked with quiet intensity:
+
+"You mean young Worth, the millionaire of Nob Hill?"
+
+"Bet yer life! Dat's him!"
+
+The woman in red whispered to the chairman, who nodded, while his keen
+gray eyes flashed a ray of light from his heavy brows as he turned
+toward Norman.
+
+The woman wheeled suddenly in her chair, and with her back to the
+audience bent over a girl who was evidently hiding behind her.
+
+"Outdo yourself to-night, Barbara. Young Norman Worth, the son of our
+multi-millionaire nabob, is sitting in the aisle just in front of you.
+Win him for the Cause and I'll give you the half of our kingdom."
+
+"How can I know him?" the girl asked excitedly.
+
+"He's not ten feet from the platform in the centre aisle--front
+row--clean shaven--a young giant of twenty-three--the handsomest man
+in the house. Put your soul _and_ your body in every word you utter,
+every breath you breathe--and _win_ him!"
+
+"I'll try," was the low reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A NEW JOAN OF ARC
+
+
+The woman in scarlet rose, lifted her hand, and the crowd sprang to
+their feet to the music of the most stirring song of revolution ever
+written.
+
+Norman and Elena were both swept from their seats in spite of
+themselves. Elena's eyes flashed with excitement.
+
+"What on earth is that they are singing, Norman?" she whispered.
+
+"The Marseillaise hymn."
+
+"Isn't it thrilling?" she gasped.
+
+"It makes your heart leap, doesn't it?"
+
+"And, heavens, how they sing it!" she exclaimed.
+
+Norman turned and looked over the crowd of eager faces--every man and
+woman singing with the passionate enthusiasm of religious fanatics--an
+enthusiasm electric, contagious, overwhelming. In spite of himself he
+felt his heart beat with quickened sympathy.
+
+He was amazed at the character of the audience. He had expected to see
+a throng of low-browed brutes. The first shock he received was the
+feeling that this crowd was distinctly an intellectual one. They might
+be fanatics. They certainly were not fools. The stamp of personality
+was clean cut on almost every face. They were fighters. They meant
+business and they didn't care who knew it. Some of them wore dirty
+clothes, but their faces were stamped with the power of free,
+rebellious thought--a power that always commands respect in spite of
+shabby clothes. He looked in vain for a single joyous face. Not a
+smile. Deep, dark eyes, shining with the light of purpose, mouths
+firm, headstrong, merciless, and bitter, but nowhere the glimmer of a
+ray of sunlight! He felt with a sense of awe the uncanny presence of
+Tragedy.
+
+And to his amazement he noticed a lot of men he knew in the
+crowd--three or four authors, a newspaper reporter evidently off duty,
+two college professors, a clergyman, three artists, a priest, and a
+street preacher.
+
+The hymn died away into a low sigh, like the sob of the wind after a
+storm. The crowd sank to their seats so quietly with the dying of the
+music that Norman and Elena were standing alone for an instant. They
+awoke from the spell, and dropped into their seats with evident
+embarrassment.
+
+A boy of sixteen stepped briskly to the front in answer to a nod from
+the chairman, and recited a Socialist poem. After the first stanza,
+which was crude and stilted, Norman's eye rested on the heavy figure
+of the chairman. He was surprised at the power of his rugged face.
+Through its brute strength flashed the keenest sense of alert
+intelligence--an intelligence which seemed to lurk behind the big,
+shaggy eyebrows as if about to spring on its victim. His heavy-set
+face was covered with a thick, reddish blond beard and his short hair
+stood up straight on his head, like the bristles of a wild boar. Of
+medium height and heavy build, with arms and legs of extraordinary
+muscle and big, coarse short fingers evidently gnarled and knotted, by
+the coarsest labor in youth, he looked like a blacksmith who had taken
+a college course by the light of his forge at night. There was
+something about the way he sat crouching low in his seat, watching
+with his keen gray eyes everything that passed, that bespoke the man
+of reserve power--the man who was quietly waiting his hour.
+
+"By George, a pretty good pet name they've given him--'The Blond
+Beast,'" Norman muttered. "I shouldn't like to tackle him in the
+dark."
+
+The woman in red leaned toward the chairman and said something in low
+tones. He nodded his massive head, smiled, and looked back over his
+shoulder at the girl sitting behind them. The movement showed for the
+first time a long ugly scar on the side of his great neck.
+
+"Look at that fellow's neck!" whispered Elena.
+
+"Yes. He had a close call that time," Norman answered. "But I'll bet
+the other one never lived to tell the story----"
+
+"Sh! 'The Scarlet Nun' is going to speak."
+
+The woman in red rose and walked to the edge of the platform. She
+stood silent for a moment, her tall, graceful, willowy figure erect
+and tense. The crowd burst into a tumult of applause. She smiled,
+bowed, and lifted her slender hand with a quick, imperious gesture for
+silence.
+
+Norman was struck by the note of religious fervour which her whole
+personality seemed to radiate. The peculiar scarlet robe she wore
+accented this impression perhaps, and its strangeness added a touch of
+awe. The dress gave one the impression of a nun's garb except that its
+long folds were so arranged that they revealed rather than concealed
+the beautiful lines of her graceful figure. The colour was the deep,
+warm red of the Socialist flag--the colour of human blood, chosen as
+the symbol of the universal brotherhood of man. The effect of a nun's
+cowl was given by a thin scarlet mantilla thrown over the head, the
+silken meshes of its long fringe mingling with the waves of her thick
+black hair. Her face was that of a madonna of the slender type,
+except that the lips were too full, round, and sensuous and her long
+eyelashes drooped slightly over dark, lustrous eyes.
+
+"Comrades," she began, in slow, measured tones, "after to-night I
+retire from the platform to take up work for which I am better fitted.
+I promised you a big surprise this evening, and you shall not be
+disappointed----"
+
+A murmur rippled the audience and she paused, smiling into Norman's
+face with a curious look. She spoke with a decided foreign accent with
+little moments of coquettish hesitation as though feeling for words.
+Norman felt an almost irresistible impulse to help her.
+
+"I am going to in-tro-duce to you to-night," she continued, "a new
+leader, whose tongue the God of the poor and the outcast and the
+dis-in-herited has touched with divine fire. She is no stran-ger.
+Twenty years ago she was born beneath the bright skies of
+Cal-i-for-nia at Anaheim, in the little Socialist colony of Polish
+dreamers led by Madame Modjeska, Count Bozenta, and Henry Sienkiewicz,
+the distin-guished author of 'Quo Vadis.' As you know, the colony
+failed. Her mother died in poverty and she was placed in an orphan
+asylum until eight years of age, when she was taken back to Poland by
+her foolish kins-men. Four years later I found her, a ragged,
+homeless waif, in the streets of Warsaw, alone and star-ving. Since
+then she has been mine. Amid the squalor and misery of the old world
+her busy little tongue never tired telling of the glories of
+Cali-for-nia! Always she sighed for its groves of oranges and olives,
+its dazzling flowers, its luscious grapes, its rich valleys, its
+cloud-kissed, snow-clad mountains and the mur-mur of its mighty seas!
+It was her tiny hand that led me across the ocean to you. I have sent
+her to school in one of your Western colleges where a great Socialist
+professor has taught her history and e-con-omics. I have the high
+honour, comrades, of intro-ducing to you the child of genius who from
+to-night will be the Joan of Arc of our Cause, Comrade Barbara
+Bozenta!"
+
+She quickly turned and drew forward a trembling slip of a girl whose
+big brown eyes were swimming in tears of excitement. A moment of
+intense silence, and the crowd burst into cheers as the dazzling
+beauty of their new champion slowly dawned on their understanding. The
+woman in red resumed her seat, and the girl stood bowing, trembling,
+and smiling.
+
+The young athlete watched her keenly. Never had he seen such a bundle
+of quivering, pulsing, nervous, ravishing beauty. He could have sworn
+he saw electric sparks flash from the tips of every eyelash, from
+every strand of the mass of brown curls that circled her face and fell
+in rich profusion on her shoulders and across her heaving bosom. He
+felt before she had uttered a word--felt, rather than saw--the
+remarkable effectiveness of the simple, girlish dress which enhanced
+her dark beauty. She wore the same deep red as the older woman, but
+the bottom of the skirt was relieved by a row of ruffles edged with
+white lace. A scarf of white embroidered at the ends with scarlet
+flowers, was thrown gracefully around her shoulders and hung below the
+knees. Her round young arms were bare to the elbows, her throat and
+neck bare to the upper edge of the full bust.
+
+The girl's eyes sought Norman's for an imperceptible instant and a
+smile flashed from her trembling lips. The cheering ceased and she
+began to speak. He watched her with breathless intensity, and listened
+with steadily increasing fascination. Her voice at first was low, yet
+every word fell clear and distinct. Never had he heard a voice so
+tender and full of expressive feeling--soft and mellow, sweet like the
+notes of a flute. There was something in its tone quality that
+compelled sympathy, that stole into the inner depths of the soul of
+the listener, and led reason a willing captive.
+
+In simple yet burning words she told of the darkness and poverty, the
+crime and shame, hunger and cruelty of the old world in which she had
+spent four years of her childhood. And then in a flight of poetic
+eloquence, came the story of her dreams of California, the Golden
+West, the land of eternal sunshine and flowers. And then, in a voice
+quivering and choking with emotion, she drew the picture of what she
+found--of Hell's Half Acre, in which she stood, with its brazen vice,
+its crime, its hopeless misery, its want and despair. With bold and
+fierce invective she charged modern civilization with this infamy.
+
+"Why do strong men go forth to war?" she cried, looking into the
+depths of Norman's soul. "Here is the enemy at your door, gripping the
+soft, white throats of your girls. Watch them sink into the mire at
+your feet and then down, down into the black sewers of the under-world
+never to rise again! I, too, call for volunteers. For heroes and
+heroines--not to fight another--I call you to a nobler warfare. I call
+you to the salvation of a world. Will you come? I offer you stones for
+bread, the sky for your canopy, the earth for your bed, and for your
+wages death! None may enter but the brave. Will you come----?"
+
+The last words of her appeal rang through Norman's heart with
+resistless power. Her round, soft arms seemed about his neck and his
+soul went out to her in passionate yearning. He gripped the chair to
+hold himself back from shouting:
+
+"Yes! I'm coming!"
+
+She sank to her seat before the crowd realized that she had stopped. A
+shout of triumph shook the building--wave after wave, rising and
+falling in ever-increasing intensity. At its height the Scarlet Nun
+sprang to her feet, with a graceful leap reached the edge of the
+platform, and again lifted her hand. A sudden hush fell on the crowd.
+
+"Now, comrades, the battle-hymn of the Republic set to new music! Mark
+its words, and remember that we sing it not as a mem-ory, but as a
+proph-esy of the day our streets may run red with the blood of the
+last struggle of Man to break his chains of Slav-ery--a proph-esy,
+remember, not a mem-ory! Read it Barbara!"
+
+The girl was by her side in an instant, and read from memory, her
+clear sweet voice tremulous with passion:
+
+  "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
+  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
+  He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
+  His truth is marching on!
+
+  I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
+  They have builded Him an altar in the evening's dews and damps;
+  I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
+  His day is marching on!
+
+  He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
+  He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
+  Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer them, be jubilant my feet!
+  Our God is marching on!"
+
+The crowd burst again into triumphant song, and Norman looked at their
+faces with increasing amazement. The immense vitality of their faith,
+the rush of its forward movement, the grandeur and audacity of their
+programme struck him as a revelation. They proposed no half-way
+measures. They meant to uproot the foundations of modern society and
+build a new world on its ruins. Their leaders were fanatics--yes. But
+fanatics were the only kind of people who would dare such things and do
+them. Here was a movement, which at least meant something--something
+big, heroic, daring. His face suddenly flushed and his heart leaped
+with an impulse.
+
+"In heaven's name, Norman, what's the matter?" Elena asked.
+
+The young poet-athlete looked at her in a dazed sort of way and
+stammered:
+
+"Did you ever see anything like it?"
+
+"No, and I don't want to again," she replied with a frown. "Let's go
+home."
+
+"Wait, they are taking up a collection. At least we must pay for our
+seats."
+
+When the usher passed he emptied the contents of his pocket in the
+collection-box.
+
+As the meeting broke up, the boy who placed their seats touched Norman
+on the arm.
+
+"Let me introduce ye to her. I wants ter tell 'er ye er my
+friend--I've yelled my head off for ye many a day on de football
+ground. Jest er minute. I'll fetch 'er right down."
+
+The boy darted up on the platform, and Norman turned to Elena:
+
+"Shall we please the boy?"
+
+"You mean yourself," she replied. "I decline the honour."
+
+She turned away into the crowd as the boy returned leading Barbara.
+
+Norman hastened to meet them at the foot of the platform steps.
+
+"Dis is me friend, Worth, de captain of de football team, Miss
+Barbara," proudly exclaimed the boy.
+
+Barbara extended her soft hand with a warm, friendly smile, and
+Norman clasped it while his heart throbbed.
+
+"I congratulate you," he said, "on your wonderful triumph to-night."
+
+"You were interested?" she asked, quietly.
+
+"More than I can tell you," was the quick response.
+
+"Then join our club and help me in my work among the poor," she urged,
+with frank eagerness. "We meet to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock.
+Won't you come?"
+
+A long, deep look into her brown eyes--his face flushed and his heart
+leaped with sudden resolution.
+
+"Thank you, I will," he slowly answered.
+
+He joined Elena at the door and they walked home in brooding silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BIRTH OF A MAN
+
+
+Norman stood silent and thoughtful before the fire in the dining-room,
+the morning after the meeting of the Socialists. His sleep had been
+feverish and a hundred half-formed dreams had haunted the moments in
+which he had lost consciousness with always the shining face of
+Barbara smiling and beckoning him on.
+
+Elena silently entered and watched him a moment before he saw her.
+
+"Still dreaming of the New Joan of Arc, Norman?" she asked with
+playful banter.
+
+"I'm going to do it, Elena," he said, with slow, thoughtful emphasis.
+
+"What? Marry her without even giving me the usual two weeks' notice?"
+Elena laughed.
+
+"Now, isn't that like a woman! I wasn't even thinking of the girl----"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+Norman laughed. "By Jove, you're jealous at last, Elena."
+
+"You flatter yourself."
+
+"Honestly, I wasn't thinking of the girl----"
+
+"Well, I've been thinking of her. She haunts me. I like her and I hate
+her. I feel that she's charming and vicious, of the spirit and flesh,
+and yet I can't help believing that she's good. The woman who
+introduced her is a she-devil, and the man who presided over that
+meeting is a brute. It's a pity she's mixed up with them. What are you
+going to do--play the hero and rescue her from their clutches?"
+
+"Nonsense. The girl is nothing to me, except as the symbol of a great
+idea. It stirs my blood. I'm going to join the Socialist Club."
+
+"Of which the fair Barbara is secretary."
+
+"Come with me, and join too. We'll go together to every meeting."
+
+"Have you gone mad?" Elena asked, with deep seriousness.
+
+"I'm in dead earnest."
+
+"And you think your father will stand for it?"
+
+"That remains to be seen. I'm going to tackle him as soon as he comes
+down to breakfast."
+
+"Well, if I never see you again, good-bye, old pal." She extended her
+hand in mock gravity.
+
+"I'm not afraid of him."
+
+"No, of course not!"
+
+"You're a coward, or you'd stand by me. Wait, Elena, he's coming now."
+
+"Why stand by? You're not afraid? I'll return in time for the
+inquest. Brace up! Remember Barbara. Be a hero!"
+
+With a ripple of laughter she disappeared as the Colonel's footsteps
+were heard at the door.
+
+Norman braced himself for the ordeal. He had never before dared to
+test his father's iron will. He had grown accustomed to see strong men
+bow and cringe before him, and felt a secret contempt for them all.
+They were bowing to his millions. And yet the boy knew with intuitive
+certainty that beneath the mask of quiet dignity and polished military
+bearing of the man he facetiously called "the Governor" there
+slumbered a will unique, powerful, and overbearing. More than once he
+had resented the silent pressure of his positive and aggressive
+personality. His own budding manhood had begun instinctively to
+bristle at its approach.
+
+The Colonel started on seeing Norman, and looked at him with a
+quizzical expression.
+
+"Was there an earthquake this morning, Norman?"
+
+"I didn't feel it, sir--why?"
+
+"You're downstairs rather early."
+
+Norman smiled. "I've been a little lazy, I'm afraid, Governor. But you
+know I wasn't consulted as to whether I wished to be born. You assumed
+a fearful responsibility. You see the results."
+
+The Colonel dropped his paper and looked at Norman a moment.
+
+"Well, upon my word!" he exclaimed. "What's happened?"
+
+"The biggest thing that ever came into my life, Governor," was the
+low, serious answer.
+
+"What?"
+
+"The decision that hereafter I'd rather be than seem to be, that I'm
+going to do some thinking for myself."
+
+"And what brought you to this decision?" the father quietly asked.
+
+"I went last night to that Socialist meeting."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes," he went on, impetuously, "and I heard the most wonderful appeal
+to which I ever listened--an appeal which stirred me to the deepest
+depths of my being. I think it's the biggest movement of the century.
+I'm going to study it. I'm going to see what it means. What do you say
+to it?"
+
+The boy lifted his tall figure with instinctive dignity, and his eyes
+met his father's in a straight, deep man's gaze.
+
+The faintest smile played about the corners of the Colonel's mouth as
+he suddenly extended his hand.
+
+"I congratulate you!"
+
+"Congratulate me?" Norman stammered.
+
+"Upon the attainment of your majority. Up to date you have written a
+few verses and played football. But this is the first evidence you
+have ever shown of conscious personality. You're in the grub-worm
+stage as yet, but you're on the move. You're a human being. You have
+developed the germ of character. And that's the only thing in this
+world that's worth the candle, my boy. It's funny to hear you say that
+the appeal of Socialism has worked this miracle. For character is the
+one thing the scheme of Socialism leaves out of account. A character
+is the one thing a machine-made society could never produce if given a
+million years in which to develop the experiment."
+
+"And you don't object?" Norman asked with increasing amazement.
+
+"Certainly not. Study Socialism to your heart's content. Go to the
+bottom of it. Don't slop over it. Don't accept sentimental mush for
+facts. Find out for yourself. Read, think, and learn to know your
+fellow man. When you've picked up a few first principles, and know
+enough to talk intelligently, I've something to say to you--something
+I've learned for myself."
+
+The boy looked at his father steadily and spoke with a slight tremor
+in his voice.
+
+"Governor, you're a bigger man than I thought you were. I like
+you--even if you are my father."
+
+"Thanks, my boy," the Colonel gravely replied, "I trust we may know
+each other still better in the future."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AMONG THE SHADOWS
+
+
+Under the tutelage of Barbara, the young millionaire plunged into the
+study of Socialism with the zeal of the fresh convert to a holy
+crusade.
+
+At first he had listened to her stories of the sufferings of the poor
+and the unemployed with mild incredulity. She laid her warm little
+hand on his and said:
+
+"Come and see. If you think that Socialism is a dream, I'll show you
+that capitalism is a nightmare."
+
+He followed her down the ugly pavements of a squalid street into the
+poorest quarter of the city. She entered a dingy hall and pushed her
+way through a swarm of filthy children to the rear room. On a bed of
+rags lay the body of a suicide--a working-man who had shot himself the
+day before. The wife sat crouching on a broken chair, with eyes
+staring out of the window at the sunlit skies of a May morning in
+California. Her body seemed to have turned to stone and her eyes to
+have frozen in their sockets. Her hands lay limp in her lap, her
+shoulders drooped, her mouth hung hopelessly open. She was as dead to
+every sight and sound of earth as though shrouded and buried in six
+feet of clay instead of sunlight.
+
+Barbara touched her shoulder, but she did not move.
+
+"Have you been sitting there all night, Mrs. Nelson?" she asked,
+gently.
+
+The woman turned her weak eyes toward the speaker and stared without
+reply.
+
+"You haven't tasted the food I brought you," Barbara continued.
+
+The drooping figure stirred with sudden energy, as if the realization
+of the question first asked had begun to stir her intelligence.
+
+"Yes. I set up all night with Jim. He'd a-done as much fer me. There's
+nobody else that cared enough to come. Ye know it ain't respectful to
+leave your dead alone----"
+
+"But you must eat something," Barbara urged.
+
+"I can't eat--it chokes me." She paused a moment, and looked at Norman
+in a dazed sort of way. "I tried to eat and something choked me--what
+was it? O God, I remember now!" she cried, with strangling emotion.
+"They are going to bury him in the potter's field unless we can save
+him, and I know we can't. He's got an old mother way back East that
+thinks he's doing well out here. Hit'll kill her dead when she finds
+out he wuz buried by the city."
+
+"He shan't go to the potter's field," Norman interrupted, looking out
+of the window.
+
+The woman rose, and tried to speak, but sank sobbing:
+
+"Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!"
+
+When the first flood of grateful emotion had spent itself, she looked
+up at Norman and said:
+
+"You see, sir, he wasn't strong, and kept losin' his job in Chicago.
+We'd heard about California all our lives. We sold out everything and
+got enough to come. For two years we've made a hard fight, but it was
+no use. Jim couldn't git work. I tried and I couldn't. Folks have
+helped us, but he was proud. He wouldn't beg and he wouldn't let me.
+He wouldn't sell his gun. I think he always meant to use it that way
+when he got to the end, and it come yesterday when they give us notice
+to git out."
+
+She staggered over to the bed and fell across the body, sobbing:
+
+"My poor old boy. He loved me. He was always good to me. I tried to go
+with him. But I couldn't pull the trigger! I was afraid! I was
+afraid!"
+
+When they reached the street, Barbara lifted her brown eyes to
+Norman's face and asked:
+
+"What do you think of a social system that drives thousands of men to
+kill themselves like that?"
+
+"To tell you the truth I never thought of it at all before."
+
+"He would have been buried in a pauper's grave but for your help. I
+brought you here this morning because I knew you would save her that
+anguish when you understood."
+
+"You knew I would?" he softly asked.
+
+"I wouldn't have let you come with me if I hadn't known it," she
+answered, earnestly.
+
+"It's funny how many of us live in this world without knowing anything
+about it," he said, musingly.
+
+"It would be funny were it not a tragedy," she answered, turning
+across the street to the next block. They paused at the entrance of
+another narrow hallway.
+
+"My work as secretary of the club includes, as you see, a wide range
+of calls. I'm a dispenser of alms, the pastor of a great parish, the
+friend, adviser, and champion of a lost world, and you have no idea
+what a big world it is."
+
+"I'm beginning to understand. What's the trouble here? Another
+suicide?"
+
+"No--something worse, I think. A man who was afraid to die and took to
+drink. That's the way with most of them. None but the brave can look
+into the face of Death. This man is good to his family until he's
+drunk. Drink is the only thing that makes life worth the candle to
+him. But when he's under the influence of liquor he's a fiend. Last
+night he beat his wife into insensibility. This morning he sent one of
+the children for me."
+
+They climbed two flights of rickety stairs and entered a room littered
+with broken furniture. Every chair was smashed, the table lay in
+splinters, pieces of crockery scattered everywhere, and the stove
+broken into fragments. Two blear-eyed children with the look of hunted
+rabbits crouched in a corner. A man was bending over the bed, where
+the form of a woman lay still and white.
+
+"For God's sake, brace up, Mary!" he was saying. "Ye mustn't die! Ye
+mustn't, I tell ye! Your white face will haunt me and drive me into
+hell a raving maniac. I didn't know what I was doin', old gal. I was
+crazy. I wouldn't 'a' hurt a hair of your head if I'd 'a' knowed what
+I was doin'!"
+
+He bowed his face in his coarse, bloated hands and sobbed.
+
+The thin white hand of the wife stroked his hair feebly.
+
+"It's all right, Sam. I know ye didn't mean it," she sighed.
+
+Norman sent for a doctor, and left some money.
+
+With each new glimpse of the under-world of pain and despair the
+conviction grew in Norman's mind that he had not lived, and the
+determination deepened that he would get acquainted with his fellow
+men and the place he called his home.
+
+"You are not tired?" Barbara asked, as they hurried into the street.
+
+"No, I'm just beginning to live," he answered, soberly.
+
+"Good. Then you shall be allowed the honour of accompanying me to the
+county jail, to the poorhouse, to the hospital, and to the morgue--the
+four greatest institutions of modern civilization. We must hurry. I've
+another sadder visit after these."
+
+As they hurried through the streets, Norman began to study with
+increasing intensity the phenomena presented in the development of
+Barbara's character. The more he saw of her, the more he realized the
+lofty ideals of her life, the more puerile and contemptible his own
+past seemed.
+
+At the jail they found a boy who had been convicted of stealing and
+sentenced to the penitentiary. His old mother was ill. Barbara bore
+her last message of love.
+
+They stopped at the poorhouse to see a curious old pauper who had
+become a regular attendant on the Socialists' meetings. He was called
+"Methodist John," because he was forever shouting "Glory, Hallelujah!"
+and interrupting the speakers. Barbara was the bearer of a painful
+message to John. Wolf had instructed her to keep him out of the
+meetings. She had decided to try a gentler way--to warn him against
+yelling "Glory" again under penalty of being deprived of a dish of
+soup of which he was particularly fond. The Socialist Club served this
+simple, wholesome meal to all who asked for it after its weekly
+meetings.
+
+John promised Barbara faithfully to stop shouting.
+
+"Remember, John," she warned him finally, "shout--no soup! No
+shout--soup!"
+
+"I understand, Miss Barbara," he answered, solemnly.
+
+"You see, sir," he said, apologetically, turning to Norman, "I get
+along all right till she begins ter speak, and when I hears her soft,
+sweet voice it seems ter run all down my back in little ticklin' waves
+clean down ter my toes, an' I holler 'Glory' before I can stop it!"
+
+Norman laughed.
+
+"I understand, old man."
+
+"You feel that way yerself, don't ye, now, when she looks down into
+yer soul with them big, soft eyes o' hern, an' her voice comes
+a-stealin' inter yer heart like the music of the angels----"
+
+Barbara's face lighted, and a slight blush suffused her cheeks as she
+caught the look of admiring assent in Norman's expression.
+
+"That will do, John," she said, firmly. "Mr. Wolf was very angry with
+you yesterday."
+
+"I'll remember, Miss Barbara," he repeated. "And God bless your dear
+heart fer comin' by ter tell me."
+
+"I suppose he has no people living who are interested in him?" Norman
+asked, as they turned toward the Socialist hall.
+
+"No. He came from a big mill town in the East. His children all died
+before they were grown, and he landed here with his wife ten years
+ago. When she died, he was sent to the poorhouse. He hasn't much mind,
+but there's enough left to burst into flame at the memory of his
+children being slowly ground to death by the wheels of those mills.
+I've seen his dead soul start to life more than once as I've looked
+into his face from our platform. What an awful thing to see dead men
+walking about!"
+
+"Yes. People who are dead and don't know it. I never thought of it
+before." Norman exclaimed.
+
+They stopped in front of a house with a scarlet light in the hall,
+which threw its rays through a red-glass transom over a door of
+coloured leaded glass. The shadows of evening had begun to fall, and
+for the first time the girl showed a sign of hesitation and
+embarrassment.
+
+"I hate to ask you to go in here with me, and I'd hate worse to have
+you see me go alone. Yet I have to do it. My work leads me."
+
+"I'm going with you, whether you ask it or not," he firmly replied.
+
+"Then words are useless," she said, simply, as she rang the bell.
+
+A Negro maid opened the door, and smiled a look of recognition. "She
+ain't no better, miss. She's been crying for you all day."
+
+Barbara led the way up two flights of stairs to a small room in the
+rear, and entered without knocking. With a bound she was beside the
+bed on which lay a slender girl of nineteen. A mass of golden blond
+hair was piled in confusion on the pillow, and a pair of big,
+childish-looking blue eyes blinked at her through her tears.
+
+"Oh! you've come at last! I'm so glad. It makes me strong to see you.
+Your face shines so, Barbara! They say I can't live, but it's not so.
+I shall live! I'm feeling better every day. It's nonsense. The doctors
+haven't got any sense. I wish you'd get me one that knows something.
+Won't you, dear?"
+
+"My friend, Mr. Worth, who has called with me, has kindly agreed to
+send you another doctor, little sister--that's why I brought him to
+see you."
+
+Norman extended his hand, and grasped the thin, cold one the girl
+extended. He felt the chill of death in its icy touch as he stammered:
+
+"I'll send him right away."
+
+"Thank you," the girl replied, as a smile flitted about her weak
+mouth. She turned to Barbara with a look of infinite tenderness.
+
+"I knew you'd come, and I knew you'd save me. You're my angel! When I
+dream at night, you're always hovering over me."
+
+"I'll come again to-morrow, dearie, when the new doctor has seen you,"
+Barbara answered, as she pressed her hand good-bye.
+
+When they reached the street, Norman asked:
+
+"You knew her before she fell into evil ways?"
+
+"Yes," Barbara answered, with feeling. "She was just a little child of
+joy and sunlight. She couldn't endure the darkness. She loved flowers
+and music, beauty and love. She hated drudgery and poverty. She tried
+to work, and gave up in despair. A man came into her life at a
+critical moment and she broke with the world. She's been sending all
+the money she could make the past two years to her mother and four
+little kids. Her father was killed at work in a mine for a great
+corporation."
+
+"She can't live, can she?" Norman asked.
+
+"Of course not. I only did this to humour her. She has developed acute
+consumption--she may not live a month."
+
+Barbara paused.
+
+"I must leave you now--I'm very tired, and I must sleep a while before
+I attend the meeting to-night. It has been a great strain on me
+to-day, this trip with you. How do you like our boasted civilization?
+Do you think it perfect? Are you satisfied with a system which drives
+hundreds of thousands of such girls into a life of shame? Are you
+content with a system which produces three million paupers in a land
+flowing with milk and honey? Do you like a system which drives
+thousands to the madness of drink and suicide every year?"
+
+"And to think," responded Norman, dreamily, "that for the past two
+years of my manhood I've been writing verses and playing football!
+Great God!"
+
+"Then from to-day we are comrades in the cause of humanity?" she asked
+tenderly, extending her hand. His own clasped hers with firm grasp.
+
+"Comrades!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ISLAND OF VENTURA
+
+
+Norman had never been a boy to do things by halves. In college, when
+he went in for football, he made it the one supreme end of life--and
+won. He incidentally managed to pull through a course in mining
+engineering. He knew mining by instinct and inheritance from his
+father. It came easy.
+
+When he had a three months' vacation from football he took up the
+modelling of a dredge for mining gold from the sands of the beaches.
+The thing had never been perfected, but after three months' experiment
+and study he was just on the point of making the castings for the
+machinery when the football season opened and he dropped such trifling
+matters for the more serious work of training his men for a successful
+season. He won the championship and forgot the dredge.
+
+Into the new movement of Socialism he naturally threw his whole
+personality without reservation. Its daring programme thrilled him.
+The audacity of its leaders and their refusal to discuss anything less
+than the salvation of man appealed to every instinct of his nature.
+He devoured every book on the subject he could find, and in his
+new-found enthusiasm for humanity accepted as the inspired voice of
+God their wildest visions of social regeneration.
+
+In his work of charity and organization with Barbara he found
+everything to confirm and nothing to shake his faith in these
+theories. When once he caught the idea that all the ills of modern
+civilization were due directly to the fiendish system of "capitalism"
+and its "iron law of wages," it was the key which unlocked every
+mystery of Pain and every tragedy of the Soul. All sin and crime and
+shame and suffering became the incidents of a social system whose
+movements were as inexorable as Fate, as merciless as Death. There was
+but one thing worth talking about, and that was how to destroy modern
+society, root and branch, and do it quickly, thoroughly and without
+compromise.
+
+The same daring enthusiasm and capacity for leadership which made him
+the captain of his football team brought him at once to the front as a
+Socialist leader. He would have gained this leadership had he been the
+poorest man among them. It was a gift as his birthright.
+
+But, added to this capacity for daring and successful action, was his
+wealth and social prestige. He had cast his lot with a class whose
+avowed purpose was to destroy all social distinctions, to level all
+wealth to a common standard. And for this reason in particular he was
+conspicuous and heroic in the eyes of his Socialist comrades.
+
+He found soon after his entrance into their active councils that the
+woman known to the world as "The Scarlet Nun," to her associates as
+"Sister Catherine," was the inspiring brain of their movement in the
+West. This remarkable woman interested him deeply from their first
+hour's talk. Born in Poland and educated in Germany, she spoke
+fluently the Russian, German, French, and English languages. She had
+led two great strikes of women workers in New York and had been
+arrested, convicted, and sentenced twice to the penitentiary for
+exciting riots. To her associates she had always remained a saint and
+a martyr for their cause.
+
+She had been married before her association with Wolf had begun, ten
+years ago. Her first husband had been divorced, and her marriage to
+Wolf had been merely "announced" at a Socialist meeting. And yet the
+young millionaire had never questioned the sincerity of their devotion
+or the apparent happiness of their union. He was amazed at her
+learning, her grasp of affairs, the simplicity and refinement of her
+manners, and the charm of her conversation.
+
+Wolf he found to be a man of wide reading and deep convictions. As he
+came in daily contact with these two powerful personalities, and
+watched the singular zeal with which they devoted themselves to their
+self-appointed task of destroying modern society, he could not divest
+himself of the impression that they belonged to a religious order and
+were leading a crusade, as the monks of the Middle Ages led men and
+women to die to rescue the tomb of Christ from the desecration of Turk
+and Saracen.
+
+The woman in particular gave him this impression of religious
+fanaticism. The apparent simplicity and austerity of her life, the
+tireless zeal with which she planned and worked for the spread of the
+gospel of Socialism, to his mind gave the lie emphatically to all the
+stories he had read of her affairs with men.
+
+The only moments of suspicion about her which ever clouded his mind
+came with the accidental discovery that she had skilfully managed to
+throw him and Barbara together for a day. It seemed just a little like
+the old habit of a scheming mamma angling for the rich young man, and
+deliberately using the beauty of her daughter as the bait with which
+to land him in the household.
+
+Yet, when he found himself with Barbara he had always dismissed the
+thought as absurd. Whatever might be the dimly formed design in the
+back of the older woman's fancy, her brilliant protégé gave no sign of
+being her accomplice.
+
+Norman had found Barbara a charming but baffling enigma. She walked
+through a world of sin and shame, filth and mire, with never a speck
+on the white of her soul or body. She spoke in the simplest and most
+direct way of things about which the ordinary girl in society would
+never dare to utter a word, and yet he took it as a matter of course.
+He grew to feel that she was a mysterious messenger from the spirit
+world. Yet when he took her arm and felt its warm round lines soft and
+thrilling against his own, or the warmth of her lithe body pressing
+close to his side in some lonely or dangerous spot on their rounds of
+work, he was brought up sharply against the fact that she was both
+flesh and spirit. Yet the moment he tried to draw nearer to her inner
+thoughts, he found her a skilful little fencer, an adept in all the
+arts of the most delicate and subtle coquetry.
+
+He grew at last, however, to know, with unerring masculine instinct,
+that with all her brave and frank talk about her "fallen" sisters, she
+hadn't an idea of what their fall really meant. She was as innocent
+as a child, and when at last she caught the young athlete smiling at
+one of her apparently frank and learned discussions of the modern
+degradation of woman, she blushed and became silent. Whereat he
+laughed, and she became so angry they parted in silence.
+
+Baffled in his efforts to approach Barbara's heart, he threw himself
+with zeal into the Cause. When two months had been spent in mastering
+the details of the Socialist programme, in studying its history and
+the condition of its movement, he called a meeting of the council of
+the Socialist Club, and fairly took away the breath of the Wolfs and
+Barbara by the magnitude and audacity of a scheme which he proposed to
+launch immediately.
+
+He had secured, without consulting any of his associates, an option on
+a rich, beautiful, and fertile island off the coast of Southern
+California. It was owned by a corporation which had invested more than
+a million dollars in its improvement. The enterprise had failed for
+two reasons--the money had been expended recklessly in the days of the
+famous land boom, and it had been found impossible to induce labourers
+to isolate themselves on this lonely spot, sixty miles from the coast
+of Santa Barbara, with no means of regular connection with the outside
+world.
+
+His eyes flashing with enthusiasm and his voice ringing with
+conviction, Norman closed his description of the island of Ventura
+with a demand for its immediate purchase by the Socialists.
+
+"It can be bought," he declared impetuously, "for $200,000. A million
+dollars' worth of improvements are already there. I propose that we
+immediately raise $500,000, buy this island, establish a steamship
+line, plant a colony of ten thousand Socialists, found the Brotherhood
+of Man, build a model city, and create a vast fund for the propaganda
+of our faith."
+
+Barbara's brown eyes danced with excitement, her cheeks flushed, while
+her little hands clapped approval.
+
+"Good! Good! It's great! It's beautiful! We must do it!" she cried.
+
+Wolf grimly shook his head.
+
+"The idea has failed a hundred times. We must conquer the world by
+political action--we have the weapon in our hand--manhood suffrage.
+All colonies fail sooner or later. They are corrupted from
+outside----"
+
+"Just so!" Norman interrupted. "But this one you can't reach from the
+outside. We will own the only means of communication. We will inherit
+all the advantages of modern civilization with none of its drawbacks.
+We can demonstrate the truths we hold and from our impregnable
+Gibraltar send out our missionaries to conquer the world. We will not
+merely dream dreams and see visions; we will make history. We will
+prove the God that's in man and establish the fact of his universal
+brotherhood."
+
+"It's a wonderful idea, comrade!" Catherine exclaimed, with
+enthusiasm. "I congratulate you! We will accept your plan, and I move
+that we appoint you our agent vested with full power to collect this
+fund from the enemy!"
+
+The motion was put and carried unanimously, even Wolf voting for it.
+
+Barbara sprang to Norman's side, and grasped his hand:
+
+"Our feud is over! I forgive you for laughing at me. You are a born
+leader. You've won your spurs to-night. You will raise this money?"
+
+"As sure as I'm living!" was the firm reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE RED FLAG
+
+
+Norman lost no time in springing his scheme for the establishment of
+the Socialist colony and headquarters for the propaganda of the new
+social religion on the island of Ventura. The season he had spent as a
+reporter gave him the key to the proper launching of a press story
+which created a profound sensation. It appeared simultaneously in the
+Sunday editions of all the leading dailies of the Pacific coast, and
+in forty-eight hours his mail had grown to such proportions that he
+required two secretaries to assist him in answering it.
+
+He called for a thousand volunteers to join the advance-guard of the
+coming Brotherhood of Man, each contributing a thousand dollars. He
+announced a mass meeting and picnic for the Fourth of July, to be held
+on the big lawn of the Worth country house on the outskirts of
+Berkeley.
+
+Colonel Worth had readily given his consent to the use of the lawn. He
+had not tried in any way to interfere with his son's association with
+the Socialists. He felt sure that in time he would tire of the fad,
+as he had of football, and in a fatherly way he began to admire the
+dash and audacity of the boy's plans.
+
+On the morning of the picnic, when Elena expressed her fears of the
+outcome, the Colonel laughed.
+
+"Don't worry, Elena. He'll come to his senses. It's like a fever. It
+must run its course. I'm rather proud of the extravagance of his
+foolishness. A boy who can forget his games and give his life to
+destroy the foundations of human society and try to rebuild a new
+world on its ruins--well, there's good stuff in him."
+
+"But if he does something rash?" Elena persisted.
+
+"He won't. With all his extravagance and enthusiasm he's not a fool.
+I, too, saw visions like that once."
+
+"You, Guardie?"
+
+"Yes, when I was very, very young--a mere boy of thirteen--I joined a
+colony of Communists."
+
+"I wish I could have seen you at thirteen," Elena cried, with a joyous
+laugh.
+
+The laugh died suddenly and a frown overspread her face as Norman
+appeared.
+
+"I want you and Elena to hear our orator to-day, Governor," Norman
+said, with enthusiasm. "We are going to make it a great day."
+
+"It's already great, my boy--I've just got the news."
+
+"What news?"
+
+The Colonel drew a telegram from his pocket.
+
+"A message from Washington. Sampson and Schley have annihilated the
+Spanish fleet. Admiral Cervera is a prisoner on board the flagship,
+and the army is rapidly closing in on the doomed city of Santiago."
+
+He handed the telegram to Norman, who glanced at it in silence and
+returned it to his father.
+
+"Come to our meeting on the lawn at noon, Governor. We've bigger news
+than that for you."
+
+"Bigger news?" the older man asked with a quizzical look.
+
+"Yes. A message announcing the dawn of a day when every gun on earth
+shall be broken to pieces and melted into ploughshares."
+
+The Colonel looked at Norman a moment, smiled, and slowly said:
+
+"I love the young--because I live myself over again in them."
+
+"Then you'll join us to-day?"
+
+"Thanks--no--Elena and I are going to shoot firecrackers--but we won't
+disturb your crowd. Let them speak to their hearts' content."
+
+The Colonel turned with Elena, and entered the house, which crowned an
+eminence overlooking the distant bay and city, while Norman hurried
+down the green sloping lawn to finish the decorations of the speakers'
+stand.
+
+The crowd had already begun to pour in from Oakland and San Francisco,
+and more than a hundred delegates from Socialist locals in other
+cities were expected.
+
+On a little headland which jutted out from the long sloping mountain
+side on which the lawn was laid out, Colonel Worth had erected a tall
+steel flag-pole. The big flag which flew from its peak could be seen
+by every ship that entered or left the bay and for miles on shore in
+almost every direction.
+
+Around this flag-pole Norman had built the speakers' platform, with
+every inch of its boards covered with the deep-red bunting symbolic of
+the Socialist cause. Behind the stand toward the mountains rose a
+smooth grass-carpeted hillside in semi-circular form, making a natural
+amphitheatre on which five thousand people might sit in tiers one
+above the other and distinctly hear every word uttered on the
+platform.
+
+By noon every inch of this space was packed with a dense crowd of
+Socialists, their friends, and the curious who had come, drawn by the
+sensational announcement of the launching of the Socialist colony on
+the island of Ventura.
+
+In the front row, packed close against the platform, were a number of
+famous people--conspicuous among whom was an author whose impassioned
+stories of the coming social upheaval had resulted in fame for himself
+and a divorce-suit by his first wife. His new wife, the "affinity" who
+caused the disturbance, sat by his side.
+
+On his left sat a solemn looking poet with bushy, unkempt hair. He had
+deliberately chosen the title "The Bard of Ramcat." The name Ramcat
+had been long applied to a shabby section of the outskirts of San
+Francisco. Here the poet had chosen to dwell and sing of social
+horrors which existed only in his fertile imagination.
+
+He had won wide fame, however, as the supreme exponent of the
+"affinity" theory which has always been epidemic among thoughtful
+Socialists. He coolly informed his wife that he had discovered his
+true "affinity" in a woman he had installed as her guest. The two
+affinities accompanied the wife and her child to a steamer for Europe
+with instructions to obtain a divorce.
+
+The poet married the affinity, and on the birth of a new son and heir
+acquired the habit of beating her as a form of relaxation from the
+strain of work. Considerable trouble followed, and he spent a portion
+of his time in jail. He had once gone barefooted and bareheaded. But
+since his "affinity" marriage he had been compelled for reasons best
+known to himself to resume shoe-leather and to buy a hat. Nevertheless
+he was still a striking-looking figure, seated beside his new wife
+whose strong, intellectual face won the sympathy of all who saw her.
+
+Just behind him sat an ex-clergyman with whom a rich young woman in
+his congregation had fallen in love. To avoid trouble, the woman of
+wealth got him to leave the ministry, and bought him from his wife for
+a good round sum. He became an apostle of the new gospel of Socialism,
+and secured a position as a professor of economics. When finally he
+lost this position by his vagaries, his wife hired a hall and set him
+up in business as an inspired leader of new thought emancipated from
+the chains of capitalistic tyranny.
+
+Beside the distinguished ex-clergyman Socialistic apostle sat
+Professor Otto Schmitt, a famous teacher of economics at a Western
+university. His supreme passion was hatred of women. His one big book
+was written to prove that woman has no soul, that she is the mere
+matter on which man by his will acts, that she is not immoral, but
+merely non-moral, having never possessed even the rudiments of a moral
+nature. Schmitt had, therefore, maintained that the entrance of women
+into competition in the economic world presaged the downfall of man
+and the utter extinction of humanity. For this reason he had joined
+the Socialists.
+
+Not three feet away from him sat a thoughtful, elderly, short-haired
+woman who had written a book on the evolution of woman to prove that
+woman alone is the original unit of creation, man a superfluous and
+temporary addition, merely the missing link between woman and the
+monkey, and in the process of human development the male biped would
+be eliminated. She demanded equal rights with man, and more besides,
+and she, too, had joined the Socialists.
+
+Yet through all these ludicrous incongruities there ran the single
+scarlet thread of social discontent which made them one. In every soul
+rang the stirring cry:
+
+"Down with civilization! Up with the Red Flag!"
+
+A more remarkable group of men and women could scarcely be gathered
+together on the face of the earth. But the one mark they all bore,
+distinctly cut deep in the lines of every face on which character had
+set its seal, and written large in the restless, nervous personality
+of the young--they all had a grievance, and though their troubles
+might come from as many different causes as there were men and women
+present, they united in one thought:
+
+"Modern civilization must be destroyed!"
+
+Every heart beat with this fiery resolution, and every incongruity
+melted and faded into insignificance before this consuming belief.
+
+And they had gone about this purpose with a deadly earnestness which
+meant business. Their political campaigns were merely moments when the
+captain of their ship cast the lead-line to feel the bottom and find
+his position with certainty before signalling full speed ahead.
+
+They worked all the year round and every day in every year, from one
+election to the next. They were mastering the tricks of the demagogue
+in their appeal to the masses, and they kept everlastingly at it. No
+man is too high, no man too low, for them to reach for him. They
+couldn't be beaten for they had accepted defeat before they began to
+fight, and began the next fight before they got up from the ground
+where they had been knocked down. They had become the one element in
+American politics to which it was utterly useless to direct any
+argument of expediency.
+
+The Fourth of July, the Nation's birthday, they were now using to
+demand its extinction. The fact that our army and navy had just torn
+the flag of Spain from its last masthead in the Western hemisphere and
+startled the old world with our sudden advent among the great powers
+of the earth, stirred in their hearts no emotion save that of
+contempt. While the souls of millions beat with patriotic pride, they
+had met to uproot the very ideas from whose soil patriotism sprang
+into life.
+
+There was no question as to who should be the orator of the day. The
+fame of Barbara Bozenta had become national from the day of her first
+speech in San Francisco. Her beauty and eloquence were sufficient to
+pack any hall at twenty-four hours' notice.
+
+Her delicate face was radiant to-day with unusual elation. She walked
+with a quick, nervous energy that seemed to lift her whole body into
+the air. As she ascended the platform and bowed to the tumult of
+applause, she trembled from head to foot with intensest excitement. As
+she stood looking over the inspiring scene for a moment, her sensitive
+nostrils dilated, her brown eyes flashed, and her heart beat with a
+great throb of personal pride. She had never before faced such an
+immense throng of excited men and women, and the secret consciousness
+that she had within her soul the message which would sweep their
+heartstrings as she willed, lifted her into the clouds.
+
+She felt for the moment that the whole scene was a tribute to her
+power. The magnificent house whose windows flashed in the sunlight,
+the vast lawn carpeted with green and set in dazzling flowers, the
+emerald waters of the bay, and the spires and domes of the distant
+city set on its proud hills beyond--all were hers to-day! Her voice
+had called to their standard the young millionaire whose name was now
+on every lip. Her voice had inspired his dream of the experiment to be
+made on the island of Ventura which had called this host together. For
+one big moment she felt the thrill of conscious creative genius, the
+pain, the joy, the glory of a positive achievement.
+
+Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she sank to her seat with a
+suppressed sob.
+
+When at last she rose to speak, her whole personality was a quivering
+battery of resistless emotion. Her voice, low and pulsing with
+magnetic waves of suppressed feeling, caught and chained the attention
+of the farthest straggler on the edge of the throng. Instinctively
+they moved closer. Resistlessly she drew them.
+
+She had not spoken two minutes before she was sweeping the hearts of
+her hearers. Men and women who had come to laugh or scoff, as well as
+the young and thoughtless who had drifted with the crowd, were all
+alike caught in the spell and hung breathless on her words.
+
+Every trick and art of persuasive speech were hers without effort.
+Scorn, pathos, humour, passion, were of the breath she breathed. At
+times her eloquence reached the highest conception of its might. It
+was simple thought packed until it took fire. At such moments scores
+of men leaped to their feet and shouted. Nothing disconcerted her or
+changed the swift current of her ideas. She was a master-musician
+whose hands swept a harp of a thousand strings--every string a
+throbbing human soul.
+
+What matter if her appeal was to the emotions and not to the
+intellect? Her purpose was to persuade her hearers. And she did it.
+Her courage, her beauty, her skill, her utter sincerity, commanded the
+respect of the strongest man who listened. If their intellects were
+not convinced, no matter--she carried them with her on a storm of
+resistless emotion.
+
+Suddenly a thing happened which would have destroyed the total
+impression of the average speech. Old Methodist John, her pauper
+protégé, had listened with increasing torture, choking down a hundred
+"Glorys" as they leaped from his soul until at last he could endure no
+more. At the climax of one of her impassioned appeals the old man
+leaped to his feet, rushed in front of the speakers' stand and shouted
+into the face of the chairman:
+
+"Look here! Look here, now, Wolf! Soup or no soup--Glory hallelujah!"
+
+Barbara alone smiled. The crowd took up his shout, and a thousand
+voices made the heavens ring with its wild music.
+
+Norman whispered to the old man, who sat down, and Barbara swept on in
+her impetuous triumph without the lapse of a moment's power. She
+seized the instant's hush which followed the storm of cheering to fire
+into the minds of her hearers some of the solid shot of the
+revolutionary programme.
+
+In a voice which swelled to the clarion note of a trumpet she cried:
+
+"The earth for all the people! This is our demand!
+
+"The machinery of all production and distribution for all the people!
+This is our demand!
+
+"The collective ownership and control of all industry! This is our
+demand!
+
+"The elimination of rent, interest, and profit! This is our demand!
+
+"A new social order, a higher civilization, a real republic! This is
+our demand!
+
+"The end of the hell called war, of poverty and shame, of cruelty and
+crime, the birth of freedom, the dawn of brotherhood, the beginning of
+man! These are our demands! This is Socialism! Is this an idle dream?
+Have you no faith in your fellow man?
+
+"In the grim prison beyond the bay I found one day a woman convict who
+was little removed from a fiend. I got permission to hang a beautiful
+picture in her cell--a picture that set her soul to dreaming, that
+melted her at last to tears, and transformed the beast within her to a
+gentle, loving, beautiful, human character.
+
+"I believe in man because he alone possesses this power to look
+through the window of the soul into the infinite and eternal. Here the
+world's real battles are fought. Here the world's real work is done.
+Here cowards run and the brave die. This power to recreate the earth,
+people it with beauty, and fill it with harmony is your birthright.
+
+"Lo, the day of humanity dawns!
+
+"I preach class consciousness that we may destroy all classes. Class
+must perish and Man be glorified. Man, whose inhumanity to his fellow
+man has filled the ages with ashes and tears, is coming forth at last
+purified by suffering, and we shall see his tears turned to smiles
+upon the faces of a nobler race.
+
+"Why should we rejoice to-day in the death of our fellow man? Nations
+are but the dung-heaps out of which the fair flower of a
+world-democracy is slowly growing. Truth is not national, it is
+infinite. France may fight Germany because two titled fools insult
+each other, but there can be no war between the laboratories of
+Pasteur and of Koch. Their work is the common heritage of humanity.
+Who asks if Humboldt was German or English, whether Spinoza was Jew or
+Gentile, Darwin English or French? A German wrote 'Faust,' a Frenchman
+set it to immortal music, and an American girl sang it into the hearts
+of millions. Who cares to know nationalities? The great belong to the
+democracy of the world. And I swear that your children will still
+laugh with the soul of Cervantes in spite of the Fourth of July,
+Santiago, and Manila!
+
+"Why should you fight one another? When called to war by your rulers,
+let the liberty-loving spirits of the modern world say to their
+masters:
+
+"'Go and do your own killing--you who have separated us from our
+brothers and made the earth a slaughter-pen.'
+
+"If you are court-martialed and shot for this act of heroism remember:
+
+    "'They never fail who die
+    In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:
+    Their heads may sodden in the sun: their limbs
+    Be strung to city gates and castle walls--
+    But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
+    Elapse and others share as dark a doom,
+    They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
+    Which overpower all others, and conduct
+    The world at last to freedom!'"
+
+A shout of wild applause rent the air as the last note of Byron's
+immortal song fell from her beautiful lips. And then, in a low,
+intense voice, she closed her speech with a thrilling appeal for human
+brotherhood. To Norman, who hung on her lips, the slight girlish
+figure seemed transformed before their eyes into a radiant messenger
+of the spirit. And when the sweet womanly tones at last broke and
+choked into deep-drawn sobs, his soul and body seemed no longer his
+own. As her last words sank into his heart: "From to-day let each of
+us swear allegiance to but one flag, the deep-red emblem of human
+blood, God's sign of universal brotherhood!" Norman leaped to his
+feet, sprang on the platform, and while the crowd swayed in a frenzy
+of applause, hauled down the Stars and Stripes and quickly raised the
+big red standard of Socialism which was thrown across the speaker's
+table.
+
+And then the great crowd seemed to go mad. Wave after wave of cheering
+rose and fell, rose and fell, in apparently unending power. Catherine
+threw her arms around Barbara in a paroxysm of emotion, while the big
+figure of Wolf towered above them both, shouting and gesturing like a
+madman. Barbara at last lifted her hand and, as the storm subsided,
+began the Marseillaise hymn.
+
+The first stirring notes had just swept the audience when the stalwart
+figure of Colonel Worth suddenly appeared on the platform, his face a
+blaze of anger, his magnificent figure erect, every nerve and muscle
+drawn to the highest tension.
+
+He stepped to the edge of the stand, lifted his head, and his voice
+rang over the crowd like the sudden boom of a cannon:
+
+"Silence!"
+
+He didn't repeat the word.
+
+The singing stopped, and every eye was riveted on the group that stood
+on the platform.
+
+The Colonel confronted Wolf, and shot his words at him as though from
+a machine-gun.
+
+"Who lowered that flag?"
+
+A moment of silence followed. The Colonel spoke with increasing
+rapidity.
+
+"Who lowered that flag? The man who did it must answer to me!"
+
+Some one behind him moved, and the Colonel turned, confronting Norman.
+
+"I did it, Governor," was the quiet answer.
+
+"You?" the father gasped.
+
+"Yes," said the even, firm voice.
+
+"Haul that red rag down and raise the flag back to its place!" The
+Colonel's voice was low and thick with rage.
+
+Elena put her hand on his arm and said gently:
+
+"Guardie!"
+
+"Will you do it?" he firmly asked, ignoring Elena, and holding Norman
+with his gaze.
+
+The young man hesitated an instant, met his father's look with a
+deadly straight stare, and slowly replied:
+
+"I will not."
+
+A smothered cry from Barbara, half joy, half pain, was the only sound
+that followed, until the Colonel said:
+
+"Then I'll do it for you."
+
+Amid a dead silence he hauled down the red flag, threw it on the
+floor, boldly stamped on it, made fast the Stars and Stripes, and
+quickly raised it to the top of its staff. He turned to the crowd, and
+in clear-cut, sharp tones of command shouted:
+
+"This is my flag, my house, my lawn. Get off it! And do it quick!"
+
+As the crowd hastened away, he turned to Norman:
+
+"You and I must come to an understanding at once, young man," he said,
+with angry emphasis.
+
+"I'll meet you in the library in thirty minutes," was Norman's firm
+reply as he led Barbara from the platform and joined the retreating
+throng.
+
+    [Illustration: "LIFT THE FLAG BACK TO ITS PLACE."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FATHER AND SON
+
+
+The Colonel paced the floor of his library with increasing anger as he
+waited the return of Norman. Never in his life had his whole being
+been so abandoned to incontrollable rage. He had always been a man of
+fiery temper, but an iron will had held his temper in control.
+
+His most intimate business associates had always found him suave,
+persuasive, and genial in every hour of trial. Never once had they
+heard a threat or an idle boast fall from his lips. He had the rare
+faculty of beating his enemies in a fight in which no quarter was
+asked or given, and coming out of it with his bitterest foe turned
+into a friend. This was one of the secrets of his fortune--an
+instinctive leadership among powerful men.
+
+For the first time he realized that he had challenged the one man in
+all his personal acquaintance about whose character he knew
+nothing--his own son. For the first time he realized that they were
+strangers. He had been absorbed in the big affairs of life. He had
+taken the boy for granted. Since the death of his mother twelve years
+ago, Norman had spent most of his time at school.
+
+The Colonel had always been in command. His word had been law for so
+many years, it brought him up with a disagreeable start to find that
+the one man with whom his life was bound, and in whom his hopes
+centred, could dare thus to defy and flaunt his wishes. It was the
+most disgusting, enraging fact he had ever encountered. The longer he
+confronted the situation the more furious and blind his anger became.
+
+Elena had timidly entered the room, and stood watching him gravely
+before she spoke.
+
+"Has he returned from that woman yet?" the Colonel asked with sudden
+energy.
+
+"No, and I hope he will stay all day," she answered slowly.
+
+"But he won't," the father snapped.
+
+"I'm sure he will not," the girl sighed. "I don't like you to-day,
+Guardie."
+
+"You, too, side with these fanatics then?"
+
+"No. I hate them--hate everything they say and do and stand for. I
+loathe the very sight of them. But you were unfair to Norman."
+
+"Unfair? How?"
+
+"You allowed him the widest liberty to do as he pleased, think as he
+pleased, associate with whom he pleased, and then all of a sudden you
+sprang on that platform and insulted him before his invited guests."
+
+"How could I dream that he would commit such an act of insane treason
+before my very eyes?"
+
+"You make no allowance for the spell of Barbara Bozenta's eloquence. I
+don't like her, but she's a wonderful little woman, and I envy her her
+power over men."
+
+"I'll end this folly to-day," was the Colonel's firm announcement.
+
+"I'm not so sure," Elena warned.
+
+"I'll show you!"
+
+She came close and laid her hand on the Colonel's arm.
+
+"Will you promise me one thing, Guardie?" she asked, tenderly.
+
+The anger faded from the strong face, and his voice sank low.
+
+"I'm afraid I've never been able to refuse you anything, child. It's
+on your account, I think, I'm most angry with Norman to-day."
+
+"You promise?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes, what is it?" he said, bending to kiss her smooth, white
+forehead.
+
+"Promise to put all anger out of your heart and talk to Norman as a
+father, not as an enemy--won't you?"
+
+"An enemy?" the Colonel slowly asked.
+
+"Yes. I thought you were going to strike him once. It would have been
+horrible. I never could have forgiven you for that. You've always been
+my hero, Guardie--I never saw you give way to anger before. I don't
+like it. You'll talk to him lovingly and tenderly as a father, won't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, dear, for your sake, I will," he answered.
+
+"Then I'll tell him to come. I asked him to wait outside until I saw
+you."
+
+She turned and quickly left the room. In a moment Norman entered and
+stood facing his father.
+
+The Colonel flushed with anger at sight of the insolence with which
+the younger man calmly surveyed him.
+
+"Well, sir," the father said, at length, "have you nothing to say to
+me after what has occurred to-day?"
+
+"I was under the impression that you had something to say to me," was
+the cool answer.
+
+By an effort of will the older man crushed back an angry retort,
+smiled, and said:
+
+"Sit down, please--I've a good deal to say to you."
+
+Norman threw himself lazily into a chair, and continued to watch his
+father with a curious expression of half-amused contempt. The Colonel
+stood in silence, evidently struggling with his emotions, and feeling
+for the right word with which to begin.
+
+Norman anticipated him.
+
+"Honestly, now, Governor, just between us, don't you think you were a
+little bit absurd to-day?"
+
+"Absurd?" his father broke in with rising accent.
+
+"Just a little childish about a piece of red, white, and blue cloth?"
+
+"Perhaps so, my boy," was the answer. "Just about as absurd as you
+were over the red rag you lifted in its place. Why did you do it?"
+
+"On the impulse of the moment, to express my feeling of contempt for
+war, and my faith in my fellow man."
+
+"Exactly. So I acted on the impulse of the moment to express my
+contempt for that crowd of fools and fanatics--my loyalty and faith in
+my country."
+
+"I can't understand how a man of your age, poise and pride, culture
+and power, could be so foolish. A sixteen-year-old school-boy on the
+Fourth of July, yes! But you----"
+
+"Norman," the Colonel interrupted, in even tones, "I'm sorry I've been
+too busy for us to get acquainted. It's time we began. It may
+interest you to know that I, too, hate war--learned to hate it long
+before your Socialist orator was born--learned it in the grim
+University of Hell--war itself. Socialism has no patent on the hope of
+universal peace. I am a member of a peace society. I have always
+believed the Civil War should have been prevented. All the Negroes on
+this earth are not worth the blood and tears of one year of that
+struggle. Whether it could have been prevented God alone knows. When
+it came I volunteered--a drummer-boy at fourteen--and marched to the
+front beneath the flag you tore down to-day."
+
+"I never thought of that, Governor--honestly, I never did!" the boy
+exclaimed.
+
+"I went in," the Colonel continued, "with my head full of silly
+rubbish about the glory of war. When I beat the call to my first
+charge, and saw the men I knew and loved shot to pieces, and heard
+their groans and cries for water, I had no more delusions. I worked on
+the field that night until twelve o'clock, helping the men who were
+wounded--enemies as well as comrades. I learned the brotherhood of man
+and the meaning of red blood in the big, tragic school of life, my
+son. Many a boy in gray, whom I had fought, died in my arms while my
+heart ached for his loved ones in some far-away Southern home.
+
+"But I knew the war had to be when once it was begun. I was fighting
+for the flag I loved--and I grew to love it better than life. To you
+it may be a bit of red, white, and blue bunting; to me it is the
+symbol of truth and right, liberty and human progress.
+
+"My people in western North Carolina were all slave-holders and loyal
+to their state, except my father. He hated slavery, loved the Union,
+and moved on westward before the war. I saw them bury him in the flag
+you tore down to-day, my boy.
+
+"Many a night I've lain on the ground looking up at the stars before
+the dawn of a day of battle and seen visions of that flag flying
+triumphant in the sky. I've seen the men who carried it shot down
+again and again, and another snatch it from their dying grasp and bear
+it on to victory.
+
+"I grew not only to love it, but to believe in it with all the
+passionate faith of my soul. I believe in its destiny, in its sublime
+mission to humanity. The older I've grown and the more I've seen of my
+fellow man, the wider I've travelled in foreign lands, the deeper has
+become my conviction that our flag symbolizes the noblest, freest
+ideal ever born in the soul of man; that we have but to live up to its
+standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and the kingdom of
+human brotherhood is already here.
+
+"After the war, I joined the regular army, not because I loved war,
+but because there seemed nothing else for me to do at the time. I was
+absolutely alone in the world. At twenty-five I was in command of a
+company on the frontier. I had not been in battle since the end of the
+Civil War, when suddenly I found myself surrounded by a horde of
+hostile Indians, and I had to turn my machine guns on them and mow
+them down. The slaughter was something terrific. As the last charge
+was made I saw a young squaw retreat in the face of a withering fire,
+walk backward facing our men, holding a bundle of something behind her
+body. She fell at last, riddled with bullets. I rode up where she lay,
+and found the bundle to be a little Indian baby boy. He was unhurt,
+and stretched out his hand to me in friendly baby greeting. I found
+the squaw quite dead, and discovered the child was not her own. She
+was simply trying to save it for the tribe. I took the child and
+educated him. But he went back to the free life of the plains. I found
+him again, and made him the gamekeeper of our mountain preserves."
+
+"You mean Saka?" Norman asked.
+
+"Yes. That night as I lay in my tent I saw war as it is--a hideous,
+savage nightmare. From that moment I hated the service, hated its
+iron laws of discipline, its cruel machinery devised for suppressing
+the individuality of its members. I saw that night a larger vision of
+life. I made up my mind to create, not to kill--to build up, not to
+tear down. I left the army and mastered mining.
+
+"Your leather-lunged agitators say that I stole my millions from the
+earnings of the men who worked for me. A more stupid lie was never
+uttered. I invented improved mining machinery. I made deserts blossom
+and gave employment to thousands of men who couldn't think for
+themselves. I did their thinking for them, and set their tasks. I have
+made millions, and have added tens of millions to the wealth of the
+West."
+
+"If labour is the creator of all wealth can one man ever earn a
+million dollars?" Norman interrupted.
+
+"Manual labour is not the creator of wealth. The brain which conceives
+is the creator of wealth. The hand which executes these plans is
+merely the automaton moved by a superior power."
+
+"Yet nothing could be accomplished without it," persisted Norman.
+
+His father lifted his hand with a gesture of command.
+
+"We'll not discuss the theory of Socialism to-day, my boy. I grant you
+have plausible arguments which skilful demagogues are using with more
+and more efficiency. I don't object to your study of this subject. I'm
+rather pleased at the serious turn your energies have taken. What I do
+object to is your continued association with the kind of people who
+made up that crowd to-day--people who make the agitation of the
+revolutionary programme of the Socialists a daily profession, people
+who are seeking to destroy modern civilization itself."
+
+"You will have to come down to earth, Governor," Norman said, "in your
+indictment of these people. The time has gone by when you can scare
+anybody with a few high-sounding phrases. If modern civilization is
+rotten, it ought to be destroyed, and who cares if it is?"
+
+"The issue between us, my boy," the Colonel continued, gravely, "is
+not an academic one. It is not open to discussion. Some of the people
+you are associating with have criminal records. If they continue their
+present wild harangues they will be shot down like dogs in the
+streets. I cannot afford to have my name even under the suspicion of
+sympathy for them, through you. Do you understand me?"
+
+"I think I do," Norman replied, holding his father's steady gaze.
+
+"You are my son and the heir of my fortune. But you must remember that
+I am the master of this establishment."
+
+"I am aware of that fact, sir," the boy replied, in cold tones.
+
+"I trust that it will not be necessary, then, for me to repeat to you
+my first positive order--that you will immediately sever your
+connection with the Socialist Club, and never again appear in public
+or private with the three people who were on that platform to-day."
+
+"It will not be necessary for you to repeat your order," the young
+athlete replied, with a curious smile and a slight tightening of the
+lips.
+
+"I thought as much."
+
+Norman laughed, and the Colonel's eyes began to blaze.
+
+"What do you mean, sir?" he sternly asked.
+
+"That it will be unnecessary for you to repeat your order, for the
+very simple reason that I'm a man. I've the right to do my own
+thinking, and I propose to do it."
+
+With a quick stride the Colonel confronted the young rebel, his breath
+quick and laboured, his face aflame with unbridled rage.
+
+"You dare thus to defy my wishes?"
+
+"If you put it that way, yes."
+
+The Colonel stepped to the door and opened it.
+
+"You will obey my order or get out of this house never to enter it
+again. Take your choice!"
+
+"You mean it?" the younger man asked, with sullen emphasis.
+
+"Exactly what I say," was the cold reply.
+
+Norman turned without a word, seized his hat, and left the room. As he
+reached the end of the corridor, and placed his hand on the front
+door, his father's voice rang out suddenly:
+
+"Norman!"
+
+He paused, and looked back without taking his hand from the knob.
+
+"You can't be such a fool!" the Colonel cried.
+
+"It looks that way, Governor!"
+
+He opened the door, softly closed it, and was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE
+
+
+Norman's break with his father created a sensation. The flag episode,
+coming on the Fourth of July and at the very hour when the guns of the
+forts were thundering their celebration of the fleet's victory at
+Santiago, presented the dramatic contrast which stirred the
+indignation of the public to unusual depths. The morning papers
+devoted from four to five columns to the story. The remarkable speech
+of Barbara Bozenta was reported in full, with a sketch of her life,
+interspersed with portraits of the Wolfs, of Norman, Elena, his
+father, the palatial home on Nob Hill, and the country estate where
+the stirring little drama had been played.
+
+The Socialist cause received a tremendous impetus. The very violence
+of the editorial assaults on their programme reacted in their favour.
+Thousands of men who did not know the meaning of the word Socialism
+began to read and think and discuss its principles. Their meetings
+were crowded, and the fame of the little brown-eyed Joan of Arc
+became so great it was no longer possible for her to pass through the
+streets without an escort.
+
+All sorts of stories about the relations of the famous millionaire and
+his son filled the air. Some were printed, others were vague rumours.
+A sensational paper published the story that they had actually come to
+blows, and had fought a duel in the big library which might have ended
+fatally for one or both but for the timely interference of Colonel
+Worth's ward, Elena Stockton.
+
+Norman became at once the hero of the Socialist's cause. His
+appearance at a meeting was the signal for pandemonium to break loose.
+He secured employment on a sensational daily paper, and his signed
+articles were made a feature.
+
+Colonel Worth was so enraged over the vulgar notoriety with which the
+incident had overwhelmed him that he denied himself to all callers,
+refused to speak to a reporter or to allow a word to be uttered in
+confirmation or denial of any stories printed or rumoured.
+
+He issued orders that Norman's name should never again be spoken in
+his house.
+
+When he made this announcement to Elena her full, red lips, quivered
+and she looked at him reproachfully.
+
+"I mean it, Elena," he said, sternly.
+
+The girl spoke in tenderness.
+
+"I don't believe you, Guardie. It isn't like you at all. I'll not
+mention his name to a servant, but I will to you."
+
+"I don't want to hear it!"
+
+"That's because you know you've done a great wrong."
+
+"I accept the responsibility. It's done, and that's the end of it."
+
+"Nothing ends until it ends right, Guardie," spoke the soft, even
+voice.
+
+"I know it's hard on you, dear," the Colonel responded, with feeling.
+"It was for your sake I made the issue. If he has turned from you for
+a loud-mouthed vulgar agitator, he's not worth a thought. Forget that
+he lives. I'm going to leave my fortune to you."
+
+"I don't want it at the price, Guardie," she replied, slipping her arm
+around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. "I couldn't be
+happy with such a fortune. What you've done hurts me more than it
+hurts Norman."
+
+"Yes, yes. I know that you love him, child, but your happiness could
+not be found among a crowd of criminals and revolutionists."
+
+"I'm not thinking of myself," was the low response as she withdrew
+from his arms, "I was thinking of you."
+
+"Of me?"
+
+"Yes. You've broken my idol. To me you were the one perfect man in the
+world. I didn't know you. I didn't know that you were hard and cold
+and cruel and selfish and proud."
+
+"I'm not, Elena."
+
+"You allowed Norman to drift into any crazy theory that might strike
+his fancy. And the moment he fails to agree with your views you turn
+like a madman and drive him into the streets."
+
+"He went of his own accord. I gave him his choice."
+
+"And I admire his pluck. It was a manly thing to do."
+
+"It was the act of a fool."
+
+"Yet, you know, Guardie, in your heart of hearts you admire him for
+it. He showed you that he was made of the same stuff as his father."
+
+The Colonel scowled, and the girl took courage.
+
+"I'm going to meet him this evening----"
+
+"I forbid it!"
+
+"You can't help it," she cried, as the tears slowly gathered. "I'm
+going to tell him you wish to see and talk with him again."
+
+"On one condition only--his absolute obedience to my wishes."
+
+"I love him all the more for defying you--love him better than I ever
+did in my life. And--and, Guardie--I don't love you any more. You are
+cruel and unjust."
+
+With a sob she turned and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A FADED PICTURE
+
+
+Elena's tears had shaken the Colonel's confidence in his position as
+nothing else could possibly have done. Since she had finished her
+course in college two years before, and he had come in daily contact
+with her strong personality, a most intimate and perfect sympathy had
+grown between them. He had never before known her intuitive judgment
+to be wrong. Her impressions of character especially he had found
+singularly accurate, her sense of right and her good taste nearly
+perfect.
+
+He retired to his room at night with a deep sense of uneasiness. His
+anger had cooled, and in its stead a feeling of depression slowly
+settled. From every nook and corner came memories of the boy he had
+driven from his door. His pictures hung on the walls and stared at him
+from every piece of furniture on which a frame could be placed. He had
+learned photography as a pastime years before the kodak was invented,
+and most of the pictures he had taken himself.
+
+One photograph in particular, which stood by the clock on the mantel,
+set in a heavy frame of hammered gold, which he had made himself from
+the product of his first mine, riveted and held his attention. His
+first impulse was to tear these pictures all down and throw them in
+the fire. He had picked this one up first, to carry out his furious
+impulse, but something held his hand and he placed it back in its old
+place with the grim exclamation:
+
+"No! It's the act of a coward. I've got to live with my memories--or
+surrender at once."
+
+Again and again his eye came back to this picture. He had taken it
+twenty-three years ago in a little bedroom in a dirty hotel of a
+desolate, God-forsaken mining town in Nevada. How well he remembered
+it! He was poor then, and had just begun the first big fight of his
+life for wealth and power. The boy was four weeks old, and he had
+insisted on taking the picture of the mother with the baby in her
+arms. He had carefully posed her, standing by the window looking down
+into the child's upturned face. It had turned out a remarkable
+likeness of both--the young mother's face wreathed in smiles, tender
+and frail and happy, with the great joy of the dawn of motherhood
+shining in her eyes.
+
+He looked at it long and tenderly. And, as a thousand memories of
+life crowded his soul, he suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"God in heaven! What does she say to-day if she knows what I've done?"
+
+His eyes blinked, and the tears blinded them.
+
+He kissed the picture and buried his face in his hands as a sob of
+anguish shook his frame.
+
+"The girl's right. My boy's my boy after all. I'm wrong!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SON AND FATHER
+
+
+When the Colonel had greeted Elena at breakfast next morning he
+quietly asked:
+
+"You met Norman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I shall be glad to see him when he comes."
+
+Elena threw her arms impulsively around his neck.
+
+"Now you're a darling! Now you're big and strong and good and great
+again--and I love you."
+
+The Colonel stroked her hair slowly, and asked with a smile:
+
+"What time is he coming?"
+
+"He's not coming." Elena laughed.
+
+"Not coming?" the colonel repeated blankly.
+
+"No. You're going to see him."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"You see, Guardie, he is a chip off the old block."
+
+"It begins to look like he's the whole block," the Colonel remarked,
+dryly.
+
+"Can you blame him after the way you acted?"
+
+"I can't say I do, much. I like a boy of spirit----"
+
+"And individuality--that's your own pet idea Guardie."
+
+The Colonel was silent a moment.
+
+"Yes. I like his grit. Where will I find him?"
+
+"At his desk at work in the newspaper office."
+
+"I'll call him up and make an appointment."
+
+The Colonel seized the telephone, called the newspaper office, and
+asked for Norman. He waited for several minutes before any one reached
+the 'phone. He scarcely recognized the short, sharp business accent of
+Norman's voice:
+
+"Well, well, what is it?"
+
+The Colonel cleared his throat.
+
+"Here! Here! Get a move on you--what's the matter--I'm in a hurry!"
+
+"This is your father, Norman----"
+
+"Get off the wire or quit your kiddin'--what do you want?"
+
+His father laughed.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Governor, honestly I didn't recognize your voice
+until you laughed. I'm awfully glad to hear it again. What can I do
+for you?"
+
+"Well, I must say I like your impudence. What can _you_ do for me? I
+want to see you right away. Shall I call at your office?"
+
+A pause ensued, followed by audible smiles at both ends of the wire.
+
+"Of course not, sir. It seems a long time since I left home but I've
+not forgotten the way. I'll come over as soon as I can leave my desk."
+
+Two hours later he entered the library with a boyish laugh and grasped
+his father's hand.
+
+The Colonel pressed it with deep tenderness.
+
+"You must forgive me, boy. I wasn't fair to you the other day."
+
+Norman tried to laugh, and stammered awkwardly:
+
+"Well, when I hear a man of your age and experience say a thing like
+that, Governor, I begin to fear I'm not quite as big as I thought I
+was."
+
+"Then we're both in the right mind now, to begin all over again, are
+we not?"
+
+"It's with you, sir," was the quick reply.
+
+"Suppose I can convince you that you have entered on a mistaken
+mission--that your programme is foolish, impossible, and dangerous?"
+
+"Do it, and I'll join you in trying to put an end to Socialism."
+
+"Before I begin, let me ask you a very personal question."
+
+"As many as you like, Governor," was the frank response.
+
+"Are you mixed up in any way personally with the young woman who spoke
+here that day?"
+
+"We're comrades in the cause of humanity--that's all."
+
+"You're sure that it is not her personal influence over you that has
+made you a Socialist?"
+
+"Only in so far as she has made me think and feel."
+
+"You have not made love to her?"
+
+"Certainly not. I'm engaged to Elena."
+
+"Then it ought to be easy for us to understand each other. Come down
+out of the clouds of theory now, and tell me exactly how you are going
+to save humanity, and let's see if we can't work together for the same
+end. A great purpose like yours ought not to separate father and
+son--you can't defend such platitudes as this, for example, which one
+of your orators got off last night--listen!"
+
+The Colonel took the morning paper from the table and read:
+
+"Remember in this supreme hour that capitalism has you and your loved
+ones by the throats, is stealing your substance, draining your veins,
+and reducing you inch by inch to the potter's field. Every sweating
+den cries out to you as from the depths of hell to gird up your loins
+and march forth in one solid phalanx to strike the blow that shall
+sound the knell of capitalistic despotism, and set the star of hope in
+the skies of the despairing and dying thousands of your class who are
+at the mercy of the vampires of soulless wealth. How long shall
+capitalism be allowed to work its devastation, spread its blighting
+curse, destroy manhood, debauch womanhood, and grind the flesh and
+blood and bone of childhood into food for Mammon?"
+
+The Colonel paused.
+
+"Such appeals to passion can only end in riot, bloodshed, and prison
+bars. You don't write such rot as that yourself, and yet the men you
+are following preach it."
+
+"I'm not following just now, Governor--I'm trying to direct this
+tremendous impulse, this enthusiasm for humanity, called Socialism,
+into a practical experiment that will demonstrate the truths of their
+faith, and from this white city of a glorified human life send out our
+missionaries to conquer the world. Give me ten thousand earnest men
+and women on the island of Ventura, isolated from contact with the
+corruption of the outside, and I'll show you a miracle more wonderful
+than if they had risen from the dead."
+
+"And what are the foundations on which you propose to build this
+heaven on earth?"
+
+"Squarely on these principles: From every man according to his
+ability; to every man according to his needs; and to every child born
+the right to laugh and play and grow to a strong manhood and
+womanhood. We are not civilized so long as there is one child sobbing
+to be freed from the tomb of the modern workshop, so long as there is
+one man willing to work and not able to find it, so long as there is
+one soul striving upward who is crushed to earth, so long as one man
+lives in idleness and luxury while his neighbour starves, so long as
+there's one spot of this earth on which a man lives by tearing the
+bread from the lips of another."
+
+"Hasn't your imagination been caught by beautiful phrases, my boy?"
+asked the father. "In your new State of Ventura you will give to each
+man according to his needs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And who will decide how much each one needs--the man who feels the
+need or the state?"
+
+"The state, in the last resort."
+
+"Exactly. And who will determine how large the service required of
+each man? Who will decide the question of ability?"
+
+"The state, of course."
+
+"Are you not cutting out a pretty big job for the state, remembering
+that the state is nothing more or less than a lot of ordinary
+second-rate politicians named Tom, Dick, and Harry, who individually
+or collectively haven't as much sense as you or I?"
+
+"In the new world it will be different."
+
+"Then you are going to import a new breed of men and women?"
+
+"No, we will simply give the God in man a chance to be."
+
+"But how about the beast that's in man--the elemental instinct to
+fight and kill--to take the woman he desires by the force of his hands
+and muscle?"
+
+"When man is free and strong and happy he can have no motive to kill
+or play the beast."
+
+"That remains to be seen, my boy! Your assertion does not change the
+nature of man. Another problem in your scheme I can't solve is wages."
+
+"We will abolish wage slavery."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; but man must work--all men must work in your new
+state?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And the man who refuses to work?"
+
+"Will be made to work according to his ability."
+
+"Just so. We live under the wage system now--the system of free
+contract by which labourer and employer agree. Under your system
+contract would be abolished, and men would do what they are _told_ to
+do--a system of _command_ instead of _contract_--is it not so?"
+
+"I should say just the opposite. Men are forced to work now at tasks
+they loathe and for pay that is insufficient. Under our state they
+would be free to choose the work for which they are fitted."
+
+"And suppose they all choose one job?"
+
+"The state would assign their work in the last resort."
+
+"There you are, once more, bowing down to the same Tom, Dick, and
+Harry. And you cannot see that Socialism would impose on man the most
+colossal system of slavery, the most merciless because the most
+impersonal, the world ever saw?"
+
+"No, I cannot. Give me a chance on one spot of earth free from the
+corruption of your present system, and I'll show you that man is a
+child of God, that deep in every human soul is planted the sense of
+brotherhood, justice, and human fellowship."
+
+"And you will abolish private property?"
+
+"Except what each man earns or makes for himself."
+
+The Colonel laughed aloud.
+
+"Can he earn a wife, or make one for himself?"
+
+"No; nor own one as a slave."
+
+"You can never abolish private property, my boy, so long as any man
+has the right to say, 'This woman is mine.' The home is the basis of
+modern civilization. If you destroy it the home will not survive. If
+the home survives it will kill Socialism. The two things can't mix."
+
+Norman laughed.
+
+"And you think capitalism is building ideal homes with its drudgery
+that kills woman--its poverty that starves the man and drives the girl
+to a life of shame?"
+
+"Our conditions are not ideal, my son. But they are growing better
+with each generation. Because all homes are not ideal, you propose to
+abolish the institution. There are ten million homes in America.
+Perhaps a million of them are unhappy. Can we mend matters by
+destroying them all?"
+
+"Socialism proposes to build the highest ideal of home ever seen on
+earth, founded on love--and only love."
+
+The Colonel smiled sadly.
+
+"I see I'm too late. You've got it bad. Socialism is a contagious
+disease, imported from the old world--a brain disease, the result of
+centuries of wrong and oppression. Its reasons for existence in this
+country are purely imaginary. If it were possible for you to build the
+new State of Ventura of which you dream----"
+
+"Dream! We are going to do it, I tell you, Governor! We have a hundred
+thousand dollars already pledged. We hold to-morrow night a great
+mass-meeting at which five thousand Socialists will be present. Four
+hundred thousand dollars more will buy the island and give a capital
+of three hundred thousand with which to begin."
+
+"Then I can't persuade you to give up this madness?" the Colonel
+asked, tenderly.
+
+"It's my life," Norman answered firmly.
+
+The father slipped his arm around the tall, strong figure.
+
+"All right! Remember now, from this moment on, one thing is settled
+for good and all. My boy's my boy, right or wrong, good or bad, wise
+or foolish----"
+
+The Colonel's voice broke, and his grip tightened.
+
+Norman looked out of the window, blinked his eyes, and said in low
+tones:
+
+"I understand, sir!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE WAY OF A WOMAN
+
+
+As Elena entered the library the two men fell suddenly apart as though
+ashamed of the weakness of affection before a woman.
+
+The girl pretended not to have seen, but her face was radiant.
+
+The Colonel paused as he turned to leave the room:
+
+"You will keep up your newspaper grind, my boy?" he asked.
+
+"No. I'll jump at the chance to do the big thing. I'll give my whole
+time to it."
+
+"Well, I suppose you're right. The way to do a thing is to do it."
+
+As the father passed Elena he softly whispered:
+
+"Your face shines like an angel's!"
+
+"I am very happy," was the low answer.
+
+Norman hastened to her side, and seized both her hands.
+
+"I owe this to you, my stately queen."
+
+"He would have come to the same conclusion himself. I only hastened it
+a little by a suggestion," she replied.
+
+"I have my own idea about the way you expressed it," he said with a
+jolly laugh. "Look here, Elena, I hope you don't believe that I have
+been disloyal to you in my association with Barbara Bozenta?"
+
+The girl straightened her superb figure, and broke into a laugh of
+mingled humour and irony.
+
+"Well, I've a confession to make, Norman. I've been disloyal to you."
+
+"You--disloyal--to me!" he gasped.
+
+"Yes. I've felt of late as though you were a big, sick baby on my
+hands, and I've grown tired of the charge."
+
+"Well, upon my soul!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Our engagement is at an end."
+
+"Elena!"
+
+"I'll keep your beautiful ring"--she touched it affectionately--"for
+the memories that will always bind us as brother and sister. Besides,
+it will deceive your father for a while. He has enough to worry him
+just now."
+
+Before Norman could pull himself together, or utter a protest, she had
+turned and left him gasping with astonishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A ROYAL GIFT
+
+
+Norman resumed his place in his father's home and began a systematic,
+persistent, and enthusiastic campaign to raise the funds to purchase
+the island of Ventura and establish the ideal Commonwealth of Man.
+
+On the day of the big mass-meeting of Socialists, who had gathered
+from every state of the Golden West, Elena found her guardian seated
+alone on the broad veranda overlooking the Bay of San Francisco. A
+look of deep trouble clouded his strong face.
+
+"You are worried?" she said, seating herself by his side.
+
+"Yes, dearie," was the moody answer.
+
+"Over Norman's meeting?"
+
+"Yes. The boy's set his heart on this big foolish enterprise. His
+failure is a certainty. I don't know what may follow."
+
+"You are sure he can't raise the money?"
+
+"Absolutely. The disappointment will be a stunning blow to his pride."
+
+"You know that if he did succeed in raising the money, and
+establishing his brotherhood of man, the scheme would end in failure?"
+
+"As clearly as I know I am living."
+
+"Would you be sorry if the dream should be realized?"
+
+"On the other hand, I'd shout for joy to find the human race capable
+of such a miracle."
+
+Elena gently touched his hand. "Then, Guardie, there's but one thing
+to do," she said, with a deep, spiritual look in her blue eyes.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Give Norman a round million dollars to make the experiment."
+
+The Colonel looked at her in amazement, and suddenly sprang to his
+feet, pacing the floor with feverish steps. He stopped at last before
+the girl and studied her.
+
+"Don't let Norman know who gave the money," she continued. "It will be
+a big, noble, beautiful thing to do--and--it will save him."
+
+"What a wonderful woman you are, Elena!"
+
+He paused and looked at her steadily. "I'm going to do it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Norman returned at midnight from the mass-meeting his face was
+flushed and his eyes sparkled.
+
+"It's done, Governor! It's done!" he fairly shouted.
+
+"You mean the half million was subscribed?" the Colonel asked.
+
+"Yes, and more!" he went on, excitedly. "We have succeeded beyond my
+wildest hopes. We had subscriptions for a hundred thousand. Fifty
+thousand more was subscribed at the meeting by the delegates, and just
+as we were about to adjourn Judge Clark, a famous lawyer, rose and
+announced the gift of a round million to the cause by a group of
+friends whose names he refused to make known."
+
+"And what happened?" Elena asked.
+
+"It's hard to tell exactly. The first thing I did was to jump over
+three rows of seats, grab the lawyer, and yell like a maniac. We
+carried him around the room, and shouted and screamed until we were
+hoarse. The scene was indescribable. Strong men fell into each other's
+arms and cried like children."
+
+"And you could get no hint of the identity of the men who gave the
+money?" Elena inquired.
+
+"Not the slightest. The deed of gift was made to me through the lawyer
+as trustee. I don't like one or two conditions, exactly, but it was no
+time to haggle over details."
+
+"What were the conditions?" Elena interrupted, with a glance at the
+Colonel.
+
+"That the title to the island of Ventura should be vested in me
+personally for two years. And five hundred thousand dollars should
+remain a fund in my hands as trustee to administer its income for the
+same period. At the end of one year, or of two, I may transfer the
+whole to the Brotherhood, or reconvey it to the original donors. I
+think it gives too much power into one man's hands--but I'll hold it a
+sacred trust."
+
+The young enthusiast's face glowed with thrilling purpose, and his
+eyes were shining with unshed tears, as he laid his hand on his
+father's shoulder and exclaimed:
+
+"Ah! Governor, you didn't have faith enough in your fellow man! You
+said it couldn't be done!"
+
+"I congratulate you, my son," the Colonel gravely said, "and I wish
+for you the noblest success."
+
+"There's no such word as fail." Norman cried. "No sleep for me
+to-night! I return to the Socialist Club for a celebration. I just
+came to tell you personally of our triumph. The deed is done, and the
+Brotherhood of Man is a thrilling fact!"
+
+With swift, joyous stride he threw himself into the hall and bounded
+down the steps.
+
+"Suppose after all, Guardie, he should succeed?" Elena exclaimed.
+
+"They'll start with many things in their favour," the Colonel
+responded. "The island of Ventura is said to be the most fertile and
+beautiful spot of earth in the West. No adverse influences can reach
+them from without. Five thousand men and women, inspired by a sublime
+faith in themselves, may under such conditions surprise us. If
+Socialism is possible on an island of a hundred thousand acres, it's
+possible on a hundred thousand square miles, and its faith will
+conquer the world. We'll give them two years before we visit them, and
+see what happens."
+
+"Suppose they do succeed!" Elena repeated, musingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE BURNING OF THE BRIDGES
+
+
+The success which attended the launching of the new Brotherhood of Man
+with its million-dollar endowment fund was phenomenal.
+
+The announcement that the books were ready for the enrollment of the
+pioneer group of two thousand who should locate the enterprise on the
+island of Ventura brought twenty-five thousand applicants.
+
+The first shock Norman's faith in man received was to collide with the
+army of cranks who came in troops to join. Every creed of Christendom,
+every cult of the heathen world, every ism of all the philosophies of
+the past and the present came in droves. They got into arguments with
+one another in the waiting-rooms of the Socialist headquarters, and
+sometimes came to blows. Each conceived the hour for establishing his
+own particular patent for saving the human race had come. It was an
+appalling revelation to Norman to find how many of these schemes were
+at work in the brains of people who were evidently incapable of taking
+care of themselves.
+
+The first week he attempted to hear each one with courtesy and
+sympathy. But after wasting six days in idiotic discussions of
+preposterous schemes he was compelled to call on the Wolfs for advice.
+
+Both Wolf and his wife had begun to call Norman "Chief" from the
+moment of their first burst of enthusiasm over the gift of the
+million. At times the young dreamer looked at the massive face of the
+older man with a touch of suspicion at this sudden acceptance of his
+premiership. And yet both Wolf and Catherine (she insisted that he
+call her Catherine) seemed so utterly sincere in their admiration, so
+enthusiastic in their faith in his ability, they always disarmed
+suspicion. Catherine's repeated explanation of this faith when Norman
+halted or hesitated was always flattering to his vanity, and yet
+perfectly reasonable.
+
+"My boy, we take off our hats to you! A man can't do the impossible
+unless he tries. We didn't try. You did. The trouble with Herman, and
+with every man of forty, is that he loses faith in himself. We get
+careful and conservative. We lack the dash and fire and daring of
+youth. I envy you. I salute you as the inspired leader of our
+Cause--you've done the impossible! And you've just begun. We can only
+hope to help you with our larger experience."
+
+At the end of a week of futile and exhausting palaver with this army
+of cranks who infest the West, Wolf, carefully watching his
+opportunity, turned to Norman and said:
+
+"I've been waiting for you to see things a little more clearly before
+I say something to you--I think it's time."
+
+"What is it?" the young leader asked.
+
+Wolf hesitated a moment as if feeling his way.
+
+"Something he should have said sooner," exclaimed Catherine.
+
+"There's but one way, comrade. Kick these fools into the street!"
+
+"But don't we begin to weaken the moment we do a thing like that? We
+accept the brotherhood of man----"
+
+"Of man, yes," the old leader broke in, "but these are not men--they
+are what might have been had they lived in a sane world. They are the
+results of the nightmare we call civilization. The kindest thing you
+can do for a crank is to kill him. You are trying to do what God
+Almighty never undertook--to make something out of nothing. You know,
+when he made Adam he had a ball of mud to start with."
+
+"I'm afraid you're right," Norman agreed.
+
+"When the Brotherhood is established with picked men," Catherine
+added, "we can take in new members with less care. Now it is of the
+utmost importance that we select the pioneer group of the best blood
+in the Socialist ranks--trained men and women who believe with
+passionate faith what you and I believe."
+
+"Then do it," Norman said, with emphasis. "I put you and Wolf in
+charge of this first roll. I've more important work to do in
+organizing the business details of the enterprise."
+
+A look of joy flashed from Wolf's gray eyes into the woman's as he
+calmly but quickly replied:
+
+"I'll do the best I can."
+
+"You ought to know by name every true Socialist on the Coast," Norman
+added.
+
+"I do, comrade, and I'll guarantee the pioneer group."
+
+"Let all applicants for membership hereafter pass your scrutiny," were
+his final orders.
+
+He rose from his desk with a sigh of relief as Barbara entered the
+room, her cheeks flushed with joy, her eyes sparkling with excitement
+from the ovation she had just received from the crowd which packed the
+corridor.
+
+His first impulse was to ask her to accompany him to the country, rest
+and play for a day. His heart beat more quickly at the thought, but as
+the question trembled on his lips, his eyes rested on Wolf's shaggy
+head bending over the piles of papers on his desk, and a grim fear
+shadowed his imagination. Elena's laughter suddenly echoed through his
+memory. He recalled his father's questions. A frown slowly settled on
+his brow, and a firm resolution took shape in his mind.
+
+"No woman's spell to blind your senses! Clear thinking, my boy! You're
+on trial before the man who gave you life. You're on trial before the
+men whose faith gave you a million dollars to put you to the test.
+Success first, and then, perhaps, the joy of living!"
+
+Barbara felt the chill of a sudden barrier between them, and looked at
+him with a little touch of wounded pride.
+
+He merely nodded pleasantly and hurried from the room.
+
+He gave his whole energies at once to the larger business of the
+enterprise. The title to the property was searched with the utmost
+thoroughness and found to be perfect. Enormous sums of money had been
+spent on the island by the bankrupt wild-cat real-estate company which
+had bought it in for improvement and exploitation. They had built a
+magnificent hotel with accommodations for one thousand five hundred
+guests, had planted vineyards, established a winery planted vast
+orchards of plums, apricots, olives, peaches, and oranges, built flour
+mills, an ice factory, and had started a number of mining and
+manufacturing enterprises. When the bubble burst the company was
+bankrupt and the lawyers got the rest. A careful inventory showed to
+Norman that they had acquired a property of enormous value. The
+improvements alone had cost $1,250,000, and they were worth twice that
+sum now to the colony.
+
+He chartered a corporate society, known as "The Brotherhood of Man,"
+for the purpose of legalizing the new social State of Ventura when it
+had passed the experimental stage and he could surrender to it the
+title and money held in trust under the deed of gift. Two hundred
+thousand dollars was paid in cash for the island, and the remaining
+capital held for work. A steamer was purchased to serve the colony by
+plying between the island, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco.
+
+The Wolfs advised Norman that no mail service be asked or permitted.
+
+"The reasons are many, comrade," the old leader urged. "The first
+condition of success in this work is the complete isolation of the
+colony from outside influences. If modern civilization is hell, you
+can't build a heaven with daily communication between the two
+places."
+
+"Every man and woman who enters," Catherine added, "must sign a solemn
+contract to remain five years, enlist as soldier, and communicate with
+the outside world only by permission of the authority of the
+Brotherhood."
+
+"I see," laughed Norman. "I must have the Czar's power to examine
+suspected mail if treason or rebellion threatens."
+
+"Exactly," cried Wolf.
+
+"A large power to put in one man's hands!" Norman protested.
+
+"There's not a man or woman going to that island who wouldn't trust
+you with life, to say nothing of a mail pouch," Catherine declared,
+with a look of genuine admiration.
+
+"You think such drastic measures to prevent communication with the
+outside world will be needed?" Norman argued.
+
+"Let us hope not," Wolf quickly replied. "But it's better to be on the
+safe side. The history of every experiment made in Socialism by the
+heroes and pioneers of the cause in the past shows that failure came
+in every case from just this source. We will start under the most
+favourable conditions ever tried. Our island will be a little world
+within itself. Cut every line of possible communication with modern
+competitive society, and we can prove the brotherhood of man a living
+fact. Open our experiment to the lies and slanders of our enemies from
+without, and they can destroy us before the work is fairly begun. Our
+colony would be overrun with hostile reporters from the capitalist
+press, for example----"
+
+"You're right," exclaimed Norman.
+
+"Let every volunteer enlist in the service of humanity for five
+years," repeated Catherine, "agreeing to hold no communication with
+the world. Make that agreement one impossible for them to break, and
+our success is as sure as that man is made in the image of God. All we
+ask is a chance to prove it without interference."
+
+"I agree with you," cried Norman, at last. "Five years' service, with
+every bridge burned behind us--we'll fight it out on that line."
+
+A look of triumph came from beneath Wolf's shaggy brows as his eyes
+rested again on the smiling madonna-like face of the woman by his
+side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE NEW WORLD
+
+
+On a beautiful Sunday morning in May, 1899, the steamship _Comrade_
+slowly swept through the Golden Gate with two thousand enthusiastic
+Socialists crowding her decks, shouting, cheering, laughing, crying,
+singing their joy and faith in the new world of human brotherhood for
+which they had set sail.
+
+The flag of the republic flew from her stern because the law of the
+port of entry required it. But from her huge prow rose a slender steel
+staff, above the tips of her funnels and masts, on which flew the
+blood-red ensign of Socialism, while from every masthead huge red
+steamers fluttered in the sky.
+
+At noon on the following day the eager eyes of the pioneers sighted
+the island of Ventura. At first a tiny white and blue spot on the
+horizon, and then slowly out of the sea rose its majestic outlines,
+until at last the ship drew in so close to the towering mountains of
+its shore line the colonists could almost touch the stone walls with
+their hands.
+
+The captain was evidently at home in the sparkling blue waters which
+rolled lazily against the perpendicular cliffs.
+
+Norman had climbed over the piles of freight, cordage, and anchors,
+and taken his stand beside the flagstaff on the ship's prow, his soul
+enraptured with the thrilling adventure on which he had embarked.
+
+He had made two trips to the island before, but never had he seen it
+rise from the sea in such matchless glory as to-day.
+
+Far up in the sky loomed the mountain peaks still covered with snow,
+while the rich hills and valleys to the southward rolled laughingly in
+their robes of green.
+
+Five miles down the coast the ship turned her nose inshore, and slowly
+ploughed her way through a narrow channel which opened between two
+hills. She quickly cleared the channel and rounded another headland,
+when a shout rang from her decks. Straight before them, across a
+beautiful landlocked bay, which formed a perfect harbour, rose the
+huge hotel, the home of the Brotherhood. The central building was
+crowned by two tall towers, and the long wings which stretched toward
+the sea pierced the skyline with a dozen minarets of quaint Moorish
+pattern. From the flagpole on the lawn, from each graceful tower and
+each shining sun-kissed minaret, flew the scarlet ensign of Socialism.
+
+When the ship swept in alongside the pier the building loomed from its
+hilltop higher apparently than the mountain range behind it.
+
+Barbara clapped her hands as she ran to Norman's side.
+
+"Look! Look at those flags! Aren't they glorious? Nobody will haul
+them down here, will they?"
+
+Norman lifted his eyes and looked in silence for a moment. A stiff
+breeze was blowing from the southeast, and the two huge banners of
+scarlet stood straight from their staffs on the towers and seemed to
+fill the sky with quivering flame.
+
+"Glorious!" he said, at last. "They speak the end of strife, the dawn
+of love and human brotherhood!"
+
+The Wolfs had preceded them to the colony with a select band of
+enthusiasts, stored the first supplies, and set the place in order to
+receive as welcome guests the first shipload of pioneers.
+
+When the throng of joyous, excited comrades had landed, they formed in
+line and marched up from the pier. The wide, white, smooth road led
+through a wilderness of flowers which had grown in wild profusion
+since they had been abandoned two years before. The Wolfs led the
+procession, with Barbara and Norman by their side.
+
+When they reached the big circle of scarlet geraniums in the centre of
+the floral court between the two wings of the great building they
+stopped, and Catherine began in her clear, thrilling soprano voice the
+Marseillaise hymn. The pioneers crowded around her tall, commanding
+figure and sang with inspired emotion. Every heart beat with high
+resolve. The heaven of which they had dreamed was no longer a dream.
+They were walking its white, shining streets. Their souls were crying
+for joy in its dazzling court of honour. The old world, with its sin
+and shame, its crime and misery, its hunger and cold, its greed and
+lust, its cruelty and insanity, had passed away, and lo! all things
+were new. The very air was charged with faith and hope and love. A
+wave of religious ecstasy swept the crowd. They called each by their
+first names. Strong men embraced, crying "Comrade!" through their
+tears. The older ones had made allowances for the glowing accounts of
+the island. They expected some disillusioning at first. Yet their
+wildest expectations were far surpassed. Such beauty, such grandeur,
+such wealth of nature, such magnificence of equipment, were too good
+to be true, and yet they were facts.
+
+The island of Ventura was enchanted. The impression it gave each heart
+of the certainty of success was the biggest asset of real wealth with
+which the colony began its history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FOR THE CAUSE
+
+
+During the first enchanted days every man woman and child entered the
+strange new system with a determination to see only its beauty, its
+truth, its sure success. Service was the order of the day. Men who had
+never before worked with their hands asked the privilege of the
+hardest tasks.
+
+The whole colony swarmed to unload the ship. They refused to allow the
+crew to touch a piece of freight or handle a piece of baggage.
+
+The only difficulty Norman found was to systematize their work under
+the captain's direction.
+
+The day following they "swarmed" again to clear the lawn of weeds and
+restore the labyrinth of walks and beds of flowers in the great court.
+Merchants exchanged the yardstick for the rake and hoe. Preachers laid
+aside their sermons to wield a spade, and returned from their tasks in
+the evening with song and laughter.
+
+Among the women the spirit of sacrifice and enthusiastic service was
+even higher. Many who loved flowers begged the privilege of using the
+pruning-knife and some even seized a hoe and worked with unwearied
+zeal.
+
+Others, who had never seen the inside of their own kitchens, rolled up
+their sleeves, donned white aprons, entered the great cooking-room of
+the hotel, and made pots and kettles fly. Beautiful girls who had
+spent lives of comparative ease took turns in waiting on the tables,
+and all worked with a spirit of joy which robbed labour of its
+weariness.
+
+By common consent Norman had assumed the general directorship of the
+colony, and by common consent the Wolfs were accepted as his chief
+advisers. This arrangement was formally voted on and unanimously
+approved at the first night's assembly of the Brotherhood in the big
+dining-hall of the building, which they now christened the "Mission
+House of the Brotherhood of Man."
+
+On accepting the position of general manager of the Brotherhood the
+young leader rose and faced the people with deep emotion.
+
+"Comrades," he began, in trembling tones, "I thank you for the
+confidence you have shown in me. I shall strive to prove myself worthy
+of your faith, and I hope within a year that we shall make such
+progress in the development of our new social system that I shall be
+able to convey then the full title to this glorious island to your
+permanent organization."
+
+A round of applause greeted this announcement.
+
+"I'm sure our preliminary work will be completed within a single year.
+I am not a man of many words, but I hope to prove myself a man of
+deeds. I shall consult you in every important step to be taken, and
+for this purpose the General Assembly of the Brotherhood will be held
+in this hall every Friday evening. On Monday evening a ball will be
+given for the pleasure of our young people, and every Wednesday
+evening a social reception. Let us make these three evenings the
+source of inspiration for our daily tasks."
+
+Norman closed his brief speech in a burst of genuine enthusiasm.
+Scores of young men and women crowded to the platform and grasped his
+hand.
+
+When the last echoes of the evening's celebration had died away,
+Catherine led Barbara into her room.
+
+Wolf sat quietly smoking by the window.
+
+"What on earth's the matter?" the girl asked. "You drag me to your
+room half dressed, in the dead of night, and speak in whispers. I
+thought we'd done with the dark and scheming ways of the world."
+
+"And so we have, my child," laughed Wolf. His cold gray eyes lighted
+with sudden warmth as they rested on Barbara's dainty little figure.
+Its exquisite lines could be plainly seen through the silk kimono as
+she walked with languid grace and threw the mass of dishevelled curls
+back from her shoulders.
+
+"Sit down, dear," Catherine said, with a smile. "We have something of
+the utmost importance to say to you."
+
+"I am to go abroad as an ambassador to some foreign court. Don't say
+that--I like it here."
+
+"No. We are going to propose that you establish a court here," Wolf
+interrupted.
+
+"Establish a court!" Barbara exclaimed. "How romantic!"
+
+"In short, my child, it's absolutely necessary for you to become, not
+merely the power behind the throne with our young Comrade Chief, you
+must assume the throne itself."
+
+"But how?" the girl asked.
+
+"As if you didn't know!"
+
+"I honestly don't. My eloquence is of little use here. We are all
+persuaded. Besides, our Comrade Chief has acquired the habit of
+thinking for himself."
+
+"Just so," observed Wolf. "And we want you to do his thinking for
+him."
+
+"What do you mean, Catherine?" Barbara asked, her brow suddenly
+clouding, as she looked straight into her foster-mother's eyes.
+
+"That you must win young Worth."
+
+"Deliberately set out to make him love me?" the girl exclaimed with
+scorn. "I'll do nothing of the kind."
+
+"You must, my dear," Wolf pleaded earnestly. "It's all for the Cause.
+It's in this boy's power to make or wreck this great enterprise. We
+have a kingdom here whose wealth and power may become the wonder of
+the world. It may be wrecked by the whim of one man. A thousand
+difficulties must be faced before we can have smooth sailing. The one
+thing above all to be done is to secure from young Worth the deed to
+this island. He must be convinced of the success of the scheme, and he
+must be convinced before he faces some of the most serious problems
+that are sure to arise--problems which will demand a strong arm and a
+cool, clear head to handle. The boy means well, but he can never meet
+these issues. Win his love and everything will be easy. Slowly and
+patiently I will perfect the organization we must have to succeed."
+
+"I fail to see the necessity of such a shameless act on my part. No
+man here is so enthusiastic as our young leader. He is sure to make
+the deed. You heard his promise to-night."
+
+"He intends to do it, I grant," Catherine argued. "But what Herman and
+I clearly see is that he will sooner or later be overwhelmed with
+difficulties. He may quit in disgust at the very moment when a strong
+policy could save the Cause. We want to be sure. He is a new convert.
+His enthusiasm is now at white heat. We are afraid of what may happen
+when it cools."
+
+"With your great brown eyes looking into his," Wolf broke in, "and
+your little hand in his, it can't cool!"
+
+"I don't think he cares for me in that way at all," the girl
+protested. "He has held himself quite aloof from me of late."
+
+"All the more reason why your woman's pride should be piqued to make
+the conquest," urged Wolf.
+
+"I have no such vulgar ambitions," was the short answer.
+
+"Of course you haven't, child," Wolf said in serious tones. "We
+understand that. But we ask this of you as a brave little soldier of
+the Cause. It's the one big, brave thing you can do."
+
+"I might have to let him kiss me," she said, with a frown.
+
+"Well, he's a handsome youngster--it wouldn't poison you," laughed
+Catherine.
+
+"I hate it! I think I hate every man on earth sometimes," she
+answered.
+
+Wolf laughed and looked at her with quiet intensity.
+
+"Come, dear, you can do this for the Cause we both love," Catherine
+urged.
+
+"I might have to let him put his arm around me----."
+
+Catherine seized her hand, looked at her steadily for a moment, and
+slowly said:
+
+"The woman who would not give both her body and her soul for the Cause
+of Humanity, if called on to make the sacrifice, is not worthy to live
+in the big world of which we've dreamed."
+
+Barbara's face flushed and her eyes sparkled.
+
+"You believe this?" she asked, sternly.
+
+"With all my soul," was the fierce answer.
+
+Barbara hesitated a moment, and firmly said:
+
+"Then I'll do it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BARBARA CHOOSES A PROFESSION
+
+
+When Norman came down to the office next morning, the clerk handed him
+a note. A glance at the smooth, perfect handwriting told him at once
+it was from Barbara. He opened it with a smile of pleasant surprise
+and read with increasing astonishment:
+
+        "You are to take breakfast with me this morning in
+        the rose bower of the floral court.
+
+          "By order of
+                    "BARBARA BOZENTA,
+                  "_Secretary to the General Manager_."
+
+Norman found her alone, seated beside a little table in the bower, her
+face wreathed in mischievous smiles.
+
+She rose and extended her hand:
+
+"Permit me to introduce you to your new secretary."
+
+"I assure you my delight is only equalled by my surprise," he
+answered, with boyish banter.
+
+"Yes, I thought it best to take you by surprise. Now that it's all
+settled, I trust we will get on well." She looked at him with demure
+and charming impudence.
+
+Norman burst into laughter.
+
+"I'm sure we will!" he answered. "All I require is industry, patience,
+wisdom, tact, knowledge, sacrifice, absolute obedience, and a joyous
+desire to assume full responsibility for my mistakes!"
+
+"All of which will come to me," she responded, with mock gravity.
+"Permit me!"
+
+She led him to the chair she had placed beside the table, and poured a
+cup of coffee for him.
+
+Norman watched her with keen enjoyment. "I've never seen you in this
+mood before," he said, quietly.
+
+"You like it?"
+
+"Beyond words! I'm afraid I'll wake up directly and find I'm dreaming.
+I'm sure now, when I look into your eyes, sparkling with fun, that you
+are a flower nymph, and that your home has always been a rose bower on
+the sunny slope of a southern hillside."
+
+"Perhaps I'm just teasing you. Perhaps I won't work," she said,
+glancing at him from the corners of her brown eyes.
+
+"Then you'll find it a serious joke," he answered, firmly.
+"Resignations are not in order. You have chosen your profession. As
+general manager I have given my approval. That settles it, doesn't
+it?"
+
+"If you are pleased, yes," she answered, gravely.
+
+"I am more than pleased. I've been afraid to ask you to do this work
+for me--though I've had it in mind."
+
+"Why afraid?"
+
+"I don't know. I somehow got the impression lately that you didn't
+like me personally."
+
+"How could you think such a thing!" she protested.
+
+"Just a vague impression--caught, perhaps, from little gestures you
+sometimes made, little frowns that sometimes came to your brow, little
+flashes of hostility from your eyes."
+
+"I didn't mean it, comrade!" she said, demurely, while her eyes danced
+and her mouth twitched playfully.
+
+"And you've fully weighed the cost?"
+
+"Fully."
+
+"You know that you will be forced to spend most of your time in my
+office?"
+
+"I'll try to endure it," she laughed.
+
+"Without a frown or a hostile look?"
+
+"Unless you provoke it."
+
+Norman ate in silence for five minutes, listening to Barbara's girlish
+chatter while she bubbled over with the spirit of pure joy. Her whole
+being radiated fun and laughter as the sun pours forth heat and light.
+He wondered where this magic secret of joyous womanhood had been
+hidden in the past.
+
+"What a revelation you've been to me this morning," he said, musingly,
+as he rose from the table.
+
+"How?" she asked.
+
+"I thought you were all seriousness and tragedy, eloquence and
+pathos."
+
+"We're in paradise now. The shadows have lifted."
+
+"And I find you a little ray of dancing sunlight."
+
+"So every girl would be if she had the chance."
+
+"And we're going to give them the chance here, little comrade!" he
+cried, with enthusiasm.
+
+"I'll help you!" she earnestly responded, extending her hand with a
+tender look into the depth of Norman's soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A CALL FOR HEROES
+
+
+The first business before the Assembly of the Brotherhood was the
+permanent assignment of work. The enthusiasm which swept the
+Socialists through the first week of joyous life could not last. No
+one expected it. The novelty of their surroundings, the surprise and
+elation of every one over the beauty and richness of their newly
+acquired empire, carried the pioneers over the opening days as in a
+dream. It all seemed like a great picnic--like the long-hoped-for
+holidays in life of which they had dreamed and never realized, yet
+which somehow had come to pass.
+
+But the time was at hand to face the first big, sober reality of the
+new social system. The dining-hall was packed. Every member of the
+Brotherhood was present.
+
+The orchestra played a lively air in a vain effort to revive the
+spirit of festivity with which every meeting had hitherto buzzed.
+
+But an evil spirit had entered the Garden of Eden, and joy had fled.
+Over every heart hovered a brood of solemn questions. What will be my
+lot? Will I be allowed to choose my work? Or will they tell me what to
+do? Will it be dirty and disagreeable, or pleasant and inspiring?
+
+Norman sat in his chair of state as presiding officer, bending over a
+mass of papers which Barbara had spread before him. She leaned close,
+and a stray hair from one of her brown curls touched his forehead. He
+trembled and stared blankly at the papers, seeing only a beautiful
+face.
+
+"You understand?" she asked. "I've placed under each department the
+number of workers needed."
+
+"Yes, yes, I understand!" he repeated, looking at her, blankly.
+
+"I don't believe you've heard a word I've spoken to you," she said,
+reproachfully.
+
+He was about to answer when the music stopped. Norman lifted his head
+with a start, rose quickly and faced the crowd.
+
+"Comrades," he began, "the time has come for us to make good our faith
+in one another. You have proven yourselves brave and faithful in our
+struggle with the infamies of the system of capitalism. We call now
+for the heroes and heroines of actual work. We are entering, under the
+most favourable auspices, on the most important experiment yet made in
+the social history of the world. We are going to prove that mankind is
+one vast brotherhood--that love, not greed, can rule this earth.
+
+"In our temporary organization we wish to outline the forms on which
+we will later found the permanent State of Ventura. At present we will
+organize four departments--Production, Distribution, Domestic Service,
+and Education.
+
+"I am going to ask each one of you, by secret ballot, to choose your
+permanent work."
+
+A cheer shook the building.
+
+Norman flushed with pleasure, and continued quickly:
+
+"It shall be my constant aim as your general manager under our
+temporary organization to give you the widest personal liberty
+consistent with the success of our enterprise.
+
+"Before preparing your ballots for choice of your work, I shall have
+to ask that each head of a family and each unmarried man and woman
+first pass by the platform and draw lots for the assignment of your
+rooms in our Mission House. There have been some complaints already,
+I'm sorry to say, on this question. Some wish to live on the first
+floor, some on the top, but everybody wants to live on the south side
+of the house with the glorious views of the sea, and nobody wishes to
+live on the north side. There is but one way to determine such a
+question in our ideal state. Fate must decide.
+
+"The numbers of each room and suite are in the basket. The bachelors
+will be assigned to the right wing, the girls to the left wing, the
+married ones to the centre of the building.
+
+"Please form in line on the left and march toward the right aisle past
+the platform."
+
+"Mr. Chairman!" called Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat.
+
+Norman rapped for silence, and those who had risen resumed their
+seats.
+
+"I protest, Mr. Chairman," continued the poet, "against the cruelty of
+such a process. The weak and the aged should be given their choice
+first."
+
+"We left them all behind us!" Norman cried, with a wave of his hand.
+"There are no weak and aged in this crowd. We belong to the elect. We
+have found the secret of eternal youth."
+
+Another cheer swept the crowd, the poet subsided with a sigh of
+contempt, and the people quickly filed past the platform and drew
+their lots for permanent rooms in the building. The larger suites had
+been subdivided, so that the entire pioneer colony of two thousand
+found accommodations under one roof.
+
+When the crowd had resumed their seats, and the last cry of triumph
+over a successful draw and the last groan of disappointment over an
+unlucky lot had subsided, Norman rose and made the most momentous
+announcement the Brotherhood had yet heard:
+
+"In the Department of Production we need hod-carriers, bricklayers,
+carpenters, architects, teamsters, and skilled mechanics for the
+foundry and machine-shops, saw-mill, and flour mills. On the farm and
+orchard we need ploughmen and harvesters for grain and hay, gardeners,
+stablemen, and ditchers.
+
+"In our Department of Domestic Service we need cooks, seamstresses,
+washerwomen, scrubbers and cleaners, waiters, porters, bell-boys,
+telephone girls, steamfitters, plumbers, chimney-sweeps, and sewer
+cleaners.
+
+"In the Department of Education we need artists and artisans,
+teachers, nurses, printers and binders, pressmen and compositors, one
+editor, scientists and lecturers, missionaries, actors, singers, and
+authors.
+
+"Now you each of you know what you can do best. Choose the work in
+which you can render your comrades the highest service of which you
+are capable and best advance the cause of humanity. Write your name
+and your choice of work on the blanks which have been furnished you."
+
+The orchestra played while the ballots were being cast and counted.
+
+The chairman at length rose with the tabulated sheet in his hand and
+faced his audience.
+
+"Comrades," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that old saying I'll
+have to repeat, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!'
+Beyond the shadow of a doubt we shall have to try this election again.
+If I didn't know by the serious look on your faces that you mean it
+I'd say off-hand that you were trying to put up a joke on me."
+
+He paused, and a painful silence followed.
+
+"Give us the ballot!" growled the Bard.
+
+Norman looked at the list he held, and in spite of himself, as he
+caught the gleam of mischief in Barbara's eye, burst into laughter and
+sat down.
+
+Wolf ascended the platform, glanced over the list and whispered:
+
+"It's a waste of time. Call for the election of an executive council
+with full powers."
+
+"We'll try once more," Norman insisted, quickly rising.
+
+"Comrades, I'm sorry to say there is no election. We must proceed to
+another ballot, and if the industries absolutely necessary to the
+existence of any society are not voted into operation, we must then
+choose an executive council with full power to act. I appeal to your
+sense of heroism and self-sacrifice----"
+
+"Give us the ballot! Read it!" thundered the offended poet.
+
+"Yes, read it!"
+
+"Read it!"
+
+The shouts came from all parts of the hall. The crowd was in dead
+earnest and couldn't see the joke.
+
+Once more the young chairman raised the fateful record of human
+frailty before his eyes, paused, and then solemnly began:
+
+"In the first place, comrades, more than six hundred ballots out of
+the two thousand cast are invalid. They have been cast for work not
+asked for. They must be thrown out at once.
+
+"Three hundred and sixty five able-bodied men choose hunting as their
+occupation. I grant you that game is plentiful on the island, but we
+can't spare you, gentlemen!
+
+"Two hundred and thirty-five men want to fish! The waters abound in
+fish, but we have a pound-net which supplies us with all we can eat.
+
+"Thirty-two men and forty-six women wish to preach.
+
+"We do not need at present hunters, fishermen, or preachers, and have
+not called for volunteers in these departments of labour.
+
+"Three hundred and fifty-six women wish to go on the stage, and one
+hundred and ninety-five of them choose musical comedy and light
+opera. I think this includes most of our female population between the
+ages of fourteen and thirty-five!"
+
+A murmur of excitement swept the feminine portion of the audience.
+
+"Allow me to say," he went on, "that the most urgent need of the
+colony at this moment cannot be met by organizing a chorus, however
+beautiful and pleasing its performances would be. We need, and we must
+have, waitresses and milkmaids. The chorus can wait, the cows cannot.
+
+"I asked for one editor. One hundred and seventy-five men and
+sixty-three women have chosen that field. Seventy-five men and
+thirty-two women wish to be musicians."
+
+"We have looked in vain among the ballots for a single hod-carrier, or
+ploughman, ditcher, cook, seamstress, washerman or washerwoman,
+stableman, scrubber, or cleaner. The Brotherhood cannot live a day
+without them. Remember, comrades, we are to make the great experiment
+on which the future happiness of the race may depend. Let us forget
+our selfish preferences and think only of our fellow men. I call for
+heroes of the hod, heroines of the washtub and the scrubbing-brush and
+milk-pail, knights of the pitchfork, spade, and shovel. Let hunters,
+fishermen, preachers, and chorus-girls forget they live for the
+present.
+
+"This is not a joke, comrades, though I have laughed. It's one of the
+gravest problems we must face. It has been suggested that we hire
+outside labour to do this disagreeable work for a generation or two.
+The moment we dare make such a compromise we are lost forever. We must
+solve this problem or quit. A second ballot is ordered at once."
+
+Again the orchestra played, the ushers passed the boxes, the vote was
+taken, and all for naught. Not a single hero of the hod appeared. Not
+a single heroine of the washtub, the scrubbing-brush, or the
+milk-pail.
+
+The young chairman's face was very grave when Barbara handed him the
+results.
+
+She bent and whispered:
+
+"Away with frowns and doubts and fears! There's a better way. A leader
+must lead. Their business is to follow."
+
+Norman's face brightened. He turned to the crowd, and in tones of
+clear, ringing command announced:
+
+"Comrades, I had hoped you could choose your work of your own accord.
+The attempt has failed. Six divisions of labour, each of them
+absolutely essential to the existence of society in any form above
+the primitive savage, have not a single man or woman in them."
+
+"We must elect an executive council of four who shall sit as a court
+of last resort in settling the question of the ability of each comrade
+and the work to which he shall be assigned. Under our temporary
+charter the general manager will preside over this court and cast the
+deciding vote. Nominations are in order for the other four. We want
+two men and two women in this council. In all our deliberations woman
+shall have equal voice with man."
+
+The Bard made a speech of protest against the action about to be
+taken, in the sacred name of liberty.
+
+"This act is the first step on the road to a tyranny more monstrous
+than any ever devised by capitalism!" he shouted, with hands uplifted,
+his long hair flying in wild disorder.
+
+Tom Mooney, an old miner, who had met Norman and become his friend
+during a visit to one of his father's mines, sprang to his feet and
+made a rush for the excited poet. Confronting him a moment, Tom
+inquired:
+
+"Kin I ax ye a few questions?"
+
+"Certainly. As many as you like."
+
+"Kin ye cook?"
+
+"I cannot."
+
+"Kin ye wash?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Kin ye scrub?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Ever swing a hod?"
+
+"I have not."
+
+"Ever milk a cow?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Are ye willin' to learn them things?"
+
+"I didn't come here for that purpose."
+
+"Then, what t' 'ell ye kickin' about?" Tom cried, and, glaring at the
+poet, he thundered fiercely:
+
+"Set down!"
+
+The man of song was so disconcerted by this unexpected onslaught, and
+by the roars of laughter which greeted Tom's final order, that he
+dropped into his seat, muttering incoherent protests, and the
+balloting for the executive council proceeded at once amid universal
+good humour.
+
+A dozen names were proposed as candidates, and the four receiving the
+highest votes were declared duly elected.
+
+The election resulted in the choice of Herman Wolf, Catherine, Barbara
+Bozenta, and Thomas Mooney.
+
+Tom was amazed at his sudden promotion to high office, and insisted
+on resigning in favour of a man of better education.
+
+Norman caught his big horny hand and pressed it.
+
+"Not on your life, Tom. You've made a hit. The people like your hard
+horse-sense. You will make a good judge. Besides, I need you. You're a
+man I can depend on every day in the year."
+
+"I'll stick ef you need me, boy--but I hain't fitten, I tell ye."
+
+"I'll vouch for your fitness--sit down!"
+
+The last command Norman thundered into Tom's ears in imitation of his
+order to the poet, and the old miner, with a grin, dropped into his
+seat.
+
+As Norman was about to declare the meeting adjourned, the steward
+ascended the platform and whispered a message.
+
+The young leader turned to the crowd and lifted his hand for silence.
+
+"Comrades, a prosaic but very important announcement I have to make. I
+have just been informed that there is no milk for supper. The cows
+have been neglected. They must be milked. I call for a dozen volunteer
+milkmaids until this adjustment can be made. Come, now!--and a dozen
+young men to assist them. Let's make this a test of your loyalty to
+the cause. All labour is equally honourable. Labour is the service of
+your fellow man. Who will be the first heroine to fill this breach in
+the walls of our defence?"
+
+Barbara sprang forward, with uplifted head, laughing.
+
+"I will!"
+
+"And I'll help you!" Norman cried, with a laugh. "Who will join us
+now? Come, you pretty chorus-girls! You wouldn't mind if you carried
+these milk-pails on the stage in a play. Well, this is the biggest
+stage you will ever appear on, and all the millions of the civilized
+world are watching."
+
+A pretty, rosy-cheeked girl joined Barbara.
+
+An admirer followed, and in a moment a dozen girls and their escorts
+had volunteered. They formed in line and marched to the cow lot with
+Norman and Barbara leading, singing and laughing and swinging their
+milk-pails like a crowd of rollicking children.
+
+When they reached the pasture where the cows were herded, Norman asked
+Barbara, with some misgivings:
+
+"Honestly, did you ever milk a cow?"
+
+"Of course I have," she promptly replied. "I spent two years on a farm
+once. Do you think I'd make a fool of myself trying before all these
+kids if I hadn't?"
+
+"I didn't know but that you made a bluff at it to lead the others on.
+What can I do, for heaven's sake?"
+
+Norman looked at her in a helpless sort of way while Barbara rolled up
+her sleeves. For the first time he saw her beautifully rounded bare
+arm to its full length. He stood with open-eyed admiration. Never had
+he seen anything so white and round and soft, so subtly and
+seductively suggestive of tenderness and love.
+
+"For heaven's sake, what do I do?" he repeated, blankly.
+
+"Get some meal in that bucket for my cow, and see that her calf don't
+get to her--I'll do the rest."
+
+Norman hustled to the barn with the other boys, got his bucket of
+meal, placed it in front of the cow Barbara had selected, and stood
+watching with admiration the skill with which her deft little hands
+pressed two streams of white milk into the bucket at her feet.
+
+"Goodness, you're a wonder," he cried, admiringly. "But where's the
+calf I'm supposed to be watching?"
+
+"I think that's the one standing close to the gate in the next lot
+watching me with envy. The first time the gate's opened he'll jump
+through if he gets half a chance--so look out!"
+
+"I'll watch him," Norman promised, without lifting his eyes from the
+rhythmic movement of the bare white arms.
+
+He had scarcely spoken when a careless boy swung the gate wide open,
+and the lusty calf, whose soft eyes had been watching Barbara through
+the fence, made a break for his mother. In a swift, silent rush he
+planted one foot in Barbara's milk-pail, knocked her over with the
+other, switched his tail, and fell to work on his own account without
+further concern. It was all done so suddenly it took Norman's breath.
+He sprang to Barbara's side and helped her to her feet.
+
+Norman grabbed the calf by the ear with one hand and by the tail with
+the other, and started toward the gate.
+
+The animal suddenly ducked his head, plunged forward, jerked Norman to
+his knees, and dragged him ten yards before he could regain his feet.
+The young leader rose, tightened his grip, and started with a rush
+toward the gate, but the calf swerved in time to avoid it, gaining
+speed with each step, and started off with his escort in a mad race
+around the lot, galloping at a terrific speed, bellowing and snorting
+at every jump.
+
+The others stopped their work to laugh and cheer as round and round
+the maddened little brute flew with the tall, heroic leader galloping
+by his side.
+
+Norman had no time to call for help. He couldn't let go and he
+couldn't stop the calf.
+
+As he made the second round of the lot, upsetting buckets, smashing
+milk-pails, and stampeding peaceful cows, a boy yelled through the
+roars of laughter:
+
+"Twist his tail! Twist his tail an' he'll go the way you want him!"
+
+Norman misunderstood the order, loosened the head and grabbed the tail
+with both hands. With a loud bellow the calf plunged into a wilder
+race around the lot, dragging his tormentor now with regular, graceful
+easy jumps. He made the rounds twice thus, single file, amid screams
+of laughter, suddenly turned and plunged headlong through an osage
+hedge, and left Norman sitting in a dusty heap on the ground among the
+thorns. He rose, brushed his clothes sheepishly, and looked through
+the hedge at the calf which had turned and stood eyeing him now with
+an expression of injured innocence.
+
+Barbara came up, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes.
+
+"I've learned something new," Norman quietly observed. "All labour
+may be equally honourable. It's not equally expedient. I wish you'd
+look at that beast eyeing me through the fence! It's positively
+uncanny. I believe he's possessed of the devil. I don't wonder at that
+belief of the ancients. I've tackled many a brute on the football
+field--but this is one on me!"
+
+The brilliant young leader of the new moral world led the procession
+of milkmaids back to the house as the shadows of evening fell, a
+sadder but wiser man for the day's experience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A NEW ARISTOCRACY
+
+
+Three members of the executive council, Norman, Barbara, and Tom,
+began at once the task of assigning work. The problems which
+immediately faced the council were overwhelming, but they were urgent
+and could admit of no delay. The absolute refusal of every member of
+the Brotherhood to do the dirty and disagreeable work brought at once
+two issues to a crisis. Either labour must be voluntary or
+involuntary. The people who did this work must be induced to agree to
+perform it or they must be forced to do it by a superior authority
+without their consent.
+
+They could only be led to choose this work by inducements of an
+extraordinary nature--the payment of enormously high wages and the
+shortening of each day's work to a ridiculous minimum.
+
+If wages were made unequal, the old problem of inequality would remain
+unsolved. For equal wages no man would lift his hand.
+
+Confronted by this dilemma the executive council decided at once to
+fix wages on an unequal basis rather than reduce its unwilling members
+to a condition of involuntary labour, which is merely a long way to
+spell slavery.
+
+When this decision was announced, Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+once more lifted his voice in solemn protest:
+
+"I denounce this act in the name of every principle which has brought
+us together," he cried, with solemn warning. "You have established a
+system far more infamous than the unequal wages of the old society
+where the law of the survival of the fittest is the court of last
+resort. You have opened the door of fathomless corruption by
+substituting the whim of an executive council for the law of nature.
+It is the beginning of jealousy, strife, favouritism, jobbery, and
+injustice."
+
+"Then what's a better way?" Old Tom asked, with a sneer.
+
+"It's your business to find a better way," cried the man of visions.
+
+Tom glared at the poet with a look of fury and Norman whispered to the
+old miner:
+
+"Remember, Tom, you're sitting as a judge in the Supreme Court of
+State!"
+
+"Can't help it. I never did have no use for a fool. Ef he can't tell
+us a better way, let 'im shet up."
+
+Barbara pressed Tom's arm, and he subsided.
+
+The court at once entered into the question of wages for domestic
+service.
+
+It had been agreed, at the suggestion of the Wolfs, that they should
+spend their time in quietly investigating the qualifications of each
+member of the Brotherhood for the work to be assigned, and make their
+reports in secret to the majority of the court, which should sit
+continuously until all had been decided.
+
+Neither Norman, Barbara, nor the old miner suspected for a moment the
+deeper motive which Wolf concealed behind this withdrawal from the
+decision of these cases. They found out in a very startling way later.
+
+The chief cook demanded a hundred dollars a month.
+
+Old Tom snorted with contempt. Norman smiled and spoke kindly:
+
+"Remember, Louis, you only received $75 a month in San Francisco. Here
+the Brotherhood provides every man with his food, his clothes, and his
+house. Wages are merely the inducement used to satisfy each individual
+that labour may still be done by free contract, not by force."
+
+"Well, it'll take a hundred a month to satisfy me," was the stolid
+reply. "I didn't come here to cook. I could do that in the old hell we
+lived in. I came here to do better and bigger things. I can do them,
+too----"
+
+"But we've fixed the salary of the general manager at only
+seventy-five dollars a month, and you demand a hundred?"
+
+"I do, and if the general manager prefers my job, I'll trade with you
+and guarantee to do your work better than it's being done."
+
+"Yes, you will!" old Tom growled, as he leaned over Barbara and
+whispered to Norman.
+
+"Make it thirty dollars a month, and if he don't go to work--leave him
+to me, I'll beat him till he does it."
+
+"No, we can't manage it that way, Tom. We must try to satisfy him."
+
+"Hit's a hold-up, I tell ye--highway robbery--the triflin' son of a
+gun! Don't you say so, miss?" Tom appealed earnestly to Barbara.
+
+"We must have cooks, Tom--and we want everybody to be happy."
+
+"Make him cook, make him--that's his business--I'd do it if I knowed
+how. He's got to take what we give 'im. He can't git off this island.
+He enlisted for five years. If he deserts, court-martial and shoot
+him."
+
+In spite of old Tom's bitter protest, Norman and Barbara succeeded in
+persuading the chief cook to accept eighty-five dollars a month--an
+advance of ten dollars over the highest wages he had ever received
+before.
+
+When the eighteen assistant cooks lined up for the settlement of their
+wages a new problem of unexpected proportions was presented. They had
+listened attentively to the case of the chef, and their chosen orator
+presented his argument in brief but emphatic words:
+
+"We demand the exact wages you have voted the chef."
+
+"Well, what do ye think er that?" old Tom groaned to Norman. "Hit's
+jist like I told ye. Hit's a hold-up."
+
+"We must persuade them, Tom," the young leader replied.
+
+"Let me persuade 'em!" the old miner pleaded.
+
+"How?" Barbara asked, with a twinkle in her brown eyes.
+
+"I'll line 'em up agin that wall and trim their hair with my
+six-shooter. I won't hurt 'em. But when I finish the job I'll
+guarantee they'll do what I tell 'em without any back talk. You folks
+take a walk and make me Chief Justice fer an hour, and when you come
+back we'll have peace and plenty. Jest try it now, and don't you butt
+in. Let me persuade 'em!"
+
+Norman shook his head.
+
+"Keep still, Tom! We must reason with them."
+
+"Ye 're wastin' yer breath," the miner drawled in disgust.
+
+"Don't you think, comrades," Norman began, in persuasive tones, "that
+your demands are rather high?"
+
+"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "We come here to get equal
+rights. We don't want to cook. I'm a born actor, myself. I expected to
+play in Shakespeare when I joined the Brotherhood. Anybody that wants
+this job can have it. If we do your hot, dirty, disgusting,
+disagreeable work while the others play in the shade we are going to
+get something for it."
+
+"Even so," the young leader responded, "is it fair that an assistant
+cook should receive equal wages with the chef?"
+
+"And why not? Labour creates all value. The chef's a fakir. We do all
+the work. He never lifts his hand to a pot or pan. He struts and loafs
+through the kitchen and lords it over the men. Let him try to run the
+kitchen without us, and see how much you get to eat! We stand on the
+equal rights of man!"
+
+"But my dear comrade----"
+
+"Don't use them words," old Tom pleaded, "jest let me make a few
+remarks----"
+
+Barbara pinched Tom's arm and he subsided.
+
+"Can't you see," Norman went on, "that we are paying the chef for his
+directive ability, for his inventive genius in creating new dishes and
+making old ones more delicious? You but execute his orders."
+
+"We stand square on our principles. Labour creates all values. The
+chef never works. We make every dish that goes to the table. If it has
+any value we make it. We demand our rights!"
+
+The court agreed on fifty dollars a month, and the men refused to
+consider it.
+
+"We prefer to work in the fields, the foundry, the machine-shop, the
+mills, the forests, anywhere you like except the kitchen. Let the chef
+do your work. Good day!"
+
+They turned and marched out in a body and sat down in the sunshine.
+
+In vain Norman argued and pleaded. They stood their ground with sullen
+determination.
+
+A final clincher which the young leader could not evade always ended
+the argument. The spokesman came back to it with dogged persistence:
+
+"What did you mean, then, when you've been drumming into our ears that
+labour creates all value? We do all the work, don't we?"
+
+The upshot of it was the eighteen assistant cooks marched back into
+the hall, stood before the judges, and all were granted equal wages
+with the chef.
+
+Whereupon the chef sprang to his feet and faced the court with blazing
+eyes.
+
+"You grant these chumps--these idiots--wages equal to mine? Not one of
+them has brains enough to cook an egg if I didn't tell him how. Their
+wages equal to mine. I resign!"
+
+Tom spoke vigorously:
+
+"Now will ye leave him to me?"
+
+Norman and Barbara looked at each other in angry and helpless
+amazement.
+
+The old miner leaped to his feet, made his way down from the platform,
+and with two swift strides reached the chef. He leaned close and
+whispered something in the rebel's ear. There was a moment's
+hesitation and the chef turned, signalled to his assistants, and amid
+cheers marched to the kitchen.
+
+Tom resumed his seat beside Barbara with a smile, quietly saying:
+
+"That's the way to do business, ladies and gentlemen!"
+
+"What did you say to him?" Barbara asked.
+
+"Oh, nothin' much," was the careless answer.
+
+"I hope you didn't threaten him, Tom?" Norman asked with some
+misgiving.
+
+"Na--I didn't threaten him. I spoke quiet and peaceable."
+
+"But what did you tell him?" the young leader persisted.
+
+"I jest told him I'd give him two minutes ter git back ter the kitchen
+or I'd blow his head off!"
+
+"I'm afraid our table will feel the effects of that remark, Tom,"
+Barbara said, doubtfully.
+
+Next to the question of cooks the most urgent issue to be settled was
+the case of the scrubbers, cleaners, and drainmen. The women who had
+been assigned to the tasks of scrubbing the floors, washing the
+windows and dishes, had watched the triumphs of the cooks with keen
+appreciation of their own power. It was easy to see that the more
+disagreeable and disgusting the character of the work, the more
+extravagant the demands which could be made and enforced. The
+scrubbers and dishwashers boldly demanded one hundred dollars a month
+and six hours for a working day, and refused with sullen determination
+to argue the question.
+
+To Barbara's mild and gentle protest their answer was complete and
+stunning:
+
+"You have assigned us this dirty job. Do you want it at any price?"
+asked their orator. "I'll take yours without wages and jump at the
+chance."
+
+Tom lost all interest in the proceedings and drew himself up in a knot
+in his chair. Now and then a growl came from the depths of his
+throat.
+
+Once he was heard to distinctly articulate:
+
+"This makes me tired."
+
+The court begged and pleaded, cajoled, argued in vain with the
+stubborn scrubwomen. Not an inch would they move in their demands. The
+floors were becoming unspeakably filthy. They had not been scrubbed
+since the arrival of the colony.
+
+Norman turned to Barbara.
+
+"Put the question solemnly to ourselves--we don't want the job at any
+price, do we?"
+
+"I couldn't do it!" she admitted, frankly. "Then what's the use? We
+must be fair. It's worth what they ask."
+
+The court granted the demands and the scrubwomen and dishwashers
+marched to the kitchen and once more the chef tore his hair and cursed
+the fate which brought him to such disgrace as to work with stupid
+subordinates at equal wages and gaze on dishwashers and scrubwomen
+whose wages exceeded his own.
+
+The climax of all demands was reached when the drainman demanded a
+hundred and fifty dollars a month and four hours for each working day.
+
+Norman looked at him in dumb confusion. He knew what he was going to
+say before he opened his mouth and he had no answer.
+
+The drainman bowed low in mock humility, but the proud wave of his
+hand belied his words.
+
+"My calling was a humble one in the old world, Comrade Judges," he
+said. "I came here to climb mountain heights and find my way among the
+stars. You have sent me back to the sewers. I always felt that I had
+missed my true calling. I've always wanted to be a poet----"
+
+The Bard shook his mane and groaned.
+
+"I don't want this job at any price. But the sewers are choked. They
+have not been cleaned for two years. It must be done. I've named my
+price. I'll gladly yield to any man who envies my luck. If such a man
+is here let him speak--or forever hereafter hold his peace."
+
+With a grandiloquent gesture the drainman swept the crowd with his
+eye, but no man responded.
+
+The court granted his demand.
+
+The Bard leaped once more to his feet and entered his protest. This
+time old Tom listened with interest. His concluding sentence rang with
+bitter irony:
+
+"Against these absurd decisions I lift my voice once more in solemn
+protest. We came to this charmed island to abolish all class
+distinctions. You have destroyed the old classes based on culture,
+achievement, genius, wealth, and power. You have created a new
+aristocracy on whose shield is emblazoned--a dish-rag and
+scrubbing-brush encircled by a sewer pipe! I make my most humble bow
+to our new king--the drainman! I hail the apotheosis of the
+scrubwoman!"
+
+"Say, you give me a pain--shut up" thundered Tom.
+
+The singer collapsed with a sigh and the crowd laughed.
+
+The foreman of the farm brought two men before the court and asked for
+important instructions.
+
+"Comrade Judges," he began, "I had two men assigned to me a week ago
+whom I don't want and won't have at any price. I return them to the
+Brotherhood with thanks. You can do what you please with them."
+
+"What's the matter?" Norman asked, with some irritation.
+
+The foreman shoved and kicked a man in front of the judges.
+
+"This fool----"
+
+"You must not use such language, Mr. Foreman," Barbara interrupted.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Comrade Judges," he apologized. "This coyote I put
+on a mowing-machine yesterday. He said he knew how to run it. He broke
+it on a smooth piece of ground the first hour. I gave him another and
+he wrecked it before noon. It will take the labour of five men two
+days to repair the damage he has done. I don't want him at any price."
+
+"What have you to say?" Norman asked the accused.
+
+"It wasn't my fault. The thing broke itself."
+
+"But how did it happen twice the same day, sonny?" Tom asked.
+
+"I dunno. Hit jist happened," was the dogged answer.
+
+"I've another scoundrel----"
+
+"You must not use such language," Barbara broke in.
+
+"Again begging the pardon of Comrade Judges," the foreman continued:
+"This dog"--he kicked another slovenly looking lout before the
+judges--"tore to pieces the shoulders of two pairs of horses with
+careless harnessing before I found him and kicked him out of the
+stables. Those four horses can't work for a month. We'll have to pay
+at least $500 for two teams right away to take their places, or lose a
+crop of hay."
+
+Tom glared at the culprit.
+
+"What did ye ruin them horses' shoulders fer?"
+
+"I didn't know it," was the sulking answer.
+
+"He's a liar!" cried the foreman. "He put the same collars on their
+galled necks three days in succession and beat them unmercifully when
+they couldn't pull the load."
+
+"What do you say, Tom?" Norman asked.
+
+The old miner glared at the last culprit and his grim mouth tightened:
+
+"Wall, you kin do as ye please, but any man that'll abuse a hoss will
+commit murder. I'd put the fust one in the cow lot to shovellin'
+compost. This one I'd quietly lynch--no public rumpus about it--jest
+take 'im down by the beach, hang 'im to one of them posts on the pier,
+shoot 'im full of holes, and drop 'im into the sea to be sure he don't
+come back to life."
+
+Norman conferred with Barbara a moment and rendered the decision:
+
+"Mr. Foreman, the first man is transferred from the field machinery to
+the compost-heap in the barnyard. The second man who disabled the
+horses will assist in cleaning the sewers. Their wages will remain the
+same as before."
+
+A round of applause greeted this decision.
+
+The Bard renewed his attack with unusual zeal. Standing before the
+court and shaking his long hair he cried:
+
+"At last the climax of tyranny! Two comrades condemned without a jury
+and without defense! I congratulate you. In one day you have
+established an aristocracy of filth and created a penal colony without
+a hearing or appeal. We are making progress."
+
+The old miner grunted, Barbara smiled tenderly at Norman, and the
+court adjourned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SOME TROUBLES IN HEAVEN
+
+
+Norman found it necessary for the executive council to sit
+continuously for the adjustment of disputes and the settlement of new
+problems which arose at every step of progress in the new moral world.
+
+He had condemned the sins of the old world of capitalism with cocksure
+certainty. Now that he had been made a supreme judge with power to
+adjust the rights and wrongs of his fellow man, he was appalled at the
+magnitude of the task of substituting an ideal for the reign of
+natural law under which civilization had been slowly evolved.
+
+There were two men in the Brotherhood whom he grew early to hate with
+cordial, thorough, murderous hatred--Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+who always denounced every decision as unjust, and a tall,
+hooked-nosed, stoop-shouldered, scholarly looking man named Diggs, who
+invariably sat near him and at every conceivable opportunity asked
+questions. These questions were always put in an innocent, friendly
+way, but when Diggs looked at him through his gleaming spectacles
+Norman always got the impression that an imp of the devil had suddenly
+popped up through the floor.
+
+The first day after the general assignment of work Diggs rose before
+the council, adjusted his glasses, and drew a piece of paper from his
+pocket. Norman knew before he spoke that the document bristled with
+questions. Diggs's glasses had always fascinated him, but to-day they
+seemed of unusual thickness and enormous size, and their concave
+surfaces seemed to flash light from a thousand angles.
+
+Diggs adjusted them on his hook-nose with deliberation and glanced
+carefully over his notes before speaking.
+
+Norman turned to Barbara with a sigh.
+
+She pressed his hand in silent sympathy.
+
+"Don't worry!" she whispered.
+
+Norman's breath quickened as he answered the pressure of the soft,
+warm fingers but he managed to move his chair and break the effects of
+her spell without revealing to her the effort it cost. Each hour of
+their association he felt the cords he dare not try to break tighten
+about his heart. He determined each day to put the thought from him.
+Over and over again with grim resolution he repeated his vow:
+
+"I'll keep a clear head. I've got to decide this issue on its merits.
+I owe it to my generous friends who made it possible."
+
+He had avoided her for the last few days. She guessed the cause
+intuitively and knew that he was fighting with desperation to escape
+the net she was slowly weaving about him. She began to watch the
+struggle now with a curious fascination in which cruelty and
+tenderness were equally mixed. The idea of surrendering her own heart
+had never once entered her pretty head.
+
+Her life had been lived in a strange war with human society. Man had
+always appeared to her imagination as an enemy. She had never trusted
+one--least of all Wolf, the big, impassive animal who had dominated
+the life of her foster-mother.
+
+With deliberate and cruel art she had set out to master the heart of
+the man who sat by her side. The task was accepted as part of her
+work. She had enlisted as a soldier in the Cause. She had received the
+orders from headquarters. When the deed was done she would turn to a
+greater task. She had expected to be bored by his idiotic love making.
+Now her curiosity was beginning to be piqued by his silence. She began
+vaguely to wonder each moment what kind of pictures she was making in
+his mind. Her brown eyes searched the depths of his soul in a dumb way
+that sent the blood rushing to Norman's heart, but each time he had
+eluded her.
+
+He sat in moody silence now, giving no response to her words of cheer.
+She roused him from his reverie with a plaintive protest.
+
+"What's the matter? Have I, too, offended?"
+
+He turned quickly and crushed her hand in his strong grasp:
+
+"For heaven's sake don't _you_ get into the habit of asking me
+questions! How could you offend? Your face is my lighthouse set on the
+cliffs, calm, serene, joyful. I couldn't get through a day without
+you."
+
+A smiling answer was just trembling on her lips when Diggs began to
+speak.
+
+"Now for the human interrogation point," Barbara laughed.
+
+"Comrade Judges," Diggs began, with guileless good humour, "while we
+are shaping the form of our ideal State for its permanent organization
+I wish to submit some questions which may help us in our search for
+truth."
+
+"Questions," Norman whispered, "which any fool can ask, but the angels
+of God can't answer."
+
+"But we will answer them!" she flashed, with defiant courage.
+
+"We agree," Diggs went on, "that society must be governed in some way.
+There must be rulers, but how shall we choose our rulers, and with
+what powers shall we clothe them? We can begin to see that the head of
+our social system must at times exercise the full powers of the State.
+Into whose hands can this enormous power be entrusted, and how shall
+he be called to account?"
+
+Diggs paused, and Norman flushed at this question, for he took it as a
+personal thrust. He had occasion to change his mind later.
+
+"How can we," the questioner went on, "retain our democratic liberties
+as law makers as we grow in numbers? Now we can all meet in general
+assembly. When the State numbers even five thousand this will not be
+possible. Will not our politics become even more corrupt than the old
+system, seeing how enormous the power over the smallest details of
+life which these legislators possess?
+
+"As our society grows--and thousands are now clamouring for
+admission--how is wealth to be distributed? Who shall determine, in
+this larger society, who shall be common labourers, who poets,
+artists, musicians, preachers, managers? Who shall appoint editors?
+And who shall call them to account if they publish treason against the
+State? What shall be done with the ever-increasing number of the
+lazy, dishonest, and criminal members of the community?
+
+"Who shall determine how much mental work is equivalent to so much
+manual labour, seeing how vast is the difference in the value of one
+man's brain product over another's? How can men who are not artists,
+poets, or musicians determine the value of such work? Or how can one
+poet be just to his rival if he be made the judge? When our theatre is
+opened, who shall select the actors? Who shall decide whether they are
+incompetent? Who shall decide on the selection of the star? What shall
+be done with an actor, for example, who should spit in the face of a
+judge deciding adversely? Suppose a man offends the judge? Shall he be
+punished? If so, who shall do it?
+
+"How can we prevent a man from losing his wages playing poker with his
+neighbour if he does so joyfully?
+
+"What shall be done with a man who works outside regular hours and
+accumulates a vast private fortune?"
+
+"Say, ain't you worked your jaw overtime now?" old Tom broke in
+rudely. "We'll take them things up when we come to 'em. We got
+somethin' else to do now--set down!"
+
+"These are only friendly suggestions for thought as we develop our
+ideal," Diggs answered, with smiling good nature, as he resumed his
+seat.
+
+"What makes me want to kill that man," Norman muttered to Barbara, "is
+the unfailing politeness and unction with which he asks those
+questions."
+
+"Patience! patience!" was the low, musical reply. "These little things
+will all adjust themselves."
+
+Methodist John pressed to the front and poured out to the judges a
+story of wrong and asked for justice.
+
+"Miss Barbara," he began, in plaintive tones, "you was always good to
+me in the other world, but since we've got here even you don't seem
+the same. Everybody's hard and cold. They hain't got no sympathy here
+for a poor man. In the other world I missed my callin'--I was born for
+the ministry. I come here to serve the Lord. And now they make me work
+so hard I ain't even got time to pray. I ask for a licence to preach
+the gospel. Just give me a chance. They've put me to feedin' hogs and
+tendin' ter calves. I ain't fit for such work. I want to call sinners
+to repentance, not swine to their swill. I tell ye I've been buncoed.
+It ain't a square deal. I left the poorhouse to come with you to
+heaven and, by gum, I've landed in the workhouse----"
+
+"And ef yer don't shet up and git back ter yer work," Tom thundered,
+"you'll land in the hospital--you hear me!"
+
+"I ain't er talkin' to you, you cussin, swearin', ungodly son of the
+devil," the old man answered.
+
+"Come, come, John," Norman interrupted, as he held Tom back. "We can't
+grant your request. We are not ready to undertake religious work yet."
+
+"Well, God knows ye need it!" John muttered, as the crowd pushed him
+away.
+
+At the door Catherine greeted him as he passed out, whispered
+encouraging words, and sent him back to his tasks more cheerful. She
+had taken her stand thus each day; and, while Wolf was busy quietly
+mingling with the men outside getting the facts as to the progress of
+each department, the tall graceful woman of soft voice and madonna
+face was fast becoming the friend and sympathizer of each discontented
+worker. She had now assumed the task of peacemaker after each harsh
+decision had been rendered, and did her work with rare skill--a skill
+which promised big results in the dawning State of Ventura.
+
+Uncle Bob Worth, an old Negro, bowed low before the judges. He had
+been a slave of Norman's grandfather in North Carolina and had joined
+the colony out of admiration for the young leader.
+
+"Marse Norman," he solemnly began.
+
+"Don't call me 'master,' Bob," Norman interrupted. "Remember that we
+are all comrades here."
+
+"Yassah! Yassah! Marse Norman, I try to 'member dat sah, but 'pears
+ter me dey's somefin' wrong bout dis whole 'comrade' business, sah!
+I'se er 'comrade' now but I'se wuss off dan I eber wuz. 'Fo' I come
+here I wuz er butler, and I wuz er gemmen--yas-sah, ef I do hat ter
+say it myself--and I allus live wid gemmens an' sociate wid gemmens. I
+come out here wid you ter be a white man an' er equal. Dat's what dey
+all say. I be er equal 'comrade.' I make up my mind dat I jine de
+minstrel band, pick de banjer, an' sing de balance er my life. Bress
+God, what happen. Dey make me a hod-carrier and make me 'sociate wid
+low-down po' white trash. I ain't come here ter be no 'comrade' wid
+dem kin' er folks. Dey ain't my equal, sah, an' I can't 'ford to
+'sociate wid 'em. What's fuddermo, sah, carryin' a hod ain't my
+business--hit don't suit my health an' brick-dust ain't good fur my
+complexion, sah!"
+
+Tom grunted contemptuously.
+
+Norman smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Sorry, Comrade Bob," he replied. "We haven't men enough to organize
+the minstrels yet. We must rush the new building. We have thousands
+of new members clamouring to join. We have nowhere to house them."
+
+"Yassah, an' I 'spec' dey'll be clamourin' ter unjine fo' long," old
+Bob muttered, as he passed on to be comforted by Catherine's soothing
+words.
+
+Saka, the Indian, whom Colonel Worth had educated, had followed
+Norman. He demanded a return ticket to the Colonel's hunting lodge.
+
+It was promptly refused. Catherine attempted to soothe his ruffled
+feelings. He snapped his fingers in her face and grunted.
+
+The Brotherhood of Man saw Saka no more for many moons, but the crack
+of his rifle was heard on the mountain side and the smoke of his tepee
+curled defiantly from the neighbouring plains.
+
+The chef appeared before the court in answer to numerous complaints
+about the table.
+
+"I must have the law laid down for the tables, Comrade Judges," he
+demanded. "One man wants one thing and another refuses to eat at the
+table where such food is served. A dozen men and women ask only for
+bread, vegetables, and nuts. They refuse to eat meat. They refuse to
+allow me to cook it or any one else to eat it if they can help it.
+They make my life miserable. I want permission to kick them out of the
+kitchen. They demand the right to inspect my pots and pans to see if
+meat has touched them. They must go or I go. I will not be insulted by
+fools. If you do not give me permission to kick these people out of
+the kitchen I will do so without permission. You can take your
+choice."
+
+The cook mopped his brow and sat down with a defiant wave of his arm.
+
+A woman who had been a leader of the W.C.T.U. pressed forward before
+the cook's demand could be considered.
+
+"And I demand in the name of truth, purity, righteousness, justice,
+faith, and God, that no more wine be allowed on the table. I demand
+that we burn the wine house and issue an order to the cook never
+again, under penalty of imprisonment for life, to use a drop of
+alcohol in the food he serves to the Brotherhood----"
+
+"And I also demand, Comrade Judges," the cook interrupted, "the right
+to throw that woman out of the kitchen and have her fined and
+imprisoned the next time she dares to interfere with my business. She
+got into the pantry yesterday and destroyed five hundred mince pies
+because she smelled brandy in them."
+
+"Yes, and I'll do it again if you dare to poison the bodies and souls
+of my comrades with that hellish stuff!" she cried, triumphantly.
+
+"I'd like to know," the cook shouted, "how I'm to do my work if every
+fool in creation can butt into my business?"
+
+"Softly! Softly!" Norman warned.
+
+"I mean it!" thundered the chef. "This woman swears she will wreck the
+dining-room if I dare to place wine again on our bill of fare. I want
+to know if she's in command of this colony? If so, you can count me
+out!"
+
+"And while we are on this point, Comrade Judges," spoke up a
+mild-looking little man, "I have summoned a neighbour of mine to
+appear before you and show cause why he should _not_ cease to have
+sauerkraut served at breakfast. He sits at my table. I've begged him
+to stop it. I've begged the cook to stop cooking the stuff, but he
+bribes the cook----"
+
+"That's a lie," shouted the chef.
+
+"I saw him do it, your honours," the little man went on. "I'm a
+small-sized man or I'd lick him. I tried to move my seat but they
+wouldn't let me. I pledge you my word when he brings that big dish of
+steaming sauerkraut to our table it fogs the whole end of the
+dining-room. The odour is so strong it not only stops you from eating,
+you can't think. It knocks you out for the day."
+
+"Is it possible," Norman inquired, "that there is a human being among
+us who eats sauerkraut for breakfast?"
+
+"There's no doubt about it, comrade," promptly responded a tall,
+strapping-looking fellow, with a dark, scholarly face, as he stepped
+to the front.
+
+"That's him!" cried the little accuser. "I made him come. Told him I'd
+organize a party to lynch him if he didn't. He won't dare deny it. I
+can prove it."
+
+"I have no desire to deny that I eat sauerkraut, you little ape," he
+replied with scorn. "I come of German ancestry, comrades. My
+great-grandfather helped to create this nation. He was a pure-blooded
+German. I inherit from him my personal likes and dislikes. Sauerkraut
+is the best breakfast food ever served to man. It is a pure vegetable
+malt. It is wholesome, clean, healthful, and keeps the system of a
+brain worker in perfect order. I eat it with ham gravy and good hot
+wheat biscuits. It is some trouble for the cook to prepare this
+particular kind of soft tea-biscuit for me. I paid him a little extra
+for this bread--not the kraut. I suggest to your honours that you make
+sauerkraut a standard breakfast diet as a health measure. They may
+kick a little at first, but I assure you it will improve the health
+and character of the colony. If this little chap who accuses me were
+put on a diet of kraut for breakfast it might even now make a man of
+him. I not only have nothing to apologize for, I bring you good
+tidings. I proclaim sauerkraut the only perfect health food for
+breakfast, and I suggest its compulsory use. The man who sits next to
+me eats snails. I think the habit a filthy and dangerous one. If you
+are going into this question, do it thoroughly. Let us fix by law what
+is fit to eat, and stick to it. I'll back sauerkraut before any
+dietary commission ever organized on earth."
+
+The council appointed a commission to conduct hearings and make a
+rigid code of laws establishing the kind of foods for each meal.
+
+Again Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, rose, shook his long hair and
+cleared his throat.
+
+Norman lifted his hand for silence.
+
+"I anticipate the poet's words. You solemnly protest against the
+further establishment of a tyranny which shall dare prescribe your
+food from day to day. I grieve over the necessity of these laws and
+mingle my tears with yours in advance. But, in the language of a
+distinguished citizen of the old republic, 'we are confronted by a
+condition, not a theory.' The council stands adjourned."
+
+The Bard poured his bitter protest into Catherine's patient ears and
+left with a growing conviction of her wisdom.
+
+The woman with the drooping eyelids stood watching his retreating
+figure while a quiet smile of contempt played about her full, sensuous
+lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE UNCONVENTIONAL
+
+
+Within a week it was necessary to appoint a commission to formulate an
+elaborate code of laws regulating various nuisances which had
+developed in the community.
+
+A kitchen-boy insisted on playing a cornet in his room. He didn't know
+a musical from a promissory note but he swore he'd become a musician
+before he died. His efforts came near proving fatal to his neighbours
+before he was suppressed.
+
+Several women had pet parrots. The people who lived near by
+strenuously objected. The parrots had to go.
+
+A sailor had brought a monkey whose manners were not appreciated by
+any one except his master. The monkey had to go. Cats were arraigned
+for trial and a fierce battle raged over the question of allowing them
+in the building. The question was finally put to the popular vote in
+the assembly and the cats won by a good majority. But strict laws
+regulating the kind of cats, their number, and their care, were put
+into force.
+
+Dogs won by a large majority when they were finally put on trial.
+
+The commission on nuisances had finally to make a code of laws
+regulating table manners and the conduct of all social gatherings.
+
+The one question which all but precipitated a civil war was the
+problem of dress. Inequality of wages meant, of necessity, inequality
+of dress.
+
+A desperate effort was made by a large number to force the community
+to adopt a uniform for both men and women. It was fiercely opposed.
+Every woman who believed herself good looking refused to listen to any
+argument on the subject.
+
+It was necessary at once, however, to formulate some sort of code. A
+number of men had been coming into the dining-room in their shirt
+sleeves. Some of them apparently never combed their hair or changed
+their linen. A number of women had gotten into the habit of coming
+into the dining-room in loose wrappers of variegated colors and
+without corsets.
+
+The Bard of Ramcat was particularly severe in his public criticism of
+these women in the general assembly of the Brotherhood.
+
+"In the name of beauty, I protest!" he cried. "Beauty is an attribute
+of God. It is woman's first duty to be beautiful, and if she isn't, at
+least to make man think she is. I insist that she shall have the
+widest liberty in the choice of dress. Only let her be careful that
+she is beautiful!"
+
+The poet was heartily applauded, and a resolution was passed which
+embodied his ideas, approving the widest freedom of choice in dress,
+approving especially unconventional forms of dress, provided always
+the ideal of beauty was held inviolate.
+
+In his speech advocating the immediate passage of the resolution the
+Bard urged every woman to outdo herself in the struggle for supreme
+beauty of appearance at the weekly ball on Friday evening.
+
+His resolutions and speech bore surprising fruit.
+
+When the festivities were at their height a crowd of fifteen pretty
+girls suddenly swept into the brilliantly lighted ball-room in tights!
+The sensation was so instantaneous and overwhelming the music stopped
+with a crash. The orchestra thought somebody had yelled fire.
+
+The girls in their beautiful but unconventional dress tried to appear
+unconcerned. But even the Bard was appalled at the results.
+
+The pretty young chorus-girls had taken him at his word. They had
+always cherished a secret desire to live in an unconventional real
+world, where they could have a chance to be themselves, without the
+hideous skirts of conventional society veiling their beauty. They had
+brought these costumes with them and joined the new moral world in the
+firm faith that their ideal would be realized. It had come very
+slowly, but it had come at last.
+
+They donned their beautiful costumes with hearts fluttering in
+triumphant pride. But they had huddled into a corner of the ball-room
+in a panic of fright at the insane commotion their honest efforts to
+promote beauty had caused. One by one every woman in skirts save
+Barbara and Catherine left the room. The married ones seized their
+husbands and pushed them out ahead.
+
+Norman, who was dancing with Barbara, broke down and burst into a
+paroxysm of laughter.
+
+Some of the girls began to cry, but others made a brave effort to face
+the crowd of eager, giggling boys who pressed nearer.
+
+The Bard approached with a serious look on his noble brow,
+deliberately put on his glasses and surveyed the crowd.
+
+"My dear girls," he began, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart
+for the sincerity and honesty of your efforts to express beauty in
+unconventional form, but really this is beyond my wildest
+expectation."
+
+Catherine drove the rude boys out of the room and closed the windows,
+while Barbara kissed the tears away from the hysterical innovators and
+led them back to their rooms.
+
+The next morning the general assembly held an unusually solemn meeting
+at which it was voted by a large majority to settle at once and
+forever the question of dress by adopting a Socialist uniform of
+scarlet and white for the women, and for the men a dull gray suit with
+scarlet bands on the sleeve, a scarlet stripe and belt for the
+trousers.
+
+The discussion was brief and Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+protested in vain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A PAIR OF COLD GRAY EYES
+
+
+From the night of the ball at which the group of chorus-girls made
+their sensational entrance in tights, Norman had his hands full.
+Disorder had rapidly grown in the Brotherhood. Two distinct parties
+began to line up for a desperate struggle for supremacy, the one
+standing for the widest liberty of the individual members of the
+community, the other demanding the stern enforcement of law and order
+and the formulation of a complete and strict code of rules for the
+government of daily conduct.
+
+Among the men assigned to various tasks there gradually appeared a
+number who slighted their work. From carelessness they drifted into
+utter incompetency and downright laziness. Groups of these loafers
+began to hang around the house daily.
+
+When they had spent the last penny of their credit at the general
+store of the community, they began to steal. Not a day or night passed
+but complaints of thefts were made from every department of the
+colony. One of the most serious of these burglaries was the robbery
+of the winery of an enormous quantity of the most valuable wines.
+
+Drunkenness had already become one of the serious problems of the
+Brotherhood, and the right to buy of the steward had been denied a
+large number of men and several women. These people began at once to
+show signs of intoxication. It was plain that the thieves had hidden
+this wine and that they were carrying on a secret traffic with those
+to whom it had been forbidden.
+
+With the increase of reckless drunkenness another evil grew with
+alarming rapidity, the carousing of boisterous men and women. One of
+them very quickly passed the limits of tolerance. She was in many
+respects the most beautiful girl in the colony, barely nineteen years
+old, with luxuriant blond hair, and big, wide, staring baby-blue eyes.
+She had with it all a smile so saucy, so winsome, so elfish, and yet
+so innocent, it was impossible for the average man or woman to think
+ill of her. To every appeal of Barbara she merely showed her pretty
+white teeth in a winsome smile, promised her anything she asked, and
+proceeded to do as she liked.
+
+At last her room was declared an intolerable nuisance by a committee
+appointed to enter the complaint on behalf of her neighbours on the
+floor on which she lived. The night before this committee appealed to
+Barbara two boys had fought a desperate fist duel in this room. The
+noise had roused the neighbours, and the case could no longer be
+ignored by the executive council.
+
+Barbara was sent to this room with full power to deal with the
+offender.
+
+"Good heavens," cried the girl, her big blue eyes opening wide with
+injured innocence, "how could I help it? They're both in love with me.
+I don't care a rap for either one of them, but they got to fighting,
+and I couldn't stop them. I threw a pitcher of water on them, but they
+kept right on. I'd have called the police, but there was none to call.
+It wasn't my fault."
+
+"But my dear Blanche," pleaded Barbara, "can't you see that you are
+bringing scandal and disgrace into the colony?"
+
+"It's not me!" the pretty lips pouted. "It's these old women who are
+talking. Let them shut their mouths and attend to their own business.
+I'm not bothering them."
+
+"You deny the accusations they bring against your good name?" Barbara
+said, with some surprise.
+
+"Of course I deny them," she snapped. "I've got to have some fun,
+haven't I? I can't help it that a dozen boys come to see me and nobody
+ever sees the old tabbies who lie about me, can I? I can't help it
+that they are old and ugly, can I?"
+
+Barbara had ceased to listen to the glib tongue, whose lying chatter
+tired her. She looked about the room with increasing amazement. It was
+stuffed with presents of every conceivable description. Costly rugs
+adorned the floor. Soft pillows filled the couch by the window. Dainty
+and expensive works of art adorned her mantel, and the richest and
+most beautiful underwear lay in a smoothly laundered pile on her
+luxuriant bed.
+
+"And how did you get all these costly and beautiful things, my dear?"
+Barbara asked, with a touch of sarcasm.
+
+The big blue eyes opened wide again with wonder.
+
+"Why, the boys who are in love with me gave them. Why shouldn't they?
+I can't help it that they are foolish, can I? God made them so."
+
+"And you accepted these rich and costly things in perfect innocence of
+the evil meaning others might put on them?"
+
+"Of course! How can I keep their tongues from wagging? Life's too
+short. I have but one life to live. I can't waste it worrying over
+nothing."
+
+For the first time in her career Barbara stood face to face with naked
+evil--with a liar to whom a lie was good--a radiantly beautiful girl
+to whom shame was sweet.
+
+For a moment the thought was suffocating. She looked out of the window
+at the infinite blue sea until the tears slowly blinded her. The first
+doubt of her theory of life crept into her heart and threw its shadow
+over the ideal of the new world she had built.
+
+She took the girl's hand, slipped her arm around her neck, kissed the
+soft, shining hair, and sobbed:
+
+"Poor little foolish sister! I'm afraid you've broken my heart
+to-day."
+
+"I haven't done a thing! Honestly, I haven't!" the lusty young liar
+rattled on and on, in a hundred silly, vain protests, which Barbara
+never heard.
+
+She left the room at length with a sickening sense of defeat, though
+the girl had promised her on the honour of her soul never again to
+give the slightest cause for complaint.
+
+Many a day she had trudged through the streets of the great city,
+after hours of nerve-racking struggles with sin and shame and despair
+in the old world, but she had always come home at night with a heart
+singing a battle-hymn of victory. She knew the cause of all the pain,
+and she had given her life to right the wrong. Nothing daunted her,
+nothing disconcerted her. In the end triumph was sure, and while she
+felt this there could be no such thing as failure.
+
+She stood before the full meeting of the executive council, honestly
+reported the case, and for the first time tasted the bitterness of
+defeat, helpless, complete, and overwhelming. While she was talking a
+peculiar expression in Wolf's cold gray eyes suddenly caught her
+attention and fixed her gaze on him with a curious fascination and
+horror. Wolf was quick to note her look, recovered himself and smiled
+in his old fatherly, friendly way.
+
+"Don't worry, comrade. We've got to meet and settle such questions.
+They are merely the inheritance of civilization. It will take a little
+time, that's all."
+
+But as Barbara's gaze lingered on the heavy brutal lines of Wolf's
+massive figure and she caught again the gleam of his gray eyes a
+sickening sense of foreboding gripped her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE FIGHTING INSTINCT
+
+
+As questions of discipline became more and more pressing old Tom
+refused to sit as an active judge in the executive council.
+
+Norman protested in vain against his decision to retire for a while.
+
+"I can't do no good settin' thar listenin' to them fools," the miner
+declared. "They make me sick. Besides, ye all vote me down when I
+tells ye what to do, and things keep on goin' from bad to worse. Jest
+let me git out and move around among the boys a little. I think I can
+do some good. You folks is all too chicken-hearted to run this
+Brotherhood. Love and fellowship is all right, but ye've got ter mix a
+little law and common sense before ye can straighten the kinks out of
+this here community."
+
+Norman gave his consent reluctantly, and was amazed at the end of a
+week to observe a remarkable improvement in the spirit of the colony.
+Loafers disappeared, stealing all but ceased, drinking and fighting
+were on the decrease.
+
+One by one old Tom had taken the loafers with him on a long walk up
+the beach. He was usually gone about an hour and always came back
+laughing and chatting with his friend in the best of humour.
+Invariably the loafer went to work.
+
+In the same way he took a walk with each one of a crowd of wild,
+unmannerly boys, whose rudeness at the table and whose horse-play
+about the building had become unendurable. The effects of these walks
+seemed magical. Always the pair returned in a fine humour and the most
+marked revolution was immediately noted in the conduct of the
+offender.
+
+Norman asked the old man again and again for the secret of his power.
+
+He replied in the most casual way:
+
+"Just had a plain heart-to-heart talk with 'em and told 'em what had
+to be--that's all."
+
+The good work had continued for a week with uninterrupted success,
+when a bomb was suddenly exploded in the executive council by the
+appearance of an irate mother leading an insolent fourteen-year-old
+cub, who walked rather stiffly.
+
+Amid a silence that was painful, the mother stripped the boy to the
+waist, thrust him before Norman and Barbara, and said:
+
+"Now, tell them what you've just told me."
+
+The boy glanced cautiously around to see if his enemy were near and
+poured forth a tale the like of which had never been heard before.
+
+"Old Tom asked me to take a walk with him. He got me away off in a
+lonely place behind the big rocks on that little island up the beach
+and pulled up a plank drawbridge so I couldn't get back till he wanted
+to let me. He stripped me like this, tied me to a whipping-post and
+nearly beat the life out of me. He said he'd been appointed by the
+council to settle with me in private so nobody would know anything
+about it."
+
+"Said that he had been appointed by the council to whip you?" Norman
+asked, in amazement.
+
+"That's what he said, sir," the boy went on. "He gave me forty-nine
+lashes with a cowhide and then set down and talked to me a half hour."
+
+"And what did he say?" Norman inquired, forcing back a smile by a
+desperate effort.
+
+"He told me that he tried to get out of the work, but the council had
+forced it on him. Said there oughtn't to be no hard feelings, that it
+was a dirty, tiresome job, and he didn't have no pleasure in it, but
+it had to be done for the salvation of the people. He said it wasn't
+wise to talk about such things among the Brotherhood. I told him I'd
+tell my ma the minute I got home. He said that would be foolish, that
+none of the others had said a word, that they had all taken their
+medicine like little men."
+
+"He told you he had whipped all the others who had taken that walk
+with him?" Norman gasped.
+
+"That's what he said, sir," the boy insisted, "and I guess he had, for
+they'd pawed a hole in the sand 'round that whipping-post big enough
+to bury a horse in."
+
+The boy paused and his mother shook him angrily.
+
+"Tell what else he said to you!"
+
+The cub glanced hastily toward the door and whispered:
+
+"Said if I opened my mouth about what had happened he'd skin me
+alive."
+
+The council sent the mother and son away with the assurance of
+immediate action.
+
+The court adjourned and Norman started with Barbara at once to find
+Tom. Faithful to his new calling he had strolled up the beach with a
+man who once had been his partner as a prospector and miner. Joe
+Weatherby had been drinking heavily the week before and Tom had keenly
+felt the disgrace his old partner had brought on the Brotherhood by
+his rudeness in the dining-room.
+
+Joe had thrown a plate of soup in the face of a boy who was making
+facetious remarks about his capacity for strong drink. When rebuked by
+his neighbours he had accentuated his displeasure by overturning the
+table and smashing every dish on it. He ended the affair by roundly
+cursing the Brotherhood for its rules and regulations interfering with
+his personal liberty, threw his pack on his back, and struck the trail
+for the mountains to prospect for gold.
+
+He had just returned, after a week's absence, and Tom seized the
+opportunity to invite Joe to take a walk with him.
+
+Knowing the character of the two men, Norman felt quite sure this walk
+could not possibly have the usual happy ending that attended so many
+of these performances.
+
+He quickened his pace.
+
+"Hurry, or we may have a funeral for our next function," he cried,
+with a laugh.
+
+A quarter of a mile up the beach the sound of loud angry words
+suddenly struck their ears from behind a pile of huge boulders.
+
+"Quick, we're just in time!" Barbara cried, "they've begun to
+quarrel."
+
+They cautiously approached the boulders and climbed to the top of the
+larger one overlooking the scene Tom had evidently chosen for his
+debate with Joe.
+
+"Hadn't you better part them now?" Barbara asked with some anxiety.
+
+"No, I'll stop them in time. I want to get acquainted with Tom's
+methods of persuasion first."
+
+Tom's voice was rising in accents of wrath. "Joe, I'm a man o'
+peace--I'm a member o' the Brotherhood and you're my brother, but I'll
+tell ye right now we've got to have law and order in this
+community----"
+
+"And I say, Tom Mooney, there hain't no law exceptin' what's inside a
+man."
+
+"Yes, but how kin ye git any law inside a man ef he's always chuck
+full er licker?"
+
+"I don't drink to 'mount to nothin'," Joe protested. "Just a drop now
+an' then ter keep me in good health."
+
+"Wall, ef you try any more capers in that dinin'-room, your health's
+goin' ter break clean down--yer hear me?"
+
+Joe eyed Tom a moment and said with sharp emphasis:
+
+"I reckon I can take care o' myself, partner, without you settin' up
+nights to worry about me."
+
+"That's just the trouble, Joe, ye can't. You jined the Brotherhood,
+but yer faith's gettin' weak. I'm afeard you're onregenerate,
+conceived in sin an' brought forth in iniquity, an' ye ain't had no
+change er heart nohow."
+
+"Look here, what are ye drivin' at?" Joe asked, beginning to back away
+cautiously.
+
+"I just want ter strengthen yer faith, partner," Tom protested kindly
+as he advanced good-naturedly and laid his hand on Joe's arm.
+
+Joe shook it off and turned to go. With a sudden spring Tom was on
+him. A brief, fierce struggle ensued marked by low, savage growls like
+two bull-dogs clinched and searching for each other's throats.
+
+"Stop them! Stop them! They'll kill one another," pleaded Barbara.
+
+"No. It'll do them good. Wait," he replied, watching them
+breathlessly.
+
+"Here! Here, you old fool," growled Joe. "Do you call this the
+Brotherhood of Man?"
+
+"Yes, my son, and specially the Fatherhood er God. The Lord chastens
+them he loveth!"
+
+With a sudden twist the writhing figures fell in the sand, Tom on top
+pinning Joe down.
+
+Joe fought with fierce strength to rise but it was no use.
+
+Tom clutched his throat and choked him steadily into submission.
+
+"I'm er man o' peace, Joe," he repeated.
+
+"Yes, you are!" the bottom one growled.
+
+"But when I mingles with the unregenerate, my son, I trusts in God an'
+keeps my powder dry!"
+
+"Let me up, you old fool!" Joe growled.
+
+"Not yet, my son!" was the firm answer.
+
+"You'll get my dander up in a minute and some body's goin' ter git
+hurt," warned the prostrate figure.
+
+"Please make them quit," Barbara whispered tremblingly.
+
+"Nonsense. They're enjoying themselves," Norman softly laughed.
+
+"What are you tryin' ter do anyhow?" whined Joe.
+
+"I'm callin' a lost sinner to repentance," was the prompt answer.
+
+"Lemme up, I tell ye," Joe yelled, struggling with desperation.
+
+Tom choked him again into silence and seated himself comfortably
+across Joe's stomach.
+
+"Now, Joseph, my boy. I want you ter say over the catechism of the
+Brotherhood of Man. Hit'll freshen yer mind an' be good fer yer
+soul----"
+
+Another grim struggle interrupted the teacher.
+
+"Say it after me: I believe in the fatherhood er God----"
+
+Joe squirmed.
+
+"Say it!"
+
+Still no sound. Tom firmly gripped his throat and Joe gurgled:
+
+"Fatherhood er God!"
+
+"And brotherhood o' man!"
+
+"Brotherhood er man!"
+
+"Yer believe it now?" Tom fiercely asked.
+
+Joe feebly assented.
+
+Tom gripped his throat.
+
+"Say it strong!"
+
+"Yes--I believe it!" Joe confessed.
+
+Again the under man struggled desperately and the man on top fiercely
+choked him into a quieter frame of mind.
+
+"Now again: No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom er God!"
+
+Joe repeated, "No drunkard--shall--what?"
+
+"Inherit--the--kingdom--er God--by golly you've forgot yer Bible too!"
+
+"Inherit--the--kingdom er--God!"
+
+"Who shall not inherit the kingdom of God?"
+
+"No drunkard!" Joe answered.
+
+"Let that soak into yer lost soul!" Tom growled, pausing a moment.
+
+"Now once more! Bear--ye--one--another's burdens!"
+
+Joe hesitated and the man on top bumped the words out of him one at a
+time:
+
+"Bear--ye--one--another's--burdens!"
+
+"An' ye're goin' ter help me bear mine?" the teacher asked.
+
+"Ain't I a-doin' it now?" grumbled the man below.
+
+"Well, once more then: Private property is theft!"
+
+"That's a lie an' you know it," Joe sneered.
+
+"The big chief says so and it goes--say it!"
+
+"Private property is theft," Joe repeated.
+
+"Well, then, once more: Love--one--another!"
+
+"Love one another," came the feeble echo.
+
+"Do ye love me?" Tom fiercely inquired.
+
+Joe struggled.
+
+"Say it!" commanded the teacher.
+
+"I love ye," he groaned.
+
+Norman suddenly appeared on the scene followed by Barbara and the two
+miners leaped to their feet.
+
+"Tom, old boy," the young leader cried, "you mean well, but we are
+told by the preacher that the kingdom of God cometh not of
+observation--it must be from within."
+
+"Just goin' over his Sunday-school lesson with him, Chief."
+
+Joe made a hostile movement, and Norman stepped between them.
+
+"Come! You two big kids--enough of this now, shake hands and make
+up!"
+
+The men both hung back stubbornly.
+
+Norman turned to Tom.
+
+"Were you not partners and friends before you joined the Brotherhood?"
+
+"Yes," the old miner replied grudgingly. "We bin tergether twelve
+years an' we worked an' played tergether, starved an' froze tergether,
+lived tergether, an' slept under the same blanket--he's the only
+partner I ever had--an' he's my best friend"--Tom paused and
+choked--"but I don't like 'im!"
+
+"Shake hands and make up!" Barbara laughed.
+
+They hung back a moment longer until Barbara's smile became
+resistless.
+
+Joe extended his hand, exclaiming:
+
+"Shake, you old coyote!"
+
+Norman gave Joe a serious talk--got a pledge from him to quit drink
+and stand by him in his efforts to bring order out of the confusion
+and chaos in which the colony was floundering.
+
+"You think I can do anything to help you?" Joe asked incredulously.
+
+"Of course you can. You and Tom are two men I've known all my life. I
+know where to find you if I get into trouble."
+
+"Is there goin' ter be any trouble?" Tom broke in, eagerly.
+
+"Not yet, but it's coming. When it does we'll fight it out and win.
+I've set my life on the issue of this experiment."
+
+Joe extended him his hand. "I'm sorry I got drunk. I won't do it
+again--we'll stand by ye!"
+
+"Through thick an' thin," Tom added.
+
+"And hereafter, Tom," Norman said with a smile, "I'd like to be
+consulted before you hold any more sessions of your court up the
+beach."
+
+Tom started.
+
+"You've heard about it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By gum, I knowed I oughter licked that kid again!" the old miner
+observed, regretfully.
+
+Norman, said gravely: "Tom, we are getting into deep water. I've begun
+to have some doubts about our safety. A leader must lead. And I'm
+going to do it. Can I depend on you to execute my orders and mine
+alone?"
+
+"Every day in the year," was the firm reply.
+
+"The same here," Joe echoed.
+
+Barbara had drawn apart from the group of men and stood watching them
+with keen, suspicious interest as the two miners started homeward with
+restored good humour.
+
+"What did you mean by saying that you were afraid of coming trouble?"
+Barbara eagerly asked of Norman. "What have you heard? What do you
+suspect?"
+
+"Nothing," he answered, thoughtfully. "But I've had the blues for a
+week. It's been growing on me that we are not getting on except into
+situations more and more impossible. There's a screw loose somewhere
+in our system. There's going to be a wreck unless we find and repair
+it."
+
+"I have felt this, too, and I think I know the cause."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Liberty which has degenerated into licence. We lack authority and the
+power to enforce it."
+
+"And this is the one thing we cursed in the old system--the law,
+power, authority."
+
+"No," Barbara quickly objected. "We did not rebel against law or the
+exercise of authority. We rebelled against its unjust use."
+
+"And what depresses me is that I am convinced that we must use the
+power of law with more stern, direct, and personal pressure than ever
+known under the system of capitalism, or we must fail."
+
+"Is not such pressure desirable?"
+
+"It depends on who applies the pressure--but it seems inevitable--and
+it depresses me."
+
+Barbara broke into a joyous laugh.
+
+"Away with gloomy forebodings! It's only a day's fog. It will lift.
+The sun is shining behind it now."
+
+Her laughter was contagious. Norman smiled in quick sympathy, and a
+response of hope and courage was just forming itself on his lips when
+he looked toward the house and saw an excited crowd packed in the
+doorway.
+
+"What on earth is the matter?" Barbara gasped.
+
+"Some accident has happened," he replied, quickly. "Come, we must
+hurry!"
+
+Catherine's lithe figure darted down the steps and met them on the
+lawn.
+
+"What is it?" Norman cried.
+
+"A murder!"
+
+"A murder?" Barbara repeated, incredulously.
+
+"Yes--wilful, deliberate, cruel, horrible!" Catherine went on
+excitedly.
+
+"Not old Tom and Joe?" Norman broke in.
+
+"No--Blanche----"
+
+"Oh, God, I knew it," Barbara gasped. "Go on."
+
+"Blanche kept on playing fast and loose with the two boys who fought
+over her the other night. George Mann found his rival in her room just
+now, waylaid him in the hall, and when he came out sprang on him like
+a fiend, stabbed him through the heart and cut his throat. The
+brothers of the dead boy swear they will kill the murderer on sight,
+and they've locked him in your room, Norman, for safety. The men are
+excited to frenzy. Nobody likes the boy who did the crime. The
+rougher ones swear they are going to hang him. They tried to break in
+your door twice, but Herman knocked the ringleaders down and with Tom
+and Joe beat the crowd back. Something must be done at once to prevent
+another outbreak."
+
+Norman hurried to the scene and joined Wolf in his defence of the
+prisoner. Tom formed a guard of ten men heavily armed and marched the
+prisoner to the top of the house, placed him in the small room in one
+of the central towers, and stationed one man inside and five on the
+stairway leading into the tower.
+
+The executive council met immediately and voted unanimously to erect a
+prison, establish a penal colony on the small island at the north of
+Ventura, and restore the whipping-post for minor offenders.
+
+The announcement of this momentous act was made to the general
+assembly without request for debate or an expression of opinion. It
+was received in silence.
+
+The Bard could not protest. He was still confined to his room from the
+effects of a recent argument with his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE CORDS TIGHTEN
+
+
+On Wolf's urgent advice Norman determined to use the autocratic power
+invested in him by the deed of gift to establish a complete code of
+law and enforce it without fear or favour. As the cords tightened,
+scores who became dissatisfied with their lot offered their
+resignations and asked to return to their old homes.
+
+In answer to their clamour Norman posted this notice on the bulletin
+board:
+
+    "Every member of the army of the Brotherhood of Man enlisted for
+    five years' service. Resignations will not be considered and
+    deserters will be tried by court-martial. I am going to use my
+    power for the best interests of the Brotherhood. I ask the
+    coöperation of all the loyal members of the colony. Of traitors
+    I ask no quarter, and I expect to give none.
+
+                                              "NORMAN WORTH,
+                                 "_Trustee and General Manager_."
+
+The effects of the proclamation were instantaneous. The helplessness
+of any attempt to resist authority firmly established under such
+daring leadership was at once apparent to the most stupid mind.
+
+Loafing, drinking, stealing, carousing, and disorder of all kind were
+reduced at once to a minimum.
+
+One act, however, of the executive council under Norman's direction
+precipitated a storm in an unexpected quarter.
+
+The council removed Blanche and a group of wayward girls with whom she
+associated to a cottage outside the lawn.
+
+The women of the Brotherhood were practically unanimous in their
+demands that the whole group be immediately expelled from the colony.
+A committee of three aggressive women presented their demand to Norman
+in no uncertain language.
+
+His reply was equally emphatic:
+
+"Comrades," he said, firmly, "I shall do nothing of the kind. We are
+going to work out this experiment in human society without compromise.
+We have successfully cut communication with the outside world. The
+crew of our ship are no longer allowed to land and only picked men
+unload her cargo. We are not going to play the baby act and dump these
+girls back on the old civilization which we have denounced. They may
+be wayward but they are our sisters."
+
+"They are not mine," shouted one of the committee. "The brazen
+creatures! And we do not propose to have our sons and daughters
+corrupted by association with them."
+
+"Then we must find some other solution than that of transportation,"
+Norman insisted.
+
+"Send them to the penal colony, then," demanded the committee.
+
+"And back in a circle we immediately travel to the crimes of
+civilization from which we fled. I prefer to send the boys who
+associate with them. They are the real offenders."
+
+"I deny that assertion," firmly declared the leader of the committee.
+"My boy is one of the unfortunate victims of these brazen wretches.
+Before we came to this island he never gave me a word of impudence.
+From the night he met Blanche at our first ball he was beyond my
+advice or control. These girls are the enemies of society and this
+colony cannot exist if they remain within its life."
+
+"I refuse to believe it," Norman cried, with scorn. "It is your duty
+to reform these girls and restore them to mental and physical sanity,
+and as the leader of this colony I direct you to take up this divine
+work."
+
+"And I, for one," spoke, for the first time, the silent gray-haired
+member of the committee, "refuse to smirch my hands with the task."
+
+Norman, looked into the calm face of this white-haired, motherly
+looking woman with amazement.
+
+"I can't understand you, comrade mother!" he exclaimed, with
+bitterness.
+
+"That's because you're young, handsome, inexperienced, and, above all,
+because you are a man," was the quick reply. "I have spent a busy life
+since my own children grew out of the home nest in New York City in
+trying to help other people's children less fortunate than my own.
+I've helped scores of boys and never had one to disappoint me yet.
+I've tried to help scores of girls of the type we are discussing. I've
+always regretted it. I found them shallow, false, lazy, stupid,
+worthless. I have never looked at one of them except to blush that I
+am a woman. I speak from the saddest and most hopeless experiences of
+my life."
+
+Norman cut the argument short with a gesture of angry impatience.
+"This discussion is a waste of breath. As long as I am in command of
+this colony no such insane act of injustice shall be committed against
+these girls."
+
+"Then it's time you gave place to a man of greater wisdom and less
+sentimental mush in his brain," replied the calm, gray-haired woman.
+
+"Thank you," the young leader replied, with chilling politeness, "you
+may be right--but in the meantime I accept the responsibility. Good
+day."
+
+He had made three enemies whose power he was soon to feel. As they
+passed through the doorway Catherine greeted them politely and soothed
+their ruffled spirits with gentle words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+SOME INTERROGATION POINTS
+
+
+The establishment of a police and detective service completed the
+efficient organization of the colony. Its life now began to move with
+clock-like regularity.
+
+But these changes were not made without provoking fierce debates and
+bitter prophecies in the general assembly over which Norman presided
+every Friday night.
+
+He began to listen to these endless wrangles, however, with a sense of
+growing anger. It became clearer each week that they were the source
+of cliques and factions, of plots and counter-plots, within the
+colony. His patience reached the limit on the night he announced the
+completion of the jail.
+
+"This is a sad present I am forced to make you to-night, comrades," he
+said, with a note of weariness in his voice. "But I have no choice in
+the matter. It was forced on the executive council. Crimes were
+committed which threatened the existence of our society. We had to
+meet the issue squarely. We could have begged the question by calling
+in the authorities of the State of California, acknowledged our
+defeat, and surrendered. We are not ready to surrender. We haven't
+begun to fight yet."
+
+He had scarcely taken his seat when Diggs, the human
+interrogation-point, slowly unwound his lank figure, adjusted his
+eye-glasses, and gazed smilingly at the chairman.
+
+Norman squirmed with rage as the glint of light from Diggs's big
+lenses began to irritate his spirit.
+
+Barbara slipped her little hand under the table and found his. He
+clasped it gratefully and refused to let go. She allowed him to hold
+it a minute and drew it away laughing.
+
+"Comrades," the man of questions slowly began, "we are making rapid
+progress. Our new building will soon be finished and another colony of
+two thousand enthusiastic souls will be added to our commonwealth. If
+we are going to successfully carry on this work we must begin to
+develop with infinite patience the details of this larger life.
+
+"I submit to you some questions that are profoundly interesting to me.
+
+"How are we to prevent speculation, wages being unequal? How is one
+community to exchange products with another? How determine which line
+of goods each community shall make?
+
+"What is to be done with a strong minority who are bitterly opposed to
+the action of the majority when we assume our permanent democratic
+form?
+
+"How are the thousand and one matters pertaining to private life and
+habits to be settled without continually augmenting the power of
+government? The authority of the most absolute despot who ever lived
+never dared to sit on questions we must decide. Can we do it?
+
+"If we are ever to attain a condition of equality must we not forbid
+gifts and exchanges? For, if men are not to be allowed to grow rich by
+trading, must not the State forbid private exchanges of every nature?
+
+"On the other hand, if the State alone can make exchanges, how can we
+prevent a shrewd man from getting rich by dealing with the State
+itself?
+
+"If the State will not make exchanges, what is one to do who has taken
+a piece of property and finds later he has no use for it? For example:
+if Miss Blanche grows tired of looking at her piano, which she cannot
+play, and desires to exchange it for a carriage and pair of horses,
+must she continue to walk because she cannot effect the exchange?
+
+    [Illustration: BARBARA.]
+
+"If we solve these troubles by declaring all property in common, who
+shall decide the privilege of use which the various tastes of
+individuals may demand?
+
+"If each member be allowed a fixed number of units of value for each
+day of the year, must he spend them at once, or will the State keep an
+account for each individual? If he doesn't spend all his allowance by
+the end of the year can he save it and thus accumulate a private
+fortune?
+
+"Or will the State force him to spend all, thus encouraging reckless
+habits?
+
+"Suppose that a spendthrift squanders his allowance at once and later
+breaks his leg, has it amputated, and needs a hundred dollars to buy a
+wooden leg, how will he get it? Will the State make good his
+recklessness, force him to buy his own leg, or make him hop through
+the year on one leg?"
+
+"I move we adjourn!" Joe yelled, from the rear.
+
+"Second the motion!" Tom echoed, from the front.
+
+The Bard, who had recovered sufficiently to attend on crutches, rose
+painfully, adjusted the bandage on his eye, and once more raised his
+voice in protest.
+
+"I demand freedom of speech on behalf of my friend whom those rowdies
+are insulting!" he thundered.
+
+With reluctance the chairman rapped for order, and Diggs wiped his
+glasses and smilingly proceeded:
+
+"We have established a general nursery for the children. As they grow
+up, who shall decide at what age each child shall begin to work? Some
+children are slow, some quick in growth. Will the new State of Ventura
+take direct charge of all children?
+
+"Or, supposing that separate families are allowed to live apart and
+parents to govern their own children, how is each child to be
+protected so that it gets its exact due? How is it to be known whether
+the parents misappropriate the fund of a child, or favour one more
+than another?
+
+"As our numbers increase we cannot avoid the religious question."
+
+"Amen, O Lord!" shouted Methodist John.
+
+"A number of good people are clamouring for the use of this hall for
+religious services every night. We may deny their demands now. But we
+cannot as they increase. How are we to meet them? Shall we tax the
+unbeliever to support a church? Or shall we tax the believer to pay
+for lighting this hall for a weekly ball?
+
+"If religion is allowed, who shall determine how many preachers each
+denomination can have? How many sisters shall be allowed the Catholics
+and how many monks, and how shall they be distributed? To whom shall
+they answer, the State, or their superior church dignitary?
+
+"Shall Protestants be allowed a sum equal to the amount used in
+support of religious orders? If so, who shall determine how it shall
+be expended?
+
+"If churches are built, who shall determine their cost and their style
+of architecture if the State erects them?
+
+"When our theatre is opened, shall admission be free? If not, what
+shall be done when the receipts fall below expenses?
+
+"What compensation can we give to those who hate theatres? If a small
+majority want a dance-hall and musical extravaganza, and a minority
+want only the serious drama, which shall it be? Suppose a majority
+demand a race-course? Shall the resources of the colony be used thus
+against the bitter protest of those who do not believe in racing?
+Suppose, just before the race-course is finished, the majority become
+a minority and the work is stopped--has the new majority the right to
+destroy the property and accumulate a new fund for a different
+purpose?
+
+"Must a doctor always come when he's called--even for imaginary,
+hysterical, and foolish causes? Will the people vote for and elect
+their own doctor, or will he be assigned? If the doctor proves a
+failure, how will they get rid of him? If they get rid of him, how
+can he be saddled on another community? Shall one community suffer at
+the hands of an incompetent man, while a physician of genius ministers
+to the one next door? If a great surgeon is needed by ten persons at
+the same hour, who shall decide which operation he shall perform, and
+who shall live or die in consequence?
+
+"Who shall say when a doctor is not fit to practise?
+
+"We have just established a weekly paper. Within a year the population
+will need a daily. Who shall say when an editor is competent?
+
+"Some men fail in early life and make their great success later. At
+what period, or after how long a trial, shall it be decided that a man
+is a failure and must quit his chosen or assigned work?
+
+"Many young men promise well at first and make later miserable
+failures. Many are failures at first and make great successes. Who
+shall decide which to continue and which to stop? If a youth is forced
+to abandon a work on which he has set his heart, how can he be made of
+service to the community in a work he loathes?
+
+"We must continue to make inventions, or progress ceases. When the
+cost of experiments is greater than the total income of a citizen, how
+can the inventor bear the expense? Will any man sacrifice his own
+funds and his own time on an uncertain experiment when he can receive
+no benefit from the work?
+
+"Many men are working now over problems all other men believe cannot
+be solved. If the State must furnish the capital to make the
+experiments of inventors, who will be responsible for the enormous
+waste of treasure on senseless and useless and impossible inventions?
+
+"Who can decide whether ideas proposed are useless or impossible? All
+great inventions which have revolutionized the history of ages have
+been laughed at by the world.
+
+"How can we punish the jobbery and waste and corruption which may
+enter from experiments which are not made in good faith? Cannot any
+group of shrewd men pretend to have invented a machine which will save
+over half the labour of the colony, and spend millions on this
+imaginary invention which proves useless? If such an abuse of power
+should be made, would not the effect be to end forever all experiments
+and stop the progress of the world?
+
+"When many cities have been built and one is more healthful,
+beautiful, and cultured than the others, shall those who live in the
+poorer cities be allowed to move or be forced to remain where they
+are? How are sculptors, artists, musicians, or architects to be
+apportioned among different communities? Suppose they all demand the
+right to live in one place?
+
+"Will the State publish all books by all authors, or will selections
+be made? If all books are published will not vast sums be wasted in
+printing worthless trash? If selections are made, what unprejudiced,
+infallible board can be found competent to decide?
+
+"If a man chooses to be a writer, how many years shall he be allowed
+to work at his occupation if in the opinion of the judges he shows no
+talent?
+
+"Will the State permit freedom of opinion in the columns of its papers
+and the books printed? If so, what shall hinder a treasonable
+conspiracy from destroying respect for its authority? If opinions are
+to be edited by the State, how can the freedom of the press be
+maintained?
+
+"What shall be done with the Negro, the Chinaman, and the Indian when
+their numbers largely increase? Will these inferior races be placed on
+an absolute equality with the Aryan and will they be allowed to freely
+intermarry? If so, can the new mongrel race maintain itself against
+the progress and power of the great high-bred races of men?
+
+"Are women to receive the same allowance as men, and married women the
+same as spinsters?
+
+"Shall men and women be required to marry or be allowed to remain
+single? Shall all women be made to work? If it continues to cost more
+to support a single woman than a married one, how can equality of
+rights be maintained?
+
+"As food is the basis of all supply, many must be farmers. How shall
+this great industry be conducted ultimately? Can we allow individuals
+to work small farms? If so, who determines the kind of crop each farm
+shall raise? How much land will a man be required to work?
+
+"An Italian from the north of Italy can raise more on one acre than an
+Irishman can on ten--whose method shall be used, and whose capacity be
+taken for the standard?
+
+"How many hours shall constitute a day on the farm? Shall a farmhand
+get only a dollar a day and a bricklayer two? If so, where is the
+justice and equality of such an arrangement?
+
+"Can a farmer be allowed vacations? If so, must he ask permission
+where to go? If not, suppose he goes at seedtime or harvest, gets
+drunk, stays two weeks or two months, and destroys a year's crop? Who
+shall pay for this enormous damage, and how shall the penalty be
+enforced?
+
+"Suppose a poor manager spoils the crop on an immense tract of land,
+how can any adequate penalty be enforced?
+
+"Shall one general manager decide what kind of crops to raise on each
+piece of land or each manager decide for himself? Suppose they all
+raise hay----"
+
+"Then you'll have plenty to eat the balance of your life--you and all
+the other jackasses in the colony!" old Tom growled.
+
+A laugh rippled the crowd and the speaker paused in angry confusion.
+For the first time he lost his temper and stood glaring at his
+tormentors in silent rage.
+
+Norman whispered to Barbara:
+
+"Wolf has urged me for some time to suppress this meeting. Shall I do
+it?"
+
+"Yes. It's a nuisance. I agree with him. Do it."
+
+Norman rose just as Diggs sat down choking with anger.
+
+"Comrades," the young leader said, in commanding tones. "I think this
+assembly has completed its work of discussion. The questions
+propounded here to-night are important. We will meet and solve them in
+due time, as we come to them. What this community needs now is the
+spirit of coöperation, of loyalty, and industry. We have been assigned
+our tasks for the year. Now every man to his work! We have had enough
+of wrangling and questioning. Let's live and breathe awhile. The
+executive council has decided to close the weekly sessions of the
+assembly until the annual election of officers next spring. Hereafter
+a musicale and dance will be held both Monday and Friday evenings."
+
+The young folks broke into hearty applause led by old Tom and his
+partner Joe.
+
+The Bard sprang to his feet, his one good eye blazing with inspired
+wrath.
+
+"And I denounce this act of tyranny as the climax of a series of
+infamies! You have now forged the chains of slavery on every limb.
+Free speech has been suppressed--in God's name, what next?"
+
+But the crowd only laughed. The Bard had protested so often his words
+ceased to have weight. The halo of romance that once wreathed his
+classic brow had faded with the painful disillusioning which followed
+a thrashing his wife had given him. He was a prophet without honour
+and his warnings fell on deaf ears.
+
+Wolf and Catherine stood at the door with a word of cheer, a friendly
+nod, or a silent pressure of the hand for every one who emerged from
+the hall. These two alone at every turn grew in prestige among all
+jarring factions of the struggling colony.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MASTER HAND
+
+
+The whole machinery of the colony responded instantly to the grip of
+the master's hand. It was the one thing needed to insure successful
+progress.
+
+When the Brotherhood realized that the young poet-athlete was not
+merely a love-sick dreamer and theorist, but a man of quick decisions,
+of firm and inflexible will, and the power to execute his will, they
+fell in line, caught the step, and order emerged from chaos.
+
+When a crisis called for decision he made it with lightning rapidity
+and stuck to it. The situation demanded a dictatorship for the moment,
+and he did not hesitate to assume it. He saw before him sure success.
+If fools and cranks interfered with his plans he would crush and push
+them aside. The consciousness of power and its daily exercise
+developed his faculties to their highest tension. His mind began to
+arrange every detail of the vast and complicated system of the new
+social scheme. Men became the mere tools with which he would work out
+the revolution in human society. Every scrap of knowledge he had ever
+gained flashed through his excited imagination and fell into its place
+in the creation of the new order.
+
+He put the machine-shops to work constructing the big gold dredge on
+which he had experimented one summer.
+
+He had a pet scheme of farming which had come into his mind from
+watching his father's gardener the year before raise the most
+delicious cantaloups he had ever tasted. He discovered the secret of
+their marvellous sweetness and leaped to an instantaneous conclusion.
+He had the opportunity to test this inspiration now on a scale as vast
+as his dreams.
+
+He called the superintendents and overseers of the farm together, and
+asked their plans for the crop on the five hundred acres of fertile
+lands under cultivation. They gave him their schedule for a variety of
+crops.
+
+"Won't this soil grow cantaloups?" he asked.
+
+They all reported that it would.
+
+"Then I suggest that the entire acreage be planted in these vines."
+
+To a man they declared the plan absurd.
+
+"But suppose," he persisted, "that we raise and send to the East the
+most delicious melon they have ever tasted, and suppose we get three
+dollars a crate, we will make three hundred dollars an acre and our
+first crop will be worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
+
+They laughed at him.
+
+"Do you know," smilingly inquired the superintendent, "how much it
+will cost to plant and harvest such a crop?"
+
+"I should say twenty-five dollars an acre," he replied.
+
+"Double it," he cried.
+
+"Very well, fifty dollars an acre," Norman agreed. "In round numbers
+it will cost us twenty-five thousand dollars. That leaves a profit of
+more than a hundred thousand, doesn't it?"
+
+Again the superintendent laughed.
+
+"And would you risk this enormous sum on one experiment? Suppose your
+melons would not be sweet?"
+
+"There is no such possibility," the young enthusiast declared. "Their
+sweetness depends solely on two things--the quality of the seed and
+the quantity of rain which falls on them while they are growing. We
+are wasting a supreme opportunity. No rain falls in Ventura during the
+summer. We get our water to the roots by irrigation, not by rainfall.
+Get the right seed and your melons must be perfect. This is a
+scientific fact I have seen demonstrated. Try it on a vast scale and
+success is sure."
+
+They voted unanimously against the proposition. Norman insisted. The
+superintendent resigned and appealed to the executive council. Wolf
+and Catherine, Tom and Barbara advised against placing so much capital
+in a single enterprise.
+
+"I've got to make you rich and successful in spite of yourselves,"
+Norman finally declared. "For the present I control these funds and
+I'm going to plant this crop. So that settles it. I'm sorry we can't
+agree."
+
+His instantaneous decision fairly took Wolf's breath.
+
+Barbara laughed and congratulated him.
+
+"At least you have the courage of your convictions. I can't help
+admiring it."
+
+As further opposition was useless, the order was put into execution.
+The superintendent finally caught the young man's spirit, withdrew his
+resignation, and undertook the work with enthusiasm.
+
+At the end of the summer the success of the colony was astounding. The
+wildest prediction of the young leader fell below the facts. The crop
+of cantaloups averaged one hundred and five crates to the acre, and
+brought three dollars and a half a crate. The net profit on the
+melons reached the enormous total of one hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars.
+
+The men who raised the crop and added this wealth to the treasury of
+the colony were not slow in demanding an immediate readjustment of the
+scale of wages.
+
+Two hundred and fifty men had done all the work of planting,
+cultivating, harvesting this crop and added ten times as much to the
+year's income as the combined labour of all the other members of the
+colony.
+
+Brick-masons were receiving two dollars a day and farm-hands one
+dollar. The miners who were digging for gold in the mountain ranges
+and on the beaches were receiving five dollars a day and had added as
+yet not a single dollar to the wealth of the community. They had
+discovered gold in three new districts and thousands of dollars had
+been wasted in vain efforts to make it pay. The farmers protested
+bitterly against such waste, and demanded the equalization of wages.
+
+Their spokesman astonished Norman by the vehemence and audacity of
+their demands:
+
+"If Socialism means justice," he shouted, "now is the time to prove
+it! Labour creates all value. We have created one hundred and fifty
+thousand dollars' worth of wealth for the colony and we have received
+a mere pittance. If we created this wealth----"
+
+"Wait a minute, comrades," Norman interrupted, with irritation. "Why
+should you continue to repeat that foolish assertion? You didn't
+create this wealth."
+
+"Then I'd like to know who did?" shouted the orator. "We turned the
+soil, placed the fertilizers, planted every seed, cultivated every
+vine, pulled every melon, packed and placed them on the steamer. If we
+didn't make the wealth, who did?"
+
+"I did," the young leader declared. "I conceived the possibility of
+this crop. I tried to persuade your superintendent and overseers. They
+had no faith. I forced them to plant these particular seeds against
+their own wishes. Your labour is a fixed thing year in and year out.
+All men must work or die. All life is a struggle thus with tooth and
+nail for a living. The creator of wealth is the superior intelligence
+that conceives something better than this clodhopper's daily task. You
+did what you were told to do. Your hands would have worked just as
+many hours at labour just as tiresome over a crop of beans that
+wouldn't have paid a profit at all this year. Wealth belongs to its
+creator. I made the crop, your hands were the mere automata which my
+brain directed. Your demands are absurd. I refuse to consider them or
+to permit their discussion."
+
+The farmers refused point-blank to submit to this decision, and voted
+unanimously to quit work until they were given justice. Every plough
+stopped and the entire machinery of food production came to a dead
+standstill.
+
+Norman threatened to refuse them admission to the dining-hall unless
+they returned to work, and they boldly replied that they would smash
+the door down and take what was their own.
+
+Had the farmers been alone in their demands for an equalization of
+wages, the situation would have been easier to handle. But discontent
+over the question of wages had been growing steadily since the day of
+the decision that wages should be unequal.
+
+The distinctions of wealth and poverty were rapidly making their
+appearance as in the old world. The cook had married a scrubwoman and
+the scrubwoman's daughter had married the drainman who had charge of
+the sewers. The combine income of the two highest-salaried workers in
+the colony had at once formed the nucleus of a new aristocracy of
+wealth.
+
+The strike of the entire farming division of the colony was the match
+thrown in the powder magazine. Discontent flamed in every department
+of labour.
+
+The demand for absolute equality of wages became resistless. It was
+the only thing which could once more bring order out of chaos.
+
+Norman called a meeting of the general assembly and submitted the
+question for their discussion and decision. The debate was long,
+fierce, and bitter. In vain did the young leader plead with those who
+were receiving the highest rates that the profits of the colony would
+be greater and that each would share alike in the total wealth of the
+community. They denounced the proposed act as the climax of infamy.
+
+The chef was furious.
+
+"You give me the wages of a clodhopper and ask me to prepare a table
+fit for a king. Well, try it, and see what you get."
+
+He sat down repeating his threat in a series of endless announcements
+to the people around him.
+
+"I think he'll poison us all if you pass this law," Barbara whispered.
+
+"The farmers will run us through with their pitchforks if we don't,"
+he laughed.
+
+"Poisoning is the easier way," she sighed.
+
+The leader of the brass band raised the biggest row of all. From the
+first these men had refused to lift their hand to do a thing except
+to play at stated hours each day and furnish the music for the three
+evenings of social amusement.
+
+"You place me on an equality with the lout who holds a calf or the
+clodhopper who holds a plough--I, who feed the soul with ravishing
+melody--I, who lift man from earth to heaven on the wings of angels!"
+The band leader swelled with righteous wrath and sat down beside the
+cook who was still muttering incoherently:
+
+"Let 'em try it--and see what they get!"
+
+Yet, in spite of the fierce threats of the cook, the scrubwoman, the
+drainman, the musician, and all the high-salaried favourites of
+labour, the inevitable occurred. When put to a vote equal wages were
+established by an overwhelming majority.
+
+Each member of the colony, man, woman, and child, was voted free food,
+clothes, and shelter, and a credit of five hundred dollars a year at
+the Brotherhood store.
+
+The executive council was abolished and in its place a board of
+governors established, composed of the heads of each department of
+labour and presided over by two regents, a man and a woman, elected by
+the general assembly. Norman and Barbara were elected regents without
+opposition, and the old heads of each department of labour placed on
+the board of governors to serve until the approaching annual election.
+
+The assembly proposed:
+
+"Article I. of the constitution of the new State of Ventura as
+follows:
+
+"Every citizen of the State must labour according to his ability.
+Those who can work and will not shall be made to work."
+
+No man who voted this simple and obviously just law could dream of the
+tremendous results. It was merely the enactment into statutory law of
+the first principle of an effective Socialism:
+
+"From every man according to his ability, unto every man according to
+his needs."
+
+The first obvious requirement of such a law was an immediate increase
+of the police and detective force at the command of the regents and
+the board of governors.
+
+Norman thanked the assembly for the promptness and thoroughness which
+had characterized their work, and closed his congratulations with a
+sentence of peculiarly sinister meaning to the man who had ears to
+hear.
+
+"Hereafter, comrades, we can move forward without another pause. There
+can never be another strike on the island of Ventura. The State is now
+supreme."
+
+The Wolfs, who had modestly declined all office, were omnipresent
+during the long sessions of the assembly, which had lasted two days.
+Everywhere they had counselled compromise, forbearance, good
+fellowship, moving quietly from group to group in the big hall, and
+always winning new friends.
+
+Wolf's gnarled hand gripped Norman's at the close of the meeting as he
+bent his massive head and whispered:
+
+"A great day's work, Comrade Chief--one that will make history."
+
+The young leader's face clouded as he slowly replied:
+
+"I wish I were sure that it will be history of the right kind."
+
+"You doubt it?" the old leader asked incredulously.
+
+"It all depends on our leadership."
+
+"With your hand on the helm"--Wolf paused and smiled curiously--"the
+ship of State is safe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
+
+
+Again the colony entered on a period of active and efficient industry.
+Every man was at his post and did the work assigned him.
+
+Eight hours was fixed as a working day in all departments. The first
+acts of insubordination were promptly suppressed. The discipline of an
+army was strictly enforced--the guard-house and whipping-post were
+found sufficient.
+
+No report except the most favourable had ever reached the outside
+world, and thousands of applicants in San Francisco were clamouring
+for admission. The new colony house with accommodation for two
+thousand had been completed, and another of like size was under way.
+
+Wolf had urged Norman to admit a new colony at once and prepare for
+the third. But the difficulties of government and the fights within
+the Brotherhood had alarmed the young leader. He hesitated, and the
+big new building as yet remained empty.
+
+As the day for the annual meeting of the assembly drew near, doubts of
+the future grew darker in the young regent's mind. He had the power,
+under the deed of gift, to prolong the experiment another year,
+holding the title to the property for further experiment, or divide
+the profits between the members and reconvey the gift back to its
+donors, or by deed convey at once the whole property to the
+Brotherhood and end his trusteeship.
+
+Which should it be?
+
+His faith in his fellow man had been shaken by the events of the past
+year, and yet the colony had succeeded. Its wealth was great and its
+prospects greater. With the perfect discipline recently inaugurated
+and wisely administered, no limit could be fixed to the productive
+power of such an organization.
+
+That he should hesitate a moment after the achievements of the year
+was a stunning shock to Wolf. The moment he realized the import of the
+crisis, he at once appealed to Barbara.
+
+"You alone can save us, child," he urged. "You must act at once. You
+promised to lead him captive in your train. You have failed for one
+reason only----"
+
+"Yes, I know," Barbara interrupted. "I haven't tried. I confess it."
+
+"There is not a moment to lose," Wolf urged. "We are entering on the
+most wonderful development in the history of the human race. The only
+thing lacking for its triumphant achievement is faith and leadership.
+Secure from our young dreamer the title to this island and you will
+achieve an immortal deed--you will not hesitate or fail?"
+
+"No," was the firm answer. "I will not fail. I'm going with him to-day
+on a mountain climb. Just for fun, if for nothing else, I'll test my
+power."
+
+"You'll report to me the moment you return?" Wolf urged.
+
+"Yes," she answered, dreamily.
+
+Norman found Barbara in a mood resistlessly charming. She seemed to
+have utterly forgotten that she was grown up or had ever been the
+herald of a revolutionary cause. She was a laughing girl of eighteen
+again, with the joy of youth sparkling in her eyes and laughter
+ringing in every accent of her voice.
+
+Instantly the mood of the man reflected hers. He threw to the winds
+the cares and worries of the great adventure that had brought them
+together, and the island of Ventura became the enchanted isle of song
+and story.
+
+"We shall be just two children to-day--shall we not?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he responded gaily, "two children who have run away from
+school, tired of books, with hearts hungry for the breath of the
+fields."
+
+For half an hour hill and dale rang with laughter as they ascended the
+path of the brook. They came to a wide expanse of still water. And
+Norman said with a bantering laugh:
+
+"We leave the stream here and climb the hill to the left. I must wade
+and carry you across this place if you're not afraid?"
+
+"Who's afraid?" she asked with scorn.
+
+"All right."
+
+He removed his shoes, and rolled his trousers high.
+
+"Now your arm around my neck, and no jumping or screaming until we're
+safe on the other shore."
+
+She hesitated just an instant, blushed, and slipped her soft round arm
+about his neck as he lifted her slight figure and began to pick his
+way across the treacherous surface of the slippery bottom. His foot
+slipped on a muddy stone. She gave a scream, and both arms gripped his
+neck in sudden fear. Her burning cheek pressed his forehead.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she cried, blushing red. "I didn't mean to
+smother you."
+
+"And I distinctly said no jumping or screaming, didn't I?"
+
+"I won't do it again--oh, dear!"
+
+Again both arms clasped his neck in a strangling, smothering hug,
+which he purposely prolonged with an extra slip which might have been
+avoided.
+
+Her face was scarlet now and the blushes refused to go. They lingered
+in great red bunches after he had carefully placed her on the smooth
+grass on the opposite bank.
+
+"Honestly, I'm afraid I disgraced myself, didn't I?" she asked,
+timidly.
+
+"No. It was all my fault," he replied. "I did it on purpose."
+
+"Perhaps I choked you on purpose, too!" she answered, blushing again.
+
+Norman looked at her thoughtfully.
+
+"You know I never saw you blush before. I like it."
+
+"Is it becoming?" she asked, demurely.
+
+"Very."
+
+"You know I was never in a man's arms before."
+
+"And you didn't like it?" he asked, with a smile playing around his
+mouth.
+
+"To tell you the truth, I found it very awkward."
+
+"Awkward?" he laughed.
+
+"And exciting," she confessed.
+
+"Shall we repeat it until you are used to it?"
+
+"Thank you, I'm sufficiently amused for to-day," she answered,
+soberly. "And now we will put on our shoes and be good children."
+
+For the rest of the journey Norman found her strangely silent. Now and
+then he caught her looking at him furtively out of her big brown eyes,
+as if she had just met him and was half afraid to go further.
+
+He found himself particularly sensitive to her moods. The moment she
+became silent and thoughtful her impulses ruled his, and not a word
+was spoken for a mile. Scarcely two sentences passed between them
+until they reached the summit of the range and sat down on the cliff
+overhanging the sea.
+
+This cliff was one of the numerous headlands which thrust their peaks
+in almost perpendicular lines sheer into the ocean.
+
+They sat for an hour and drank in the peace and solemn grandeur of the
+infinite blue expanse.
+
+"What a little world, the one in which we live down there and fret and
+fume," he whispered. "The one we think so big when in the thick of the
+fight! We forget the dim expanse of ocean kissing ocean--encircling
+the earth--of the skies that kiss the sea and lead on and on into
+those great silent deeps where a universe of worlds roll in grandeur!"
+
+"Yet isn't man greater than all these worlds?" she asked, with sudden
+elation.
+
+"If he is a man, yes; a real man with the conscious divine power in
+his soul which says, I will! Isn't that the only power worth having?
+The herd of cattle we call men, whose souls have never spoken that
+divine word of character and of action--are they men? Have they souls
+at all? Is it worth the while of those who have to fret and fuss and
+fume trying to make something out of nothing?"
+
+Barbara turned suddenly, looked into Norman's eyes, and asked in
+anxious tones:
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"That I'm thinking of giving up this experiment."
+
+"Now that you are just making it a marvellous success?"
+
+"But is it a success? What is the good of achievement for any
+community if that achievement springs from the will of one man? If
+their souls are in subjection to his, has he not degraded them? Is
+life inside or outside? Are we Socialists not struggling merely with
+what is outside? Are we not in reality struggling back into the
+primitive savage herd out of which individual manhood has slowly
+emerged? I'm puzzled. I'm afraid to go on. I've asked you to come up
+here to-day to tell me what to do."
+
+Barbara's breath came quick.
+
+"You wish me to decide the momentous question of our colony? Perhaps
+the future of humanity?"
+
+"Yes, just that. You are a woman. Women know things by intuition
+rather than by reason. I'm growing more and more to believe that we
+only know what we feel. I trust you as I would not trust my own
+judgment just now. I'm going to ask you, in the purity and beauty of
+your woman's soul, to read the future for me. I'm going to allow you
+to decide this question. Feel with me its difficulties and its
+prospects, trust utterly to your own intuitions, and you will decide
+right."
+
+Barbara began to tremble and her voice was very low as she bent toward
+him.
+
+"Why do you trust me with the greatest question of your life with such
+perfect faith?"
+
+He took her hand, bowed, and kissed it.
+
+"Because, Barbara, I love you," he whispered with passionate
+tenderness.
+
+The girl looked away and smiled while her heart beat in an ecstasy of
+triumph.
+
+"And this is one of the things that has puzzled me most," he went on,
+rapidly. "Every hope and dream my soul has cherished of you has been
+at war with this scheme of herding men and women together. I want you
+all my very own. I want to seize you now in my arms and carry you a
+thousand miles away from every vulgar crowd on earth. A hundred times
+I've been on the point of telling you that I love you, but I drew back
+and sealed my lips. It was treason to the Cause. For how can this
+cause of the herd be one with the heart-cry of the man for the one
+woman on earth his mate? I've tried to reconcile them, but I can't.
+Come, dearest, you are my nobler, better self, the part of me I've
+been searching for and have found. You must answer this cry for light
+and guidance. Your voice shall be to me the voice of God. Shall I go
+back to the faith of my fathers in the old world, and will you come
+with me--my wife, my mate, my life? Or shall we remain here, and hand
+in hand fight this battle to a finish? The one thing that is
+unthinkable is that I shall lose you. I lay my life at your feet. Do
+with it as you will."
+
+Barbara tried to speak and a sob choked her into silence. She lifted
+her head at last and spoke timidly.
+
+"I thought it would be easy. But I find it very, very difficult--this
+settling the destiny of a man. Of one thing I'm sure. You must not
+give up this work."
+
+"I'll sign the deeds of transfer to-morrow," he interrupted.
+
+The girl's eyes opened in wonder and a feeling of awe stole into her
+heart.
+
+"You trust me so far?" she asked, brokenly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I must speak softly, must I not? I must weigh every word. You
+frighten me----"
+
+"I'm not afraid. You are the woman I love."
+
+"How long have you loved me?" she asked, studying him curiously.
+
+"Always, I think. Consciously since the day I tore that flag down on
+our lawn."
+
+"And yet you drew away from me at times."
+
+"Yes. I felt the irrepressible conflict between this ideal and my
+desires. Your voice called me to the work. I determined to put the
+work to the test first----"
+
+"And I was the inspiration behind your faith and daring leadership?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"You haven't asked me if I love you?" Barbara said, after a pause.
+
+"I've been afraid."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I don't think you are yet conscious of the meaning of love."
+
+"And yet you place yourself absolutely in my power?"
+
+"Absolutely. I love you and I have not made a mistake."
+
+"Frankly, then, I don't know what love means. In my heart of hearts
+I've always been afraid of men----"
+
+"You're not afraid of me?"
+
+"After to-day--no, I don't think I will be."
+
+"You have made me very happy," he cried joyously. "Come, we must hurry
+back now. I'm going to make out the deeds to-night and place them in
+your hands to-morrow morning."
+
+Scarcely a word was spoken as they descended the mountain. She had
+gone up in the morning a laughing girl, conscious of her beauty and
+its cruel power, and determined to use it. She came down a sober
+little woman with a great, wondering question growing in her heart.
+
+When Wolf met her with eager questions she answered as in a dream.
+
+"He will deliver the deeds to-morrow?" he gasped in amazement.
+
+"Yes, to-morrow," she answered mechanically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE FRUITS OF PATIENCE
+
+
+The next morning Norman asked Barbara to take breakfast alone with him
+in the little rose bower on the lawn where she had first announced her
+choice of work so oddly and charmingly.
+
+She entered with a timid hesitation and a half-frightened look he was
+quick to note. He was sure from the expression of her eyes that she
+had not slept.
+
+"You did not sleep well?" he asked.
+
+"I didn't sleep at all," she confessed.
+
+He attempted to take her hand and she drew back trembling.
+
+"Now, you _are_ afraid of me?"
+
+"Yes. I'm afraid I am," she stammered.
+
+"Why of me? The one man of all men on earth--the man who loves you?"
+
+"Perhaps that's just why I'm afraid of you," she said, with an effort
+to smile. "But, to tell you the truth, I think it's just because you
+are a man. Last night I lay awake thinking it all over. I'm quite sure
+that I shall always be afraid of men. I like you better than any man
+I've ever known, but now that you've told me you love me I'm uneasy
+when I'm near you. I think you'd better give me up at once. I'm sure
+I'm hopeless as a sweet-heart. I know I could never marry. The
+domestic instinct seems utterly missing in my nature. I love man in
+the abstract, but I can never surrender to any particular man. It
+seems like suicide. I want to be myself. I hate the idea of losing
+myself in another's being--I can't endure it, and if you make love to
+me any more I shall be very unhappy--and--I'll have to keep out of
+your way. You won't do this any more will you? Promise me, and we will
+be our old selves again--just comrades."
+
+Norman bowed with a smile.
+
+"I promise never to speak another word of love to you until you tell
+me that you love me!"
+
+"Honestly?" she laughed.
+
+"On my word of honour," he answered, gravely.
+
+"Then I shall be happy again," she cried.
+
+"You will not try to avoid me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You will help and cheer me in the work I've planned?"
+
+"Every day," she promised.
+
+"Then I shall bide my time." He drew the deeds to the island from his
+pocket and handed them to her.
+
+"The title to a kingdom which I joyfully deliver by order of the
+queen-regent!"
+
+"You are sure you do this because I asked you?"
+
+"Do you really doubt it?"
+
+"No," was the candid reply. "And I'll be frank enough to confess that
+I feel very proud of my power. You flattered my vanity as never
+before. You have put me under a sense of gratitude for which I fear I
+can never reward you."
+
+"I have my reward in your approval."
+
+She smiled and lifted her finger in warning.
+
+"I'll not forget my promise," he said. "From to-day we understand each
+other perfectly. I am permitted to love you in silence. You graciously
+permit this as long as I am silent. In my wounded pride I have vowed
+that you yourself shall break this silence or it shall remain unbroken
+forever. This is our compact?"
+
+"Yes," she answered extending her hand. He felt it tremble at his
+first touch and then rest contentedly and confidently in his strong
+grasp for a moment before they parted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When once his decision was made, Norman threw every doubt to the winds
+and devoted himself with tireless zeal to establishing the
+Brotherhood on the vast scale he had originally planned.
+
+In every step of the expanding life of the colony Barbara was his
+constant companion and silent inspiration.
+
+The transfer of the property was duly made under Wolf's keen gray
+eyes, with every detail of the law carefully guarded.
+
+A second colony of two thousand enthusiasts was landed and established
+in the new building. Under Norman's inspiring leadership their work
+was quickly organized.
+
+A new central administrative colony of five thousand was planned, and
+the foundation of its buildings laid with inspiring ceremonies. The
+huge structure was formed in the shape of a quadrangle covering ten
+acres of ground. In the centre of the court rose the house of the
+regents, in reality a palace of imposing splendour. The assembly hall
+was located in the regents' palace and formed the dining-room of their
+colony. At one end of the magnificent room was placed on an elevated
+platform the table at which the board of governors would sit, while at
+each end of the table stood the gilded chairs of state to be occupied
+by the regent and his consort.
+
+The scheme of imposing grandeur was suggested by Wolf. Norman objected
+at first, but yielded at last, convinced by his past experiences that
+a central authority of undisputed power was essential to the existence
+of any state founded on the socialistic ideal.
+
+At each corner of the quadrangle a public building was placed
+connected by the dormitories; on one corner was placed a theatre, on
+another a music hall, on another a school and nursery, on the other a
+lyceum to be used for public gatherings of all kinds, religious,
+social, or political. Each section of the outer buildings was
+connected with the regent's palace in the centre of the court by
+covered walk ways.
+
+The entire force of the four thousand members of the Brotherhood
+(except the farmers) were placed at work to complete this structure at
+the earliest possible moment.
+
+A day before the annual meeting of the Brotherhood at which the board
+of governors and the two regents were to be elected for the term of
+four years, Norman established a daily newspaper, _The New Era_, and
+the event was celebrated in the evening by a banquet and ball.
+
+As he walked among the joyous throngs of the Brotherhood as they moved
+through the brilliantly lighted ball-room he began to feel for the
+first time the conscious joy of a great achievement.
+
+Beyond a doubt the Brotherhood was an accomplished fact. Its fame was
+stirring the world beyond their little island. Pictures of the future
+flashed through his imagination, and always in greater and more
+alluring splendour.
+
+He saw himself becoming more and more the guiding spirit of the great
+enterprise. If men opposed his plans he would mould their wills in
+his.
+
+Gradually he meant to remove the hard and painful elements of force on
+which the efficiency of the colony now rested. The discipline of an
+army with its stern laws of physical violence back of its clock-like
+precision was not to his liking. He winced at the thought of that grim
+relic of barbarism, the whipping-post, which they had found necessary
+to temporarily revive. The jail, guard-house, and penal colony were
+thorns in his flesh which he would remove at the earliest possible
+moment. The one excuse for their existence was the inheritance of evil
+in man's nature due to his wrongs and suffering under the system of
+capitalism. They would outgrow them.
+
+Again and again he encountered Wolf and Catherine in the highest
+spirits, laughing, joking, chatting, shaking hands with each one they
+met.
+
+Suddenly it struck him for the first time that he had a poor memory
+for names and faces. He wondered how Wolf could remember the name of
+the most obscure member of the colony without an effort. He had been
+so absorbed in the big problems of the Brotherhood that he had given
+little or no time to cultivating the personal acquaintance of its
+individual members. The arts of the politician were foreign to his
+nature. He had never stooped in his thoughts even to consider them. He
+had always lived in a different world.
+
+Never for a moment had the idea occurred to him that he might have to
+fight for his position as leader of the colony which he had created,
+yet when he took his seat beside Barbara the following night to
+preside over the annual meeting, he was conscious instantly that
+through the crowd of eager faces before him there ran a strong current
+of personal hostility.
+
+It was a disagreeable surprise. But as he recalled the many unpopular
+decisions he had been called on to make during the past year it seemed
+but natural there should be a lingering soreness in some minds. It was
+not until he saw Wolf in deep consultation with Diggs's glasses, and
+Catherine whispering to the smooth, gray-haired woman who had demanded
+the expulsion of Blanche, that he knew an organized plot had been
+formed to depose him from power.
+
+His first impulse was one of blind rage. He recalled now with
+lightning flashes of memory the long hours Wolf and his wife had
+spent in soothing the anger of rebellious and troublesome members. At
+every public meeting he recalled their smiling faces at the door or
+moving through the hall. The whole scheme was plain, its low
+chicanery, its shallow hypocrisy, its fawning acceptance of his
+leadership! They had been patiently waiting for him to finish the work
+of strong, legal, invincible, powerful organization to step in and
+take the reins from his hands.
+
+And they had done it with such consummate skill, such infinite care
+and patience, that not one of his own personal followers had
+discovered the plot.
+
+When the smooth, gray-haired woman rose to nominate candidates for
+regent he knew, before she spoke, the names she would pronounce. He
+looked at her with a feeling of contempt and to save his life he
+couldn't recall her name.
+
+She repeated her address to the chair with angry emphasis:
+
+"Comrade Chairman!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," Norman answered, "but I could not for the moment
+recall your name. The comrade on my right (the woman without a soul,
+he added in low tones) has the floor."
+
+Barbara started at his tone of anger and whispered:
+
+"How could you be so rude--what is wrong?"
+
+"We are about to retire from office."
+
+"What!" Barbara gasped as the little woman began to speak.
+
+"Listen--you will understand," he said, with a sudden curve of his
+lip.
+
+"Comrades," the deep, calm voice began, "I place in nomination for the
+office of regents for the four ensuing years the names of a man and
+woman whom every member of the old colony entitled to vote to-night
+has learned to love and honour--a man and woman whose ripe experience,
+whose sound judgment, whose sense of right, whose powers of reasoning,
+whose executive genius will give to us all the guarantee of perfect
+justice and perfect order----"
+
+"You bet they will, old girl," Tom cried with enthusiasm, waving his
+hand admiringly toward Norman and Barbara.
+
+The speaker paused, regarded Tom a moment with quiet scorn, and
+continued:
+
+"I have the honour to name for the highest honour in the gift of the
+Brotherhood for the regency of the new State of Ventura Comrades
+Herman and Catherine Wolf."
+
+"What's that you say?" old Tom yelled with anger, leaping to his feet,
+and glaring around the room in a dazed surprise.
+
+The old miner was too shrewd a politician to doubt now for a moment
+the situation. He made the only possible attack on the programme that
+promised results.
+
+"In view of the fact, feller comrades," he shouted, "that half the
+present members er this here Brotherhood have not been here long
+enough to vote, I move that in justice to the new members we postpone
+this election for six months."
+
+Joe seconded the motion, and the chairman asked:
+
+"Are there any remarks on the motion?"
+
+The Bard moved as if to rise, when Diggs snatched him back into his
+seat.
+
+Amid a silence that was ominous the chairman put the question:
+
+"All in favour of postponing this election for six months that our new
+members may be able to vote will say 'Aye.'"
+
+The response was feeble. Tom and Joe yelled very loudly, but their
+effort was obvious.
+
+"All in favour say 'No.'"
+
+The whole audience seemed to shout in solid trained chorus "No!"
+
+Tom hastened to nominate Norman and Barbara. The old miner's speech
+was couched in plain, uncouth words, but they came from the heart and
+their rugged eloquence stirred the crowd with surprising power. Diggs
+glanced over the audience through his flashing glasses, and his
+perpetual smile faded into a look of uneasiness as a round of applause
+swept the house.
+
+He tiptoed to Wolf's side and whispered:
+
+"Any danger?"
+
+"Not the slightest. I want him to get some votes. It's better so."
+
+The programme went through without a hitch. Wolf and Catherine were
+elected regents by an overwhelming majority and a new board of
+governors chosen with not a single one whom Norman knew personally.
+
+The young leader sat in sullen silence, and watched the proceedings
+with contempt. Barbara looked on in increasing wonder and pain.
+
+When the result was announced and the cheering had died away she bent
+her beautiful head close to his and whispered:
+
+"This is a complete surprise. You believe me?"
+
+"Yes," he quickly answered, "and one touch of your hand will rob
+defeat of its sting."
+
+She pressed his hand with lingering tenderness and sought Catherine
+with a flash of anger in her brown eyes that boded trouble for the
+house of Wolf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE NEW MASTER
+
+
+Wolf lost no time in demonstrating that he was complete master of the
+situation.
+
+At nine o'clock next morning two armed guards, whom he had never seen
+in the house before, entered Norman's room and handed him the first
+official order of the new regents. The deposed young leader read it
+with amusement at first, but as his eyes rested on its brief words of
+command, something of their sinister meaning began to dawn in his
+mind.
+
+    "All citizens of the State of Ventura are ordered to immediately
+    surrender their arms. By order of
+
+                                               "HERMAN WOLF,
+                                                      "_Regent_."
+
+Norman looked at the revolvers in the holsters of the guards and dryly
+remarked:
+
+"But the State will kindly continue their use, I see!"
+
+Norman surrendered his revolver, and his room was searched in every
+nook and corner for weapons he might have concealed.
+
+"Why this insult?" he demanded.
+
+The guardsman saluted.
+
+"Special orders of the regent, sir. We are to take no man's word for
+it."
+
+Norman sat in silence while the men opened his trunks, ransacked his
+drawers, and searched in every conceivable spot where a weapon of any
+kind might be hid.
+
+"I could have told you at first that I had no other guns. The entire
+colony is being disarmed this morning?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the work will be completed by two o'clock."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+The man fumbled in his pocket and drew out another order.
+
+"And this one for you personally, sir."
+
+"Oh--after the disarming?"
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+Norman read the second order and the lines of his mouth tightened
+suddenly. The note was brief but to the point:
+
+    "Comrade Norman Worth will report to the regent at ten o'clock
+    for orders.
+
+                                               "HERMAN WOLF,
+                                                     "_Regent_."
+
+For five minutes after the guards had gone Norman stood in silence
+staring at this order. It was the first he had ever received in his
+life except the one from his own father which he had disobeyed.
+
+To be driven into another man's presence to take orders as from a
+master to a servant was an idea that had never entered his
+imagination. He had seen such things. He had given orders, but he had
+never, somehow, counted himself in the class of men who took them.
+
+For the first time he began to realize the meaning of the work he had
+been doing, and began to see how deftly and unconsciously he had been
+forging the chains of a system of irresponsible slavery on his fellow
+men. While the motive which impelled him was one of unselfish love,
+and he had thought only of their best interest, he saw now in a flash
+with what crushing cruelty this power could be used.
+
+It all seemed simple enough when he regarded his own will as the
+centre and source of power. Now that another man had grasped the lever
+and applied this power, the whole scheme of artificial life which he
+had created took on a new and darker meaning.
+
+What should he do?
+
+His first impulse was to walk into Wolf's presence, denounce him as a
+scheming scoundrel, and defy his power. That Wolf would fight was not
+to be questioned for a minute. His first act of disarming the colony
+was a master-stroke, and the longer the young leader thought of it the
+more hopeless his present situation became.
+
+Beyond a doubt Wolf had been selecting the new regent's guard with the
+same patience and skill with which he had executed his political coup.
+This guard was composed now only of his tried and trusted henchmen. A
+single false step on Norman's part would simply play into the wily
+brute's hands, and he would destroy himself at a single stroke.
+
+He must use his brain. He must fight the devil with fire. He must
+submit for the moment, plan and work and wait with infinite patience,
+and when the work of patience was complete, then strike and strike to
+kill.
+
+And yet the blood rushed to his heart and strangled with the thought
+of submission to such a man. But there was no other way. He had
+himself set the trap of steel he now felt crash into his own flesh.
+
+To appeal to his father was unthinkable--his pride forbade it, even if
+it were possible.
+
+To escape was out of the question. Every way had been cut and that by
+his own order. The mail was inspected. The steamer held no
+communication with the people of the island. No boat was allowed to
+land, and no boat, even the smallest sail or row boat, was permitted
+to a member of the Brotherhood on any pretext.
+
+Besides, resignation or flight could not be thought of for another
+reason. To retreat now and leave thousands of people behind whom he
+had led into this enterprise would be the act of a coward.
+
+There was nothing left except to fight it out on the lines he had
+himself laid down.
+
+The one thing that hurt him most was the ugly suspicion that Barbara
+must have known something of this deeply laid scheme by which the
+Wolfs had gained control of the Brotherhood. And yet her surprise had
+been genuine, her anger real. He couldn't be mistaken about it. To
+believe her capable of such treachery and double-dealing was to doubt
+the very existence of truth and purity.
+
+And yet, when he recalled how little he really knew of her past life,
+what dark secrets might lurk in the story of the years she had spent
+under the same roof with these people, he grew sick at the thought.
+
+He knew now that the blond beast with the red scar on his neck and the
+slender, dark-eyed madonna-like mate who had always been his shadow
+were capable of anything. Two people who could smile in treacherous
+silence for a year and suddenly grip the throat of the man who had
+been their best friend, needed no written biography to tell their
+past. It was luminous. And in the glare in which he read it he
+shuddered at the sinister light it threw on the beautiful girl whom
+they had reared as their own.
+
+He took from his mantel a little picture made one day in San Francisco
+by a tintype man. It was a singularly beautiful likeness of Barbara,
+taken on a sudden impulse without a moment's thought or preparation.
+Her laughing face looked out at him, wreathed in a garland of wayward
+ringlets of dark brown hair. Truth, sincerity, beauty, intelligence,
+and a childlike innocence were stamped in every line.
+
+A thousand times since he had seen her just like that. And from the
+moment of their advent on the island this impression of girlish
+innocence and sincerity had grown rather than decreased. The more he
+saw of her in the simpler, quieter moments of their association, the
+stronger, deeper, and more tender his love became, and the deeper grew
+his utter faith in the purity of her soul and body.
+
+"I'll sooner doubt an angel of God!" he said at last, as he placed it
+back on the mantel.
+
+He would see Wolf at once, learn his plans, and then carefully make
+his own.
+
+He dressed with care and at the appointed hour rapped for admission at
+the executive office where the day before he sat as master.
+
+He was told the regent was busy with others and ordered to wait his
+turn. He flushed with anger, recovered himself, waited a half hour,
+and was ushered into the presence of the new ruler.
+
+Wolf sat in the big revolving chair at his desk with conscious dignity
+and power. Two of his guards stood outside the door, grim reminders of
+the substantial character of the new administration.
+
+Norman seated himself with careless ease without invitation and waited
+for the older man to speak.
+
+Wolf smiled grimly, stroked his thick, coarse reddish beard, and
+looked at Norman thoughtfully a moment.
+
+"Well, my boy," the regent began, with friendly patronage, "we'd as
+well come to the point without ceremony. You are down and out. The new
+board of governors will do what I wish. I am in supreme command of the
+ship of state. Do you want to fight or work?"
+
+"It's a poor doctor, Wolf," Norman said, coolly, "who can't take his
+own medicine. I came here to work."
+
+"Congratulations on your good sense!" the regent replied. "I've no
+desire to make trouble for you. I have nothing against you
+personally. I had to put you out and take command to save the colony
+from ruin. You meant well, but you were a bungling amateur, and you
+can be of greater service in the ranks than in command. I know you
+don't like me after what has happened, but you don't have to. I'll be
+generous. What sort of work would you like to have assigned you?"
+
+"Thanks, that's very kind of you, Wolf, I'm sure. I believe the warden
+of every penitentiary is equally generous to all convicts. However,
+that's a minor detail, seeing that I assisted in the creation of this
+ideal world."
+
+Wolf smashed the desk top with his big fist and suddenly glared at
+Norman, his cold eyes gleaming angrily.
+
+"Come to the point! I've no time to waste! Have you any choice as to
+the kind of work to which you wish to be assigned?"
+
+"I have a decided choice. Our mines have all failed. I'll redeem the
+failure by perfecting and completing the big dredge for mining gold
+from the low-grade sands on the beach."
+
+"A waste of time and money," Wolf snapped. "I can't afford to spare
+the men on any more fool inventions. Such things must stop."
+
+"You mean to stop all progress by stopping inventions?" Norman asked.
+
+"So far as the State is concerned, yes," said the regent, with
+emphasis. "Under your slipshod administration we spent nearly two
+hundred thousand dollars during the past year on so-called inventions.
+Every fool in the colony has invented something. Not one in a hundred
+has produced an idea that is practicable. We cannot afford to waste
+the capital of the State in such idiocy."
+
+"Give me twenty men and I'll complete the dredge."
+
+"Labour is capital in the Socialist State. I can't afford to waste
+it."
+
+"But you are not wasting it," Norman pleaded. "I've spent sixty
+thousand already on this invention. Unless the machine is completed
+the capital will be lost to the colony."
+
+"It will be lost anyhow," Wolf answered, impatiently. "Your whole
+conception is a piece of childish folly. You can't make a profit
+operating a dredge in sand containing only twenty cents' worth of gold
+to a ton of dirt."
+
+"I can do better," Norman urged with enthusiasm. "I can make a hundred
+per cent. on the investment if the dirt pans out ten cents to the ton.
+If it pans twenty cents a ton I can make millions."
+
+"So every crank has claimed for his particular piece of idiocy. I'll
+not permit another dollar or another day's labour to be thrown away
+on any such crazy experiment."
+
+Norman's face reddened with a rush of uncontrollable anger.
+
+"Look here, Wolf, you can't be serious in this."
+
+"I was never more serious in my life," the big jaws snapped. "I am
+going to issue an order to-day that hereafter any man or woman who
+conceives an invention can work it out himself without aid from the
+State. They must do this at odd hours after working the required time
+each day. They must put their own money into their machine."
+
+"As the State only has capital," Norman protested, "this means the
+practical prohibition of all invention. No man can with his own hands
+make the machinery needed in the progress of humanity. We have
+abolished private capital by abolishing rent, interest, and profit. Do
+you propose thus to stop the progress of the world?"
+
+"No," Wolf cried with a wave of his heavy hand. "Let the ambitious
+inventor work at night and build his own machine. I will grant, in my
+order on the subject, to each successful inventor the right to operate
+his own machine for ten years before it becomes the property of the
+State."
+
+"Suppose he succeeds," said Norman, "under such hard conditions with
+his own hands and without capital in perfecting an invention of
+enormous value, such as the dredge I have begun, of what use will the
+results be if he cannot invest them in rent or interest, and all gifts
+and exchanges are prohibited?"
+
+"He may build a home and lavish them on his wife and children, or he
+may become a great public benefactor and win the love and gratitude of
+the people by enriching the State and shortening the hours of labour.
+If your dredge can make a million, for example, as you claim--go
+ahead, work at night, perfect it, put it to work, build yourself a
+palace to live in, give millions to the Brotherhood. Shorten their
+hours from eight to four, and I'll guarantee you'll oust me from my
+position of power."
+
+Norman's eye suddenly flashed with resolution.
+
+"You will not grant me the labour to complete the dredge?" Norman
+asked.
+
+"Not one man for one minute," was the curt reply.
+
+"Then I'll finish it myself," Norman said, with determination.
+
+"After you've worked eight full hours a day, under my direction--you
+understand!" the regent responded sullenly.
+
+Norman sprang to his feet and the two men faced each other a moment,
+the big scar on Wolf's neck flashing red, his enormous fists
+instinctively closing.
+
+"Wolf, this is an infamous outrage!"
+
+"I'll teach you not to speak to me in that manner again, sir!" the
+regent slowly said, as he tapped his bell.
+
+The guards sprang to his side.
+
+"Show this gentleman to the barnyard--he is a good farmer. Put him at
+work with old Methodist John cleaning out the stables for the new
+cantaloup crop. He is very fond of cantaloups. If he makes any trouble
+tell the sergeant of your guard to give him thirty-nine lashes without
+consulting me."
+
+Norman stepped closer, and, trembling from head to foot, said to Wolf:
+
+"If ever one of your men lays the weight of his hand on me----"
+
+"And yet we both agreed that under our system discipline must be
+enforced--the discipline of an army?" the regent interrupted.
+
+Norman held his gaze fixed without moving a muscle, and slowly
+continued:
+
+"If you ever try it, you'd better finish your job."
+
+"I'll remember your advice," Wolf answered with a sneer. "Show him to
+his work."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+A TEST OF STRENGTH
+
+
+When Catherine saw the furious look on Barbara's face as she descended
+from the platform the night of the election, she avoided a meeting and
+went to bed pleading a headache.
+
+Early the next morning Barbara rapped for entrance, forced her way in,
+and stood, tense with anger, before the older woman, her eyes red from
+the long vigil of a sleepless night.
+
+"You avoided me last night----"
+
+Catherine laughed.
+
+"My dear, I never saw you in quite such a rage. It might be serious if
+it were not so silly."
+
+"You'll find it serious before you are through with this performance,"
+Barbara retorted, angrily.
+
+"Remember, I am in supreme authority now. Don't you dare speak to me
+in that manner, you ungrateful little wretch!"
+
+"I'll dare to tell you the truth--even if you were the mother who bore
+me--even if I had not repaid you a hundredfold for every dollar you
+have spent on me."
+
+"Hush, hush, my dear, I do not wish to quarrel," Catherine said,
+recovering herself. "I know your pride is wounded over your defeat.
+I've watched your growing vanity in high office with much amusement
+for the past year."
+
+"I'm not thinking of myself," Barbara said with emphasis.
+
+"Of course not--what woman ever does?" Catherine sneered.
+
+"I am glad to be relieved of the annoyance of such a position. But
+your treatment of the brave and daring young spirit who conceived this
+colony and created its wealth and influence----"
+
+"Am I responsible?"
+
+"Yes. Herman is incapable of conceiving such a plot without your
+suggestion. It is your work. You have always loved luxury and power."
+
+"Perhaps I love a man also," Catherine interrupted, as her full
+sensuous lips curled in a curious smile.
+
+"Yes, I give you credit for that too," the girl admitted. "Though I
+confess the secret of your infatuation for that hulking brute has
+always been one of the black mysteries of life to me."
+
+"When you're older," again the round lips quivered with a smile,
+"perhaps you will understand. And now, my child, I've been patient
+with you. But don't you ever again call Herman a brute in my
+presence."
+
+"Take care he doesn't prove it to you!" the girl warned.
+
+Catherine suddenly paled.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" she whispered, glancing about the room.
+
+"Nothing! nothing! nothing! Only that in every deed of the devil there
+is the seed of death. You have planted the seed. The harvest is sure."
+
+"My dear----"
+
+"Don't call me that again! I hate you!" Barbara spoke with deliberate
+passion.
+
+"Have you gone mad?" Catherine cried, with impatience.
+
+"Yes, mad with hatred. From to-day we are enemies, and I'll hate you
+forever!"
+
+The older woman looked at her in astonishment and spoke with a
+deliberate sneer:
+
+"As you like. Remember, then, from this moment that you are a servant
+under my command. I am no longer your foster-mother. Leave this room
+instantly, take your things to the domestic servants' quarters, and
+report to the head-woman for duty in the corridors of this wing of the
+building."
+
+"And you think I'll submit to this?" Barbara gasped.
+
+Catherine rang the bell, and Barbara gazed at her with a look of
+mingled terror and rage. A sudden light flashed in her brown eyes.
+
+"You mean this?"
+
+"I'll show you in a moment," was the calm reply.
+
+"Then it's war between us," Barbara cried.
+
+She sprang to the door and Catherine caught her arm.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To Herman."
+
+"He cannot interfere with my decisions."
+
+Barbara threw her off and bounded through the door crying:
+
+"We shall see!"
+
+The girl rushed past the guard at the door of Wolf's office, trembling
+with rage, her eyes filled with blinding tears.
+
+Wolf sprang to his feet in astonishment and met her with outstretched
+hands.
+
+"What's the matter, child?" he asked as his big coarse fists closed
+over the hot little fingers and his gray eyes lighted at the sight of
+her dishevelled hair and bare throat.
+
+Barbara choked back the sobs, and looked appealingly into Wolf's face.
+
+"We have quarrelled about last night. You understand, Herman.
+Catherine has ordered me to leave my room and join the servants in
+the halls. You--you will not allow me to be degraded thus--will you?"
+
+Wolf drew the trembling girl into his arms, pressed her close a
+moment, stroked her curls with his gnarled hand, and his face flushed
+with a look of triumph.
+
+"Don't worry, dear, I'll protect you," he answered, bending and
+kissing her forehead. "Go back to your room, and if any one dares to
+disturb you, call for me."
+
+Barbara murmured through her tears:
+
+"Thank you, Herman."
+
+Wolf's eyes sparkled as he watched the graceful little figure proudly
+leave the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+A VISION FROM THE HILLTOP
+
+
+Catherine's fight with Wolf was long and bitter. For hours she
+struggled to force him to leave in her hands the discipline of the
+women members of the colony. Her tears and threats fell on ears
+equally deaf to all pleading. At last the guards listening outside
+heard only the low sobbing of a woman's voice near the door for a half
+hour without a sound from the man.
+
+And then his short, sharp words came quick and curt and stinging:
+
+"Are you done now with this fool performance?"
+
+The answer was a sob.
+
+"Understand once for all," the cold, hard voice went on, "I am the
+master here. Your office as regent is one of courtesy only as my wife.
+My word alone is supreme. When you cease to be my wife another regent
+will be chosen and I do the choosing. I not only propose to do the
+work of disciplining the women, but it is the one kind of work to
+which I shall devote myself with pleasure."
+
+"Herman!" Catherine sobbed, as if she had sunk beneath a blow.
+
+The man laughed with brutal enjoyment.
+
+"You'd as well know this now as later. You can be getting used to it."
+
+Her eyes red with weeping, her proud shoulders drooped for the first
+time in her life, Catherine slowly walked from Wolf's office back to
+her room.
+
+Barbara passed her on the stairs without a word or a glance, and
+hurried again to see the regent, her whole being alert with quick
+intelligence.
+
+The guard had received instructions that she was the one privileged
+person in the colony who could enter his office at all hours, day or
+night, without ceremony or delay. They showed her in immediately.
+
+"I've just heard of your order sending Norman to the work of a common
+farm-hand, Herman," Barbara began.
+
+Wolf scowled.
+
+"You must not interfere in this little affair between my rival and
+myself, Barbara," he said, sternly.
+
+"I will interfere," she quickly replied, "both for your sake and his.
+You've made a serious mistake, Herman. Correct it at once."
+
+"I had to show him his place."
+
+"It isn't fair. The men will resent it. You will make enemies. Your
+power is complete. You can afford to be generous."
+
+Wolf looked at her with hungry, admiring gaze.
+
+"Perhaps you're right," he said slowly.
+
+"Of course I'm right!" she replied, "and you know it. You've made him
+a martyr and a hero on the first day of his fall from power. Your true
+policy is just the opposite. Let him do what he pleases for a time.
+Above all things don't put yourself in the position of his enemy. Your
+strength lies in standing as his patron and friend."
+
+"By Jove, Barbara," Wolf cried, "what a wise head on your little
+shoulders! Come, be honest with me now--you're not in love with this
+man?"
+
+The girl smiled demurely:
+
+"He is with me, I think," she admitted.
+
+"Yes, yes, of course--so we all are," he cried, with a smile. "But you
+have not accepted his love?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I thought you had better sense. I'll change my order at your
+suggestion."
+
+"I knew you would," she cried, joyfully.
+
+Wolf sat down at his desk and wrote:
+
+    "Comrade Norman Worth is transferred from the field to the
+    foundry, with permission, after his day's work, to employ his
+    time in the shops perfecting any invention in which he may be
+    interested.
+
+                                                "WOLF--_Regent_."
+
+He handed the order to Barbara.
+
+"Take this to the youngster and tell him I did it at your suggestion,
+and hereafter give him a wide berth if you wish to be friendly with
+me."
+
+Barbara dropped her eyes and Wolf touched her chin with his coarse,
+short fingers.
+
+"A hint to the wise is sufficient, little girl. You understand?"
+
+Barbara took the order, turned toward the door, paused and smiled
+coquettishly:
+
+"I understand, Herman."
+
+She found Norman at work with Methodist John cleaning out a stable. To
+her amazement he was whistling and joking about something with the old
+man. She stopped and listened a moment.
+
+"But what on earth do you want a lightning-rod for, John?" Norman
+asked.
+
+"That's my secret, sir," the old man answered, "but I must have
+one--won't you get it for me?"
+
+"I'm sorry, John, but I have no more power now in the State of Ventura
+than you have."
+
+"But didn't you get the million dollars and didn't you make all the
+money for 'em--a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the cantaloups
+the others didn't have sense enough to plant? Surely they'll give you
+enough to get me a thirty-foot lightning-rod?"
+
+"I'm afraid not, John, still I'll do my best. I don't like to press
+you for the secrets of your inner life, old man, but I've immense
+curiosity to know what you want with that lightning-rod? You say
+you're not afraid of lightning?"
+
+"No, sir, I'm not afraid of nothin'."
+
+"Then why----"
+
+"'Tain't no use in askin' sir, I can't tell ye. But I want it. I'm
+going to pray every night for it till I get it. Maybe the Lord will
+send me one by an angel----"
+
+Barbara suddenly appeared in the door of the stall.
+
+"Speaking of angels," Norman cried, laughing.
+
+"I have an order for you," Barbara said, quickly.
+
+Norman threw his pitchfork full of manure out of the window of the
+stall, stood the fork in the corner, brushed his hands, and bowed
+before Barbara.
+
+"What an exquisite picture you make standing in the doorway there with
+that ocean of blossoming peach trees stretching up the slope until it
+kisses the sky line. I wish I were an artist."
+
+She looked at him with amazement.
+
+"I expected to find you with murder in your heart. I can't
+understand."
+
+Norman took the note from her white fingers.
+
+"Because I'm laughing?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, isn't the joke on me? I've been preaching, preaching,
+preaching, about the dignity of all labour. I kicked the first few
+moments, I confess. The medicine was bitter, but I soon began to find
+that it was good for the soul. I'm getting acquainted with myself----"
+
+Norman paused, read Wolf's order, and looked tenderly into Barbara's
+eyes.
+
+"So you heard of my fall and came to my rescue. It's worth the jolt to
+be rescued by such a hand."
+
+He stooped and kissed the tips of her fingers.
+
+"Come with me up the hill yonder among those blossoming trees," he
+said, leading her toward the orchard. "I want to tell you about a
+vision I saw in that stable a while ago while I wielded the pitchfork
+and talked to my old pauper friend, both of us now comrade equals."
+
+They walked on in silence through the long, clean rows of fruit trees
+in full bloom, the air redolent with sweet perfume and quivering with
+the electric hum of growing life. On the top of the hill they paused
+and looked toward the sea that stretched away in solemn, infinite
+grandeur. Below, on the next plateau, rolled in apparently endless
+acres, the great white carpet of flowering plum trees and further on
+the tender budding grapes and beyond, lower still, the deep green
+valley with orange trees flashing their golden fruit.
+
+"What a glorious world!" Barbara cried.
+
+"Yes," he answered with a sigh, "a world of endless beauty in which
+after all there's nothing vile but man. And I once thought that in
+such a world angels only could live."
+
+"Must we despair because one man or woman proves false," she asked.
+
+"No," he answered cheerily, leading her to a boulder and taking his
+seat by her side.
+
+"I don't despair. I've been seeing visions to-day--visions as old as
+the beat of the human heart, perhaps, yet always new."
+
+He drew the order of Wolf from his pocket and looked at it.
+
+"From the moment of my awakening last night from the fool's paradise
+in which I've been living the past year my mind has been at work on
+solving the one unsolved problem in this dredge to which he refers. It
+came to me like a flash while at work this morning."
+
+"Your invention will succeed?" she interrupted.
+
+"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," he said, with enthusiasm. "I didn't
+solve it before because I lacked the incentive to apply my mind to
+it."
+
+"And you got the incentive in your defeat?" she asked, in surprise.
+
+"Yes. Deprived of my toys, I came back to myself, the source of
+power."
+
+"But your incentive--I don't understand--in such an hour?"
+
+"A very simple, very old, but very powerful one, I'm beginning to
+think, the source of all human progress--the determination to build a
+home here in one of these flower-robed hills overlooking the sea, and
+bring my bride to it some glorious day like this when every tree is
+festooned with joy! I don't want a modest cottage. My bride was born a
+queen. Every line of her delicate and sensitive face proclaims her
+royal ancestry. She shall have a palace. Love, Beauty, Music, Art, and
+Truth shall be her servants. I shall be the magician who will create
+all this out of the dirt men are now trampling under foot along the
+beach."
+
+Barbara drew a deep breath, trembled, and looked away.
+
+"I promised her never to speak of love again until her own dear lips
+called me, and I will not, though I fear sometimes the waiting seems
+long."
+
+"And if she never calls?" the girl asked, dreamily.
+
+"Then my palace shall remain silent and empty. Her hand alone can open
+its doors."
+
+"And if I do not see you often while your palace is building, you may
+know at least I have not forgotten--and you will understand?"
+
+"Yes, I will understand," he answered, with elation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+IN LOVE AND WAR
+
+
+With untiring zeal Norman gave himself to work on the dredge. Wolf
+refused to modify his original order that a full day should first be
+given as a labourer in the foundry and machine shops before he could
+devote himself to his invention.
+
+This proved an advantage rather than a hindrance. By his unfailing
+courtesy, good fellowship, skill, and wit, Norman won his fellow
+workmen as warm personal friends. He was able thus to secure all the
+assistance he needed in his work.
+
+Within two months the big dredge was finished.
+
+From the first the regent had regarded Norman's fad with contempt.
+That he could succeed in making money out of dirt containing but
+twenty cents' worth of gold to a ton was an absurdity on its face.
+
+While the young inventor worked day and night with tireless energy the
+regent quietly perfected his grip on the life of the rapidly growing
+colony. To render escape from the island or communication with the
+coast more impossible than ever, he established the strict system of
+double patrol around each community. No member of the Brotherhood was
+allowed to leave his room at night without permission. Beyond the
+outer patrol a mounted guard was established and the entire line of
+beach was guarded by watchmen in relays who reported each hour, day
+and night, by telephone to the commandant.
+
+At the end of two months of Wolf's merciless rule the efficiency of
+labour had so decreased, it was necessary to lengthen the number of
+hours from eight to nine. As every inducement to efficiency of labour
+had been removed there was no incentive to any man to do more than he
+must without a fight with his guard or overseer. No vote was permitted
+on the question of increasing the hours of labour. The board of
+governors passed the order which Wolf wrote out for them without a
+dissenting voice.
+
+Norman had no trouble in getting a gang of willing hands to push the
+monster gold-digger into position on one of the sand-points inside the
+harbour.
+
+It was mounted on a float twenty-five feet wide and sixty-five feet
+long. For power it carried two fifty-horse-power distillate engines.
+Tom was in charge of one and Joe of the other. For raising the sand
+and gravel containing the gold two big Jackson gravel-pumps were
+located on opposite corners at the front end of the float.
+
+Old Tom blew the whistle, the engines started, and in an hour the
+pumps had raised a hundred tons of sand and gravel and deposited them
+in the concentrating flumes. Norman worked the dredge all night
+without a moment's pause and in twelve hours his pumps had lifted
+fifteen hundred tons of sand, showing a capacity of 3,000 tons per
+day. When the gold was extracted and weighed it was found that the
+dredge had averaged twenty cents from each ton of sand and that it
+would cost less than three cents a ton to operate the entire machinery
+of its production. The first experimental machine alone would net $500
+dollars a day, or $150,000 a year. He could put five of these machines
+to work in three months and make $3,000 a day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The invention stirred the colony to its depths. Norman's appearance
+was the signal for a burst of cheering wherever he went.
+
+Wolf was dumfounded. He called his board of governors together at once
+and ordered them to enact a new law to meet the situation.
+
+Norman announced in the _Era_ that he would give the Brotherhood from
+the beginning one half the net earnings of his machines, and asked
+the board of governors at once to grant him the men needed to build
+and operate enough dredges to reduce the hours of labour from nine to
+seven.
+
+Wolf met the emergency with prompt and vigorous action. He suspended
+the editor for printing the announcement and set him to work carrying
+a hod.
+
+He issued a proclamation as regent that the dredge in the hands of its
+inventor threatened the existence of the State, declared the law of
+inventions under which it was built suspended, and ordered Norman to
+at once operate the machine for the sole benefit of the State and
+begin the construction of twenty dredges of equal capacity.
+
+When Norman received this order he set to work without a moment's
+delay and made a half-dozen dynamite bombs, gave one each to Tom and
+Joe and their assistants, laid in a supply of provisions, erected a
+tent on the beach beside the dredge, and set the big machine to work
+for all it was worth.
+
+Wolf promptly ordered his arrest. The men who attempted to execute the
+order fled in terror at the sight of the bombs and reported for
+instructions.
+
+Wolf came in person at the head of a picked company of fifty guards.
+
+Norman had stretched a rope a hundred feet from the dredge and posted
+a notice that he would kill any man daring to cross it without his
+permission.
+
+Wolf paused at the rope. Norman stood alone on one of the big pumps
+with his arms folded watching his enemy in silence.
+
+The captain of the guard laid his hand on the regent's arm:
+
+"You'd better not try it."
+
+"He won't dare," Wolf growled.
+
+"Yes, he will," the captain insisted.
+
+"I'll risk it," the regent snapped.
+
+"Are you mad? What's the use? He'll blow it up. You can't rebuild the
+dredge--no one understands it. Use common sense. Send the girl with a
+flag of truce and ask for a conference."
+
+"A good idea--if it works," Wolf answered hesitating.
+
+"It's worth trying," the captain urged.
+
+Wolf returned to the house with his men, and in a few minutes Barbara
+came to Norman, her face white with terror, her voice quivering with
+pleading intensity.
+
+"Please," she gasped, "for my sake, I beg of you not to do this insane
+thing! The regent asks for a conference under a flag of truce. He
+recognizes that it is impossible that you should remain here after
+what has happened. He asks for a half-hour's talk with you to offer an
+adjustment under which you can resign and return to San Francisco."
+
+"It's a trick and a lie. He's deceiving you," Norman replied,
+sullenly.
+
+"No, I swear it's true. He is in earnest, Catherine is beside herself
+with fear lest he be killed. He swore to her as he swore to me to
+respect your wishes. I'll gladly give my life if he proves false."
+
+Norman turned his face away and looked over the still, blue waters,
+struggling with himself as he felt the tug of her soft hand on his
+heart.
+
+Suddenly a hundred men with Wolf at their head sprang over the steep
+embankment and rushed to the dredge. Tom leaped to his feet and lifted
+his bomb without a word.
+
+Norman covered Barbara and grasped his uplifted arm.
+
+"It's all over boys. I've surrendered!" he shouted.
+
+Barbara faced Wolf with blazing eyes:
+
+"You have betrayed my trust!"
+
+Wolf brushed her aside and confronted Norman, who had thrown the bomb
+he had taken from Tom's hand into the sea.
+
+Norman paid no attention to Wolf, and seemed to see only the girl's
+face convulsed with passion. His eyes never left her for a moment.
+
+Wolf turned and secured the other men who had defended the dredge,
+marching them with their hands tied behind their backs between two
+rows of guardsmen off to jail.
+
+Norman spoke at last to Barbara in low, cold tones:
+
+"I congratulate you."
+
+"What do you mean?" she gasped.
+
+"That you are a superb actress. You have played your part to
+perfection. Your rôle was very dramatic, too. A clumsy woman would
+have bungled it, and lost even at the last moment."
+
+"You cannot believe that I willingly betrayed you?" she cried, in
+anguish.
+
+"I wish I had died before I knew it," he answered, bitterly.
+
+Barbara pressed close to his side and seized his hand fiercely. He
+turned away with a shudder.
+
+"Look at me," she pleaded.
+
+He turned and faced her with a look of anger.
+
+"Words are idle. Deeds speak louder than words."
+
+"Norman, you are killing me with this cruel doubt!" she sobbed. "I
+give up! I love you! I love you!"
+
+She threw her arms around his neck and her head sank on his breast.
+
+He resisted for a moment, then clasped her to his heart, bent and
+kissed her with passionate tenderness.
+
+"You believe me now?" she cried, through her tears.
+
+"God forgive me for doubting you for a moment!" he answered,
+earnestly.
+
+The guard suddenly drew Norman from her arms, tied his hands, and led
+him away to prison while the little figure followed, sobbing in
+helpless anguish.
+
+Wolf walked behind, his big mouth twitching with smiles he could not
+suppress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A PRIMITIVE LOVER
+
+
+Wolf led Barbara into his office, lighted the lamp, and waited in
+patience for her first blinding surrender to grief to spend itself
+before speaking.
+
+He stood over her at last with a smile, bent and touched her brown
+curls.
+
+The girl sprang to her feet and faced him.
+
+"It's no use, my beauty, I'm on to your tricks now!"
+
+The little figure stiffened, and her gaze was steady, though her
+fingers trembled as she nervously twisted the tiny handkerchief she
+held.
+
+"You've been playing me for a fool for the past two months. Your eyes
+have been laughing into mine with all sorts of little daring
+suggestions when you had an axe to grind at my expense. And then you
+had a habit of disappearing until you needed something else. You were
+off billing and cooing with our hero and smiling at my stupidity
+behind my back."
+
+"I've spoken to him to-day," Barbara answered solemnly, "the first
+words of love that ever passed my lips."
+
+"You did pretty well for an amateur, if that was the first kiss you
+ever gave him."
+
+"It was the first!" she said, defiantly.
+
+"It will be the last for him."
+
+"Perhaps," she answered, with a curl to her lips.
+
+"You think I don't mean it?" Wolf demanded, stepping close and
+thrusting his massive head forward while his big fists closed.
+
+"I don't doubt it," she answered, firmly. "But I'm not afraid of you,
+Herman."
+
+"You doubt my power?" he asked.
+
+"Over others, no."
+
+"But over you?"
+
+Wolf suddenly grasped her.
+
+The girl shrank back in terror for an instant, and then, to his
+surprise, her hand was still and cold and steady. Not a tremor in the
+tense body. Her brown eyes, staring wide, held his gaze without a sign
+of weakness or of fear. Something in her attitude startled the beast
+within him. He suddenly dropped her hand and changed his tone.
+
+"Come, let's not quarrel! Don't be foolish. It is for you I've been
+scheming and planning the past year. For you the regent's palace was
+planned. Within five years a hundred thousand people will be here.
+The State will be rich beyond our wildest dreams, and I shall be the
+State. I want you to sit by my side."
+
+    [Illustration: "WOLF GRASPED HER."]
+
+"You say this to me after all that Catherine has been to you and your
+life?"
+
+"And why not? If I no longer love, should I be chained?"
+
+"And this is the ideal you came here to build?" she asked, with scorn.
+
+"Certainly. It is the essence of Socialism. In my next proclamation I
+shall declare for the freedom of love. Every great Socialist has
+preached this. Marriage and the family form the tap-root out of which
+the whole system of capitalism grew. The system can never be destroyed
+until the family is annihilated. I had thought you a woman whose
+brilliant intellect had faced this issue and broken the chains of a
+degrading bourgeois morality."
+
+"The chains of love, I find, are very sweet," she interrupted, with
+dreamy tenderness.
+
+"You talk this twaddle about romantic love? You, the leader of a
+revolution! Come, you are no longer a child. We are living now in the
+world of freedom and reality where men and women say the unspoken
+things and live to the utmost reach of their being, body and soul."
+
+"Is it a world worth living in?" she asked.
+
+"Was the old world of family life, of starvation and misery, worth
+living in?" Wolf retorted.
+
+"Perhaps I might have said no an hour ago, but now that my lips have
+met my lover's the dream of the old family life, with its sanctity and
+purity, begins to call me. And something deep down within answers with
+a cry of joy. Why should you desire me, knowing that I thus love
+another?"
+
+"You can love where you like," he snapped, as his big jaws came
+together. "I can get along without your love. I just want you--and I'm
+going to have you!"
+
+"I'll die first!"
+
+"We shall see. Time works wonders."
+
+With a shudder Barbara turned and left him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+EQUALITY
+
+
+Barbara asked Wolf for permission to visit Norman in prison.
+
+The Regent shook his head.
+
+"No, my little beauty, it's not wise. I promise you that not a hair of
+his head shall be harmed. He is safe and well. If you wish to test my
+power, try to bribe my guards and see him."
+
+Day after day Barbara sought in vain to gain admittance to the jail,
+send or receive a message from within. Her lover had disappeared as
+completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed his body.
+
+The episode of the dredge was the last effort to question the power of
+the regent. The day after its capture Wolf put the men who had helped
+Norman build it to work operating the big machine, and its huge pumps
+began to throb in perfect time, piling ton on ton of gold-bearing sand
+and gravel into the flumes, as faithful to the touch of the thief who
+had stolen it as to the hand of the man of genius who invented it.
+
+The head machinist he ordered to build five duplicates, and placed
+the entire working force of the mechanical department at once on the
+job.
+
+The daily _New Era_ received a number of protests against the outrage
+of the inventor's arrest and imprisonment. Two protests were signed by
+the names of the writers, Diggs and the Bard. There appeared in the
+paper a warning editorial against sneaks who, under cover of the cause
+of justice, were seeking to aid treason and rebellion against the
+State.
+
+Diggs and the Bard were summoned before Wolf in person.
+
+The regent fixed his gray eyes on Diggs, and the man of questions
+forgot to smile.
+
+"You are not dealing with an amateur now, Diggs," Wolf said, with a
+sneer. "The insulting letter you wrote----"
+
+"I--I--beg your pardon, Mr. Regent," Diggs stammered, "my questions
+were asked in the spirit of honest inquiry."
+
+"I understand their spirit, sir," Wolf growled. "And don't you
+interrupt me again when I'm talking! Your article was seditious. I've
+a mind to imprison you a year, but as this is your first offence I'll
+simply transfer you from the department of accounts to that of garbage
+and sewerage. Report at once to the overseer."
+
+Diggs's lips quivered and he tried to speak, but Wolf froze him with a
+look and he dropped to a seat.
+
+"I said report at once, sir, to the overseer of the department of
+garbage and sewerage. Did you hear me?" Wolf thundered.
+
+Diggs leaped to his feet stammering and retreating.
+
+"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Excuse me. I was only waiting for Comrade Adair,
+sir! Excuse me, sir, I'll go at once!"
+
+He stumbled through the door and disappeared.
+
+The Bard of Ramcat watched this scene with increasing terror. He had
+prepared an eloquent and daring appeal for freedom of speech. He tried
+to open his mouth, but Wolf's gaze froze the blood in his veins. His
+tongue refused to move. He sat huddled in a heap, trembling and
+shifting uneasily in his seat.
+
+At length the regent spoke with sneering patronage:
+
+"You wield a facile pen, Adair. I admire the glib ability with which
+you pour out gaseous matter from your overheated imagination."
+
+The Bard scrambled to his feet and bowed low in humble submission,
+fumbling his slouch hat tremblingly.
+
+"I meant no harm, sir, I assure you. A great leader of your power and
+genius can make allowances for poetic fervour. I'm sure you know that
+my whole soul is aflame with enthusiasm for our noble Cause!"
+
+"Well, upon my word," Wolf laughed, "you're developing into a nimble
+liar! You used to be quite brutal in the frankness of your
+criticisms."
+
+"But I see the error of my way, sir," the Bard humbly cried.
+
+"Then I'll remit your prison sentence also and merely transfer you to
+the stone-quarry. We need more common labourers on the rock-pile there
+preparing the macadam for the court of the regent's palace. Report at
+once to the foreman of that gang."
+
+"Thank you, sir," the Bard stammered, feebly, as he backed out of the
+room.
+
+The poet bent his proud back over the stone-pile for two weeks and
+suddenly disappeared.
+
+His hat was found on a rustic seat on a high cliff whose perpendicular
+wall was washed by the sea. Beneath this hat lay his last manuscript
+protest to the world. It was entitled:
+
+"The Journal of Roland Adair, Bard of Ramcat." It was written in blank
+verse and proved a most harrowing recital of the horrors he had
+suffered at the hands of the tyrant regent. With eloquence fierce and
+fiery he called on the slaves who were being ground beneath his heel
+to rise in their might and slay the oppressor. He had chosen to die
+that his death-song might stir their souls to heroic action.
+
+Search was made on the beaches for his body in vain. His wife's grief
+was genuine and a few of his friends gathered with her on the tenth
+day after his disappearance to express their sorrow and appreciation
+in a brief formal service.
+
+Diggs was delivering a funeral oration bombarding Death, Hell, and the
+Grave with endless questions, when suddenly the Bard appeared, pinched
+with hunger, his clothes covered with dirt, his long hair dishevelled
+and unkempt. He had evidently been sleeping in the open.
+
+His friends stood in wonder. His wife shrieked in terror.
+
+The Bard solemnly lifted his hand and cried:
+
+"I stood on the hills and waited for slaves to rise and fight their
+way to death or freedom. And no man stirred! Did they not find my
+death-song?"
+
+Diggs spoke in timid accents:
+
+"The regent destroyed it."
+
+"Yes, yes, but before my death I anticipated his treachery. I left ten
+mimeographed copies where they could be found by the people. If they
+have not been found my death would have been vain. I waited to be
+sure. I've come to ask."
+
+"They were found all right," his wife cried, angrily. "And if Wolf
+finds you now----"
+
+She had scarcely spoken when an officer of the secret service suddenly
+laid his hand on the Bard's shoulder and quietly said:
+
+"Come. We'll give you something to sing about now worth while!"
+
+His wife clung to the tottering, terror-stricken figure for a moment
+and burst in tears. His friends shrank back in silence.
+
+The regent had him flogged unmercifully; and Roland Adair, the Bard of
+Ramcat, ceased to sing. He became a mere cog in the wheel of things
+which moved on with swift certainty to its appointed end.
+
+The social system worked now with deadly precision and ceaseless
+regularity. No citizen dared to speak against the man in authority
+over him or complain to the regent, for they were his trusted
+henchmen. Men and women huddled in groups and asked in whispers the
+news.
+
+Disarmed and at the mercy of his brutal guard, cut off from the world
+as effectually as if they lived on another planet, despair began to
+sicken the strongest hearts, and suicide to be more common than in the
+darkest days of panic and hunger in the old world.
+
+A curious group of three huddled together in the shadows discussing
+their fate on the day the Bard was publicly flogged.
+
+Uncle Bob led the whispered conference of woe.
+
+"I tells ye, gemmens, dis beats de worl'! Befo' de war I wuz er slave.
+But I knowed my master. We wuz good friends. He say ter me, 'Bob
+you'se de blackest, laziest nigger dat ebber cumber de groun'! And I
+laf right in his face an' say, 'Come on, Marse Henry, an' le's go
+fishin'--dey'll bite ter-day'! An' he go wid me. He nebber lay de
+weight er his han' on me in his life. He come ter see me when I sick
+an' cheer me up. He gimme good clothes an' a good house an' plenty ter
+eat. He love me, an' I love him. I tells ye I'se er slave now an' I
+don't know who de debbil my master is. Dey change him every ten days.
+Dey cuss an' kick me--an' I work like a beast. Dis yer comrade
+business too much fer me."
+
+"To tell you the truth, boys," said a bowed figure by old Bob's side,
+"I lived in a model community once before."
+
+"Oh, go 'long dar, man, dey nebber wuz er nudder one!" Bob protested.
+
+"Yes. We all wore the same thickness of clothes, ate the same three
+meals regularly, never over-ate or suffered from dyspepsia; all of us
+worked the same number of hours a day, went to bed at the same time
+and got up at the same time. There was no drinking, cursing,
+carousing, gambling, stealing, or fighting. We were model people and
+every man's wants were met with absolute equality. The only trouble
+was we all lived in the penitentiary at San Quentin----"
+
+"Des listen at dat now!" Bob exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, and I found the world outside a pretty tough place to live in
+when I got out, too. I thought I'd find the real thing here and
+slipped in. What's the difference? In the pen we wore a gray suit.
+We've got it here with a red spangle on it. There they decided the
+kind of grub they'd give us. The same here. There we worked at jobs
+they give us. The same here. There we worked under overseers and
+guards. So we do here. I was sent up there for two years. It looks
+like we're in here for life."
+
+"How long, O Lord, how long, will Thy servant wait for deliverance?"
+cried Methodist John, in plaintive despair. "If I only could get back
+to the poorhouse! There I had food and shelter and clothes. It's all
+I've got here--but with it work, work, work! and a wicked, sinful,
+cussin' son of the devil always over me drivin' and watchin'!"
+
+John's jaw suddenly dropped as a black cloud swept in from the sea and
+obscured the sun. A squall of unusual violence burst over the island
+with wonderful swiftness. The darkness of twilight fell like a pall,
+and a sharp peal of thunder rang over the harbour.
+
+John watched the progress of the storm with strange elation, quietly
+walked through the blinding, drenching rain to the barn, and drew from
+the forks of two trees a lightning-rod about thirty feet long which
+Norman had finally made for him in answer to his constant pleading.
+The tip of the rod was pointed with a dozen shining spikes.
+
+John seized this rod, held it straight over his head, and began to
+march with firm step around the lawn. He walked with slow, measured
+tread past the two big colony houses to the amazement of the people
+who stood at the windows watching the storm. He held his lightning-rod
+as a soldier a musket on dress-parade, his eyes fixed straight in
+front. As he passed through the floral court between the two buildings
+he burst into an old Methodist song, his cracked voice ringing in
+weird and plaintive tones with the sigh and crash of the wind among
+the foliage of the trees and shrubbery:
+
+    "I want to be an angel,
+      And with the angels stand,
+    A crown upon my forehead,
+      A harp within my hand."
+
+Over and over he sang this stanza with increasing fervour as he
+marched steadily on through every path around the buildings, his
+rain-soaked clothes clinging to his flesh and flopping dismally about
+his thin legs. As the storm suddenly lifted he stopped in front of the
+kitchen, dropped his rod, and sank with a groan to his knees taking up
+again his old refrain:
+
+"How long, O Lord, how long?"
+
+Old Bob ran out and shook him.
+
+"Name er God, man, what de matter wid you? Is you gone clean crazy?
+What you doin' monkeyin' wid dat lightnin'-rod?"
+
+John lifted his drooping head and sighed:
+
+"You see, neighbour, I don't like to kill myself. It's against my
+religion. It seems like taking things out of the hands of God. But I
+thought the Lord, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, might be kind
+enough to spare me a bolt if I lifted my rod and put myself in the
+way. If he had only seen fit to do it, I'd be at rest now in the
+courts of glory!"
+
+"Dis here's a sad worl', brudder," Bob said comfortingly. "'Pears lak
+ter me de Lawd doan' lib here no mo'."
+
+Before John could reply, a guard arrested him for disorderly conduct.
+The regent kicked him from his office and ordered him to prison on a
+diet of bread and water for a week.
+
+The slightest criticism of his reign Wolf resented with instant and
+crushing cruelty. His system of spies was complete and his knowledge
+of every man's attitude accurate and full. Where-ever he appeared, he
+received the most cringing obeisance.
+
+Especially did women tremble at his approach and count themselves
+happy if he condescended to smile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+A BROTHER TO THE BEAST
+
+
+At the end of three months from the time he took possession of the
+dredge, Wolf's men had built five duplicates, and they were all at
+work. More than three thousand dollars' worth of gold he weighed daily
+and stored in secret vaults whose keys never left his grasp.
+
+The new colony he landed in groups of two hundred at intervals of
+sufficient time to assign each new member to work where the least
+trouble could be given. The strictest search for arms and weapons of
+every kind was made before each person was allowed to land.
+
+It took only about two weeks to bring the new group into perfect
+subjection. Spies reported every word of surprise and criticism that
+fell from the lips of a newcomer.
+
+The overseer of each gang of labourers was required to complete the
+task assigned to him by the standard of the very best records labour
+had ever made, and to secure these results it was necessary to
+constantly lengthen the hours of each day's service. As the efficiency
+of labour decreased the entire colony gradually gravitated to the
+basis of convict service. As no man received more than food, clothes,
+and shelter there could be no conceivable motive to induce any one to
+work harder than was necessary to escape the lash of the overseer.
+Consequently the hours of labour were increased from nine to ten.
+
+The one ambition now of every man was to win the favour of the
+authorities, and become one of the regent's guard, an overseer, or
+find relief from the hard, brutal tasks imposed on the great majority.
+The road to promotion could not be found in achievement.
+
+The power to assign and enforce work was the mightiest force ever
+developed in the hand of man.
+
+Under the system of capitalism wealth was desirable because it meant
+power over men. But this power was always limited. Under the free play
+of natural law no man, even the poorest, could be commanded to work by
+a superior power. He could always quit if he liked. He might choose to
+go hungry, or apply to the charity society for help in the last
+resort, but he was still master of his own person. His will was
+supreme. He, and he alone, could say, I will, or I will not.
+
+Here all was changed. A new force in human history had been created.
+Wealth beyond all the dreams of passion and avarice was in the grasp
+of the regent and his henchmen. He wielded the most autocratic and
+merciless power over men conceivable to the human imagination--a power
+final and resistless, from which there could be no appeal save in
+death itself.
+
+The results of this power quickly began to show in the development of
+life around the regent and each of his trusted minions.
+
+By the time the theatre and music hall were finished and opened, Wolf
+had selected more than a hundred of the prettiest girls in the colony
+for the two stages.
+
+His method of selection was always the same. The girl he desired he
+secretly ordered to be assigned to a dirty or disgusting form of
+labour. He allowed her to rave in hopeless anger at her tasks until
+she found that all appeal was in vain and her doom sealed.
+
+He then made it his business to call, express his surprise at the task
+to which she had been assigned, and smile vaguely at her eager appeal
+for a change.
+
+If she proved charming to the regent she was promptly assigned to the
+chorus of the State theatre and given luxurious quarters in the
+building adjoining.
+
+Their tasks were light and agreeable. They studied music and dancing
+and elocution. But, above all, they studied day and night the art of
+pleasing the regent, whose frown could send any of them instantly to
+the washtub or the scrubbing-brush.
+
+In like manner around the personality of each guard, overseer,
+secret-service man, superintendent, and governor of departments there
+grew a coterie of favoured ones whose position depended solely on the
+whim of the man in power.
+
+The State only could manufacture arms. The State only could bear arms.
+And the system of law which Socialism developed was so full, so minute
+in its touch on every detail of human life, and so merciless in its
+system of espionage, the very idea of revolution was slowly dying in
+the despairing hearts of the colonists.
+
+So sure was Wolf of his victim when once he had marked her, he was
+merely amused rather than displeased over Barbara's defiance of his
+wishes.
+
+A few days before the opening and dedication of the regent's palace,
+when all his preparations were complete, Wolf summoned Catherine.
+
+"I have here," he began, "my proclamation for the complete
+establishment of a perfect Social State. I publish it to-morrow
+morning. It goes into effect immediately:
+
+"'From to-day the State of Ventura enters upon the reign of pure
+Communism which is the only logical end of Socialism. All private
+property is hereby abolished. The claim of husband to the person of
+his wife as his own can no longer be tolerated. Love is free from all
+chains. Marriage will hereafter be celebrated by a simple declaration
+before a representative of the State, and it shall cease to bind at
+the will of either party. Complete freedom in the sex-relationship is
+left to the judgment and taste of a race of equally developed men and
+women. The State will interfere, when necessary, to regulate the
+birth-rate and maintain the limits of efficient population.'"
+
+"Which means for me?" Catherine inquired.
+
+"That you are divorced and free to marry whom you please."
+
+The woman uttered a cry of anguish, threw her arms around Wolf's big
+neck, and burst into sobs.
+
+"Oh, Herman, surely you have some pity left in your heart! For God's
+sake, don't cast me out of your life in this cruel, horrible way!"
+
+He turned his stolid face away with cold indifference.
+
+She lifted her tapering hand timidly and smoothed the coarse hair back
+from his forehead with a tender gesture.
+
+"Can you forget," she went on, in low, passionate tones, "all we have
+been to one another through the long, dark years of our fight with
+poverty and oppression? All I have done for your sake? That I broke
+my husband's heart--for he loved me even as I love you--I left my
+babies, and have never seen them since; broke with every friend and
+loved one on earth for you! Have you forgotten all I have done in this
+work? The tireless zeal with which I've fought your battles? Can you
+kick me from your presence now as though I were a dog?"
+
+Wolf pursed his thick lips and scowled.
+
+"No, I mean that you shall stay where you are and take charge of my
+new household. Barbara will need your assistance."
+
+"Barbara!" she gasped.
+
+"I have chosen her as the new regent," Wolf calmly answered. "I will
+announce our marriage at the dedication of the palace."
+
+"And you think that I will accept such shame?"
+
+"I'm sure you will!" he quickly answered with an ominous threat in his
+tone.
+
+The woman sprang to her feet and faced him, her tall, lithe figure
+tense with passion.
+
+"I dare you to try it!"
+
+"Dare?" Wolf repeated in a low growl.
+
+"I said it!" she cried, defiantly. "From the very housetop I'll shout
+the story of our life. I'll show you I'm a power you must reckon
+with----"
+
+"And I'll show you," Wolf answered "that there's but one power that
+counts now in the world of realities in which we live--the elemental
+force of tooth, and nail, and claw--do you understand?"
+
+He thrust his big, ugly face into hers and a look of terror flashed
+from her eyes as she saw his features convulsed with fury.
+
+"Please, Herman!" she pleaded at last in a feeble, childish voice.
+
+"You are still daring me?"
+
+"No, I give up--surely you will not strike me!" she gasped.
+
+"Not unless I have to," he answered, with cold menace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+LOVE AND LOCKSMITHS
+
+
+Barbara sat in the little rose bower on the lawn puzzling her brain
+for the thousandth time over impossible schemes to communicate with
+Norman.
+
+From day to day she had watched with increasing fear the rapid growth
+of Wolf's cruel instincts under the conditions of tyranny he had
+established.
+
+She had appealed in vain to every man in authority. Everywhere the
+same answer. The regent's power inspired a terror which no appeal
+could penetrate.
+
+She started with a sudden thought. Among the guards who stood watch at
+Wolf's door was the nineteen-year-old boy who had acted as usher and
+shown Norman to a seat in the Socialist Hall the night they met.
+
+She had caught a peculiar look in his face the last time she entered
+Wolf's office. Could it be possible he was in love with her in the
+helpless, heroic, boy fashion of his age? She would put him to the
+test. It was worth trying.
+
+She found him on guard in the corridor outside Wolf's door,
+approached him cautiously, touched his hand timidly, and whispered:
+
+"Jimmy, I'm in great distress."
+
+"I wish I could help you, Miss Barbara," he answered in low, earnest
+tones, sweeping the corridor with a quick look.
+
+"Even at the risk of your life?"
+
+"I'd jump at the chance to die for you!" was the simple answer.
+
+Barbara's voice choked and her little hand caught the boy's
+gratefully. His conquest was too easy, his love too big and generous!
+"I wish I could do it, Jimmy, without letting you risk your life, but
+I must see Norman."
+
+"I'll help you if I can, Miss Barbara, but I don't know how. The
+jailer won't let me in without an order from the regent."
+
+"I'll go in now," she went on, "get a piece of paper from his desk,
+forge the order, and sign his name. I can imitate his handwriting.
+I'll give it to you immediately, and watch until you get back to your
+post."
+
+"I'll do it!" the boy answered, his eyes shining.
+
+"Tell Norman," Barbara whispered, "that I have found Saka in the
+hills. He has built a skiff and has it ready to sail with his message
+for relief."
+
+"I understand."
+
+She entered Wolf's office unannounced and surprised him with her
+girlish buoyancy of spirit.
+
+With a light laugh she sprang on his big desk, sat down among his
+papers, and deftly closed her hand over one of his small official
+order-pads.
+
+"I cannot see Norman, to-day?" she asked.
+
+"Not to-day, my dear. A little later, yes, but not to-day!"
+
+He laughed carelessly and turned in his armchair to a messenger:
+
+"Take that order to the captain of the guard and tell him to report to
+me at seven o'clock to-night."
+
+While he spoke, the girl slipped from her place on the desk and thrust
+the order pad in her pocket.
+
+"Then I'm wasting breath to plead with you?"
+
+"Decidedly. But I congratulate you on the rational way you are
+beginning to look at things."
+
+As she moved to the door she smiled over her shoulder: "Time will work
+wonders, perhaps!"
+
+"I told you so," he laughed.
+
+She hurried to her room and wrote the order signing Wolf's name
+without a moment's hesitation:
+
+    "Admit the guard bearing this order for the delivery of a
+    personal message to the prisoner, Norman Worth.
+
+                                                "WOLF--_Regent_."
+
+She stood at the window and watched the boy enter the jail. He stayed
+an interminable time! Each tick of the tiny watch in her hand seemed
+an hour. One minute, two, three, four, five minutes slowly dragged.
+Merciful God, would he never return? A thousand questions began to
+strangle her. Had Wolf suspected and played with her? Had the jailer
+recognized the trick and arrested the boy? Had Wolf discovered the
+boy's absence from his post?
+
+She looked at her watch again. He had been gone seven minutes! The
+door of the jail suddenly opened and the boy appeared.
+
+Her hand was tingling with a curious pain. She looked, and the nails
+of her fingers had cut the flesh as she had stood in agony counting
+the seconds.
+
+The boy walked with leisurely precision as though on an ordinary
+errand for the regent. Barbara waited until he resumed his position on
+guard at the door and quickly reached his side.
+
+He pressed a note into her hand, whispering:
+
+"The jailer held me up at first--but I found him!"
+
+Barbara glanced down the corridor with a quick look threw her arms
+around the boy's neck and kissed him tenderly.
+
+He smiled, drew a deep breath, and said:
+
+"Now, I'm ready to die!"
+
+"No. To live and fight," she cried. "Fight our way back to freedom.
+You must help me!"
+
+She turned and flew to her room. The note in her hand was burning the
+soft flesh.
+
+She locked her door and read:
+
+    "HEART OF MY HEART:
+
+    "Iron bars have held my body but my soul has been with you! I've
+    seen you walking among the flowers a hundred times and tried to
+    force my message through the walls. I enclose a telegram to my
+    father and one to the Governor of California. Send Saka to Santa
+    Barbara with them. The troops should arrive in forty-eight
+    hours. All I ask of God now is the chance to fight. I love you!
+
+                                              "Always yours,
+                                                         NORMAN."
+
+She kissed the note, tore it into fragments, and burned the pieces.
+
+When night had fallen, Jimmy safely passed the patrol lines, delivered
+his message to Saka, helped him launch the skiff, watched the little
+sail spread before a fair wind, and returned to his post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+THE SHINING EMBLEM
+
+
+When Wolf's patrol telephoned two days later that a company of troops
+had suddenly landed on the other side of the island, he called the
+captain of the guard:
+
+"A detail of men to move the gold aboard the ship. Order the steam up.
+I'll divide with you. We must beat those soldiers back until we can
+sail. Fight them at every possible stand as they cross the hills. I'll
+join you if the guard is driven in."
+
+The captain hurried to execute Wolf's orders, while the regent began
+with feverish haste to transfer the treasures of the colony to the
+ship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Norman sat on his cot in prison, awaiting anxiously the first sound of
+the troops.
+
+He suddenly leaped to his feet.
+
+"They are coming!"
+
+Listening a moment intently, he cried:
+
+"There it is again--the scream of fifes from the hills!--now, they are
+driving in the pickets--hear the crack of those rifles!--God in
+heaven, isn't it music!"
+
+He sank back on the cot with a sob of joy.
+
+In a rush the troops surrounded the jail. The sheriff lifted his hand
+and shouted:
+
+"In the name of the peace and dignity of the State of California----"
+
+Wolf answered with a defiant wave and charged at the head of his
+guard. The soldiers poured into their ranks a deadly fire. At the
+first volley the leader fell. The charging column hesitated, halted,
+threw down their arms, and surrendered.
+
+In five minutes Colonel Worth entered the jail and father and son
+silently embraced. Barbara followed and Norman clasped her in his
+arms.
+
+A shout rose from the troops and the group within moved to the prison
+window. The colour-sergeant had hauled down the red ensign of
+Socialism from the flag-staff on the lawn and lifted the Stars and
+Stripes in its place.
+
+Norman's hand sought his father's. They clasped a moment tremblingly,
+and, still looking through the barred window at the shining emblem in
+the sky, the young man slowly said:
+
+"It _is_ beautiful, isn't it Governor!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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+
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+
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+
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+Surprises, strange and startling, are concealed in every chapter of
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+runs the thread of a curious love story.
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+MEREDITH NICHOLSON'S FASCINATING ROMANCES
+
+Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
+
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+    =THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES. With a frontispiece in colors
+      by Howard Chandler Christy.=
+
+A novel of romance and adventure, of love and valor, of mystery and
+hidden treasure. The hero is required to spend a whole year in the
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+    =THE PORT OF MISSING MEN. With illustrations by Clarence F.
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+
+There is romance of love, mystery, plot, and fighting, and a
+breathless dash and go about the telling which makes one quite forget
+about the improbabilities of the story; and it all ends in the
+old-fashioned healthy American way. Shirley is a sweet, courageous
+heroine whose shining eyes lure from page to page.
+
+
+    =ROSALIND AT REDGATE. Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller.=
+
+The author of "The House of a Thousand Candles" has here given us a
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+* * * The heroine is a strange, sweet mixture of pride, wilfulness and
+lovable courage. The characters are superbly drawn; the atmosphere is
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+people."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page  62: ecomonic replaced with economic                 |
+    | Page 126: "could be plainly see" replaced with            |
+    |           "could be plainly seen"                         |
+    | Page 162: collasped replaced by collapsed                 |
+    | Page 246: "he was was quick to note" replaced with        |
+    |           "he was quick to note"                          |
+    | Page 290: kissd replaced with kissed                      |
+    | Page 297: "with which your pour out" replaced with        |
+    |           "with which you pour out"                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comrades, by Thomas Dixon
+
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+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Comrades, by Thomas Dixon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Comrades
+       A Story of Social Adventure in California
+
+Author: Thomas Dixon
+
+Illustrator: C. D. Williams
+
+Release Date: March 1, 2011 [EBook #35447]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMRADES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.</p>
+<p class="noin" style="text-align: left;">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p>
+<p class="noin">Click on the images to see a larger version.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<img border="0" src="images/cover.jpg" width="40%" alt="Cover" />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/frontis.jpg" width="40%" alt="Frontis: Norman Clasped Her in His Arms" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen sc" style="margin-top: .2em;">Norman Clasped Her in His Arms.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h1>COMRADES</h1>
+
+<h3><i>A STORY OF SOCIAL ADVENTURE<br />
+IN CALIFORNIA</i></h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>THOMAS DIXON, Jr.</h2>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>Illustrated by</h4>
+<h3>C.D. WILLIAMS</h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<img border="0" src="images/deco.jpg" width="7%" alt="Publisher's Mark" />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP<br />
+Publishers&nbsp;&nbsp;::&nbsp;&nbsp;New York</h4>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION<br />
+INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THOMAS DIXON, JR.<br />
+PUBLISHED, JANUARY, 1909</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4>DEDICATED TO<br />
+THE DEAREST LITTLE<br />
+GIRL IN THE WORLD, MY DAUGHTER<br />
+LOUISE</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">CHAPTER</td>
+  <td class="tdl" width="70%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">The Woman in Red</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">3</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">A New Joan of Arc</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">19</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">The Birth of a Man</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">31</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Among the Shadows</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">37</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">The Island of Ventura</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">48</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">The Red Flag</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">56</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Father and Son</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">73</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Through the Eyes of Love</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">85</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">A Faded Picture</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">90</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">X.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Son and Father</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">93</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">The Way of a Woman</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">103</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">A Royal Gift</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">105</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">The Burning of the Bridges</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">110</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">The New World</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">118</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">For the Cause</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">123</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Barbara Chooses a Profession</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">130</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">A Call for Heroes</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">134</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">A New Aristocracy</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">151</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">Some Troubles in Heaven</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">166</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">The Unconventional</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">181</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">A Pair of Cold Gray Eyes</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">186</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">The Fighting Instinct</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">192</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">The Cords Tighten</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">207<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXIV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">Some Interrogation Points</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">212</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">The Master Hand</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">224</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXVI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">At the Parting of the Ways</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">235</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXVII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">The Fruits of Patience</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">246</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> XXVIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">The New Master</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr"> 257</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXIX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">A Test of Strength</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">269</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">A Vision from the Hilltop</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">274</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXXI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">In Love and War</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">283</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXXII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">A Primitive Lover</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">291</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"> XXXIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">Equality</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr"> 295</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXXIV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">A Brother to the Beast</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">306</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXXV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">Love and Locksmiths</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">313</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XXXVI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">The Shining Emblem</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">318</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY</h3>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="cen"><i>Scene</i>: California. <i>Time</i>: 1898-1901</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc" width="60%">Norman Worth</td>
+  <td class="tdl" width="40%">An Amateur Socialist</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Colonel Worth</td>
+  <td class="tdl">His Father</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Elena Stockton</td>
+  <td class="tdl">The Colonel's Ward</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Herman Wolf</td>
+  <td class="tdl">A Socialist Leader</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Catherine</td>
+  <td class="tdl">His Affinity Wife</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Barbara Bozenta</td>
+  <td class="tdl">A New Joan of Arc</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Methodist John</td>
+  <td class="tdl">A Pauper</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Tom Mooney</td>
+  <td class="tdl">A Miner</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">John Diggs</td>
+  <td class="tdl">A Truth Seeker</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Roland Adair</td>
+  <td class="tdl">Bard of Ramcat</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toi" id="toi"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="60%" summary="List of Illustrations">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl" width="70%"><a href="#frontis">"Norman clasped her in his arms"</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="30%"><i>Frontispiece</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" style="font-size: 80%;">FACING PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep072">"'Lift the flag back to its place!'"</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">72</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep214">Barbara</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">214</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep292">"Wolf grasped her"</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">292</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>COMRADES</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span><br />
+
+<h2>COMRADES</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE WOMAN IN RED</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>"Fools and fanatics!"</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Worth crumpled the morning paper with a gesture of rage and
+walked to the window.</p>
+
+<p>Elena followed softly and laid her hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Guardie? I thought you were supremely happy this morning
+over the news that Dewey has smashed the Spanish fleet?"</p>
+
+<p>"And so I am, little girl," was the gentle reply, "or was until my eye
+fell on this call of the Socialists for a meeting to-night to denounce
+the war&mdash;denounce the men who are dying for the flag. Read their
+summons."</p>
+
+<p>He opened the crumpled sheet and pointed to its head lines:</p>
+
+<p>"Down with the Stars and Stripes&mdash;up with the Red Flag of
+Revolution&mdash;the symbol of universal human brotherhood! Come and bring
+your friends. A big surprise for all!" The Colonel's jaws snapped
+suddenly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>"I'd like to give them the surprise they need to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" Elena asked.</p>
+
+<p>"A serenade."</p>
+
+<p>"A serenade?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, with Mauser rifles and Gatling guns. I'd mow them down as I
+would a herd of wild beasts loose in the streets of San Francisco."</p>
+
+<p>"Merely for a difference of opinion, Governor?" lazily broke in a
+voice from the depths of a heavy armchair.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to put it so, Norman, yes. Opinions, my boy, are the
+essence of life&mdash;they may lead to heaven or hell. Opinions make
+cowards or heroes, patriots or traitors, criminals or saints."</p>
+
+<p>"But you believe in free speech?" persisted the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And that's more than any Socialist can say. I don't deny their
+right to speak their message. What I can't understand is how the
+people who have been hounded from the tyrant-ridden countries of the
+old world and found shelter and protection beneath our flag should
+turn thus to curse the hand that shields them."</p>
+
+<p>"But if they propose to give you a better flag, Governor?" drawled the
+lazy voice. "Why not consider?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Elena! Did the sun ever shine on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>anything more beautiful? See
+it fluttering from a thousand house-tops&mdash;the proud emblem of human
+freedom and human progress! Dewey has lifted it this morning on the
+foulest slave-pen of the Orient&mdash;the flag that has never met defeat.
+The one big faith in me is the belief that Almighty God inspired our
+fathers to build this Republic&mdash;the noblest dream yet conceived by the
+mind of man. Dewey has sunk a tyrant fleet and conquered an empire of
+slaves without the loss of a single man. The God of our fathers was
+with him. We have a message for the swarming millions of the East&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon the interruption, Governor, but I must hold the mirror up to
+nature just a moment&mdash;your portrait sketched by the poet-laureate of
+the English-speaking world. He speaks of the American:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Enslaved, illogical, elate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He greets the embarrassed gods, nor fears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shake the iron hand of Fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or match with Destiny for beers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Lo! imperturbable he rules,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Unkempt, disreputable, vast&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the teeth of all the schools<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I&mdash;I shall save him at the last!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Colonel smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you like the picture?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>"Not bad for an Englishman, Norman. You know we licked England
+twice&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And we kin do it again, b' gosh, can't we?" blustered the younger man
+with mock heroics.</p>
+
+<p>"You can bet we can, my son!" continued the Colonel, quietly. "The
+roar of Dewey's guns are echoing round the world this morning. The
+lesson will not be lost. You will observe that even your English poet
+foresees at last our salvation.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'And in the teeth of all the schools<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I&mdash;I shall save him at the last!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Even in spite of the Socialists?" queried the boy, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"In spite of every foe&mdash;even those within our own household. War is
+the searchlight of history, the great revealer of national life, of
+hidden strength and unexpected weakness. I saw it in the Civil
+conflict&mdash;I've seen it in this little struggle&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you do acknowledge it's not the greatest struggle in
+history&mdash;that's something to be thankful for in these days of
+patriotism," exclaimed Norman, rising and stretching himself before
+the open fire while he winked mischievously at Elena.</p>
+
+<p>"It's big enough, my boy, to show us the truth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>about our nation. Our
+old problems are no longer real. The Union our fathers dreamed has
+come at last. We are one people&mdash;one out of many&mdash;and we can whip
+Spain before breakfast&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"With one hand tied behind our back!" laughed the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and blindfolded. It will be easy. But the next serious job will
+be to bury a half million deluded fools in this country who call
+themselves Socialists."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel paused and a look of foreboding clouded his face as he
+gazed from the window of his house on Nob Hill over the city of San
+Francisco, which he loved with a devotion second only to his
+passionate enthusiasm for the Union.</p>
+
+<p>Elena sat watching him in silent sympathy. He was the one perfect man
+of her life dreams, the biggest, strongest, tenderest soul she had
+ever known. Since the day she crept into his arms a lonely little
+orphan ten years old she had worshipped him as father, mother,
+guardian, lover, friend&mdash;all in one. She had accepted Norman's love
+and promised to be his wife more to please his father than from any
+overwhelming passion for the handsome, lazy young athlete. It had come
+about as a matter of course because Colonel Worth wished it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>The Colonel turned from the window, and his eyes rested on Elena's
+upturned face.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be bloody work&mdash;but we've got to do it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Elena sprang to her feet with a start and a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Do what, Guardie? I forgot what you were talking about."</p>
+
+<p>"Then don't worry your pretty head about it, dear. It's a job we men
+will look after in due time."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped and kissed her forehead. "By-by until to-night&mdash;I'll drop
+down to the club and hear the latest from the front."</p>
+
+<p>With the firm, swinging stride of a man who lives in the open the
+Colonel passed through the door of the library.</p>
+
+<p>"Norman, I can't realize that you two are father and son&mdash;he looks
+more like your brother."</p>
+
+<p>"At least my older brother&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course, but you would never take him for a man of
+forty-eight. I like the touch of gray in his hair. It means dignity,
+strength, experience. I've always hated sap-headed youngsters."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Elena, for heaven's sake, who are you in love with anyhow&mdash;with
+me or the Governor?"</p>
+
+<p>A smile flickered around the corners of the girl's eyes and mouth
+before she slowly answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I sometimes think I really love you both, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>Norman&mdash;but there are
+times when I have doubts about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. I suppose I must be duly grateful for small favours, or else
+resign myself to call you 'Mother.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Would such a fate be intolerable?"</p>
+
+<p>Elena drew her magnificent figure to its full height and looked into
+the young athlete's face with laughing audacity.</p>
+
+<p>"By George, Elena, if I'm honest with you, I'd have to say no. You are
+tall, stately, dignified, beautiful from the crown of your black hair
+to the tip of your dainty toe&mdash;the most stunning-looking woman I ever
+saw. I never think of you as a girl just out of school. You always
+remind me of a glorious royal figure in some old romance of the Middle
+Ages&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'm sure I love you, Norman&mdash;for the moment at least."</p>
+
+<p>"Then promise to go with me on a lark to-night," he suddenly cried.</p>
+
+<p>"A lark?"</p>
+
+<p>Elena's gray-blue eyes danced beneath their black lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a real lark, daring, adventurous, dangerous, audacious."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it&mdash;what is it? Tell me quick."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>The girl seized Norman's arm with eager, childish glee.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go to that Socialist meeting and beard the lion in his den."</p>
+
+<p>Elena drew back.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Guardie will be furious!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, who's afraid? Guardie be hanged!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go by yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you've got to go with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't do it. You just want to worry your father and then hide
+behind my skirts."</p>
+
+<p>"You can see yourself that's the easiest way to manage it. If he has a
+fit, I can just say that your curiosity was excited and I had to go
+with you."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's not excited."</p>
+
+<p>"For the purposes of the lark I tell you that it is excited. There's
+too much patriotism in the air. It's giving me nervous prostration. I
+want something to brace me up. I think those fellows can give me some
+good points to tease the Governor with."</p>
+
+<p>"Tease the Governor! You flatter yourself, Norman. He doesn't pay any
+more attention to your talk than he would to the bark of a six weeks'
+old puppy."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what riles me. The Governor's so cocksure of himself. I don't
+know how to answer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>him, but I know he's wrong. The fury with which he
+hates the Socialists rouses my curiosity. I've always found that the
+good things in life are forbidden. All respectable people are
+positively forbidden to attend a Socialist&mdash;traitors'&mdash;meeting. For
+that reason let's go."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, come on. Don't be a chump. Be a sport!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like the lark, but I won't hurt Guardie's feelings; so that's the
+end of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Going to be a surprise, they say."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of a surprise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Going to spring a big sensation."</p>
+
+<p>Elena's eyes began to dance again.</p>
+
+<p>"The woman called the Scarlet Nun is going to speak, and Herman Wolf,
+the famous 'blond beast' of Socialism, will preside. They are
+mates&mdash;affinities."</p>
+
+<p>"Married?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows. A hundred weird stories about them circulate in the
+under-world."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't go! Don't you say another word!" Elena snapped.</p>
+
+<p>Norman was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure it would be perfectly safe, Norman?" the girl softly
+asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>"Perfectly. I know every inch of that quarter of the city&mdash;went there
+a hundred times the year I was a reporter."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't go!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the wickedest street in town. They say it's the worst block in
+America."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to see it." Elena laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"And the hall is a famous red-light dancing dive in the heart of
+Hell's Half Acre."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Hush! I tell you I won't&mdash;<i>I won't</i> go! But&mdash;but if I <i>do</i>&mdash;you
+promise to hold my hand every minute, Norman?"</p>
+
+<p>"And keep my arm around your waist, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>Elena's cheeks flushed and her voice quivered with excitement as she
+paused in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be ready in twenty minutes after dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Bully for my chum! I'll tell the Governor we've gone for a stroll."</p>
+
+<p>As the shadows slowly fell over the city, Norman led Elena down the
+marble steps of his father's palatial home and paused for a moment on
+the edge of the hill on which were perched the seats of the mighty.
+Elena fumbled with a new glove.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready to descend with me to the depths, my princess in
+disguise?" he gaily asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>"Did you ever know me to flunk when I gave my word?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you're a brick, Elena."</p>
+
+<p>Norman seized her arm and strode down the steep hillside with sure,
+firm step, the girl accompanying his every movement with responsive
+joy.</p>
+
+<p>"You're awfully wicked to get me into a scrape of this kind, Norman,"
+she cried, with bantering laughter. "You know I was dying to go
+slumming, and Guardie wouldn't let me. It's awfully mean of you to
+take advantage of me like this."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped suddenly and looked gravely into her flushed face.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go back, then."</p>
+
+<p>"No! I won't."</p>
+
+<p>Norman broke into a laugh. "Then away with vain regrets! And remember
+the fate of Lot's wife."</p>
+
+<p>Elena pressed his hand close to her side and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"You are with me. The big handsome captain of last year's football
+team. Very young and very vain and very foolish and very lazy&mdash;but I
+do think you'd stand by me in a scrap, Norman. Wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I rather think!" was the deep answer, half whispered, as they
+suddenly turned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>a corner and plunged into the red-light district. His
+strong hand gripped her wrist with unusual tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"So who's afraid?" she cried, looking up into his face just as a
+drunken blear-eyed woman staggered through an open door and lurched
+against her.</p>
+
+<p>A low scream of terror came from Elena as she sprang back, and the
+woman's head struck the pavement with a dull whack. Norman bent over
+her and started to lift the heavy figure, when her fist suddenly shot
+into his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ter hell&mdash;I can take care o' myself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Elena's hand suddenly gripped his.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go back, Norman."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense&mdash;who's afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am. I don't mind saying it. This is more than I bargained for."</p>
+
+<p>The woman scrambled to her feet and limped back into the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Elena shivered. "I didn't know such women lived on this earth."</p>
+
+<p>"To say nothing of living but a stone's throw from your own door," he
+continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go back," she pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"No. A thing like this is merely one more reason why we should keep
+on. This only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>shows that the world we live in isn't quite perfect, as
+the Governor seems to think. These Socialists may be right after all.
+Now that we've started let's hear their side of it. Come on! Don't be
+a quitter!"</p>
+
+<p>Norman seized her arm and hurried through the swiftly moving throng of
+the under-world&mdash;gambling touts, thieves, cut-throats, pick-pockets,
+opium fiends, drunkards, thugs, carousing miners, and sailors&mdash;but
+above all, everywhere, omnipresent, the abandoned woman&mdash;painted,
+bedizened, lurching through the streets, hanging in doorways, clinging
+to men on the sidewalks, beckoning from windows, singing vulgar songs
+on crude platforms among throngs of half-drunken men, whirling past
+doors and windows in dance-halls, their cracked voices shrill and
+rasping above the din of cheap music.</p>
+
+<p>Elena stopped suddenly and clung heavily to Norman's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Norman, let's go back. I can't endure this."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're my chum that never flunked when she gave her word?" he
+asked with scorn. "We are only a few feet from the hall now."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right there in the middle of the block <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>where you see that sign with
+the blazing red torch."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, then," Elena said, with a shudder.</p>
+
+<p>They walked quickly through the long, dimly lighted passage to the
+entrance of the hall. It was densely packed with a crowd of five
+hundred. Elena closed her eyes and allowed Norman to lead her through
+the mob that blocked the space inside the door. At the entrance to the
+centre aisle he encountered an usher who stared with bulging eyes at
+his towering figure. Norman leaned close and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"My boy, can you possibly get us two seats?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can I git de captain er de football team two seats? Well, des watch
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy darted up the aisle, dived under the platform, drew out two
+folding-chairs, placed them in the aisle on the front row, darted
+back, and bowed with grave courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>"Dis way, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Norman followed with Elena clinging timidly and blindly to his arm. In
+a moment they were seated. He offered the boy a dollar.</p>
+
+<p>The youngster bowed again.</p>
+
+<p>"De honour is all mine, sir. But you can give it to the Cause when
+they pass the box."</p>
+
+<p>Norman turned to Elena. "Well, doesn't that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>jar you? A
+sixteen-year-old boy declines a tip, and says give it to the Cause!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy darted up the steps of the platform and whispered to the
+chairman:</p>
+
+<p>"Git on to his curves! Dat's de captain o' de football&mdash;de bloke dat's
+worth millions, an' don't give a doggone!"</p>
+
+<p>A woman dressed in deep red who sat beside the chairman leaned close
+and asked with quiet intensity:</p>
+
+<p>"You mean young Worth, the millionaire of Nob Hill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bet yer life! Dat's him!"</p>
+
+<p>The woman in red whispered to the chairman, who nodded, while his keen
+gray eyes flashed a ray of light from his heavy brows as he turned
+toward Norman.</p>
+
+<p>The woman wheeled suddenly in her chair, and with her back to the
+audience bent over a girl who was evidently hiding behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Outdo yourself to-night, Barbara. Young Norman Worth, the son of our
+multi-millionaire nabob, is sitting in the aisle just in front of you.
+Win him for the Cause and I'll give you the half of our kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I know him?" the girl asked excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"He's not ten feet from the platform in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>centre aisle&mdash;front
+row&mdash;clean shaven&mdash;a young giant of twenty-three&mdash;the handsomest man
+in the house. Put your soul <i>and</i> your body in every word you utter,
+every breath you breathe&mdash;and <i>win</i> him!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try," was the low reply.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A NEW JOAN OF ARC</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The woman in scarlet rose, lifted her hand, and the crowd sprang to
+their feet to the music of the most stirring song of revolution ever
+written.</p>
+
+<p>Norman and Elena were both swept from their seats in spite of
+themselves. Elena's eyes flashed with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is that they are singing, Norman?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"The Marseillaise hymn."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it thrilling?" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes your heart leap, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"And, heavens, how they sing it!" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Norman turned and looked over the crowd of eager faces&mdash;every man and
+woman singing with the passionate enthusiasm of religious fanatics&mdash;an
+enthusiasm electric, contagious, overwhelming. In spite of himself he
+felt his heart beat with quickened sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>He was amazed at the character of the audience. He had expected to see
+a throng of low-browed brutes. The first shock he received was the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>feeling that this crowd was distinctly an intellectual one. They might
+be fanatics. They certainly were not fools. The stamp of personality
+was clean cut on almost every face. They were fighters. They meant
+business and they didn't care who knew it. Some of them wore dirty
+clothes, but their faces were stamped with the power of free,
+rebellious thought&mdash;a power that always commands respect in spite of
+shabby clothes. He looked in vain for a single joyous face. Not a
+smile. Deep, dark eyes, shining with the light of purpose, mouths
+firm, headstrong, merciless, and bitter, but nowhere the glimmer of a
+ray of sunlight! He felt with a sense of awe the uncanny presence of
+Tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>And to his amazement he noticed a lot of men he knew in the
+crowd&mdash;three or four authors, a newspaper reporter evidently off duty,
+two college professors, a clergyman, three artists, a priest, and a
+street preacher.</p>
+
+<p>The hymn died away into a low sigh, like the sob of the wind after a
+storm. The crowd sank to their seats so quietly with the dying of the
+music that Norman and Elena were standing alone for an instant. They
+awoke from the spell, and dropped into their seats with evident
+embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>A boy of sixteen stepped briskly to the front in answer to a nod from
+the chairman, and recited a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>Socialist poem. After the first stanza,
+which was crude and stilted, Norman's eye rested on the heavy figure
+of the chairman. He was surprised at the power of his rugged face.
+Through its brute strength flashed the keenest sense of alert
+intelligence&mdash;an intelligence which seemed to lurk behind the big,
+shaggy eyebrows as if about to spring on its victim. His heavy-set
+face was covered with a thick, reddish blond beard and his short hair
+stood up straight on his head, like the bristles of a wild boar. Of
+medium height and heavy build, with arms and legs of extraordinary
+muscle and big, coarse short fingers evidently gnarled and knotted, by
+the coarsest labor in youth, he looked like a blacksmith who had taken
+a college course by the light of his forge at night. There was
+something about the way he sat crouching low in his seat, watching
+with his keen gray eyes everything that passed, that bespoke the man
+of reserve power&mdash;the man who was quietly waiting his hour.</p>
+
+<p>"By George, a pretty good pet name they've given him&mdash;'The Blond
+Beast,'" Norman muttered. "I shouldn't like to tackle him in the
+dark."</p>
+
+<p>The woman in red leaned toward the chairman and said something in low
+tones. He nodded his massive head, smiled, and looked back over his
+shoulder at the girl sitting behind them. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>The movement showed for the
+first time a long ugly scar on the side of his great neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at that fellow's neck!" whispered Elena.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He had a close call that time," Norman answered. "But I'll bet
+the other one never lived to tell the story&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sh! 'The Scarlet Nun' is going to speak."</p>
+
+<p>The woman in red rose and walked to the edge of the platform. She
+stood silent for a moment, her tall, graceful, willowy figure erect
+and tense. The crowd burst into a tumult of applause. She smiled,
+bowed, and lifted her slender hand with a quick, imperious gesture for
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Norman was struck by the note of religious fervour which her whole
+personality seemed to radiate. The peculiar scarlet robe she wore
+accented this impression perhaps, and its strangeness added a touch of
+awe. The dress gave one the impression of a nun's garb except that its
+long folds were so arranged that they revealed rather than concealed
+the beautiful lines of her graceful figure. The colour was the deep,
+warm red of the Socialist flag&mdash;the colour of human blood, chosen as
+the symbol of the universal brotherhood of man. The effect of a nun's
+cowl was given by a thin scarlet mantilla thrown over the head, the
+silken meshes of its long fringe mingling with the waves of her thick
+black <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>hair. Her face was that of a madonna of the slender type,
+except that the lips were too full, round, and sensuous and her long
+eyelashes drooped slightly over dark, lustrous eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades," she began, in slow, measured tones, "after to-night I
+retire from the platform to take up work for which I am better fitted.
+I promised you a big surprise this evening, and you shall not be
+disappointed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A murmur rippled the audience and she paused, smiling into Norman's
+face with a curious look. She spoke with a decided foreign accent with
+little moments of coquettish hesitation as though feeling for words.
+Norman felt an almost irresistible impulse to help her.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to in-tro-duce to you to-night," she continued, "a new
+leader, whose tongue the God of the poor and the outcast and the
+dis-in-herited has touched with divine fire. She is no stran-ger.
+Twenty years ago she was born beneath the bright skies of
+Cal-i-for-nia at Anaheim, in the little Socialist colony of Polish
+dreamers led by Madame Modjeska, Count Bozenta, and Henry Sienkiewicz,
+the distin-guished author of 'Quo Vadis.' As you know, the colony
+failed. Her mother died in poverty and she was placed in an orphan
+asylum until eight years of age, when she was taken back to Poland by
+her foolish kins-men. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>Four years later I found her, a ragged,
+homeless waif, in the streets of Warsaw, alone and star-ving. Since
+then she has been mine. Amid the squalor and misery of the old world
+her busy little tongue never tired telling of the glories of
+Cali-for-nia! Always she sighed for its groves of oranges and olives,
+its dazzling flowers, its luscious grapes, its rich valleys, its
+cloud-kissed, snow-clad mountains and the mur-mur of its mighty seas!
+It was her tiny hand that led me across the ocean to you. I have sent
+her to school in one of your Western colleges where a great Socialist
+professor has taught her history and e-con-omics. I have the high
+honour, comrades, of intro-ducing to you the child of genius who from
+to-night will be the Joan of Arc of our Cause, Comrade Barbara
+Bozenta!"</p>
+
+<p>She quickly turned and drew forward a trembling slip of a girl whose
+big brown eyes were swimming in tears of excitement. A moment of
+intense silence, and the crowd burst into cheers as the dazzling
+beauty of their new champion slowly dawned on their understanding. The
+woman in red resumed her seat, and the girl stood bowing, trembling,
+and smiling.</p>
+
+<p>The young athlete watched her keenly. Never had he seen such a bundle
+of quivering, pulsing, nervous, ravishing beauty. He could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>have sworn
+he saw electric sparks flash from the tips of every eyelash, from
+every strand of the mass of brown curls that circled her face and fell
+in rich profusion on her shoulders and across her heaving bosom. He
+felt before she had uttered a word&mdash;felt, rather than saw&mdash;the
+remarkable effectiveness of the simple, girlish dress which enhanced
+her dark beauty. She wore the same deep red as the older woman, but
+the bottom of the skirt was relieved by a row of ruffles edged with
+white lace. A scarf of white embroidered at the ends with scarlet
+flowers, was thrown gracefully around her shoulders and hung below the
+knees. Her round young arms were bare to the elbows, her throat and
+neck bare to the upper edge of the full bust.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's eyes sought Norman's for an imperceptible instant and a
+smile flashed from her trembling lips. The cheering ceased and she
+began to speak. He watched her with breathless intensity, and listened
+with steadily increasing fascination. Her voice at first was low, yet
+every word fell clear and distinct. Never had he heard a voice so
+tender and full of expressive feeling&mdash;soft and mellow, sweet like the
+notes of a flute. There was something in its tone quality that
+compelled sympathy, that stole into the inner depths of the soul of
+the listener, and led reason a willing captive.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>In simple yet burning words she told of the darkness and poverty, the
+crime and shame, hunger and cruelty of the old world in which she had
+spent four years of her childhood. And then in a flight of poetic
+eloquence, came the story of her dreams of California, the Golden
+West, the land of eternal sunshine and flowers. And then, in a voice
+quivering and choking with emotion, she drew the picture of what she
+found&mdash;of Hell's Half Acre, in which she stood, with its brazen vice,
+its crime, its hopeless misery, its want and despair. With bold and
+fierce invective she charged modern civilization with this infamy.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do strong men go forth to war?" she cried, looking into the
+depths of Norman's soul. "Here is the enemy at your door, gripping the
+soft, white throats of your girls. Watch them sink into the mire at
+your feet and then down, down into the black sewers of the under-world
+never to rise again! I, too, call for volunteers. For heroes and
+heroines&mdash;not to fight another&mdash;I call you to a nobler warfare. I call
+you to the salvation of a world. Will you come? I offer you stones for
+bread, the sky for your canopy, the earth for your bed, and for your
+wages death! None may enter but the brave. Will you come&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>The last words of her appeal rang through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>Norman's heart with
+resistless power. Her round, soft arms seemed about his neck and his
+soul went out to her in passionate yearning. He gripped the chair to
+hold himself back from shouting:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! I'm coming!"</p>
+
+<p>She sank to her seat before the crowd realized that she had stopped. A
+shout of triumph shook the building&mdash;wave after wave, rising and
+falling in ever-increasing intensity. At its height the Scarlet Nun
+sprang to her feet, with a graceful leap reached the edge of the
+platform, and again lifted her hand. A sudden hush fell on the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, comrades, the battle-hymn of the Republic set to new music! Mark
+its words, and remember that we sing it not as a mem-ory, but as a
+proph-esy of the day our streets may run red with the blood of the
+last struggle of Man to break his chains of Slav-ery&mdash;a proph-esy,
+remember, not a mem-ory! Read it Barbara!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl was by her side in an instant, and read from memory, her
+clear sweet voice tremulous with passion:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His truth is marching on!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;<br /></span><span class='pn'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">They have builded Him an altar in the evening's dews and damps;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His day is marching on!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer them, be jubilant my feet!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our God is marching on!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The crowd burst again into triumphant song, and Norman looked at their
+faces with increasing amazement. The immense vitality of their faith,
+the rush of its forward movement, the grandeur and audacity of their
+programme struck him as a revelation. They proposed no half-way
+measures. They meant to uproot the foundations of modern society and
+build a new world on its ruins. Their leaders were fanatics&mdash;yes. But
+fanatics were the only kind of people who would dare such things and do
+them. Here was a movement, which at least meant something&mdash;something
+big, heroic, daring. His face suddenly flushed and his heart leaped
+with an impulse.</p>
+
+<p>"In heaven's name, Norman, what's the matter?" Elena asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>The young poet-athlete looked at her in a dazed sort of way and
+stammered:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see anything like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, and I don't want to again," she replied with a frown. "Let's go
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, they are taking up a collection. At least we must pay for our
+seats."</p>
+
+<p>When the usher passed he emptied the contents of his pocket in the
+collection-box.</p>
+
+<p>As the meeting broke up, the boy who placed their seats touched Norman
+on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me introduce ye to her. I wants ter tell 'er ye er my
+friend&mdash;I've yelled my head off for ye many a day on de football
+ground. Jest er minute. I'll fetch 'er right down."</p>
+
+<p>The boy darted up on the platform, and Norman turned to Elena:</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we please the boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean yourself," she replied. "I decline the honour."</p>
+
+<p>She turned away into the crowd as the boy returned leading Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>Norman hastened to meet them at the foot of the platform steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Dis is me friend, Worth, de captain of de football team, Miss
+Barbara," proudly exclaimed the boy.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara extended her soft hand with a warm, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>friendly smile, and
+Norman clasped it while his heart throbbed.</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you," he said, "on your wonderful triumph to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"You were interested?" she asked, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"More than I can tell you," was the quick response.</p>
+
+<p>"Then join our club and help me in my work among the poor," she urged,
+with frank eagerness. "We meet to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock.
+Won't you come?"</p>
+
+<p>A long, deep look into her brown eyes&mdash;his face flushed and his heart
+leaped with sudden resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, I will," he slowly answered.</p>
+
+<p>He joined Elena at the door and they walked home in brooding silence.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE BIRTH OF A MAN</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Norman stood silent and thoughtful before the fire in the dining-room,
+the morning after the meeting of the Socialists. His sleep had been
+feverish and a hundred half-formed dreams had haunted the moments in
+which he had lost consciousness with always the shining face of
+Barbara smiling and beckoning him on.</p>
+
+<p>Elena silently entered and watched him a moment before he saw her.</p>
+
+<p>"Still dreaming of the New Joan of Arc, Norman?" she asked with
+playful banter.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to do it, Elena," he said, with slow, thoughtful emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"What? Marry her without even giving me the usual two weeks' notice?"
+Elena laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, isn't that like a woman! I wasn't even thinking of the girl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not."</p>
+
+<p>Norman laughed. "By Jove, you're jealous at last, Elena."</p>
+
+<p>"You flatter yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly, I wasn't thinking of the girl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>"Well, I've been thinking of her. She haunts me. I like her and I hate
+her. I feel that she's charming and vicious, of the spirit and flesh,
+and yet I can't help believing that she's good. The woman who
+introduced her is a she-devil, and the man who presided over that
+meeting is a brute. It's a pity she's mixed up with them. What are you
+going to do&mdash;play the hero and rescue her from their clutches?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense. The girl is nothing to me, except as the symbol of a great
+idea. It stirs my blood. I'm going to join the Socialist Club."</p>
+
+<p>"Of which the fair Barbara is secretary."</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me, and join too. We'll go together to every meeting."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you gone mad?" Elena asked, with deep seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm in dead earnest."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think your father will stand for it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That remains to be seen. I'm going to tackle him as soon as he comes
+down to breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I never see you again, good-bye, old pal." She extended her
+hand in mock gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid of him."</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're a coward, or you'd stand by me. Wait, Elena, he's coming now."</p>
+
+<p>"Why stand by? You're not afraid? I'll <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>return in time for the
+inquest. Brace up! Remember Barbara. Be a hero!"</p>
+
+<p>With a ripple of laughter she disappeared as the Colonel's footsteps
+were heard at the door.</p>
+
+<p>Norman braced himself for the ordeal. He had never before dared to
+test his father's iron will. He had grown accustomed to see strong men
+bow and cringe before him, and felt a secret contempt for them all.
+They were bowing to his millions. And yet the boy knew with intuitive
+certainty that beneath the mask of quiet dignity and polished military
+bearing of the man he facetiously called "the Governor" there
+slumbered a will unique, powerful, and overbearing. More than once he
+had resented the silent pressure of his positive and aggressive
+personality. His own budding manhood had begun instinctively to
+bristle at its approach.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel started on seeing Norman, and looked at him with a
+quizzical expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there an earthquake this morning, Norman?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't feel it, sir&mdash;why?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're downstairs rather early."</p>
+
+<p>Norman smiled. "I've been a little lazy, I'm afraid, Governor. But you
+know I wasn't consulted as to whether I wished to be born. You assumed
+a fearful responsibility. You see the results."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>The Colonel dropped his paper and looked at Norman a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, upon my word!" he exclaimed. "What's happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"The biggest thing that ever came into my life, Governor," was the
+low, serious answer.</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"The decision that hereafter I'd rather be than seem to be, that I'm
+going to do some thinking for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And what brought you to this decision?" the father quietly asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I went last night to that Socialist meeting."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he went on, impetuously, "and I heard the most wonderful appeal
+to which I ever listened&mdash;an appeal which stirred me to the deepest
+depths of my being. I think it's the biggest movement of the century.
+I'm going to study it. I'm going to see what it means. What do you say
+to it?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy lifted his tall figure with instinctive dignity, and his eyes
+met his father's in a straight, deep man's gaze.</p>
+
+<p>The faintest smile played about the corners of the Colonel's mouth as
+he suddenly extended his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>"Congratulate me?" Norman stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon the attainment of your majority. Up to date you have written a
+few verses and played football. But this is the first evidence you
+have ever shown of conscious personality. You're in the grub-worm
+stage as yet, but you're on the move. You're a human being. You have
+developed the germ of character. And that's the only thing in this
+world that's worth the candle, my boy. It's funny to hear you say that
+the appeal of Socialism has worked this miracle. For character is the
+one thing the scheme of Socialism leaves out of account. A character
+is the one thing a machine-made society could never produce if given a
+million years in which to develop the experiment."</p>
+
+<p>"And you don't object?" Norman asked with increasing amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. Study Socialism to your heart's content. Go to the
+bottom of it. Don't slop over it. Don't accept sentimental mush for
+facts. Find out for yourself. Read, think, and learn to know your
+fellow man. When you've picked up a few first principles, and know
+enough to talk intelligently, I've something to say to you&mdash;something
+I've learned for myself."</p>
+
+<p>The boy looked at his father steadily and spoke with a slight tremor
+in his voice.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>"Governor, you're a bigger man than I thought you were. I like
+you&mdash;even if you are my father."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, my boy," the Colonel gravely replied, "I trust we may know
+each other still better in the future."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>AMONG THE SHADOWS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Under the tutelage of Barbara, the young millionaire plunged into the
+study of Socialism with the zeal of the fresh convert to a holy
+crusade.</p>
+
+<p>At first he had listened to her stories of the sufferings of the poor
+and the unemployed with mild incredulity. She laid her warm little
+hand on his and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Come and see. If you think that Socialism is a dream, I'll show you
+that capitalism is a nightmare."</p>
+
+<p>He followed her down the ugly pavements of a squalid street into the
+poorest quarter of the city. She entered a dingy hall and pushed her
+way through a swarm of filthy children to the rear room. On a bed of
+rags lay the body of a suicide&mdash;a working-man who had shot himself the
+day before. The wife sat crouching on a broken chair, with eyes
+staring out of the window at the sunlit skies of a May morning in
+California. Her body seemed to have turned to stone and her eyes to
+have frozen in their sockets. Her hands lay limp in her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>lap, her
+shoulders drooped, her mouth hung hopelessly open. She was as dead to
+every sight and sound of earth as though shrouded and buried in six
+feet of clay instead of sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara touched her shoulder, but she did not move.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been sitting there all night, Mrs. Nelson?" she asked,
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>The woman turned her weak eyes toward the speaker and stared without
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't tasted the food I brought you," Barbara continued.</p>
+
+<p>The drooping figure stirred with sudden energy, as if the realization
+of the question first asked had begun to stir her intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I set up all night with Jim. He'd a-done as much fer me. There's
+nobody else that cared enough to come. Ye know it ain't respectful to
+leave your dead alone&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But you must eat something," Barbara urged.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't eat&mdash;it chokes me." She paused a moment, and looked at Norman
+in a dazed sort of way. "I tried to eat and something choked me&mdash;what
+was it? O God, I remember now!" she cried, with strangling emotion.
+"They are going to bury him in the potter's field unless we can save
+him, and I know we can't. He's got an old mother way back East that
+thinks he's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>doing well out here. Hit'll kill her dead when she finds
+out he wuz buried by the city."</p>
+
+<p>"He shan't go to the potter's field," Norman interrupted, looking out
+of the window.</p>
+
+<p>The woman rose, and tried to speak, but sank sobbing:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>When the first flood of grateful emotion had spent itself, she looked
+up at Norman and said:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, sir, he wasn't strong, and kept losin' his job in Chicago.
+We'd heard about California all our lives. We sold out everything and
+got enough to come. For two years we've made a hard fight, but it was
+no use. Jim couldn't git work. I tried and I couldn't. Folks have
+helped us, but he was proud. He wouldn't beg and he wouldn't let me.
+He wouldn't sell his gun. I think he always meant to use it that way
+when he got to the end, and it come yesterday when they give us notice
+to git out."</p>
+
+<p>She staggered over to the bed and fell across the body, sobbing:</p>
+
+<p>"My poor old boy. He loved me. He was always good to me. I tried to go
+with him. But I couldn't pull the trigger! I was afraid! I was
+afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the street, Barbara lifted her brown eyes to
+Norman's face and asked:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>"What do you think of a social system that drives thousands of men to
+kill themselves like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth I never thought of it at all before."</p>
+
+<p>"He would have been buried in a pauper's grave but for your help. I
+brought you here this morning because I knew you would save her that
+anguish when you understood."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew I would?" he softly asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't have let you come with me if I hadn't known it," she
+answered, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's funny how many of us live in this world without knowing anything
+about it," he said, musingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be funny were it not a tragedy," she answered, turning
+across the street to the next block. They paused at the entrance of
+another narrow hallway.</p>
+
+<p>"My work as secretary of the club includes, as you see, a wide range
+of calls. I'm a dispenser of alms, the pastor of a great parish, the
+friend, adviser, and champion of a lost world, and you have no idea
+what a big world it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm beginning to understand. What's the trouble here? Another
+suicide?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;something worse, I think. A man who was afraid to die and took to
+drink. That's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>the way with most of them. None but the brave can look
+into the face of Death. This man is good to his family until he's
+drunk. Drink is the only thing that makes life worth the candle to
+him. But when he's under the influence of liquor he's a fiend. Last
+night he beat his wife into insensibility. This morning he sent one of
+the children for me."</p>
+
+<p>They climbed two flights of rickety stairs and entered a room littered
+with broken furniture. Every chair was smashed, the table lay in
+splinters, pieces of crockery scattered everywhere, and the stove
+broken into fragments. Two blear-eyed children with the look of hunted
+rabbits crouched in a corner. A man was bending over the bed, where
+the form of a woman lay still and white.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, brace up, Mary!" he was saying. "Ye mustn't die! Ye
+mustn't, I tell ye! Your white face will haunt me and drive me into
+hell a raving maniac. I didn't know what I was doin', old gal. I was
+crazy. I wouldn't 'a' hurt a hair of your head if I'd 'a' knowed what
+I was doin'!"</p>
+
+<p>He bowed his face in his coarse, bloated hands and sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>The thin white hand of the wife stroked his hair feebly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>"It's all right, Sam. I know ye didn't mean it," she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>Norman sent for a doctor, and left some money.</p>
+
+<p>With each new glimpse of the under-world of pain and despair the
+conviction grew in Norman's mind that he had not lived, and the
+determination deepened that he would get acquainted with his fellow
+men and the place he called his home.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not tired?" Barbara asked, as they hurried into the street.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm just beginning to live," he answered, soberly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. Then you shall be allowed the honour of accompanying me to the
+county jail, to the poorhouse, to the hospital, and to the morgue&mdash;the
+four greatest institutions of modern civilization. We must hurry. I've
+another sadder visit after these."</p>
+
+<p>As they hurried through the streets, Norman began to study with
+increasing intensity the phenomena presented in the development of
+Barbara's character. The more he saw of her, the more he realized the
+lofty ideals of her life, the more puerile and contemptible his own
+past seemed.</p>
+
+<p>At the jail they found a boy who had been convicted of stealing and
+sentenced to the penitentiary. His old mother was ill. Barbara bore
+her last message of love.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>They stopped at the poorhouse to see a curious old pauper who had
+become a regular attendant on the Socialists' meetings. He was called
+"Methodist John," because he was forever shouting "Glory, Hallelujah!"
+and interrupting the speakers. Barbara was the bearer of a painful
+message to John. Wolf had instructed her to keep him out of the
+meetings. She had decided to try a gentler way&mdash;to warn him against
+yelling "Glory" again under penalty of being deprived of a dish of
+soup of which he was particularly fond. The Socialist Club served this
+simple, wholesome meal to all who asked for it after its weekly
+meetings.</p>
+
+<p>John promised Barbara faithfully to stop shouting.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, John," she warned him finally, "shout&mdash;no soup! No
+shout&mdash;soup!"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, Miss Barbara," he answered, solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, sir," he said, apologetically, turning to Norman, "I get
+along all right till she begins ter speak, and when I hears her soft,
+sweet voice it seems ter run all down my back in little ticklin' waves
+clean down ter my toes, an' I holler 'Glory' before I can stop it!"</p>
+
+<p>Norman laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, old man."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>"You feel that way yerself, don't ye, now, when she looks down into
+yer soul with them big, soft eyes o' hern, an' her voice comes
+a-stealin' inter yer heart like the music of the angels&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara's face lighted, and a slight blush suffused her cheeks as she
+caught the look of admiring assent in Norman's expression.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do, John," she said, firmly. "Mr. Wolf was very angry with
+you yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember, Miss Barbara," he repeated. "And God bless your dear
+heart fer comin' by ter tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he has no people living who are interested in him?" Norman
+asked, as they turned toward the Socialist hall.</p>
+
+<p>"No. He came from a big mill town in the East. His children all died
+before they were grown, and he landed here with his wife ten years
+ago. When she died, he was sent to the poorhouse. He hasn't much mind,
+but there's enough left to burst into flame at the memory of his
+children being slowly ground to death by the wheels of those mills.
+I've seen his dead soul start to life more than once as I've looked
+into his face from our platform. What an awful thing to see dead men
+walking about!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. People who are dead and don't know it. I never thought of it
+before." Norman exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>They stopped in front of a house with a scarlet light in the hall,
+which threw its rays through a red-glass transom over a door of
+coloured leaded glass. The shadows of evening had begun to fall, and
+for the first time the girl showed a sign of hesitation and
+embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate to ask you to go in here with me, and I'd hate worse to have
+you see me go alone. Yet I have to do it. My work leads me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going with you, whether you ask it or not," he firmly replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then words are useless," she said, simply, as she rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>A Negro maid opened the door, and smiled a look of recognition. "She
+ain't no better, miss. She's been crying for you all day."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara led the way up two flights of stairs to a small room in the
+rear, and entered without knocking. With a bound she was beside the
+bed on which lay a slender girl of nineteen. A mass of golden blond
+hair was piled in confusion on the pillow, and a pair of big,
+childish-looking blue eyes blinked at her through her tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you've come at last! I'm so glad. It makes me strong to see you.
+Your face shines so, Barbara! They say I can't live, but it's not so.
+I shall live! I'm feeling better every day. It's nonsense. The doctors
+haven't got any sense. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>I wish you'd get me one that knows something.
+Won't you, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, Mr. Worth, who has called with me, has kindly agreed to
+send you another doctor, little sister&mdash;that's why I brought him to
+see you."</p>
+
+<p>Norman extended his hand, and grasped the thin, cold one the girl
+extended. He felt the chill of death in its icy touch as he stammered:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll send him right away."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," the girl replied, as a smile flitted about her weak
+mouth. She turned to Barbara with a look of infinite tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you'd come, and I knew you'd save me. You're my angel! When I
+dream at night, you're always hovering over me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come again to-morrow, dearie, when the new doctor has seen you,"
+Barbara answered, as she pressed her hand good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the street, Norman asked:</p>
+
+<p>"You knew her before she fell into evil ways?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Barbara answered, with feeling. "She was just a little child of
+joy and sunlight. She couldn't endure the darkness. She loved flowers
+and music, beauty and love. She hated drudgery and poverty. She tried
+to work, and gave up in despair. A man came into her life at a
+critical moment and she broke with the world. She's been sending all
+the money she could make the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>past two years to her mother and four
+little kids. Her father was killed at work in a mine for a great
+corporation."</p>
+
+<p>"She can't live, can she?" Norman asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. I only did this to humour her. She has developed acute
+consumption&mdash;she may not live a month."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara paused.</p>
+
+<p>"I must leave you now&mdash;I'm very tired, and I must sleep a while before
+I attend the meeting to-night. It has been a great strain on me
+to-day, this trip with you. How do you like our boasted civilization?
+Do you think it perfect? Are you satisfied with a system which drives
+hundreds of thousands of such girls into a life of shame? Are you
+content with a system which produces three million paupers in a land
+flowing with milk and honey? Do you like a system which drives
+thousands to the madness of drink and suicide every year?"</p>
+
+<p>"And to think," responded Norman, dreamily, "that for the past two
+years of my manhood I've been writing verses and playing football!
+Great God!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then from to-day we are comrades in the cause of humanity?" she asked
+tenderly, extending her hand. His own clasped hers with firm grasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades!"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE ISLAND OF VENTURA</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Norman had never been a boy to do things by halves. In college, when
+he went in for football, he made it the one supreme end of life&mdash;and
+won. He incidentally managed to pull through a course in mining
+engineering. He knew mining by instinct and inheritance from his
+father. It came easy.</p>
+
+<p>When he had a three months' vacation from football he took up the
+modelling of a dredge for mining gold from the sands of the beaches.
+The thing had never been perfected, but after three months' experiment
+and study he was just on the point of making the castings for the
+machinery when the football season opened and he dropped such trifling
+matters for the more serious work of training his men for a successful
+season. He won the championship and forgot the dredge.</p>
+
+<p>Into the new movement of Socialism he naturally threw his whole
+personality without reservation. Its daring programme thrilled him.
+The audacity of its leaders and their refusal to discuss anything less
+than the salvation of man appealed to every <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>instinct of his nature.
+He devoured every book on the subject he could find, and in his
+new-found enthusiasm for humanity accepted as the inspired voice of
+God their wildest visions of social regeneration.</p>
+
+<p>In his work of charity and organization with Barbara he found
+everything to confirm and nothing to shake his faith in these
+theories. When once he caught the idea that all the ills of modern
+civilization were due directly to the fiendish system of "capitalism"
+and its "iron law of wages," it was the key which unlocked every
+mystery of Pain and every tragedy of the Soul. All sin and crime and
+shame and suffering became the incidents of a social system whose
+movements were as inexorable as Fate, as merciless as Death. There was
+but one thing worth talking about, and that was how to destroy modern
+society, root and branch, and do it quickly, thoroughly and without
+compromise.</p>
+
+<p>The same daring enthusiasm and capacity for leadership which made him
+the captain of his football team brought him at once to the front as a
+Socialist leader. He would have gained this leadership had he been the
+poorest man among them. It was a gift as his birthright.</p>
+
+<p>But, added to this capacity for daring and successful action, was his
+wealth and social prestige. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>He had cast his lot with a class whose
+avowed purpose was to destroy all social distinctions, to level all
+wealth to a common standard. And for this reason in particular he was
+conspicuous and heroic in the eyes of his Socialist comrades.</p>
+
+<p>He found soon after his entrance into their active councils that the
+woman known to the world as "The Scarlet Nun," to her associates as
+"Sister Catherine," was the inspiring brain of their movement in the
+West. This remarkable woman interested him deeply from their first
+hour's talk. Born in Poland and educated in Germany, she spoke
+fluently the Russian, German, French, and English languages. She had
+led two great strikes of women workers in New York and had been
+arrested, convicted, and sentenced twice to the penitentiary for
+exciting riots. To her associates she had always remained a saint and
+a martyr for their cause.</p>
+
+<p>She had been married before her association with Wolf had begun, ten
+years ago. Her first husband had been divorced, and her marriage to
+Wolf had been merely "announced" at a Socialist meeting. And yet the
+young millionaire had never questioned the sincerity of their devotion
+or the apparent happiness of their union. He was amazed at her
+learning, her grasp of affairs, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>simplicity and refinement of her
+manners, and the charm of her conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf he found to be a man of wide reading and deep convictions. As he
+came in daily contact with these two powerful personalities, and
+watched the singular zeal with which they devoted themselves to their
+self-appointed task of destroying modern society, he could not divest
+himself of the impression that they belonged to a religious order and
+were leading a crusade, as the monks of the Middle Ages led men and
+women to die to rescue the tomb of Christ from the desecration of Turk
+and Saracen.</p>
+
+<p>The woman in particular gave him this impression of religious
+fanaticism. The apparent simplicity and austerity of her life, the
+tireless zeal with which she planned and worked for the spread of the
+gospel of Socialism, to his mind gave the lie emphatically to all the
+stories he had read of her affairs with men.</p>
+
+<p>The only moments of suspicion about her which ever clouded his mind
+came with the accidental discovery that she had skilfully managed to
+throw him and Barbara together for a day. It seemed just a little like
+the old habit of a scheming mamma angling for the rich young man, and
+deliberately using the beauty of her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>daughter as the bait with which
+to land him in the household.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, when he found himself with Barbara he had always dismissed the
+thought as absurd. Whatever might be the dimly formed design in the
+back of the older woman's fancy, her brilliant prot&eacute;g&eacute; gave no sign of
+being her accomplice.</p>
+
+<p>Norman had found Barbara a charming but baffling enigma. She walked
+through a world of sin and shame, filth and mire, with never a speck
+on the white of her soul or body. She spoke in the simplest and most
+direct way of things about which the ordinary girl in society would
+never dare to utter a word, and yet he took it as a matter of course.
+He grew to feel that she was a mysterious messenger from the spirit
+world. Yet when he took her arm and felt its warm round lines soft and
+thrilling against his own, or the warmth of her lithe body pressing
+close to his side in some lonely or dangerous spot on their rounds of
+work, he was brought up sharply against the fact that she was both
+flesh and spirit. Yet the moment he tried to draw nearer to her inner
+thoughts, he found her a skilful little fencer, an adept in all the
+arts of the most delicate and subtle coquetry.</p>
+
+<p>He grew at last, however, to know, with unerring masculine instinct,
+that with all her brave and frank talk about her "fallen" sisters, she
+hadn't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>an idea of what their fall really meant. She was as innocent
+as a child, and when at last she caught the young athlete smiling at
+one of her apparently frank and learned discussions of the modern
+degradation of woman, she blushed and became silent. Whereat he
+laughed, and she became so angry they parted in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Baffled in his efforts to approach Barbara's heart, he threw himself
+with zeal into the Cause. When two months had been spent in mastering
+the details of the Socialist programme, in studying its history and
+the condition of its movement, he called a meeting of the council of
+the Socialist Club, and fairly took away the breath of the Wolfs and
+Barbara by the magnitude and audacity of a scheme which he proposed to
+launch immediately.</p>
+
+<p>He had secured, without consulting any of his associates, an option on
+a rich, beautiful, and fertile island off the coast of Southern
+California. It was owned by a corporation which had invested more than
+a million dollars in its improvement. The enterprise had failed for
+two reasons&mdash;the money had been expended recklessly in the days of the
+famous land boom, and it had been found impossible to induce labourers
+to isolate themselves on this lonely spot, sixty miles from the coast
+of Santa Barbara, with no means of regular connection with the outside
+world.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>His eyes flashing with enthusiasm and his voice ringing with
+conviction, Norman closed his description of the island of Ventura
+with a demand for its immediate purchase by the Socialists.</p>
+
+<p>"It can be bought," he declared impetuously, "for $200,000. A million
+dollars' worth of improvements are already there. I propose that we
+immediately raise $500,000, buy this island, establish a steamship
+line, plant a colony of ten thousand Socialists, found the Brotherhood
+of Man, build a model city, and create a vast fund for the propaganda
+of our faith."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara's brown eyes danced with excitement, her cheeks flushed, while
+her little hands clapped approval.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Good! It's great! It's beautiful! We must do it!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf grimly shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"The idea has failed a hundred times. We must conquer the world by
+political action&mdash;we have the weapon in our hand&mdash;manhood suffrage.
+All colonies fail sooner or later. They are corrupted from
+outside&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Just so!" Norman interrupted. "But this one you can't reach from the
+outside. We will own the only means of communication. We will inherit
+all the advantages of modern civilization with none of its drawbacks.
+We can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>demonstrate the truths we hold and from our impregnable
+Gibraltar send out our missionaries to conquer the world. We will not
+merely dream dreams and see visions; we will make history. We will
+prove the God that's in man and establish the fact of his universal
+brotherhood."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a wonderful idea, comrade!" Catherine exclaimed, with
+enthusiasm. "I congratulate you! We will accept your plan, and I move
+that we appoint you our agent vested with full power to collect this
+fund from the enemy!"</p>
+
+<p>The motion was put and carried unanimously, even Wolf voting for it.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara sprang to Norman's side, and grasped his hand:</p>
+
+<p>"Our feud is over! I forgive you for laughing at me. You are a born
+leader. You've won your spurs to-night. You will raise this money?"</p>
+
+<p>"As sure as I'm living!" was the firm reply.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE RED FLAG</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Norman lost no time in springing his scheme for the establishment of
+the Socialist colony and headquarters for the propaganda of the new
+social religion on the island of Ventura. The season he had spent as a
+reporter gave him the key to the proper launching of a press story
+which created a profound sensation. It appeared simultaneously in the
+Sunday editions of all the leading dailies of the Pacific coast, and
+in forty-eight hours his mail had grown to such proportions that he
+required two secretaries to assist him in answering it.</p>
+
+<p>He called for a thousand volunteers to join the advance-guard of the
+coming Brotherhood of Man, each contributing a thousand dollars. He
+announced a mass meeting and picnic for the Fourth of July, to be held
+on the big lawn of the Worth country house on the outskirts of
+Berkeley.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Worth had readily given his consent to the use of the lawn. He
+had not tried in any way to interfere with his son's association with
+the Socialists. He felt sure that in time he would tire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>of the fad,
+as he had of football, and in a fatherly way he began to admire the
+dash and audacity of the boy's plans.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the picnic, when Elena expressed her fears of the
+outcome, the Colonel laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, Elena. He'll come to his senses. It's like a fever. It
+must run its course. I'm rather proud of the extravagance of his
+foolishness. A boy who can forget his games and give his life to
+destroy the foundations of human society and try to rebuild a new
+world on its ruins&mdash;well, there's good stuff in him."</p>
+
+<p>"But if he does something rash?" Elena persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"He won't. With all his extravagance and enthusiasm he's not a fool.
+I, too, saw visions like that once."</p>
+
+<p>"You, Guardie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, when I was very, very young&mdash;a mere boy of thirteen&mdash;I joined a
+colony of Communists."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could have seen you at thirteen," Elena cried, with a joyous
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>The laugh died suddenly and a frown overspread her face as Norman
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you and Elena to hear our orator to-day, Governor," Norman
+said, with enthusiasm. "We are going to make it a great day."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>"It's already great, my boy&mdash;I've just got the news."</p>
+
+<p>"What news?"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel drew a telegram from his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"A message from Washington. Sampson and Schley have annihilated the
+Spanish fleet. Admiral Cervera is a prisoner on board the flagship,
+and the army is rapidly closing in on the doomed city of Santiago."</p>
+
+<p>He handed the telegram to Norman, who glanced at it in silence and
+returned it to his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to our meeting on the lawn at noon, Governor. We've bigger news
+than that for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Bigger news?" the older man asked with a quizzical look.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. A message announcing the dawn of a day when every gun on earth
+shall be broken to pieces and melted into ploughshares."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel looked at Norman a moment, smiled, and slowly said:</p>
+
+<p>"I love the young&mdash;because I live myself over again in them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll join us to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks&mdash;no&mdash;Elena and I are going to shoot firecrackers&mdash;but we won't
+disturb your crowd. Let them speak to their hearts' content."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel turned with Elena, and entered the house, which crowned an
+eminence overlooking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>the distant bay and city, while Norman hurried
+down the green sloping lawn to finish the decorations of the speakers'
+stand.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd had already begun to pour in from Oakland and San Francisco,
+and more than a hundred delegates from Socialist locals in other
+cities were expected.</p>
+
+<p>On a little headland which jutted out from the long sloping mountain
+side on which the lawn was laid out, Colonel Worth had erected a tall
+steel flag-pole. The big flag which flew from its peak could be seen
+by every ship that entered or left the bay and for miles on shore in
+almost every direction.</p>
+
+<p>Around this flag-pole Norman had built the speakers' platform, with
+every inch of its boards covered with the deep-red bunting symbolic of
+the Socialist cause. Behind the stand toward the mountains rose a
+smooth grass-carpeted hillside in semi-circular form, making a natural
+amphitheatre on which five thousand people might sit in tiers one
+above the other and distinctly hear every word uttered on the
+platform.</p>
+
+<p>By noon every inch of this space was packed with a dense crowd of
+Socialists, their friends, and the curious who had come, drawn by the
+sensational announcement of the launching of the Socialist colony on
+the island of Ventura.</p>
+
+<p>In the front row, packed close against the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>platform, were a number of
+famous people&mdash;conspicuous among whom was an author whose impassioned
+stories of the coming social upheaval had resulted in fame for himself
+and a divorce-suit by his first wife. His new wife, the "affinity" who
+caused the disturbance, sat by his side.</p>
+
+<p>On his left sat a solemn looking poet with bushy, unkempt hair. He had
+deliberately chosen the title "The Bard of Ramcat." The name Ramcat
+had been long applied to a shabby section of the outskirts of San
+Francisco. Here the poet had chosen to dwell and sing of social
+horrors which existed only in his fertile imagination.</p>
+
+<p>He had won wide fame, however, as the supreme exponent of the
+"affinity" theory which has always been epidemic among thoughtful
+Socialists. He coolly informed his wife that he had discovered his
+true "affinity" in a woman he had installed as her guest. The two
+affinities accompanied the wife and her child to a steamer for Europe
+with instructions to obtain a divorce.</p>
+
+<p>The poet married the affinity, and on the birth of a new son and heir
+acquired the habit of beating her as a form of relaxation from the
+strain of work. Considerable trouble followed, and he spent a portion
+of his time in jail. He had once gone barefooted and bareheaded. But
+since his "affinity" marriage he had been compelled for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>reasons best
+known to himself to resume shoe-leather and to buy a hat. Nevertheless
+he was still a striking-looking figure, seated beside his new wife
+whose strong, intellectual face won the sympathy of all who saw her.</p>
+
+<p>Just behind him sat an ex-clergyman with whom a rich young woman in
+his congregation had fallen in love. To avoid trouble, the woman of
+wealth got him to leave the ministry, and bought him from his wife for
+a good round sum. He became an apostle of the new gospel of Socialism,
+and secured a position as a professor of economics. When finally he
+lost this position by his vagaries, his wife hired a hall and set him
+up in business as an inspired leader of new thought emancipated from
+the chains of capitalistic tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>Beside the distinguished ex-clergyman Socialistic apostle sat
+Professor Otto Schmitt, a famous teacher of economics at a Western
+university. His supreme passion was hatred of women. His one big book
+was written to prove that woman has no soul, that she is the mere
+matter on which man by his will acts, that she is not immoral, but
+merely non-moral, having never possessed even the rudiments of a moral
+nature. Schmitt had, therefore, maintained that the entrance of women
+into competition in the economic world presaged the downfall of man
+and the utter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>extinction of humanity. For this reason he had joined
+the Socialists.</p>
+
+<p>Not three feet away from him sat a thoughtful, elderly, short-haired
+woman who had written a book on the evolution of woman to prove that
+woman alone is the original unit of creation, man a superfluous and
+temporary addition, merely the missing link between woman and the
+monkey, and in the process of human development the male biped would
+be eliminated. She demanded equal rights with man, and more besides,
+and she, too, had joined the Socialists.</p>
+
+<p>Yet through all these ludicrous incongruities there ran the single
+scarlet thread of social discontent which made them one. In every soul
+rang the stirring cry:</p>
+
+<p>"Down with civilization! Up with the Red Flag!"</p>
+
+<p>A more remarkable group of men and women could scarcely be gathered
+together on the face of the earth. But the one mark they all bore,
+distinctly cut deep in the lines of every face on which character had
+set its seal, and written large in the restless, nervous personality
+of the young&mdash;they all had a grievance, and though their troubles
+might come from as many different causes as there were men and women
+present, they united in one thought:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>"Modern civilization must be destroyed!"</p>
+
+<p>Every heart beat with this fiery resolution, and every incongruity
+melted and faded into insignificance before this consuming belief.</p>
+
+<p>And they had gone about this purpose with a deadly earnestness which
+meant business. Their political campaigns were merely moments when the
+captain of their ship cast the lead-line to feel the bottom and find
+his position with certainty before signalling full speed ahead.</p>
+
+<p>They worked all the year round and every day in every year, from one
+election to the next. They were mastering the tricks of the demagogue
+in their appeal to the masses, and they kept everlastingly at it. No
+man is too high, no man too low, for them to reach for him. They
+couldn't be beaten for they had accepted defeat before they began to
+fight, and began the next fight before they got up from the ground
+where they had been knocked down. They had become the one element in
+American politics to which it was utterly useless to direct any
+argument of expediency.</p>
+
+<p>The Fourth of July, the Nation's birthday, they were now using to
+demand its extinction. The fact that our army and navy had just torn
+the flag of Spain from its last masthead in the Western hemisphere and
+startled the old world <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>with our sudden advent among the great powers
+of the earth, stirred in their hearts no emotion save that of
+contempt. While the souls of millions beat with patriotic pride, they
+had met to uproot the very ideas from whose soil patriotism sprang
+into life.</p>
+
+<p>There was no question as to who should be the orator of the day. The
+fame of Barbara Bozenta had become national from the day of her first
+speech in San Francisco. Her beauty and eloquence were sufficient to
+pack any hall at twenty-four hours' notice.</p>
+
+<p>Her delicate face was radiant to-day with unusual elation. She walked
+with a quick, nervous energy that seemed to lift her whole body into
+the air. As she ascended the platform and bowed to the tumult of
+applause, she trembled from head to foot with intensest excitement. As
+she stood looking over the inspiring scene for a moment, her sensitive
+nostrils dilated, her brown eyes flashed, and her heart beat with a
+great throb of personal pride. She had never before faced such an
+immense throng of excited men and women, and the secret consciousness
+that she had within her soul the message which would sweep their
+heartstrings as she willed, lifted her into the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>She felt for the moment that the whole scene <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>was a tribute to her
+power. The magnificent house whose windows flashed in the sunlight,
+the vast lawn carpeted with green and set in dazzling flowers, the
+emerald waters of the bay, and the spires and domes of the distant
+city set on its proud hills beyond&mdash;all were hers to-day! Her voice
+had called to their standard the young millionaire whose name was now
+on every lip. Her voice had inspired his dream of the experiment to be
+made on the island of Ventura which had called this host together. For
+one big moment she felt the thrill of conscious creative genius, the
+pain, the joy, the glory of a positive achievement.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she sank to her seat with a
+suppressed sob.</p>
+
+<p>When at last she rose to speak, her whole personality was a quivering
+battery of resistless emotion. Her voice, low and pulsing with
+magnetic waves of suppressed feeling, caught and chained the attention
+of the farthest straggler on the edge of the throng. Instinctively
+they moved closer. Resistlessly she drew them.</p>
+
+<p>She had not spoken two minutes before she was sweeping the hearts of
+her hearers. Men and women who had come to laugh or scoff, as well as
+the young and thoughtless who had drifted with the crowd, were all
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>alike caught in the spell and hung breathless on her words.</p>
+
+<p>Every trick and art of persuasive speech were hers without effort.
+Scorn, pathos, humour, passion, were of the breath she breathed. At
+times her eloquence reached the highest conception of its might. It
+was simple thought packed until it took fire. At such moments scores
+of men leaped to their feet and shouted. Nothing disconcerted her or
+changed the swift current of her ideas. She was a master-musician
+whose hands swept a harp of a thousand strings&mdash;every string a
+throbbing human soul.</p>
+
+<p>What matter if her appeal was to the emotions and not to the
+intellect? Her purpose was to persuade her hearers. And she did it.
+Her courage, her beauty, her skill, her utter sincerity, commanded the
+respect of the strongest man who listened. If their intellects were
+not convinced, no matter&mdash;she carried them with her on a storm of
+resistless emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a thing happened which would have destroyed the total
+impression of the average speech. Old Methodist John, her pauper
+prot&eacute;g&eacute;, had listened with increasing torture, choking down a hundred
+"Glorys" as they leaped from his soul until at last he could endure no
+more. At the climax of one of her impassioned appeals <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>the old man
+leaped to his feet, rushed in front of the speakers' stand and shouted
+into the face of the chairman:</p>
+
+<p>"Look here! Look here, now, Wolf! Soup or no soup&mdash;Glory hallelujah!"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara alone smiled. The crowd took up his shout, and a thousand
+voices made the heavens ring with its wild music.</p>
+
+<p>Norman whispered to the old man, who sat down, and Barbara swept on in
+her impetuous triumph without the lapse of a moment's power. She
+seized the instant's hush which followed the storm of cheering to fire
+into the minds of her hearers some of the solid shot of the
+revolutionary programme.</p>
+
+<p>In a voice which swelled to the clarion note of a trumpet she cried:</p>
+
+<p>"The earth for all the people! This is our demand!</p>
+
+<p>"The machinery of all production and distribution for all the people!
+This is our demand!</p>
+
+<p>"The collective ownership and control of all industry! This is our
+demand!</p>
+
+<p>"The elimination of rent, interest, and profit! This is our demand!</p>
+
+<p>"A new social order, a higher civilization, a real republic! This is
+our demand!</p>
+
+<p>"The end of the hell called war, of poverty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>and shame, of cruelty and
+crime, the birth of freedom, the dawn of brotherhood, the beginning of
+man! These are our demands! This is Socialism! Is this an idle dream?
+Have you no faith in your fellow man?</p>
+
+<p>"In the grim prison beyond the bay I found one day a woman convict who
+was little removed from a fiend. I got permission to hang a beautiful
+picture in her cell&mdash;a picture that set her soul to dreaming, that
+melted her at last to tears, and transformed the beast within her to a
+gentle, loving, beautiful, human character.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe in man because he alone possesses this power to look
+through the window of the soul into the infinite and eternal. Here the
+world's real battles are fought. Here the world's real work is done.
+Here cowards run and the brave die. This power to recreate the earth,
+people it with beauty, and fill it with harmony is your birthright.</p>
+
+<p>"Lo, the day of humanity dawns!</p>
+
+<p>"I preach class consciousness that we may destroy all classes. Class
+must perish and Man be glorified. Man, whose inhumanity to his fellow
+man has filled the ages with ashes and tears, is coming forth at last
+purified by suffering, and we shall see his tears turned to smiles
+upon the faces of a nobler race.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should we rejoice to-day in the death of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>our fellow man? Nations
+are but the dung-heaps out of which the fair flower of a
+world-democracy is slowly growing. Truth is not national, it is
+infinite. France may fight Germany because two titled fools insult
+each other, but there can be no war between the laboratories of
+Pasteur and of Koch. Their work is the common heritage of humanity.
+Who asks if Humboldt was German or English, whether Spinoza was Jew or
+Gentile, Darwin English or French? A German wrote 'Faust,' a Frenchman
+set it to immortal music, and an American girl sang it into the hearts
+of millions. Who cares to know nationalities? The great belong to the
+democracy of the world. And I swear that your children will still
+laugh with the soul of Cervantes in spite of the Fourth of July,
+Santiago, and Manila!</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you fight one another? When called to war by your rulers,
+let the liberty-loving spirits of the modern world say to their
+masters:</p>
+
+<p>"'Go and do your own killing&mdash;you who have separated us from our
+brothers and made the earth a slaughter-pen.'</p>
+
+<p>"If you are court-martialed and shot for this act of heroism remember:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'They never fail who die<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their heads may sodden in the sun: their limbs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be strung to city gates and castle walls&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years<br /></span><span class='pn'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Elapse and others share as dark a doom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which overpower all others, and conduct<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world at last to freedom!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A shout of wild applause rent the air as the last note of Byron's
+immortal song fell from her beautiful lips. And then, in a low,
+intense voice, she closed her speech with a thrilling appeal for human
+brotherhood. To Norman, who hung on her lips, the slight girlish
+figure seemed transformed before their eyes into a radiant messenger
+of the spirit. And when the sweet womanly tones at last broke and
+choked into deep-drawn sobs, his soul and body seemed no longer his
+own. As her last words sank into his heart: "From to-day let each of
+us swear allegiance to but one flag, the deep-red emblem of human
+blood, God's sign of universal brotherhood!" Norman leaped to his
+feet, sprang on the platform, and while the crowd swayed in a frenzy
+of applause, hauled down the Stars and Stripes and quickly raised the
+big red standard of Socialism which was thrown across the speaker's
+table.</p>
+
+<p>And then the great crowd seemed to go mad. Wave after wave of cheering
+rose and fell, rose and fell, in apparently unending power. Catherine
+threw her arms around Barbara in a paroxysm of emotion, while the big
+figure of Wolf towered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>above them both, shouting and gesturing like a
+madman. Barbara at last lifted her hand and, as the storm subsided,
+began the Marseillaise hymn.</p>
+
+<p>The first stirring notes had just swept the audience when the stalwart
+figure of Colonel Worth suddenly appeared on the platform, his face a
+blaze of anger, his magnificent figure erect, every nerve and muscle
+drawn to the highest tension.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped to the edge of the stand, lifted his head, and his voice
+rang over the crowd like the sudden boom of a cannon:</p>
+
+<p>"Silence!"</p>
+
+<p>He didn't repeat the word.</p>
+
+<p>The singing stopped, and every eye was riveted on the group that stood
+on the platform.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel confronted Wolf, and shot his words at him as though from
+a machine-gun.</p>
+
+<p>"Who lowered that flag?"</p>
+
+<p>A moment of silence followed. The Colonel spoke with increasing
+rapidity.</p>
+
+<p>"Who lowered that flag? The man who did it must answer to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Some one behind him moved, and the Colonel turned, confronting Norman.</p>
+
+<p>"I did it, Governor," was the quiet answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You?" the father gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the even, firm voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Haul that red rag down and raise the flag <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>back to its place!" The
+Colonel's voice was low and thick with rage.</p>
+
+<p>Elena put her hand on his arm and said gently:</p>
+
+<p>"Guardie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you do it?" he firmly asked, ignoring Elena, and holding Norman
+with his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>The young man hesitated an instant, met his father's look with a
+deadly straight stare, and slowly replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I will not."</p>
+
+<p>A smothered cry from Barbara, half joy, half pain, was the only sound
+that followed, until the Colonel said:</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll do it for you."</p>
+
+<p>Amid a dead silence he hauled down the red flag, threw it on the
+floor, boldly stamped on it, made fast the Stars and Stripes, and
+quickly raised it to the top of its staff. He turned to the crowd, and
+in clear-cut, sharp tones of command shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"This is my flag, my house, my lawn. Get off it! And do it quick!"</p>
+
+<p>As the crowd hastened away, he turned to Norman:</p>
+
+<p>"You and I must come to an understanding at once, young man," he said,
+with angry emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll meet you in the library in thirty minutes," was Norman's firm
+reply as he led Barbara from the platform and joined the retreating
+throng.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep072" id="imagep072"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep072.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep072.jpg" width="52%" alt="Lift the Flag Back to its Place." /></a><br />
+<p class="cen sc" style="margin-top: .2em;">Lift the Flag Back to its Place.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>FATHER AND SON</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The Colonel paced the floor of his library with increasing anger as he
+waited the return of Norman. Never in his life had his whole being
+been so abandoned to incontrollable rage. He had always been a man of
+fiery temper, but an iron will had held his temper in control.</p>
+
+<p>His most intimate business associates had always found him suave,
+persuasive, and genial in every hour of trial. Never once had they
+heard a threat or an idle boast fall from his lips. He had the rare
+faculty of beating his enemies in a fight in which no quarter was
+asked or given, and coming out of it with his bitterest foe turned
+into a friend. This was one of the secrets of his fortune&mdash;an
+instinctive leadership among powerful men.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time he realized that he had challenged the one man in
+all his personal acquaintance about whose character he knew
+nothing&mdash;his own son. For the first time he realized that they were
+strangers. He had been absorbed in the big affairs of life. He had
+taken the boy for granted. Since the death of his mother twelve <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>years
+ago, Norman had spent most of his time at school.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel had always been in command. His word had been law for so
+many years, it brought him up with a disagreeable start to find that
+the one man with whom his life was bound, and in whom his hopes
+centred, could dare thus to defy and flaunt his wishes. It was the
+most disgusting, enraging fact he had ever encountered. The longer he
+confronted the situation the more furious and blind his anger became.</p>
+
+<p>Elena had timidly entered the room, and stood watching him gravely
+before she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he returned from that woman yet?" the Colonel asked with sudden
+energy.</p>
+
+<p>"No, and I hope he will stay all day," she answered slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"But he won't," the father snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure he will not," the girl sighed. "I don't like you to-day,
+Guardie."</p>
+
+<p>"You, too, side with these fanatics then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I hate them&mdash;hate everything they say and do and stand for. I
+loathe the very sight of them. But you were unfair to Norman."</p>
+
+<p>"Unfair? How?"</p>
+
+<p>"You allowed him the widest liberty to do as he pleased, think as he
+pleased, associate with whom he pleased, and then all of a sudden you
+sprang <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>on that platform and insulted him before his invited guests."</p>
+
+<p>"How could I dream that he would commit such an act of insane treason
+before my very eyes?"</p>
+
+<p>"You make no allowance for the spell of Barbara Bozenta's eloquence. I
+don't like her, but she's a wonderful little woman, and I envy her her
+power over men."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll end this folly to-day," was the Colonel's firm announcement.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not so sure," Elena warned.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you!"</p>
+
+<p>She came close and laid her hand on the Colonel's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you promise me one thing, Guardie?" she asked, tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>The anger faded from the strong face, and his voice sank low.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I've never been able to refuse you anything, child. It's
+on your account, I think, I'm most angry with Norman to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"You promise?" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, what is it?" he said, bending to kiss her smooth, white
+forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Promise to put all anger out of your heart and talk to Norman as a
+father, not as an enemy&mdash;won't you?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>"An enemy?" the Colonel slowly asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I thought you were going to strike him once. It would have been
+horrible. I never could have forgiven you for that. You've always been
+my hero, Guardie&mdash;I never saw you give way to anger before. I don't
+like it. You'll talk to him lovingly and tenderly as a father, won't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear, for your sake, I will," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll tell him to come. I asked him to wait outside until I saw
+you."</p>
+
+<p>She turned and quickly left the room. In a moment Norman entered and
+stood facing his father.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel flushed with anger at sight of the insolence with which
+the younger man calmly surveyed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," the father said, at length, "have you nothing to say to
+me after what has occurred to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was under the impression that you had something to say to me," was
+the cool answer.</p>
+
+<p>By an effort of will the older man crushed back an angry retort,
+smiled, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, please&mdash;I've a good deal to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>Norman threw himself lazily into a chair, and continued to watch his
+father with a curious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>expression of half-amused contempt. The Colonel
+stood in silence, evidently struggling with his emotions, and feeling
+for the right word with which to begin.</p>
+
+<p>Norman anticipated him.</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly, now, Governor, just between us, don't you think you were a
+little bit absurd to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absurd?" his father broke in with rising accent.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a little childish about a piece of red, white, and blue cloth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so, my boy," was the answer. "Just about as absurd as you
+were over the red rag you lifted in its place. Why did you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the impulse of the moment, to express my feeling of contempt for
+war, and my faith in my fellow man."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. So I acted on the impulse of the moment to express my
+contempt for that crowd of fools and fanatics&mdash;my loyalty and faith in
+my country."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand how a man of your age, poise and pride, culture
+and power, could be so foolish. A sixteen-year-old school-boy on the
+Fourth of July, yes! But you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Norman," the Colonel interrupted, in even tones, "I'm sorry I've been
+too busy for us to get acquainted. It's time we began. It may
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>interest you to know that I, too, hate war&mdash;learned to hate it long
+before your Socialist orator was born&mdash;learned it in the grim
+University of Hell&mdash;war itself. Socialism has no patent on the hope of
+universal peace. I am a member of a peace society. I have always
+believed the Civil War should have been prevented. All the Negroes on
+this earth are not worth the blood and tears of one year of that
+struggle. Whether it could have been prevented God alone knows. When
+it came I volunteered&mdash;a drummer-boy at fourteen&mdash;and marched to the
+front beneath the flag you tore down to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of that, Governor&mdash;honestly, I never did!" the boy
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I went in," the Colonel continued, "with my head full of silly
+rubbish about the glory of war. When I beat the call to my first
+charge, and saw the men I knew and loved shot to pieces, and heard
+their groans and cries for water, I had no more delusions. I worked on
+the field that night until twelve o'clock, helping the men who were
+wounded&mdash;enemies as well as comrades. I learned the brotherhood of man
+and the meaning of red blood in the big, tragic school of life, my
+son. Many a boy in gray, whom I had fought, died in my arms while my
+heart ached for his loved ones in some far-away Southern home.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>"But I knew the war had to be when once it was begun. I was fighting
+for the flag I loved&mdash;and I grew to love it better than life. To you
+it may be a bit of red, white, and blue bunting; to me it is the
+symbol of truth and right, liberty and human progress.</p>
+
+<p>"My people in western North Carolina were all slave-holders and loyal
+to their state, except my father. He hated slavery, loved the Union,
+and moved on westward before the war. I saw them bury him in the flag
+you tore down to-day, my boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Many a night I've lain on the ground looking up at the stars before
+the dawn of a day of battle and seen visions of that flag flying
+triumphant in the sky. I've seen the men who carried it shot down
+again and again, and another snatch it from their dying grasp and bear
+it on to victory.</p>
+
+<p>"I grew not only to love it, but to believe in it with all the
+passionate faith of my soul. I believe in its destiny, in its sublime
+mission to humanity. The older I've grown and the more I've seen of my
+fellow man, the wider I've travelled in foreign lands, the deeper has
+become my conviction that our flag symbolizes the noblest, freest
+ideal ever born in the soul of man; that we have but to live up to its
+standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and the kingdom of
+human brotherhood is already here.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>"After the war, I joined the regular army, not because I loved war,
+but because there seemed nothing else for me to do at the time. I was
+absolutely alone in the world. At twenty-five I was in command of a
+company on the frontier. I had not been in battle since the end of the
+Civil War, when suddenly I found myself surrounded by a horde of
+hostile Indians, and I had to turn my machine guns on them and mow
+them down. The slaughter was something terrific. As the last charge
+was made I saw a young squaw retreat in the face of a withering fire,
+walk backward facing our men, holding a bundle of something behind her
+body. She fell at last, riddled with bullets. I rode up where she lay,
+and found the bundle to be a little Indian baby boy. He was unhurt,
+and stretched out his hand to me in friendly baby greeting. I found
+the squaw quite dead, and discovered the child was not her own. She
+was simply trying to save it for the tribe. I took the child and
+educated him. But he went back to the free life of the plains. I found
+him again, and made him the gamekeeper of our mountain preserves."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean Saka?" Norman asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That night as I lay in my tent I saw war as it is&mdash;a hideous,
+savage nightmare. From that moment I hated the service, hated its
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>iron laws of discipline, its cruel machinery devised for suppressing
+the individuality of its members. I saw that night a larger vision of
+life. I made up my mind to create, not to kill&mdash;to build up, not to
+tear down. I left the army and mastered mining.</p>
+
+<p>"Your leather-lunged agitators say that I stole my millions from the
+earnings of the men who worked for me. A more stupid lie was never
+uttered. I invented improved mining machinery. I made deserts blossom
+and gave employment to thousands of men who couldn't think for
+themselves. I did their thinking for them, and set their tasks. I have
+made millions, and have added tens of millions to the wealth of the
+West."</p>
+
+<p>"If labour is the creator of all wealth can one man ever earn a
+million dollars?" Norman interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Manual labour is not the creator of wealth. The brain which conceives
+is the creator of wealth. The hand which executes these plans is
+merely the automaton moved by a superior power."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet nothing could be accomplished without it," persisted Norman.</p>
+
+<p>His father lifted his hand with a gesture of command.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>"We'll not discuss the theory of Socialism to-day, my boy. I grant you
+have plausible arguments which skilful demagogues are using with more
+and more efficiency. I don't object to your study of this subject. I'm
+rather pleased at the serious turn your energies have taken. What I do
+object to is your continued association with the kind of people who
+made up that crowd to-day&mdash;people who make the agitation of the
+revolutionary programme of the Socialists a daily profession, people
+who are seeking to destroy modern civilization itself."</p>
+
+<p>"You will have to come down to earth, Governor," Norman said, "in your
+indictment of these people. The time has gone by when you can scare
+anybody with a few high-sounding phrases. If modern civilization is
+rotten, it ought to be destroyed, and who cares if it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"The issue between us, my boy," the Colonel continued, gravely, "is
+not an academic one. It is not open to discussion. Some of the people
+you are associating with have criminal records. If they continue their
+present wild harangues they will be shot down like dogs in the
+streets. I cannot afford to have my name even under the suspicion of
+sympathy for them, through you. Do you understand me?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>"I think I do," Norman replied, holding his father's steady gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"You are my son and the heir of my fortune. But you must remember that
+I am the master of this establishment."</p>
+
+<p>"I am aware of that fact, sir," the boy replied, in cold tones.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust that it will not be necessary, then, for me to repeat to you
+my first positive order&mdash;that you will immediately sever your
+connection with the Socialist Club, and never again appear in public
+or private with the three people who were on that platform to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be necessary for you to repeat your order," the young
+athlete replied, with a curious smile and a slight tightening of the
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought as much."</p>
+
+<p>Norman laughed, and the Colonel's eyes began to blaze.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, sir?" he sternly asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That it will be unnecessary for you to repeat your order, for the
+very simple reason that I'm a man. I've the right to do my own
+thinking, and I propose to do it."</p>
+
+<p>With a quick stride the Colonel confronted the young rebel, his breath
+quick and laboured, his face aflame with unbridled rage.</p>
+
+<p>"You dare thus to defy my wishes?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>"If you put it that way, yes."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel stepped to the door and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"You will obey my order or get out of this house never to enter it
+again. Take your choice!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean it?" the younger man asked, with sullen emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly what I say," was the cold reply.</p>
+
+<p>Norman turned without a word, seized his hat, and left the room. As he
+reached the end of the corridor, and placed his hand on the front
+door, his father's voice rang out suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>"Norman!"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and looked back without taking his hand from the knob.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't be such a fool!" the Colonel cried.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks that way, Governor!"</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door, softly closed it, and was gone.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Norman's break with his father created a sensation. The flag episode,
+coming on the Fourth of July and at the very hour when the guns of the
+forts were thundering their celebration of the fleet's victory at
+Santiago, presented the dramatic contrast which stirred the
+indignation of the public to unusual depths. The morning papers
+devoted from four to five columns to the story. The remarkable speech
+of Barbara Bozenta was reported in full, with a sketch of her life,
+interspersed with portraits of the Wolfs, of Norman, Elena, his
+father, the palatial home on Nob Hill, and the country estate where
+the stirring little drama had been played.</p>
+
+<p>The Socialist cause received a tremendous impetus. The very violence
+of the editorial assaults on their programme reacted in their favour.
+Thousands of men who did not know the meaning of the word Socialism
+began to read and think and discuss its principles. Their meetings
+were crowded, and the fame of the little <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>brown-eyed Joan of Arc
+became so great it was no longer possible for her to pass through the
+streets without an escort.</p>
+
+<p>All sorts of stories about the relations of the famous millionaire and
+his son filled the air. Some were printed, others were vague rumours.
+A sensational paper published the story that they had actually come to
+blows, and had fought a duel in the big library which might have ended
+fatally for one or both but for the timely interference of Colonel
+Worth's ward, Elena Stockton.</p>
+
+<p>Norman became at once the hero of the Socialist's cause. His
+appearance at a meeting was the signal for pandemonium to break loose.
+He secured employment on a sensational daily paper, and his signed
+articles were made a feature.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Worth was so enraged over the vulgar notoriety with which the
+incident had overwhelmed him that he denied himself to all callers,
+refused to speak to a reporter or to allow a word to be uttered in
+confirmation or denial of any stories printed or rumoured.</p>
+
+<p>He issued orders that Norman's name should never again be spoken in
+his house.</p>
+
+<p>When he made this announcement to Elena her full, red lips, quivered
+and she looked at him reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>"I mean it, Elena," he said, sternly.</p>
+
+<p>The girl spoke in tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you, Guardie. It isn't like you at all. I'll not
+mention his name to a servant, but I will to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to hear it!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's because you know you've done a great wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"I accept the responsibility. It's done, and that's the end of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing ends until it ends right, Guardie," spoke the soft, even
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it's hard on you, dear," the Colonel responded, with feeling.
+"It was for your sake I made the issue. If he has turned from you for
+a loud-mouthed vulgar agitator, he's not worth a thought. Forget that
+he lives. I'm going to leave my fortune to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want it at the price, Guardie," she replied, slipping her arm
+around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. "I couldn't be
+happy with such a fortune. What you've done hurts me more than it
+hurts Norman."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes. I know that you love him, child, but your happiness could
+not be found among a crowd of criminals and revolutionists."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not thinking of myself," was the low <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>response as she withdrew
+from his arms, "I was thinking of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You've broken my idol. To me you were the one perfect man in the
+world. I didn't know you. I didn't know that you were hard and cold
+and cruel and selfish and proud."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not, Elena."</p>
+
+<p>"You allowed Norman to drift into any crazy theory that might strike
+his fancy. And the moment he fails to agree with your views you turn
+like a madman and drive him into the streets."</p>
+
+<p>"He went of his own accord. I gave him his choice."</p>
+
+<p>"And I admire his pluck. It was a manly thing to do."</p>
+
+<p>"It was the act of a fool."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, you know, Guardie, in your heart of hearts you admire him for
+it. He showed you that he was made of the same stuff as his father."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel scowled, and the girl took courage.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to meet him this evening&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I forbid it!"</p>
+
+<p>"You can't help it," she cried, as the tears slowly gathered. "I'm
+going to tell him you wish to see and talk with him again."</p>
+
+<p>"On one condition only&mdash;his absolute obedience to my wishes."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>"I love him all the more for defying you&mdash;love him better than I ever
+did in my life. And&mdash;and, Guardie&mdash;I don't love you any more. You are
+cruel and unjust."</p>
+
+<p>With a sob she turned and left the room.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A FADED PICTURE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Elena's tears had shaken the Colonel's confidence in his position as
+nothing else could possibly have done. Since she had finished her
+course in college two years before, and he had come in daily contact
+with her strong personality, a most intimate and perfect sympathy had
+grown between them. He had never before known her intuitive judgment
+to be wrong. Her impressions of character especially he had found
+singularly accurate, her sense of right and her good taste nearly
+perfect.</p>
+
+<p>He retired to his room at night with a deep sense of uneasiness. His
+anger had cooled, and in its stead a feeling of depression slowly
+settled. From every nook and corner came memories of the boy he had
+driven from his door. His pictures hung on the walls and stared at him
+from every piece of furniture on which a frame could be placed. He had
+learned photography as a pastime years before the kodak was invented,
+and most of the pictures he had taken himself.</p>
+
+<p>One photograph in particular, which stood by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>clock on the mantel,
+set in a heavy frame of hammered gold, which he had made himself from
+the product of his first mine, riveted and held his attention. His
+first impulse was to tear these pictures all down and throw them in
+the fire. He had picked this one up first, to carry out his furious
+impulse, but something held his hand and he placed it back in its old
+place with the grim exclamation:</p>
+
+<p>"No! It's the act of a coward. I've got to live with my memories&mdash;or
+surrender at once."</p>
+
+<p>Again and again his eye came back to this picture. He had taken it
+twenty-three years ago in a little bedroom in a dirty hotel of a
+desolate, God-forsaken mining town in Nevada. How well he remembered
+it! He was poor then, and had just begun the first big fight of his
+life for wealth and power. The boy was four weeks old, and he had
+insisted on taking the picture of the mother with the baby in her
+arms. He had carefully posed her, standing by the window looking down
+into the child's upturned face. It had turned out a remarkable
+likeness of both&mdash;the young mother's face wreathed in smiles, tender
+and frail and happy, with the great joy of the dawn of motherhood
+shining in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at it long and tenderly. And, as a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>thousand memories of
+life crowded his soul, he suddenly exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"God in heaven! What does she say to-day if she knows what I've done?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes blinked, and the tears blinded them.</p>
+
+<p>He kissed the picture and buried his face in his hands as a sob of
+anguish shook his frame.</p>
+
+<p>"The girl's right. My boy's my boy after all. I'm wrong!"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>SON AND FATHER</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>When the Colonel had greeted Elena at breakfast next morning he
+quietly asked:</p>
+
+<p>"You met Norman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be glad to see him when he comes."</p>
+
+<p>Elena threw her arms impulsively around his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you're a darling! Now you're big and strong and good and great
+again&mdash;and I love you."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel stroked her hair slowly, and asked with a smile:</p>
+
+<p>"What time is he coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's not coming." Elena laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Not coming?" the colonel repeated blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"No. You're going to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Guardie, he is a chip off the old block."</p>
+
+<p>"It begins to look like he's the whole block," the Colonel remarked,
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you blame him after the way you acted?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>"I can't say I do, much. I like a boy of spirit&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And individuality&mdash;that's your own pet idea Guardie."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel was silent a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I like his grit. Where will I find him?"</p>
+
+<p>"At his desk at work in the newspaper office."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll call him up and make an appointment."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel seized the telephone, called the newspaper office, and
+asked for Norman. He waited for several minutes before any one reached
+the 'phone. He scarcely recognized the short, sharp business accent of
+Norman's voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Here! Here! Get a move on you&mdash;what's the matter&mdash;I'm in a hurry!"</p>
+
+<p>"This is your father, Norman&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Get off the wire or quit your kiddin'&mdash;what do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>His father laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Governor, honestly I didn't recognize your voice
+until you laughed. I'm awfully glad to hear it again. What can I do
+for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must say I like your impudence. What can <i>you</i> do for me? I
+want to see you right away. Shall I call at your office?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>A pause ensued, followed by audible smiles at both ends of the wire.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not, sir. It seems a long time since I left home but I've
+not forgotten the way. I'll come over as soon as I can leave my desk."</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later he entered the library with a boyish laugh and grasped
+his father's hand.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel pressed it with deep tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"You must forgive me, boy. I wasn't fair to you the other day."</p>
+
+<p>Norman tried to laugh, and stammered awkwardly:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when I hear a man of your age and experience say a thing like
+that, Governor, I begin to fear I'm not quite as big as I thought I
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we're both in the right mind now, to begin all over again, are
+we not?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's with you, sir," was the quick reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I can convince you that you have entered on a mistaken
+mission&mdash;that your programme is foolish, impossible, and dangerous?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do it, and I'll join you in trying to put an end to Socialism."</p>
+
+<p>"Before I begin, let me ask you a very personal question."</p>
+
+<p>"As many as you like, Governor," was the frank response.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>"Are you mixed up in any way personally with the young woman who spoke
+here that day?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're comrades in the cause of humanity&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure that it is not her personal influence over you that has
+made you a Socialist?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only in so far as she has made me think and feel."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not made love to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. I'm engaged to Elena."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it ought to be easy for us to understand each other. Come down
+out of the clouds of theory now, and tell me exactly how you are going
+to save humanity, and let's see if we can't work together for the same
+end. A great purpose like yours ought not to separate father and
+son&mdash;you can't defend such platitudes as this, for example, which one
+of your orators got off last night&mdash;listen!"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel took the morning paper from the table and read:</p>
+
+<p>"Remember in this supreme hour that capitalism has you and your loved
+ones by the throats, is stealing your substance, draining your veins,
+and reducing you inch by inch to the potter's field. Every sweating
+den cries out to you as from the depths of hell to gird up your loins
+and march forth in one solid phalanx to strike <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>the blow that shall
+sound the knell of capitalistic despotism, and set the star of hope in
+the skies of the despairing and dying thousands of your class who are
+at the mercy of the vampires of soulless wealth. How long shall
+capitalism be allowed to work its devastation, spread its blighting
+curse, destroy manhood, debauch womanhood, and grind the flesh and
+blood and bone of childhood into food for Mammon?"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Such appeals to passion can only end in riot, bloodshed, and prison
+bars. You don't write such rot as that yourself, and yet the men you
+are following preach it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not following just now, Governor&mdash;I'm trying to direct this
+tremendous impulse, this enthusiasm for humanity, called Socialism,
+into a practical experiment that will demonstrate the truths of their
+faith, and from this white city of a glorified human life send out our
+missionaries to conquer the world. Give me ten thousand earnest men
+and women on the island of Ventura, isolated from contact with the
+corruption of the outside, and I'll show you a miracle more wonderful
+than if they had risen from the dead."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are the foundations on which you propose to build this
+heaven on earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Squarely on these principles: From every man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>according to his
+ability; to every man according to his needs; and to every child born
+the right to laugh and play and grow to a strong manhood and
+womanhood. We are not civilized so long as there is one child sobbing
+to be freed from the tomb of the modern workshop, so long as there is
+one man willing to work and not able to find it, so long as there is
+one soul striving upward who is crushed to earth, so long as one man
+lives in idleness and luxury while his neighbour starves, so long as
+there's one spot of this earth on which a man lives by tearing the
+bread from the lips of another."</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't your imagination been caught by beautiful phrases, my boy?"
+asked the father. "In your new State of Ventura you will give to each
+man according to his needs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And who will decide how much each one needs&mdash;the man who feels the
+need or the state?"</p>
+
+<p>"The state, in the last resort."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. And who will determine how large the service required of
+each man? Who will decide the question of ability?"</p>
+
+<p>"The state, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not cutting out a pretty big job for the state, remembering
+that the state is nothing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>more or less than a lot of ordinary
+second-rate politicians named Tom, Dick, and Harry, who individually
+or collectively haven't as much sense as you or I?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the new world it will be different."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are going to import a new breed of men and women?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, we will simply give the God in man a chance to be."</p>
+
+<p>"But how about the beast that's in man&mdash;the elemental instinct to
+fight and kill&mdash;to take the woman he desires by the force of his hands
+and muscle?"</p>
+
+<p>"When man is free and strong and happy he can have no motive to kill
+or play the beast."</p>
+
+<p>"That remains to be seen, my boy! Your assertion does not change the
+nature of man. Another problem in your scheme I can't solve is wages."</p>
+
+<p>"We will abolish wage slavery."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know; but man must work&mdash;all men must work in your new
+state?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"And the man who refuses to work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will be made to work according to his ability."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. We live under the wage system now&mdash;the system of free
+contract by which labourer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>and employer agree. Under your system
+contract would be abolished, and men would do what they are <i>told</i> to
+do&mdash;a system of <i>command</i> instead of <i>contract</i>&mdash;is it not so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say just the opposite. Men are forced to work now at tasks
+they loathe and for pay that is insufficient. Under our state they
+would be free to choose the work for which they are fitted."</p>
+
+<p>"And suppose they all choose one job?"</p>
+
+<p>"The state would assign their work in the last resort."</p>
+
+<p>"There you are, once more, bowing down to the same Tom, Dick, and
+Harry. And you cannot see that Socialism would impose on man the most
+colossal system of slavery, the most merciless because the most
+impersonal, the world ever saw?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I cannot. Give me a chance on one spot of earth free from the
+corruption of your present system, and I'll show you that man is a
+child of God, that deep in every human soul is planted the sense of
+brotherhood, justice, and human fellowship."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will abolish private property?"</p>
+
+<p>"Except what each man earns or makes for himself."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>"Can he earn a wife, or make one for himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; nor own one as a slave."</p>
+
+<p>"You can never abolish private property, my boy, so long as any man
+has the right to say, 'This woman is mine.' The home is the basis of
+modern civilization. If you destroy it the home will not survive. If
+the home survives it will kill Socialism. The two things can't mix."</p>
+
+<p>Norman laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"And you think capitalism is building ideal homes with its drudgery
+that kills woman&mdash;its poverty that starves the man and drives the girl
+to a life of shame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our conditions are not ideal, my son. But they are growing better
+with each generation. Because all homes are not ideal, you propose to
+abolish the institution. There are ten million homes in America.
+Perhaps a million of them are unhappy. Can we mend matters by
+destroying them all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Socialism proposes to build the highest ideal of home ever seen on
+earth, founded on love&mdash;and only love."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel smiled sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I see I'm too late. You've got it bad. Socialism is a contagious
+disease, imported from the old world&mdash;a brain disease, the result of
+centuries of wrong and oppression. Its reasons <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>for existence in this
+country are purely imaginary. If it were possible for you to build the
+new State of Ventura of which you dream&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dream! We are going to do it, I tell you, Governor! We have a hundred
+thousand dollars already pledged. We hold to-morrow night a great
+mass-meeting at which five thousand Socialists will be present. Four
+hundred thousand dollars more will buy the island and give a capital
+of three hundred thousand with which to begin."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I can't persuade you to give up this madness?" the Colonel
+asked, tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's my life," Norman answered firmly.</p>
+
+<p>The father slipped his arm around the tall, strong figure.</p>
+
+<p>"All right! Remember now, from this moment on, one thing is settled
+for good and all. My boy's my boy, right or wrong, good or bad, wise
+or foolish&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel's voice broke, and his grip tightened.</p>
+
+<p>Norman looked out of the window, blinked his eyes, and said in low
+tones:</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, sir!"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE WAY OF A WOMAN</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>As Elena entered the library the two men fell suddenly apart as though
+ashamed of the weakness of affection before a woman.</p>
+
+<p>The girl pretended not to have seen, but her face was radiant.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel paused as he turned to leave the room:</p>
+
+<p>"You will keep up your newspaper grind, my boy?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I'll jump at the chance to do the big thing. I'll give my whole
+time to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose you're right. The way to do a thing is to do it."</p>
+
+<p>As the father passed Elena he softly whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Your face shines like an angel's!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am very happy," was the low answer.</p>
+
+<p>Norman hastened to her side, and seized both her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I owe this to you, my stately queen."</p>
+
+<p>"He would have come to the same conclusion himself. I only hastened it
+a little by a suggestion," she replied.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>"I have my own idea about the way you expressed it," he said with a
+jolly laugh. "Look here, Elena, I hope you don't believe that I have
+been disloyal to you in my association with Barbara Bozenta?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl straightened her superb figure, and broke into a laugh of
+mingled humour and irony.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've a confession to make, Norman. I've been disloyal to you."</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;disloyal&mdash;to me!" he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I've felt of late as though you were a big, sick baby on my
+hands, and I've grown tired of the charge."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, upon my soul!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Our engagement is at an end."</p>
+
+<p>"Elena!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll keep your beautiful ring"&mdash;she touched it affectionately&mdash;"for
+the memories that will always bind us as brother and sister. Besides,
+it will deceive your father for a while. He has enough to worry him
+just now."</p>
+
+<p>Before Norman could pull himself together, or utter a protest, she had
+turned and left him gasping with astonishment.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A ROYAL GIFT</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Norman resumed his place in his father's home and began a systematic,
+persistent, and enthusiastic campaign to raise the funds to purchase
+the island of Ventura and establish the ideal Commonwealth of Man.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of the big mass-meeting of Socialists, who had gathered
+from every state of the Golden West, Elena found her guardian seated
+alone on the broad veranda overlooking the Bay of San Francisco. A
+look of deep trouble clouded his strong face.</p>
+
+<p>"You are worried?" she said, seating herself by his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dearie," was the moody answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Over Norman's meeting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The boy's set his heart on this big foolish enterprise. His
+failure is a certainty. I don't know what may follow."</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure he can't raise the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely. The disappointment will be a stunning blow to his pride."</p>
+
+<p>"You know that if he did succeed in raising the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>money, and
+establishing his brotherhood of man, the scheme would end in failure?"</p>
+
+<p>"As clearly as I know I am living."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you be sorry if the dream should be realized?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the other hand, I'd shout for joy to find the human race capable
+of such a miracle."</p>
+
+<p>Elena gently touched his hand. "Then, Guardie, there's but one thing
+to do," she said, with a deep, spiritual look in her blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give Norman a round million dollars to make the experiment."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel looked at her in amazement, and suddenly sprang to his
+feet, pacing the floor with feverish steps. He stopped at last before
+the girl and studied her.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let Norman know who gave the money," she continued. "It will be
+a big, noble, beautiful thing to do&mdash;and&mdash;it will save him."</p>
+
+<p>"What a wonderful woman you are, Elena!"</p>
+
+<p>He paused and looked at her steadily. "I'm going to do it!"</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>When Norman returned at midnight from the mass-meeting his face was
+flushed and his eyes sparkled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>"It's done, Governor! It's done!" he fairly shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the half million was subscribed?" the Colonel asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and more!" he went on, excitedly. "We have succeeded beyond my
+wildest hopes. We had subscriptions for a hundred thousand. Fifty
+thousand more was subscribed at the meeting by the delegates, and just
+as we were about to adjourn Judge Clark, a famous lawyer, rose and
+announced the gift of a round million to the cause by a group of
+friends whose names he refused to make known."</p>
+
+<p>"And what happened?" Elena asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It's hard to tell exactly. The first thing I did was to jump over
+three rows of seats, grab the lawyer, and yell like a maniac. We
+carried him around the room, and shouted and screamed until we were
+hoarse. The scene was indescribable. Strong men fell into each other's
+arms and cried like children."</p>
+
+<p>"And you could get no hint of the identity of the men who gave the
+money?" Elena inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Not the slightest. The deed of gift was made to me through the lawyer
+as trustee. I don't like one or two conditions, exactly, but it was no
+time to haggle over details."</p>
+
+<p>"What were the conditions?" Elena interrupted, with a glance at the
+Colonel.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>"That the title to the island of Ventura should be vested in me
+personally for two years. And five hundred thousand dollars should
+remain a fund in my hands as trustee to administer its income for the
+same period. At the end of one year, or of two, I may transfer the
+whole to the Brotherhood, or reconvey it to the original donors. I
+think it gives too much power into one man's hands&mdash;but I'll hold it a
+sacred trust."</p>
+
+<p>The young enthusiast's face glowed with thrilling purpose, and his
+eyes were shining with unshed tears, as he laid his hand on his
+father's shoulder and exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Governor, you didn't have faith enough in your fellow man! You
+said it couldn't be done!"</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you, my son," the Colonel gravely said, "and I wish
+for you the noblest success."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no such word as fail." Norman cried. "No sleep for me
+to-night! I return to the Socialist Club for a celebration. I just
+came to tell you personally of our triumph. The deed is done, and the
+Brotherhood of Man is a thrilling fact!"</p>
+
+<p>With swift, joyous stride he threw himself into the hall and bounded
+down the steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose after all, Guardie, he should succeed?" Elena exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>"They'll start with many things in their favour," the Colonel
+responded. "The island of Ventura is said to be the most fertile and
+beautiful spot of earth in the West. No adverse influences can reach
+them from without. Five thousand men and women, inspired by a sublime
+faith in themselves, may under such conditions surprise us. If
+Socialism is possible on an island of a hundred thousand acres, it's
+possible on a hundred thousand square miles, and its faith will
+conquer the world. We'll give them two years before we visit them, and
+see what happens."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose they do succeed!" Elena repeated, musingly.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE BURNING OF THE BRIDGES</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The success which attended the launching of the new Brotherhood of Man
+with its million-dollar endowment fund was phenomenal.</p>
+
+<p>The announcement that the books were ready for the enrollment of the
+pioneer group of two thousand who should locate the enterprise on the
+island of Ventura brought twenty-five thousand applicants.</p>
+
+<p>The first shock Norman's faith in man received was to collide with the
+army of cranks who came in troops to join. Every creed of Christendom,
+every cult of the heathen world, every ism of all the philosophies of
+the past and the present came in droves. They got into arguments with
+one another in the waiting-rooms of the Socialist headquarters, and
+sometimes came to blows. Each conceived the hour for establishing his
+own particular patent for saving the human race had come. It was an
+appalling revelation to Norman to find how many of these schemes were
+at work in the brains of people who were evidently incapable of taking
+care of themselves.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>The first week he attempted to hear each one with courtesy and
+sympathy. But after wasting six days in idiotic discussions of
+preposterous schemes he was compelled to call on the Wolfs for advice.</p>
+
+<p>Both Wolf and his wife had begun to call Norman "Chief" from the
+moment of their first burst of enthusiasm over the gift of the
+million. At times the young dreamer looked at the massive face of the
+older man with a touch of suspicion at this sudden acceptance of his
+premiership. And yet both Wolf and Catherine (she insisted that he
+call her Catherine) seemed so utterly sincere in their admiration, so
+enthusiastic in their faith in his ability, they always disarmed
+suspicion. Catherine's repeated explanation of this faith when Norman
+halted or hesitated was always flattering to his vanity, and yet
+perfectly reasonable.</p>
+
+<p>"My boy, we take off our hats to you! A man can't do the impossible
+unless he tries. We didn't try. You did. The trouble with Herman, and
+with every man of forty, is that he loses faith in himself. We get
+careful and conservative. We lack the dash and fire and daring of
+youth. I envy you. I salute you as the inspired leader of our
+Cause&mdash;you've done the impossible! And you've just begun. We can only
+hope to help you with our larger experience."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>At the end of a week of futile and exhausting palaver with this army
+of cranks who infest the West, Wolf, carefully watching his
+opportunity, turned to Norman and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I've been waiting for you to see things a little more clearly before
+I say something to you&mdash;I think it's time."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" the young leader asked.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf hesitated a moment as if feeling his way.</p>
+
+<p>"Something he should have said sooner," exclaimed Catherine.</p>
+
+<p>"There's but one way, comrade. Kick these fools into the street!"</p>
+
+<p>"But don't we begin to weaken the moment we do a thing like that? We
+accept the brotherhood of man&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of man, yes," the old leader broke in, "but these are not men&mdash;they
+are what might have been had they lived in a sane world. They are the
+results of the nightmare we call civilization. The kindest thing you
+can do for a crank is to kill him. You are trying to do what God
+Almighty never undertook&mdash;to make something out of nothing. You know,
+when he made Adam he had a ball of mud to start with."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you're right," Norman agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"When the Brotherhood is established with picked men," Catherine
+added, "we can take <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>in new members with less care. Now it is of the
+utmost importance that we select the pioneer group of the best blood
+in the Socialist ranks&mdash;trained men and women who believe with
+passionate faith what you and I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Then do it," Norman said, with emphasis. "I put you and Wolf in
+charge of this first roll. I've more important work to do in
+organizing the business details of the enterprise."</p>
+
+<p>A look of joy flashed from Wolf's gray eyes into the woman's as he
+calmly but quickly replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do the best I can."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to know by name every true Socialist on the Coast," Norman
+added.</p>
+
+<p>"I do, comrade, and I'll guarantee the pioneer group."</p>
+
+<p>"Let all applicants for membership hereafter pass your scrutiny," were
+his final orders.</p>
+
+<p>He rose from his desk with a sigh of relief as Barbara entered the
+room, her cheeks flushed with joy, her eyes sparkling with excitement
+from the ovation she had just received from the crowd which packed the
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p>His first impulse was to ask her to accompany him to the country, rest
+and play for a day. His heart beat more quickly at the thought, but as
+the question trembled on his lips, his eyes rested <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>on Wolf's shaggy
+head bending over the piles of papers on his desk, and a grim fear
+shadowed his imagination. Elena's laughter suddenly echoed through his
+memory. He recalled his father's questions. A frown slowly settled on
+his brow, and a firm resolution took shape in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"No woman's spell to blind your senses! Clear thinking, my boy! You're
+on trial before the man who gave you life. You're on trial before the
+men whose faith gave you a million dollars to put you to the test.
+Success first, and then, perhaps, the joy of living!"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara felt the chill of a sudden barrier between them, and looked at
+him with a little touch of wounded pride.</p>
+
+<p>He merely nodded pleasantly and hurried from the room.</p>
+
+<p>He gave his whole energies at once to the larger business of the
+enterprise. The title to the property was searched with the utmost
+thoroughness and found to be perfect. Enormous sums of money had been
+spent on the island by the bankrupt wild-cat real-estate company which
+had bought it in for improvement and exploitation. They had built a
+magnificent hotel with accommodations for one thousand five hundred
+guests, had planted vineyards, established a winery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>planted vast
+orchards of plums, apricots, olives, peaches, and oranges, built flour
+mills, an ice factory, and had started a number of mining and
+manufacturing enterprises. When the bubble burst the company was
+bankrupt and the lawyers got the rest. A careful inventory showed to
+Norman that they had acquired a property of enormous value. The
+improvements alone had cost $1,250,000, and they were worth twice that
+sum now to the colony.</p>
+
+<p>He chartered a corporate society, known as "The Brotherhood of Man,"
+for the purpose of legalizing the new social State of Ventura when it
+had passed the experimental stage and he could surrender to it the
+title and money held in trust under the deed of gift. Two hundred
+thousand dollars was paid in cash for the island, and the remaining
+capital held for work. A steamer was purchased to serve the colony by
+plying between the island, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco.</p>
+
+<p>The Wolfs advised Norman that no mail service be asked or permitted.</p>
+
+<p>"The reasons are many, comrade," the old leader urged. "The first
+condition of success in this work is the complete isolation of the
+colony from outside influences. If modern civilization is hell, you
+can't build a heaven with daily communication between the two
+places."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>"Every man and woman who enters," Catherine added, "must sign a solemn
+contract to remain five years, enlist as soldier, and communicate with
+the outside world only by permission of the authority of the
+Brotherhood."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," laughed Norman. "I must have the Czar's power to examine
+suspected mail if treason or rebellion threatens."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," cried Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"A large power to put in one man's hands!" Norman protested.</p>
+
+<p>"There's not a man or woman going to that island who wouldn't trust
+you with life, to say nothing of a mail pouch," Catherine declared,
+with a look of genuine admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"You think such drastic measures to prevent communication with the
+outside world will be needed?" Norman argued.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us hope not," Wolf quickly replied. "But it's better to be on the
+safe side. The history of every experiment made in Socialism by the
+heroes and pioneers of the cause in the past shows that failure came
+in every case from just this source. We will start under the most
+favourable conditions ever tried. Our island will be a little world
+within itself. Cut every line of possible communication with modern
+competitive society, and we can prove the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>brotherhood of man a living
+fact. Open our experiment to the lies and slanders of our enemies from
+without, and they can destroy us before the work is fairly begun. Our
+colony would be overrun with hostile reporters from the capitalist
+press, for example&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're right," exclaimed Norman.</p>
+
+<p>"Let every volunteer enlist in the service of humanity for five
+years," repeated Catherine, "agreeing to hold no communication with
+the world. Make that agreement one impossible for them to break, and
+our success is as sure as that man is made in the image of God. All we
+ask is a chance to prove it without interference."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you," cried Norman, at last. "Five years' service, with
+every bridge burned behind us&mdash;we'll fight it out on that line."</p>
+
+<p>A look of triumph came from beneath Wolf's shaggy brows as his eyes
+rested again on the smiling madonna-like face of the woman by his
+side.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE NEW WORLD</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>On a beautiful Sunday morning in May, 1899, the steamship <i>Comrade</i>
+slowly swept through the Golden Gate with two thousand enthusiastic
+Socialists crowding her decks, shouting, cheering, laughing, crying,
+singing their joy and faith in the new world of human brotherhood for
+which they had set sail.</p>
+
+<p>The flag of the republic flew from her stern because the law of the
+port of entry required it. But from her huge prow rose a slender steel
+staff, above the tips of her funnels and masts, on which flew the
+blood-red ensign of Socialism, while from every masthead huge red
+steamers fluttered in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>At noon on the following day the eager eyes of the pioneers sighted
+the island of Ventura. At first a tiny white and blue spot on the
+horizon, and then slowly out of the sea rose its majestic outlines,
+until at last the ship drew in so close to the towering mountains of
+its shore line the colonists could almost touch the stone walls with
+their hands.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>The captain was evidently at home in the sparkling blue waters which
+rolled lazily against the perpendicular cliffs.</p>
+
+<p>Norman had climbed over the piles of freight, cordage, and anchors,
+and taken his stand beside the flagstaff on the ship's prow, his soul
+enraptured with the thrilling adventure on which he had embarked.</p>
+
+<p>He had made two trips to the island before, but never had he seen it
+rise from the sea in such matchless glory as to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Far up in the sky loomed the mountain peaks still covered with snow,
+while the rich hills and valleys to the southward rolled laughingly in
+their robes of green.</p>
+
+<p>Five miles down the coast the ship turned her nose inshore, and slowly
+ploughed her way through a narrow channel which opened between two
+hills. She quickly cleared the channel and rounded another headland,
+when a shout rang from her decks. Straight before them, across a
+beautiful landlocked bay, which formed a perfect harbour, rose the
+huge hotel, the home of the Brotherhood. The central building was
+crowned by two tall towers, and the long wings which stretched toward
+the sea pierced the skyline with a dozen minarets of quaint Moorish
+pattern. From the flagpole on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>lawn, from each graceful tower and
+each shining sun-kissed minaret, flew the scarlet ensign of Socialism.</p>
+
+<p>When the ship swept in alongside the pier the building loomed from its
+hilltop higher apparently than the mountain range behind it.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara clapped her hands as she ran to Norman's side.</p>
+
+<p>"Look! Look at those flags! Aren't they glorious? Nobody will haul
+them down here, will they?"</p>
+
+<p>Norman lifted his eyes and looked in silence for a moment. A stiff
+breeze was blowing from the southeast, and the two huge banners of
+scarlet stood straight from their staffs on the towers and seemed to
+fill the sky with quivering flame.</p>
+
+<p>"Glorious!" he said, at last. "They speak the end of strife, the dawn
+of love and human brotherhood!"</p>
+
+<p>The Wolfs had preceded them to the colony with a select band of
+enthusiasts, stored the first supplies, and set the place in order to
+receive as welcome guests the first shipload of pioneers.</p>
+
+<p>When the throng of joyous, excited comrades had landed, they formed in
+line and marched up from the pier. The wide, white, smooth road led
+through a wilderness of flowers which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>had grown in wild profusion
+since they had been abandoned two years before. The Wolfs led the
+procession, with Barbara and Norman by their side.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the big circle of scarlet geraniums in the centre of
+the floral court between the two wings of the great building they
+stopped, and Catherine began in her clear, thrilling soprano voice the
+Marseillaise hymn. The pioneers crowded around her tall, commanding
+figure and sang with inspired emotion. Every heart beat with high
+resolve. The heaven of which they had dreamed was no longer a dream.
+They were walking its white, shining streets. Their souls were crying
+for joy in its dazzling court of honour. The old world, with its sin
+and shame, its crime and misery, its hunger and cold, its greed and
+lust, its cruelty and insanity, had passed away, and lo! all things
+were new. The very air was charged with faith and hope and love. A
+wave of religious ecstasy swept the crowd. They called each by their
+first names. Strong men embraced, crying "Comrade!" through their
+tears. The older ones had made allowances for the glowing accounts of
+the island. They expected some disillusioning at first. Yet their
+wildest expectations were far surpassed. Such beauty, such grandeur,
+such wealth of nature, such magnificence <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>of equipment, were too good
+to be true, and yet they were facts.</p>
+
+<p>The island of Ventura was enchanted. The impression it gave each heart
+of the certainty of success was the biggest asset of real wealth with
+which the colony began its history.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>FOR THE CAUSE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>During the first enchanted days every man woman and child entered the
+strange new system with a determination to see only its beauty, its
+truth, its sure success. Service was the order of the day. Men who had
+never before worked with their hands asked the privilege of the
+hardest tasks.</p>
+
+<p>The whole colony swarmed to unload the ship. They refused to allow the
+crew to touch a piece of freight or handle a piece of baggage.</p>
+
+<p>The only difficulty Norman found was to systematize their work under
+the captain's direction.</p>
+
+<p>The day following they "swarmed" again to clear the lawn of weeds and
+restore the labyrinth of walks and beds of flowers in the great court.
+Merchants exchanged the yardstick for the rake and hoe. Preachers laid
+aside their sermons to wield a spade, and returned from their tasks in
+the evening with song and laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Among the women the spirit of sacrifice and enthusiastic service was
+even higher. Many who loved flowers begged the privilege of using the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>pruning-knife and some even seized a hoe and worked with unwearied
+zeal.</p>
+
+<p>Others, who had never seen the inside of their own kitchens, rolled up
+their sleeves, donned white aprons, entered the great cooking-room of
+the hotel, and made pots and kettles fly. Beautiful girls who had
+spent lives of comparative ease took turns in waiting on the tables,
+and all worked with a spirit of joy which robbed labour of its
+weariness.</p>
+
+<p>By common consent Norman had assumed the general directorship of the
+colony, and by common consent the Wolfs were accepted as his chief
+advisers. This arrangement was formally voted on and unanimously
+approved at the first night's assembly of the Brotherhood in the big
+dining-hall of the building, which they now christened the "Mission
+House of the Brotherhood of Man."</p>
+
+<p>On accepting the position of general manager of the Brotherhood the
+young leader rose and faced the people with deep emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades," he began, in trembling tones, "I thank you for the
+confidence you have shown in me. I shall strive to prove myself worthy
+of your faith, and I hope within a year that we shall make such
+progress in the development of our new social system that I shall be
+able to convey then the full title to this glorious island to your
+permanent organization."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>A round of applause greeted this announcement.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure our preliminary work will be completed within a single year.
+I am not a man of many words, but I hope to prove myself a man of
+deeds. I shall consult you in every important step to be taken, and
+for this purpose the General Assembly of the Brotherhood will be held
+in this hall every Friday evening. On Monday evening a ball will be
+given for the pleasure of our young people, and every Wednesday
+evening a social reception. Let us make these three evenings the
+source of inspiration for our daily tasks."</p>
+
+<p>Norman closed his brief speech in a burst of genuine enthusiasm.
+Scores of young men and women crowded to the platform and grasped his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>When the last echoes of the evening's celebration had died away,
+Catherine led Barbara into her room.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf sat quietly smoking by the window.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth's the matter?" the girl asked. "You drag me to your
+room half dressed, in the dead of night, and speak in whispers. I
+thought we'd done with the dark and scheming ways of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"And so we have, my child," laughed Wolf. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>His cold gray eyes lighted
+with sudden warmth as they rested on Barbara's dainty little figure.
+Its exquisite lines could be plainly seen through the silk kimono as
+she walked with languid grace and threw the mass of dishevelled curls
+back from her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, dear," Catherine said, with a smile. "We have something of
+the utmost importance to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am to go abroad as an ambassador to some foreign court. Don't say
+that&mdash;I like it here."</p>
+
+<p>"No. We are going to propose that you establish a court here," Wolf
+interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Establish a court!" Barbara exclaimed. "How romantic!"</p>
+
+<p>"In short, my child, it's absolutely necessary for you to become, not
+merely the power behind the throne with our young Comrade Chief, you
+must assume the throne itself."</p>
+
+<p>"But how?" the girl asked.</p>
+
+<p>"As if you didn't know!"</p>
+
+<p>"I honestly don't. My eloquence is of little use here. We are all
+persuaded. Besides, our Comrade Chief has acquired the habit of
+thinking for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," observed Wolf. "And we want you to do his thinking for
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Catherine?" Barbara <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>asked, her brow suddenly
+clouding, as she looked straight into her foster-mother's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"That you must win young Worth."</p>
+
+<p>"Deliberately set out to make him love me?" the girl exclaimed with
+scorn. "I'll do nothing of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"You must, my dear," Wolf pleaded earnestly. "It's all for the Cause.
+It's in this boy's power to make or wreck this great enterprise. We
+have a kingdom here whose wealth and power may become the wonder of
+the world. It may be wrecked by the whim of one man. A thousand
+difficulties must be faced before we can have smooth sailing. The one
+thing above all to be done is to secure from young Worth the deed to
+this island. He must be convinced of the success of the scheme, and he
+must be convinced before he faces some of the most serious problems
+that are sure to arise&mdash;problems which will demand a strong arm and a
+cool, clear head to handle. The boy means well, but he can never meet
+these issues. Win his love and everything will be easy. Slowly and
+patiently I will perfect the organization we must have to succeed."</p>
+
+<p>"I fail to see the necessity of such a shameless act on my part. No
+man here is so enthusiastic as our young leader. He is sure to make
+the deed. You heard his promise to-night."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>"He intends to do it, I grant," Catherine argued. "But what Herman and
+I clearly see is that he will sooner or later be overwhelmed with
+difficulties. He may quit in disgust at the very moment when a strong
+policy could save the Cause. We want to be sure. He is a new convert.
+His enthusiasm is now at white heat. We are afraid of what may happen
+when it cools."</p>
+
+<p>"With your great brown eyes looking into his," Wolf broke in, "and
+your little hand in his, it can't cool!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think he cares for me in that way at all," the girl
+protested. "He has held himself quite aloof from me of late."</p>
+
+<p>"All the more reason why your woman's pride should be piqued to make
+the conquest," urged Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no such vulgar ambitions," was the short answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you haven't, child," Wolf said in serious tones. "We
+understand that. But we ask this of you as a brave little soldier of
+the Cause. It's the one big, brave thing you can do."</p>
+
+<p>"I might have to let him kiss me," she said, with a frown.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's a handsome youngster&mdash;it wouldn't poison you," laughed
+Catherine.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>"I hate it! I think I hate every man on earth sometimes," she
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf laughed and looked at her with quiet intensity.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, dear, you can do this for the Cause we both love," Catherine
+urged.</p>
+
+<p>"I might have to let him put his arm around me&mdash;&mdash;."</p>
+
+<p>Catherine seized her hand, looked at her steadily for a moment, and
+slowly said:</p>
+
+<p>"The woman who would not give both her body and her soul for the Cause
+of Humanity, if called on to make the sacrifice, is not worthy to live
+in the big world of which we've dreamed."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara's face flushed and her eyes sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>"You believe this?" she asked, sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"With all my soul," was the fierce answer.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara hesitated a moment, and firmly said:</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll do it!"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>BARBARA CHOOSES A PROFESSION</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>When Norman came down to the office next morning, the clerk handed him
+a note. A glance at the smooth, perfect handwriting told him at once
+it was from Barbara. He opened it with a smile of pleasant surprise
+and read with increasing astonishment:</p>
+
+<div class="block1"><p>"You are to take breakfast with me this morning in
+the rose bower of the floral court.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="padding-right: 35%;">"By order of</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="padding-right: 25%;">"Barbara Bozenta,</span><br />
+<span style="padding-right: 20%;">"<i>Secretary to the General Manager</i>."</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Norman found her alone, seated beside a little table in the bower, her
+face wreathed in mischievous smiles.</p>
+
+<p>She rose and extended her hand:</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me to introduce you to your new secretary."</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you my delight is only equalled by my surprise," he
+answered, with boyish banter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I thought it best to take you by surprise. Now that it's all
+settled, I trust we will get on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>well." She looked at him with demure
+and charming impudence.</p>
+
+<p>Norman burst into laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure we will!" he answered. "All I require is industry, patience,
+wisdom, tact, knowledge, sacrifice, absolute obedience, and a joyous
+desire to assume full responsibility for my mistakes!"</p>
+
+<p>"All of which will come to me," she responded, with mock gravity.
+"Permit me!"</p>
+
+<p>She led him to the chair she had placed beside the table, and poured a
+cup of coffee for him.</p>
+
+<p>Norman watched her with keen enjoyment. "I've never seen you in this
+mood before," he said, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"You like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beyond words! I'm afraid I'll wake up directly and find I'm dreaming.
+I'm sure now, when I look into your eyes, sparkling with fun, that you
+are a flower nymph, and that your home has always been a rose bower on
+the sunny slope of a southern hillside."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I'm just teasing you. Perhaps I won't work," she said,
+glancing at him from the corners of her brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll find it a serious joke," he answered, firmly.
+"Resignations are not in order. You have chosen your profession. As
+general <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>manager I have given my approval. That settles it, doesn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you are pleased, yes," she answered, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I am more than pleased. I've been afraid to ask you to do this work
+for me&mdash;though I've had it in mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Why afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I somehow got the impression lately that you didn't
+like me personally."</p>
+
+<p>"How could you think such a thing!" she protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a vague impression&mdash;caught, perhaps, from little gestures you
+sometimes made, little frowns that sometimes came to your brow, little
+flashes of hostility from your eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean it, comrade!" she said, demurely, while her eyes danced
+and her mouth twitched playfully.</p>
+
+<p>"And you've fully weighed the cost?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fully."</p>
+
+<p>"You know that you will be forced to spend most of your time in my
+office?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try to endure it," she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Without a frown or a hostile look?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless you provoke it."</p>
+
+<p>Norman ate in silence for five minutes, listening to Barbara's girlish
+chatter while she bubbled over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>with the spirit of pure joy. Her whole
+being radiated fun and laughter as the sun pours forth heat and light.
+He wondered where this magic secret of joyous womanhood had been
+hidden in the past.</p>
+
+<p>"What a revelation you've been to me this morning," he said, musingly,
+as he rose from the table.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were all seriousness and tragedy, eloquence and
+pathos."</p>
+
+<p>"We're in paradise now. The shadows have lifted."</p>
+
+<p>"And I find you a little ray of dancing sunlight."</p>
+
+<p>"So every girl would be if she had the chance."</p>
+
+<p>"And we're going to give them the chance here, little comrade!" he
+cried, with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll help you!" she earnestly responded, extending her hand with a
+tender look into the depth of Norman's soul.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A CALL FOR HEROES</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The first business before the Assembly of the Brotherhood was the
+permanent assignment of work. The enthusiasm which swept the
+Socialists through the first week of joyous life could not last. No
+one expected it. The novelty of their surroundings, the surprise and
+elation of every one over the beauty and richness of their newly
+acquired empire, carried the pioneers over the opening days as in a
+dream. It all seemed like a great picnic&mdash;like the long-hoped-for
+holidays in life of which they had dreamed and never realized, yet
+which somehow had come to pass.</p>
+
+<p>But the time was at hand to face the first big, sober reality of the
+new social system. The dining-hall was packed. Every member of the
+Brotherhood was present.</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra played a lively air in a vain effort to revive the
+spirit of festivity with which every meeting had hitherto buzzed.</p>
+
+<p>But an evil spirit had entered the Garden of Eden, and joy had fled.
+Over every heart hovered a brood of solemn questions. What will be my
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>lot? Will I be allowed to choose my work? Or will they tell me what to
+do? Will it be dirty and disagreeable, or pleasant and inspiring?</p>
+
+<p>Norman sat in his chair of state as presiding officer, bending over a
+mass of papers which Barbara had spread before him. She leaned close,
+and a stray hair from one of her brown curls touched his forehead. He
+trembled and stared blankly at the papers, seeing only a beautiful
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand?" she asked. "I've placed under each department the
+number of workers needed."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I understand!" he repeated, looking at her, blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you've heard a word I've spoken to you," she said,
+reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>He was about to answer when the music stopped. Norman lifted his head
+with a start, rose quickly and faced the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades," he began, "the time has come for us to make good our faith
+in one another. You have proven yourselves brave and faithful in our
+struggle with the infamies of the system of capitalism. We call now
+for the heroes and heroines of actual work. We are entering, under the
+most favourable auspices, on the most important experiment yet made in
+the social history of the world. We are going to prove that mankind is
+one vast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>brotherhood&mdash;that love, not greed, can rule this earth.</p>
+
+<p>"In our temporary organization we wish to outline the forms on which
+we will later found the permanent State of Ventura. At present we will
+organize four departments&mdash;Production, Distribution, Domestic Service,
+and Education.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to ask each one of you, by secret ballot, to choose your
+permanent work."</p>
+
+<p>A cheer shook the building.</p>
+
+<p>Norman flushed with pleasure, and continued quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be my constant aim as your general manager under our
+temporary organization to give you the widest personal liberty
+consistent with the success of our enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Before preparing your ballots for choice of your work, I shall have
+to ask that each head of a family and each unmarried man and woman
+first pass by the platform and draw lots for the assignment of your
+rooms in our Mission House. There have been some complaints already,
+I'm sorry to say, on this question. Some wish to live on the first
+floor, some on the top, but everybody wants to live on the south side
+of the house with the glorious views of the sea, and nobody wishes to
+live on the north side. There is but one way to determine such a
+question in our ideal state. Fate must decide.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>"The numbers of each room and suite are in the basket. The bachelors
+will be assigned to the right wing, the girls to the left wing, the
+married ones to the centre of the building.</p>
+
+<p>"Please form in line on the left and march toward the right aisle past
+the platform."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Chairman!" called Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat.</p>
+
+<p>Norman rapped for silence, and those who had risen resumed their
+seats.</p>
+
+<p>"I protest, Mr. Chairman," continued the poet, "against the cruelty of
+such a process. The weak and the aged should be given their choice
+first."</p>
+
+<p>"We left them all behind us!" Norman cried, with a wave of his hand.
+"There are no weak and aged in this crowd. We belong to the elect. We
+have found the secret of eternal youth."</p>
+
+<p>Another cheer swept the crowd, the poet subsided with a sigh of
+contempt, and the people quickly filed past the platform and drew
+their lots for permanent rooms in the building. The larger suites had
+been subdivided, so that the entire pioneer colony of two thousand
+found accommodations under one roof.</p>
+
+<p>When the crowd had resumed their seats, and the last cry of triumph
+over a successful draw and the last groan of disappointment over an
+unlucky lot had subsided, Norman rose and made the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>most momentous
+announcement the Brotherhood had yet heard:</p>
+
+<p>"In the Department of Production we need hod-carriers, bricklayers,
+carpenters, architects, teamsters, and skilled mechanics for the
+foundry and machine-shops, saw-mill, and flour mills. On the farm and
+orchard we need ploughmen and harvesters for grain and hay, gardeners,
+stablemen, and ditchers.</p>
+
+<p>"In our Department of Domestic Service we need cooks, seamstresses,
+washerwomen, scrubbers and cleaners, waiters, porters, bell-boys,
+telephone girls, steamfitters, plumbers, chimney-sweeps, and sewer
+cleaners.</p>
+
+<p>"In the Department of Education we need artists and artisans,
+teachers, nurses, printers and binders, pressmen and compositors, one
+editor, scientists and lecturers, missionaries, actors, singers, and
+authors.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you each of you know what you can do best. Choose the work in
+which you can render your comrades the highest service of which you
+are capable and best advance the cause of humanity. Write your name
+and your choice of work on the blanks which have been furnished you."</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra played while the ballots were being cast and counted.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>The chairman at length rose with the tabulated sheet in his hand and
+faced his audience.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that old saying I'll
+have to repeat, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!'
+Beyond the shadow of a doubt we shall have to try this election again.
+If I didn't know by the serious look on your faces that you mean it
+I'd say off-hand that you were trying to put up a joke on me."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and a painful silence followed.</p>
+
+<p>"Give us the ballot!" growled the Bard.</p>
+
+<p>Norman looked at the list he held, and in spite of himself, as he
+caught the gleam of mischief in Barbara's eye, burst into laughter and
+sat down.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf ascended the platform, glanced over the list and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a waste of time. Call for the election of an executive council
+with full powers."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try once more," Norman insisted, quickly rising.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades, I'm sorry to say there is no election. We must proceed to
+another ballot, and if the industries absolutely necessary to the
+existence of any society are not voted into operation, we must then
+choose an executive council with full power to act. I appeal to your
+sense of heroism and self-sacrifice&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>"Give us the ballot! Read it!" thundered the offended poet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, read it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Read it!"</p>
+
+<p>The shouts came from all parts of the hall. The crowd was in dead
+earnest and couldn't see the joke.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the young chairman raised the fateful record of human
+frailty before his eyes, paused, and then solemnly began:</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place, comrades, more than six hundred ballots out of
+the two thousand cast are invalid. They have been cast for work not
+asked for. They must be thrown out at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Three hundred and sixty five able-bodied men choose hunting as their
+occupation. I grant you that game is plentiful on the island, but we
+can't spare you, gentlemen!</p>
+
+<p>"Two hundred and thirty-five men want to fish! The waters abound in
+fish, but we have a pound-net which supplies us with all we can eat.</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty-two men and forty-six women wish to preach.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not need at present hunters, fishermen, or preachers, and have
+not called for volunteers in these departments of labour.</p>
+
+<p>"Three hundred and fifty-six women wish to go on the stage, and one
+hundred and ninety-five <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>of them choose musical comedy and light
+opera. I think this includes most of our female population between the
+ages of fourteen and thirty-five!"</p>
+
+<p>A murmur of excitement swept the feminine portion of the audience.</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me to say," he went on, "that the most urgent need of the
+colony at this moment cannot be met by organizing a chorus, however
+beautiful and pleasing its performances would be. We need, and we must
+have, waitresses and milkmaids. The chorus can wait, the cows cannot.</p>
+
+<p>"I asked for one editor. One hundred and seventy-five men and
+sixty-three women have chosen that field. Seventy-five men and
+thirty-two women wish to be musicians."</p>
+
+<p>"We have looked in vain among the ballots for a single hod-carrier, or
+ploughman, ditcher, cook, seamstress, washerman or washerwoman,
+stableman, scrubber, or cleaner. The Brotherhood cannot live a day
+without them. Remember, comrades, we are to make the great experiment
+on which the future happiness of the race may depend. Let us forget
+our selfish preferences and think only of our fellow men. I call for
+heroes of the hod, heroines of the washtub and the scrubbing-brush and
+milk-pail, knights of the pitchfork, spade, and shovel. Let hunters,
+fishermen, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>preachers, and chorus-girls forget they live for the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not a joke, comrades, though I have laughed. It's one of the
+gravest problems we must face. It has been suggested that we hire
+outside labour to do this disagreeable work for a generation or two.
+The moment we dare make such a compromise we are lost forever. We must
+solve this problem or quit. A second ballot is ordered at once."</p>
+
+<p>Again the orchestra played, the ushers passed the boxes, the vote was
+taken, and all for naught. Not a single hero of the hod appeared. Not
+a single heroine of the washtub, the scrubbing-brush, or the
+milk-pail.</p>
+
+<p>The young chairman's face was very grave when Barbara handed him the
+results.</p>
+
+<p>She bent and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Away with frowns and doubts and fears! There's a better way. A leader
+must lead. Their business is to follow."</p>
+
+<p>Norman's face brightened. He turned to the crowd, and in tones of
+clear, ringing command announced:</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades, I had hoped you could choose your work of your own accord.
+The attempt has failed. Six divisions of labour, each of them
+absolutely essential to the existence of society in any form <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>above
+the primitive savage, have not a single man or woman in them."</p>
+
+<p>"We must elect an executive council of four who shall sit as a court
+of last resort in settling the question of the ability of each comrade
+and the work to which he shall be assigned. Under our temporary
+charter the general manager will preside over this court and cast the
+deciding vote. Nominations are in order for the other four. We want
+two men and two women in this council. In all our deliberations woman
+shall have equal voice with man."</p>
+
+<p>The Bard made a speech of protest against the action about to be
+taken, in the sacred name of liberty.</p>
+
+<p>"This act is the first step on the road to a tyranny more monstrous
+than any ever devised by capitalism!" he shouted, with hands uplifted,
+his long hair flying in wild disorder.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Mooney, an old miner, who had met Norman and become his friend
+during a visit to one of his father's mines, sprang to his feet and
+made a rush for the excited poet. Confronting him a moment, Tom
+inquired:</p>
+
+<p>"Kin I ax ye a few questions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. As many as you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Kin ye cook?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>"Kin ye wash?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kin ye scrub?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ever swing a hod?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not."</p>
+
+<p>"Ever milk a cow?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are ye willin' to learn them things?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't come here for that purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, what t' 'ell ye kickin' about?" Tom cried, and, glaring at the
+poet, he thundered fiercely:</p>
+
+<p>"Set down!"</p>
+
+<p>The man of song was so disconcerted by this unexpected onslaught, and
+by the roars of laughter which greeted Tom's final order, that he
+dropped into his seat, muttering incoherent protests, and the
+balloting for the executive council proceeded at once amid universal
+good humour.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen names were proposed as candidates, and the four receiving the
+highest votes were declared duly elected.</p>
+
+<p>The election resulted in the choice of Herman Wolf, Catherine, Barbara
+Bozenta, and Thomas Mooney.</p>
+
+<p>Tom was amazed at his sudden promotion to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>high office, and insisted
+on resigning in favour of a man of better education.</p>
+
+<p>Norman caught his big horny hand and pressed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Not on your life, Tom. You've made a hit. The people like your hard
+horse-sense. You will make a good judge. Besides, I need you. You're a
+man I can depend on every day in the year."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stick ef you need me, boy&mdash;but I hain't fitten, I tell ye."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll vouch for your fitness&mdash;sit down!"</p>
+
+<p>The last command Norman thundered into Tom's ears in imitation of his
+order to the poet, and the old miner, with a grin, dropped into his
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>As Norman was about to declare the meeting adjourned, the steward
+ascended the platform and whispered a message.</p>
+
+<p>The young leader turned to the crowd and lifted his hand for silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades, a prosaic but very important announcement I have to make. I
+have just been informed that there is no milk for supper. The cows
+have been neglected. They must be milked. I call for a dozen volunteer
+milkmaids until this adjustment can be made. Come, now!&mdash;and a dozen
+young men to assist them. Let's make <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>this a test of your loyalty to
+the cause. All labour is equally honourable. Labour is the service of
+your fellow man. Who will be the first heroine to fill this breach in
+the walls of our defence?"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara sprang forward, with uplifted head, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I will!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll help you!" Norman cried, with a laugh. "Who will join us
+now? Come, you pretty chorus-girls! You wouldn't mind if you carried
+these milk-pails on the stage in a play. Well, this is the biggest
+stage you will ever appear on, and all the millions of the civilized
+world are watching."</p>
+
+<p>A pretty, rosy-cheeked girl joined Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>An admirer followed, and in a moment a dozen girls and their escorts
+had volunteered. They formed in line and marched to the cow lot with
+Norman and Barbara leading, singing and laughing and swinging their
+milk-pails like a crowd of rollicking children.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the pasture where the cows were herded, Norman asked
+Barbara, with some misgivings:</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly, did you ever milk a cow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I have," she promptly replied. "I spent two years on a farm
+once. Do you think <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>I'd make a fool of myself trying before all these
+kids if I hadn't?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know but that you made a bluff at it to lead the others on.
+What can I do, for heaven's sake?"</p>
+
+<p>Norman looked at her in a helpless sort of way while Barbara rolled up
+her sleeves. For the first time he saw her beautifully rounded bare
+arm to its full length. He stood with open-eyed admiration. Never had
+he seen anything so white and round and soft, so subtly and
+seductively suggestive of tenderness and love.</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake, what do I do?" he repeated, blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Get some meal in that bucket for my cow, and see that her calf don't
+get to her&mdash;I'll do the rest."</p>
+
+<p>Norman hustled to the barn with the other boys, got his bucket of
+meal, placed it in front of the cow Barbara had selected, and stood
+watching with admiration the skill with which her deft little hands
+pressed two streams of white milk into the bucket at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness, you're a wonder," he cried, admiringly. "But where's the
+calf I'm supposed to be watching?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that's the one standing close to the gate in the next lot
+watching me with envy. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>first time the gate's opened he'll jump
+through if he gets half a chance&mdash;so look out!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll watch him," Norman promised, without lifting his eyes from the
+rhythmic movement of the bare white arms.</p>
+
+<p>He had scarcely spoken when a careless boy swung the gate wide open,
+and the lusty calf, whose soft eyes had been watching Barbara through
+the fence, made a break for his mother. In a swift, silent rush he
+planted one foot in Barbara's milk-pail, knocked her over with the
+other, switched his tail, and fell to work on his own account without
+further concern. It was all done so suddenly it took Norman's breath.
+He sprang to Barbara's side and helped her to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>Norman grabbed the calf by the ear with one hand and by the tail with
+the other, and started toward the gate.</p>
+
+<p>The animal suddenly ducked his head, plunged forward, jerked Norman to
+his knees, and dragged him ten yards before he could regain his feet.
+The young leader rose, tightened his grip, and started with a rush
+toward the gate, but the calf swerved in time to avoid it, gaining
+speed with each step, and started off with his escort in a mad race
+around the lot, galloping at a terrific speed, bellowing and snorting
+at every jump.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>The others stopped their work to laugh and cheer as round and round
+the maddened little brute flew with the tall, heroic leader galloping
+by his side.</p>
+
+<p>Norman had no time to call for help. He couldn't let go and he
+couldn't stop the calf.</p>
+
+<p>As he made the second round of the lot, upsetting buckets, smashing
+milk-pails, and stampeding peaceful cows, a boy yelled through the
+roars of laughter:</p>
+
+<p>"Twist his tail! Twist his tail an' he'll go the way you want him!"</p>
+
+<p>Norman misunderstood the order, loosened the head and grabbed the tail
+with both hands. With a loud bellow the calf plunged into a wilder
+race around the lot, dragging his tormentor now with regular, graceful
+easy jumps. He made the rounds twice thus, single file, amid screams
+of laughter, suddenly turned and plunged headlong through an osage
+hedge, and left Norman sitting in a dusty heap on the ground among the
+thorns. He rose, brushed his clothes sheepishly, and looked through
+the hedge at the calf which had turned and stood eyeing him now with
+an expression of injured innocence.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara came up, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I've learned something new," Norman quietly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>observed. "All labour
+may be equally honourable. It's not equally expedient. I wish you'd
+look at that beast eyeing me through the fence! It's positively
+uncanny. I believe he's possessed of the devil. I don't wonder at that
+belief of the ancients. I've tackled many a brute on the football
+field&mdash;but this is one on me!"</p>
+
+<p>The brilliant young leader of the new moral world led the procession
+of milkmaids back to the house as the shadows of evening fell, a
+sadder but wiser man for the day's experience.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A NEW ARISTOCRACY</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Three members of the executive council, Norman, Barbara, and Tom,
+began at once the task of assigning work. The problems which
+immediately faced the council were overwhelming, but they were urgent
+and could admit of no delay. The absolute refusal of every member of
+the Brotherhood to do the dirty and disagreeable work brought at once
+two issues to a crisis. Either labour must be voluntary or
+involuntary. The people who did this work must be induced to agree to
+perform it or they must be forced to do it by a superior authority
+without their consent.</p>
+
+<p>They could only be led to choose this work by inducements of an
+extraordinary nature&mdash;the payment of enormously high wages and the
+shortening of each day's work to a ridiculous minimum.</p>
+
+<p>If wages were made unequal, the old problem of inequality would remain
+unsolved. For equal wages no man would lift his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Confronted by this dilemma the executive <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>council decided at once to
+fix wages on an unequal basis rather than reduce its unwilling members
+to a condition of involuntary labour, which is merely a long way to
+spell slavery.</p>
+
+<p>When this decision was announced, Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+once more lifted his voice in solemn protest:</p>
+
+<p>"I denounce this act in the name of every principle which has brought
+us together," he cried, with solemn warning. "You have established a
+system far more infamous than the unequal wages of the old society
+where the law of the survival of the fittest is the court of last
+resort. You have opened the door of fathomless corruption by
+substituting the whim of an executive council for the law of nature.
+It is the beginning of jealousy, strife, favouritism, jobbery, and
+injustice."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what's a better way?" Old Tom asked, with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>"It's your business to find a better way," cried the man of visions.</p>
+
+<p>Tom glared at the poet with a look of fury and Norman whispered to the
+old miner:</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, Tom, you're sitting as a judge in the Supreme Court of
+State!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't help it. I never did have no use for a fool. Ef he can't tell
+us a better way, let 'im shet up."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>Barbara pressed Tom's arm, and he subsided.</p>
+
+<p>The court at once entered into the question of wages for domestic
+service.</p>
+
+<p>It had been agreed, at the suggestion of the Wolfs, that they should
+spend their time in quietly investigating the qualifications of each
+member of the Brotherhood for the work to be assigned, and make their
+reports in secret to the majority of the court, which should sit
+continuously until all had been decided.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Norman, Barbara, nor the old miner suspected for a moment the
+deeper motive which Wolf concealed behind this withdrawal from the
+decision of these cases. They found out in a very startling way later.</p>
+
+<p>The chief cook demanded a hundred dollars a month.</p>
+
+<p>Old Tom snorted with contempt. Norman smiled and spoke kindly:</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, Louis, you only received $75 a month in San Francisco. Here
+the Brotherhood provides every man with his food, his clothes, and his
+house. Wages are merely the inducement used to satisfy each individual
+that labour may still be done by free contract, not by force."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it'll take a hundred a month to satisfy me," was the stolid
+reply. "I didn't come here to cook. I could do that in the old hell we
+lived <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>in. I came here to do better and bigger things. I can do them,
+too&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But we've fixed the salary of the general manager at only
+seventy-five dollars a month, and you demand a hundred?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, and if the general manager prefers my job, I'll trade with you
+and guarantee to do your work better than it's being done."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you will!" old Tom growled, as he leaned over Barbara and
+whispered to Norman.</p>
+
+<p>"Make it thirty dollars a month, and if he don't go to work&mdash;leave him
+to me, I'll beat him till he does it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we can't manage it that way, Tom. We must try to satisfy him."</p>
+
+<p>"Hit's a hold-up, I tell ye&mdash;highway robbery&mdash;the triflin' son of a
+gun! Don't you say so, miss?" Tom appealed earnestly to Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>"We must have cooks, Tom&mdash;and we want everybody to be happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Make him cook, make him&mdash;that's his business&mdash;I'd do it if I knowed
+how. He's got to take what we give 'im. He can't git off this island.
+He enlisted for five years. If he deserts, court-martial and shoot
+him."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of old Tom's bitter protest, Norman and Barbara succeeded in
+persuading the chief cook to accept eighty-five dollars a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>month&mdash;an
+advance of ten dollars over the highest wages he had ever received
+before.</p>
+
+<p>When the eighteen assistant cooks lined up for the settlement of their
+wages a new problem of unexpected proportions was presented. They had
+listened attentively to the case of the chef, and their chosen orator
+presented his argument in brief but emphatic words:</p>
+
+<p>"We demand the exact wages you have voted the chef."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do ye think er that?" old Tom groaned to Norman. "Hit's
+jist like I told ye. Hit's a hold-up."</p>
+
+<p>"We must persuade them, Tom," the young leader replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me persuade 'em!" the old miner pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" Barbara asked, with a twinkle in her brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll line 'em up agin that wall and trim their hair with my
+six-shooter. I won't hurt 'em. But when I finish the job I'll
+guarantee they'll do what I tell 'em without any back talk. You folks
+take a walk and make me Chief Justice fer an hour, and when you come
+back we'll have peace and plenty. Jest try it now, and don't you butt
+in. Let me persuade 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>Norman shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep still, Tom! We must reason with them."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>"Ye 're wastin' yer breath," the miner drawled in disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think, comrades," Norman began, in persuasive tones, "that
+your demands are rather high?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "We come here to get equal
+rights. We don't want to cook. I'm a born actor, myself. I expected to
+play in Shakespeare when I joined the Brotherhood. Anybody that wants
+this job can have it. If we do your hot, dirty, disgusting,
+disagreeable work while the others play in the shade we are going to
+get something for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Even so," the young leader responded, "is it fair that an assistant
+cook should receive equal wages with the chef?"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not? Labour creates all value. The chef's a fakir. We do all
+the work. He never lifts his hand to a pot or pan. He struts and loafs
+through the kitchen and lords it over the men. Let him try to run the
+kitchen without us, and see how much you get to eat! We stand on the
+equal rights of man!"</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear comrade&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't use them words," old Tom pleaded, "jest let me make a few
+remarks&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara pinched Tom's arm and he subsided.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you see," Norman went on, "that we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>are paying the chef for his
+directive ability, for his inventive genius in creating new dishes and
+making old ones more delicious? You but execute his orders."</p>
+
+<p>"We stand square on our principles. Labour creates all values. The
+chef never works. We make every dish that goes to the table. If it has
+any value we make it. We demand our rights!"</p>
+
+<p>The court agreed on fifty dollars a month, and the men refused to
+consider it.</p>
+
+<p>"We prefer to work in the fields, the foundry, the machine-shop, the
+mills, the forests, anywhere you like except the kitchen. Let the chef
+do your work. Good day!"</p>
+
+<p>They turned and marched out in a body and sat down in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>In vain Norman argued and pleaded. They stood their ground with sullen
+determination.</p>
+
+<p>A final clincher which the young leader could not evade always ended
+the argument. The spokesman came back to it with dogged persistence:</p>
+
+<p>"What did you mean, then, when you've been drumming into our ears that
+labour creates all value? We do all the work, don't we?"</p>
+
+<p>The upshot of it was the eighteen assistant cooks marched back into
+the hall, stood before the judges, and all were granted equal wages
+with the chef.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>Whereupon the chef sprang to his feet and faced the court with blazing
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You grant these chumps&mdash;these idiots&mdash;wages equal to mine? Not one of
+them has brains enough to cook an egg if I didn't tell him how. Their
+wages equal to mine. I resign!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom spoke vigorously:</p>
+
+<p>"Now will ye leave him to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Norman and Barbara looked at each other in angry and helpless
+amazement.</p>
+
+<p>The old miner leaped to his feet, made his way down from the platform,
+and with two swift strides reached the chef. He leaned close and
+whispered something in the rebel's ear. There was a moment's
+hesitation and the chef turned, signalled to his assistants, and amid
+cheers marched to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>Tom resumed his seat beside Barbara with a smile, quietly saying:</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way to do business, ladies and gentlemen!"</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say to him?" Barbara asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothin' much," was the careless answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you didn't threaten him, Tom?" Norman asked with some
+misgiving.</p>
+
+<p>"Na&mdash;I didn't threaten him. I spoke quiet and peaceable."</p>
+
+<p>"But what did you tell him?" the young leader persisted.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>"I jest told him I'd give him two minutes ter git back ter the kitchen
+or I'd blow his head off!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid our table will feel the effects of that remark, Tom,"
+Barbara said, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the question of cooks the most urgent issue to be settled was
+the case of the scrubbers, cleaners, and drainmen. The women who had
+been assigned to the tasks of scrubbing the floors, washing the
+windows and dishes, had watched the triumphs of the cooks with keen
+appreciation of their own power. It was easy to see that the more
+disagreeable and disgusting the character of the work, the more
+extravagant the demands which could be made and enforced. The
+scrubbers and dishwashers boldly demanded one hundred dollars a month
+and six hours for a working day, and refused with sullen determination
+to argue the question.</p>
+
+<p>To Barbara's mild and gentle protest their answer was complete and
+stunning:</p>
+
+<p>"You have assigned us this dirty job. Do you want it at any price?"
+asked their orator. "I'll take yours without wages and jump at the
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>Tom lost all interest in the proceedings and drew himself up in a knot
+in his chair. Now and then a growl came from the depths of his
+throat.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>Once he was heard to distinctly articulate:</p>
+
+<p>"This makes me tired."</p>
+
+<p>The court begged and pleaded, cajoled, argued in vain with the
+stubborn scrubwomen. Not an inch would they move in their demands. The
+floors were becoming unspeakably filthy. They had not been scrubbed
+since the arrival of the colony.</p>
+
+<p>Norman turned to Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>"Put the question solemnly to ourselves&mdash;we don't want the job at any
+price, do we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't do it!" she admitted, frankly. "Then what's the use? We
+must be fair. It's worth what they ask."</p>
+
+<p>The court granted the demands and the scrubwomen and dishwashers
+marched to the kitchen and once more the chef tore his hair and cursed
+the fate which brought him to such disgrace as to work with stupid
+subordinates at equal wages and gaze on dishwashers and scrubwomen
+whose wages exceeded his own.</p>
+
+<p>The climax of all demands was reached when the drainman demanded a
+hundred and fifty dollars a month and four hours for each working day.</p>
+
+<p>Norman looked at him in dumb confusion. He knew what he was going to
+say before he opened his mouth and he had no answer.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>The drainman bowed low in mock humility, but the proud wave of his
+hand belied his words.</p>
+
+<p>"My calling was a humble one in the old world, Comrade Judges," he
+said. "I came here to climb mountain heights and find my way among the
+stars. You have sent me back to the sewers. I always felt that I had
+missed my true calling. I've always wanted to be a poet&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The Bard shook his mane and groaned.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want this job at any price. But the sewers are choked. They
+have not been cleaned for two years. It must be done. I've named my
+price. I'll gladly yield to any man who envies my luck. If such a man
+is here let him speak&mdash;or forever hereafter hold his peace."</p>
+
+<p>With a grandiloquent gesture the drainman swept the crowd with his
+eye, but no man responded.</p>
+
+<p>The court granted his demand.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard leaped once more to his feet and entered his protest. This
+time old Tom listened with interest. His concluding sentence rang with
+bitter irony:</p>
+
+<p>"Against these absurd decisions I lift my voice once more in solemn
+protest. We came to this charmed island to abolish all class
+distinctions. You have destroyed the old classes based on culture,
+achievement, genius, wealth, and power. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>You have created a new
+aristocracy on whose shield is emblazoned&mdash;a dish-rag and
+scrubbing-brush encircled by a sewer pipe! I make my most humble bow
+to our new king&mdash;the drainman! I hail the apotheosis of the
+scrubwoman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Say, you give me a pain&mdash;shut up" thundered Tom.</p>
+
+<p>The singer collapsed with a sigh and the crowd laughed.</p>
+
+<p>The foreman of the farm brought two men before the court and asked for
+important instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrade Judges," he began, "I had two men assigned to me a week ago
+whom I don't want and won't have at any price. I return them to the
+Brotherhood with thanks. You can do what you please with them."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" Norman asked, with some irritation.</p>
+
+<p>The foreman shoved and kicked a man in front of the judges.</p>
+
+<p>"This fool&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You must not use such language, Mr. Foreman," Barbara interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Comrade Judges," he apologized. "This coyote I put
+on a mowing-machine yesterday. He said he knew how to run it. He broke
+it on a smooth piece of ground <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>the first hour. I gave him another and
+he wrecked it before noon. It will take the labour of five men two
+days to repair the damage he has done. I don't want him at any price."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you to say?" Norman asked the accused.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't my fault. The thing broke itself."</p>
+
+<p>"But how did it happen twice the same day, sonny?" Tom asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno. Hit jist happened," was the dogged answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I've another scoundrel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You must not use such language," Barbara broke in.</p>
+
+<p>"Again begging the pardon of Comrade Judges," the foreman continued:
+"This dog"&mdash;he kicked another slovenly looking lout before the
+judges&mdash;"tore to pieces the shoulders of two pairs of horses with
+careless harnessing before I found him and kicked him out of the
+stables. Those four horses can't work for a month. We'll have to pay
+at least $500 for two teams right away to take their places, or lose a
+crop of hay."</p>
+
+<p>Tom glared at the culprit.</p>
+
+<p>"What did ye ruin them horses' shoulders fer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know it," was the sulking answer.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>"He's a liar!" cried the foreman. "He put the same collars on their
+galled necks three days in succession and beat them unmercifully when
+they couldn't pull the load."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say, Tom?" Norman asked.</p>
+
+<p>The old miner glared at the last culprit and his grim mouth tightened:</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, you kin do as ye please, but any man that'll abuse a hoss will
+commit murder. I'd put the fust one in the cow lot to shovellin'
+compost. This one I'd quietly lynch&mdash;no public rumpus about it&mdash;jest
+take 'im down by the beach, hang 'im to one of them posts on the pier,
+shoot 'im full of holes, and drop 'im into the sea to be sure he don't
+come back to life."</p>
+
+<p>Norman conferred with Barbara a moment and rendered the decision:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Foreman, the first man is transferred from the field machinery to
+the compost-heap in the barnyard. The second man who disabled the
+horses will assist in cleaning the sewers. Their wages will remain the
+same as before."</p>
+
+<p>A round of applause greeted this decision.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard renewed his attack with unusual zeal. Standing before the
+court and shaking his long hair he cried:</p>
+
+<p>"At last the climax of tyranny! Two comrades condemned without a jury
+and without <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>defense! I congratulate you. In one day you have
+established an aristocracy of filth and created a penal colony without
+a hearing or appeal. We are making progress."</p>
+
+<p>The old miner grunted, Barbara smiled tenderly at Norman, and the
+court adjourned.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>SOME TROUBLES IN HEAVEN</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Norman found it necessary for the executive council to sit
+continuously for the adjustment of disputes and the settlement of new
+problems which arose at every step of progress in the new moral world.</p>
+
+<p>He had condemned the sins of the old world of capitalism with cocksure
+certainty. Now that he had been made a supreme judge with power to
+adjust the rights and wrongs of his fellow man, he was appalled at the
+magnitude of the task of substituting an ideal for the reign of
+natural law under which civilization had been slowly evolved.</p>
+
+<p>There were two men in the Brotherhood whom he grew early to hate with
+cordial, thorough, murderous hatred&mdash;Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+who always denounced every decision as unjust, and a tall,
+hooked-nosed, stoop-shouldered, scholarly looking man named Diggs, who
+invariably sat near him and at every conceivable opportunity asked
+questions. These questions were always put in an innocent, friendly
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>way, but when Diggs looked at him through his gleaming spectacles
+Norman always got the impression that an imp of the devil had suddenly
+popped up through the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The first day after the general assignment of work Diggs rose before
+the council, adjusted his glasses, and drew a piece of paper from his
+pocket. Norman knew before he spoke that the document bristled with
+questions. Diggs's glasses had always fascinated him, but to-day they
+seemed of unusual thickness and enormous size, and their concave
+surfaces seemed to flash light from a thousand angles.</p>
+
+<p>Diggs adjusted them on his hook-nose with deliberation and glanced
+carefully over his notes before speaking.</p>
+
+<p>Norman turned to Barbara with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>She pressed his hand in silent sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry!" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Norman's breath quickened as he answered the pressure of the soft,
+warm fingers but he managed to move his chair and break the effects of
+her spell without revealing to her the effort it cost. Each hour of
+their association he felt the cords he dare not try to break tighten
+about his heart. He determined each day to put the thought from him.
+Over and over again with grim resolution he repeated his vow:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>"I'll keep a clear head. I've got to decide this issue on its merits.
+I owe it to my generous friends who made it possible."</p>
+
+<p>He had avoided her for the last few days. She guessed the cause
+intuitively and knew that he was fighting with desperation to escape
+the net she was slowly weaving about him. She began to watch the
+struggle now with a curious fascination in which cruelty and
+tenderness were equally mixed. The idea of surrendering her own heart
+had never once entered her pretty head.</p>
+
+<p>Her life had been lived in a strange war with human society. Man had
+always appeared to her imagination as an enemy. She had never trusted
+one&mdash;least of all Wolf, the big, impassive animal who had dominated
+the life of her foster-mother.</p>
+
+<p>With deliberate and cruel art she had set out to master the heart of
+the man who sat by her side. The task was accepted as part of her
+work. She had enlisted as a soldier in the Cause. She had received the
+orders from headquarters. When the deed was done she would turn to a
+greater task. She had expected to be bored by his idiotic love making.
+Now her curiosity was beginning to be piqued by his silence. She began
+vaguely to wonder each moment what <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>kind of pictures she was making in
+his mind. Her brown eyes searched the depths of his soul in a dumb way
+that sent the blood rushing to Norman's heart, but each time he had
+eluded her.</p>
+
+<p>He sat in moody silence now, giving no response to her words of cheer.
+She roused him from his reverie with a plaintive protest.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter? Have I, too, offended?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned quickly and crushed her hand in his strong grasp:</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake don't <i>you</i> get into the habit of asking me
+questions! How could you offend? Your face is my lighthouse set on the
+cliffs, calm, serene, joyful. I couldn't get through a day without
+you."</p>
+
+<p>A smiling answer was just trembling on her lips when Diggs began to
+speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the human interrogation point," Barbara laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrade Judges," Diggs began, with guileless good humour, "while we
+are shaping the form of our ideal State for its permanent organization
+I wish to submit some questions which may help us in our search for
+truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Questions," Norman whispered, "which any fool can ask, but the angels
+of God can't answer."</p>
+
+<p>"But we will answer them!" she flashed, with defiant courage.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>"We agree," Diggs went on, "that society must be governed in some way.
+There must be rulers, but how shall we choose our rulers, and with
+what powers shall we clothe them? We can begin to see that the head of
+our social system must at times exercise the full powers of the State.
+Into whose hands can this enormous power be entrusted, and how shall
+he be called to account?"</p>
+
+<p>Diggs paused, and Norman flushed at this question, for he took it as a
+personal thrust. He had occasion to change his mind later.</p>
+
+<p>"How can we," the questioner went on, "retain our democratic liberties
+as law makers as we grow in numbers? Now we can all meet in general
+assembly. When the State numbers even five thousand this will not be
+possible. Will not our politics become even more corrupt than the old
+system, seeing how enormous the power over the smallest details of
+life which these legislators possess?</p>
+
+<p>"As our society grows&mdash;and thousands are now clamouring for
+admission&mdash;how is wealth to be distributed? Who shall determine, in
+this larger society, who shall be common labourers, who poets,
+artists, musicians, preachers, managers? Who shall appoint editors?
+And who shall call them to account if they publish treason against the
+State? What shall be done with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>ever-increasing number of the
+lazy, dishonest, and criminal members of the community?</p>
+
+<p>"Who shall determine how much mental work is equivalent to so much
+manual labour, seeing how vast is the difference in the value of one
+man's brain product over another's? How can men who are not artists,
+poets, or musicians determine the value of such work? Or how can one
+poet be just to his rival if he be made the judge? When our theatre is
+opened, who shall select the actors? Who shall decide whether they are
+incompetent? Who shall decide on the selection of the star? What shall
+be done with an actor, for example, who should spit in the face of a
+judge deciding adversely? Suppose a man offends the judge? Shall he be
+punished? If so, who shall do it?</p>
+
+<p>"How can we prevent a man from losing his wages playing poker with his
+neighbour if he does so joyfully?</p>
+
+<p>"What shall be done with a man who works outside regular hours and
+accumulates a vast private fortune?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say, ain't you worked your jaw overtime now?" old Tom broke in
+rudely. "We'll take them things up when we come to 'em. We got
+somethin' else to do now&mdash;set down!"</p>
+
+<p>"These are only friendly suggestions for thought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>as we develop our
+ideal," Diggs answered, with smiling good nature, as he resumed his
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes me want to kill that man," Norman muttered to Barbara, "is
+the unfailing politeness and unction with which he asks those
+questions."</p>
+
+<p>"Patience! patience!" was the low, musical reply. "These little things
+will all adjust themselves."</p>
+
+<p>Methodist John pressed to the front and poured out to the judges a
+story of wrong and asked for justice.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barbara," he began, in plaintive tones, "you was always good to
+me in the other world, but since we've got here even you don't seem
+the same. Everybody's hard and cold. They hain't got no sympathy here
+for a poor man. In the other world I missed my callin'&mdash;I was born for
+the ministry. I come here to serve the Lord. And now they make me work
+so hard I ain't even got time to pray. I ask for a licence to preach
+the gospel. Just give me a chance. They've put me to feedin' hogs and
+tendin' ter calves. I ain't fit for such work. I want to call sinners
+to repentance, not swine to their swill. I tell ye I've been buncoed.
+It ain't a square deal. I left the poorhouse to come with you to
+heaven and, by gum, I've landed in the workhouse&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>"And ef yer don't shet up and git back ter yer work," Tom thundered,
+"you'll land in the hospital&mdash;you hear me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't er talkin' to you, you cussin, swearin', ungodly son of the
+devil," the old man answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, John," Norman interrupted, as he held Tom back. "We can't
+grant your request. We are not ready to undertake religious work yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, God knows ye need it!" John muttered, as the crowd pushed him
+away.</p>
+
+<p>At the door Catherine greeted him as he passed out, whispered
+encouraging words, and sent him back to his tasks more cheerful. She
+had taken her stand thus each day; and, while Wolf was busy quietly
+mingling with the men outside getting the facts as to the progress of
+each department, the tall graceful woman of soft voice and madonna
+face was fast becoming the friend and sympathizer of each discontented
+worker. She had now assumed the task of peacemaker after each harsh
+decision had been rendered, and did her work with rare skill&mdash;a skill
+which promised big results in the dawning State of Ventura.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Bob Worth, an old Negro, bowed low before the judges. He had
+been a slave of Norman's grandfather in North Carolina and had joined
+the colony out of admiration for the young leader.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>"Marse Norman," he solemnly began.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't call me 'master,' Bob," Norman interrupted. "Remember that we
+are all comrades here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yassah! Yassah! Marse Norman, I try to 'member dat sah, but 'pears
+ter me dey's somefin' wrong bout dis whole 'comrade' business, sah!
+I'se er 'comrade' now but I'se wuss off dan I eber wuz. 'Fo' I come
+here I wuz er butler, and I wuz er gemmen&mdash;yas-sah, ef I do hat ter
+say it myself&mdash;and I allus live wid gemmens an' sociate wid gemmens. I
+come out here wid you ter be a white man an' er equal. Dat's what dey
+all say. I be er equal 'comrade.' I make up my mind dat I jine de
+minstrel band, pick de banjer, an' sing de balance er my life. Bress
+God, what happen. Dey make me a hod-carrier and make me 'sociate wid
+low-down po' white trash. I ain't come here ter be no 'comrade' wid
+dem kin' er folks. Dey ain't my equal, sah, an' I can't 'ford to
+'sociate wid 'em. What's fuddermo, sah, carryin' a hod ain't my
+business&mdash;hit don't suit my health an' brick-dust ain't good fur my
+complexion, sah!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom grunted contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>Norman smiled and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, Comrade Bob," he replied. "We haven't men enough to organize
+the minstrels yet. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>We must rush the new building. We have thousands
+of new members clamouring to join. We have nowhere to house them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yassah, an' I 'spec' dey'll be clamourin' ter unjine fo' long," old
+Bob muttered, as he passed on to be comforted by Catherine's soothing
+words.</p>
+
+<p>Saka, the Indian, whom Colonel Worth had educated, had followed
+Norman. He demanded a return ticket to the Colonel's hunting lodge.</p>
+
+<p>It was promptly refused. Catherine attempted to soothe his ruffled
+feelings. He snapped his fingers in her face and grunted.</p>
+
+<p>The Brotherhood of Man saw Saka no more for many moons, but the crack
+of his rifle was heard on the mountain side and the smoke of his tepee
+curled defiantly from the neighbouring plains.</p>
+
+<p>The chef appeared before the court in answer to numerous complaints
+about the table.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have the law laid down for the tables, Comrade Judges," he
+demanded. "One man wants one thing and another refuses to eat at the
+table where such food is served. A dozen men and women ask only for
+bread, vegetables, and nuts. They refuse to eat meat. They refuse to
+allow me to cook it or any one else to eat it if they can help it.
+They make my life miserable. I want permission to kick them out of the
+kitchen. They <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>demand the right to inspect my pots and pans to see if
+meat has touched them. They must go or I go. I will not be insulted by
+fools. If you do not give me permission to kick these people out of
+the kitchen I will do so without permission. You can take your
+choice."</p>
+
+<p>The cook mopped his brow and sat down with a defiant wave of his arm.</p>
+
+<p>A woman who had been a leader of the W.C.T.U. pressed forward before
+the cook's demand could be considered.</p>
+
+<p>"And I demand in the name of truth, purity, righteousness, justice,
+faith, and God, that no more wine be allowed on the table. I demand
+that we burn the wine house and issue an order to the cook never
+again, under penalty of imprisonment for life, to use a drop of
+alcohol in the food he serves to the Brotherhood&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And I also demand, Comrade Judges," the cook interrupted, "the right
+to throw that woman out of the kitchen and have her fined and
+imprisoned the next time she dares to interfere with my business. She
+got into the pantry yesterday and destroyed five hundred mince pies
+because she smelled brandy in them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I'll do it again if you dare to poison the bodies and souls
+of my comrades with that hellish stuff!" she cried, triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>"I'd like to know," the cook shouted, "how I'm to do my work if every
+fool in creation can butt into my business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Softly! Softly!" Norman warned.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean it!" thundered the chef. "This woman swears she will wreck the
+dining-room if I dare to place wine again on our bill of fare. I want
+to know if she's in command of this colony? If so, you can count me
+out!"</p>
+
+<p>"And while we are on this point, Comrade Judges," spoke up a
+mild-looking little man, "I have summoned a neighbour of mine to
+appear before you and show cause why he should <i>not</i> cease to have
+sauerkraut served at breakfast. He sits at my table. I've begged him
+to stop it. I've begged the cook to stop cooking the stuff, but he
+bribes the cook&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lie," shouted the chef.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him do it, your honours," the little man went on. "I'm a
+small-sized man or I'd lick him. I tried to move my seat but they
+wouldn't let me. I pledge you my word when he brings that big dish of
+steaming sauerkraut to our table it fogs the whole end of the
+dining-room. The odour is so strong it not only stops you from eating,
+you can't think. It knocks you out for the day."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible," Norman inquired, "that there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>is a human being among
+us who eats sauerkraut for breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's no doubt about it, comrade," promptly responded a tall,
+strapping-looking fellow, with a dark, scholarly face, as he stepped
+to the front.</p>
+
+<p>"That's him!" cried the little accuser. "I made him come. Told him I'd
+organize a party to lynch him if he didn't. He won't dare deny it. I
+can prove it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no desire to deny that I eat sauerkraut, you little ape," he
+replied with scorn. "I come of German ancestry, comrades. My
+great-grandfather helped to create this nation. He was a pure-blooded
+German. I inherit from him my personal likes and dislikes. Sauerkraut
+is the best breakfast food ever served to man. It is a pure vegetable
+malt. It is wholesome, clean, healthful, and keeps the system of a
+brain worker in perfect order. I eat it with ham gravy and good hot
+wheat biscuits. It is some trouble for the cook to prepare this
+particular kind of soft tea-biscuit for me. I paid him a little extra
+for this bread&mdash;not the kraut. I suggest to your honours that you make
+sauerkraut a standard breakfast diet as a health measure. They may
+kick a little at first, but I assure you it will improve the health
+and character of the colony. If this little chap who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>accuses me were
+put on a diet of kraut for breakfast it might even now make a man of
+him. I not only have nothing to apologize for, I bring you good
+tidings. I proclaim sauerkraut the only perfect health food for
+breakfast, and I suggest its compulsory use. The man who sits next to
+me eats snails. I think the habit a filthy and dangerous one. If you
+are going into this question, do it thoroughly. Let us fix by law what
+is fit to eat, and stick to it. I'll back sauerkraut before any
+dietary commission ever organized on earth."</p>
+
+<p>The council appointed a commission to conduct hearings and make a
+rigid code of laws establishing the kind of foods for each meal.</p>
+
+<p>Again Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, rose, shook his long hair and
+cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>Norman lifted his hand for silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I anticipate the poet's words. You solemnly protest against the
+further establishment of a tyranny which shall dare prescribe your
+food from day to day. I grieve over the necessity of these laws and
+mingle my tears with yours in advance. But, in the language of a
+distinguished citizen of the old republic, 'we are confronted by a
+condition, not a theory.' The council stands adjourned."</p>
+
+<p>The Bard poured his bitter protest into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>Catherine's patient ears and
+left with a growing conviction of her wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>The woman with the drooping eyelids stood watching his retreating
+figure while a quiet smile of contempt played about her full, sensuous
+lips.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE UNCONVENTIONAL</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Within a week it was necessary to appoint a commission to formulate an
+elaborate code of laws regulating various nuisances which had
+developed in the community.</p>
+
+<p>A kitchen-boy insisted on playing a cornet in his room. He didn't know
+a musical from a promissory note but he swore he'd become a musician
+before he died. His efforts came near proving fatal to his neighbours
+before he was suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>Several women had pet parrots. The people who lived near by
+strenuously objected. The parrots had to go.</p>
+
+<p>A sailor had brought a monkey whose manners were not appreciated by
+any one except his master. The monkey had to go. Cats were arraigned
+for trial and a fierce battle raged over the question of allowing them
+in the building. The question was finally put to the popular vote in
+the assembly and the cats won by a good majority. But strict laws
+regulating the kind of cats, their number, and their care, were put
+into force.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>Dogs won by a large majority when they were finally put on trial.</p>
+
+<p>The commission on nuisances had finally to make a code of laws
+regulating table manners and the conduct of all social gatherings.</p>
+
+<p>The one question which all but precipitated a civil war was the
+problem of dress. Inequality of wages meant, of necessity, inequality
+of dress.</p>
+
+<p>A desperate effort was made by a large number to force the community
+to adopt a uniform for both men and women. It was fiercely opposed.
+Every woman who believed herself good looking refused to listen to any
+argument on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>It was necessary at once, however, to formulate some sort of code. A
+number of men had been coming into the dining-room in their shirt
+sleeves. Some of them apparently never combed their hair or changed
+their linen. A number of women had gotten into the habit of coming
+into the dining-room in loose wrappers of variegated colors and
+without corsets.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard of Ramcat was particularly severe in his public criticism of
+these women in the general assembly of the Brotherhood.</p>
+
+<p>"In the name of beauty, I protest!" he cried. "Beauty is an attribute
+of God. It is woman's first duty to be beautiful, and if she isn't, at
+least to make man think she is. I insist that she shall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>have the
+widest liberty in the choice of dress. Only let her be careful that
+she is beautiful!"</p>
+
+<p>The poet was heartily applauded, and a resolution was passed which
+embodied his ideas, approving the widest freedom of choice in dress,
+approving especially unconventional forms of dress, provided always
+the ideal of beauty was held inviolate.</p>
+
+<p>In his speech advocating the immediate passage of the resolution the
+Bard urged every woman to outdo herself in the struggle for supreme
+beauty of appearance at the weekly ball on Friday evening.</p>
+
+<p>His resolutions and speech bore surprising fruit.</p>
+
+<p>When the festivities were at their height a crowd of fifteen pretty
+girls suddenly swept into the brilliantly lighted ball-room in tights!
+The sensation was so instantaneous and overwhelming the music stopped
+with a crash. The orchestra thought somebody had yelled fire.</p>
+
+<p>The girls in their beautiful but unconventional dress tried to appear
+unconcerned. But even the Bard was appalled at the results.</p>
+
+<p>The pretty young chorus-girls had taken him at his word. They had
+always cherished a secret desire to live in an unconventional real
+world, where they could have a chance to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>themselves, without the
+hideous skirts of conventional society veiling their beauty. They had
+brought these costumes with them and joined the new moral world in the
+firm faith that their ideal would be realized. It had come very
+slowly, but it had come at last.</p>
+
+<p>They donned their beautiful costumes with hearts fluttering in
+triumphant pride. But they had huddled into a corner of the ball-room
+in a panic of fright at the insane commotion their honest efforts to
+promote beauty had caused. One by one every woman in skirts save
+Barbara and Catherine left the room. The married ones seized their
+husbands and pushed them out ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Norman, who was dancing with Barbara, broke down and burst into a
+paroxysm of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the girls began to cry, but others made a brave effort to face
+the crowd of eager, giggling boys who pressed nearer.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard approached with a serious look on his noble brow,
+deliberately put on his glasses and surveyed the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girls," he began, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart
+for the sincerity and honesty of your efforts to express beauty in
+unconventional form, but really this is beyond my wildest
+expectation."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>Catherine drove the rude boys out of the room and closed the windows,
+while Barbara kissed the tears away from the hysterical innovators and
+led them back to their rooms.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning the general assembly held an unusually solemn meeting
+at which it was voted by a large majority to settle at once and
+forever the question of dress by adopting a Socialist uniform of
+scarlet and white for the women, and for the men a dull gray suit with
+scarlet bands on the sleeve, a scarlet stripe and belt for the
+trousers.</p>
+
+<p>The discussion was brief and Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+protested in vain.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A PAIR OF COLD GRAY EYES</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>From the night of the ball at which the group of chorus-girls made
+their sensational entrance in tights, Norman had his hands full.
+Disorder had rapidly grown in the Brotherhood. Two distinct parties
+began to line up for a desperate struggle for supremacy, the one
+standing for the widest liberty of the individual members of the
+community, the other demanding the stern enforcement of law and order
+and the formulation of a complete and strict code of rules for the
+government of daily conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Among the men assigned to various tasks there gradually appeared a
+number who slighted their work. From carelessness they drifted into
+utter incompetency and downright laziness. Groups of these loafers
+began to hang around the house daily.</p>
+
+<p>When they had spent the last penny of their credit at the general
+store of the community, they began to steal. Not a day or night passed
+but complaints of thefts were made from every department of the
+colony. One of the most serious of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>these burglaries was the robbery
+of the winery of an enormous quantity of the most valuable wines.</p>
+
+<p>Drunkenness had already become one of the serious problems of the
+Brotherhood, and the right to buy of the steward had been denied a
+large number of men and several women. These people began at once to
+show signs of intoxication. It was plain that the thieves had hidden
+this wine and that they were carrying on a secret traffic with those
+to whom it had been forbidden.</p>
+
+<p>With the increase of reckless drunkenness another evil grew with
+alarming rapidity, the carousing of boisterous men and women. One of
+them very quickly passed the limits of tolerance. She was in many
+respects the most beautiful girl in the colony, barely nineteen years
+old, with luxuriant blond hair, and big, wide, staring baby-blue eyes.
+She had with it all a smile so saucy, so winsome, so elfish, and yet
+so innocent, it was impossible for the average man or woman to think
+ill of her. To every appeal of Barbara she merely showed her pretty
+white teeth in a winsome smile, promised her anything she asked, and
+proceeded to do as she liked.</p>
+
+<p>At last her room was declared an intolerable nuisance by a committee
+appointed to enter the complaint on behalf of her neighbours on the
+floor on which she lived. The night before this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>committee appealed to
+Barbara two boys had fought a desperate fist duel in this room. The
+noise had roused the neighbours, and the case could no longer be
+ignored by the executive council.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara was sent to this room with full power to deal with the
+offender.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens," cried the girl, her big blue eyes opening wide with
+injured innocence, "how could I help it? They're both in love with me.
+I don't care a rap for either one of them, but they got to fighting,
+and I couldn't stop them. I threw a pitcher of water on them, but they
+kept right on. I'd have called the police, but there was none to call.
+It wasn't my fault."</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear Blanche," pleaded Barbara, "can't you see that you are
+bringing scandal and disgrace into the colony?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not me!" the pretty lips pouted. "It's these old women who are
+talking. Let them shut their mouths and attend to their own business.
+I'm not bothering them."</p>
+
+<p>"You deny the accusations they bring against your good name?" Barbara
+said, with some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I deny them," she snapped. "I've got to have some fun,
+haven't I? I can't help it that a dozen boys come to see me and nobody
+ever sees the old tabbies who lie about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>me, can I? I can't help it
+that they are old and ugly, can I?"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara had ceased to listen to the glib tongue, whose lying chatter
+tired her. She looked about the room with increasing amazement. It was
+stuffed with presents of every conceivable description. Costly rugs
+adorned the floor. Soft pillows filled the couch by the window. Dainty
+and expensive works of art adorned her mantel, and the richest and
+most beautiful underwear lay in a smoothly laundered pile on her
+luxuriant bed.</p>
+
+<p>"And how did you get all these costly and beautiful things, my dear?"
+Barbara asked, with a touch of sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>The big blue eyes opened wide again with wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the boys who are in love with me gave them. Why shouldn't they?
+I can't help it that they are foolish, can I? God made them so."</p>
+
+<p>"And you accepted these rich and costly things in perfect innocence of
+the evil meaning others might put on them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! How can I keep their tongues from wagging? Life's too
+short. I have but one life to live. I can't waste it worrying over
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>For the first time in her career Barbara stood face to face with naked
+evil&mdash;with a liar to whom a lie was good&mdash;a radiantly beautiful girl
+to whom shame was sweet.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the thought was suffocating. She looked out of the window
+at the infinite blue sea until the tears slowly blinded her. The first
+doubt of her theory of life crept into her heart and threw its shadow
+over the ideal of the new world she had built.</p>
+
+<p>She took the girl's hand, slipped her arm around her neck, kissed the
+soft, shining hair, and sobbed:</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little foolish sister! I'm afraid you've broken my heart
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't done a thing! Honestly, I haven't!" the lusty young liar
+rattled on and on, in a hundred silly, vain protests, which Barbara
+never heard.</p>
+
+<p>She left the room at length with a sickening sense of defeat, though
+the girl had promised her on the honour of her soul never again to
+give the slightest cause for complaint.</p>
+
+<p>Many a day she had trudged through the streets of the great city,
+after hours of nerve-racking struggles with sin and shame and despair
+in the old world, but she had always come home at night with a heart
+singing a battle-hymn of victory. She knew the cause of all the pain,
+and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>she had given her life to right the wrong. Nothing daunted her,
+nothing disconcerted her. In the end triumph was sure, and while she
+felt this there could be no such thing as failure.</p>
+
+<p>She stood before the full meeting of the executive council, honestly
+reported the case, and for the first time tasted the bitterness of
+defeat, helpless, complete, and overwhelming. While she was talking a
+peculiar expression in Wolf's cold gray eyes suddenly caught her
+attention and fixed her gaze on him with a curious fascination and
+horror. Wolf was quick to note her look, recovered himself and smiled
+in his old fatherly, friendly way.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, comrade. We've got to meet and settle such questions.
+They are merely the inheritance of civilization. It will take a little
+time, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>But as Barbara's gaze lingered on the heavy brutal lines of Wolf's
+massive figure and she caught again the gleam of his gray eyes a
+sickening sense of foreboding gripped her heart.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE FIGHTING INSTINCT</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>As questions of discipline became more and more pressing old Tom
+refused to sit as an active judge in the executive council.</p>
+
+<p>Norman protested in vain against his decision to retire for a while.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do no good settin' thar listenin' to them fools," the miner
+declared. "They make me sick. Besides, ye all vote me down when I
+tells ye what to do, and things keep on goin' from bad to worse. Jest
+let me git out and move around among the boys a little. I think I can
+do some good. You folks is all too chicken-hearted to run this
+Brotherhood. Love and fellowship is all right, but ye've got ter mix a
+little law and common sense before ye can straighten the kinks out of
+this here community."</p>
+
+<p>Norman gave his consent reluctantly, and was amazed at the end of a
+week to observe a remarkable improvement in the spirit of the colony.
+Loafers disappeared, stealing all but ceased, drinking and fighting
+were on the decrease.</p>
+
+<p>One by one old Tom had taken the loafers with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>him on a long walk up
+the beach. He was usually gone about an hour and always came back
+laughing and chatting with his friend in the best of humour.
+Invariably the loafer went to work.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way he took a walk with each one of a crowd of wild,
+unmannerly boys, whose rudeness at the table and whose horse-play
+about the building had become unendurable. The effects of these walks
+seemed magical. Always the pair returned in a fine humour and the most
+marked revolution was immediately noted in the conduct of the
+offender.</p>
+
+<p>Norman asked the old man again and again for the secret of his power.</p>
+
+<p>He replied in the most casual way:</p>
+
+<p>"Just had a plain heart-to-heart talk with 'em and told 'em what had
+to be&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+<p>The good work had continued for a week with uninterrupted success,
+when a bomb was suddenly exploded in the executive council by the
+appearance of an irate mother leading an insolent fourteen-year-old
+cub, who walked rather stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>Amid a silence that was painful, the mother stripped the boy to the
+waist, thrust him before Norman and Barbara, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, tell them what you've just told me."</p>
+
+<p>The boy glanced cautiously around to see if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>his enemy were near and
+poured forth a tale the like of which had never been heard before.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Tom asked me to take a walk with him. He got me away off in a
+lonely place behind the big rocks on that little island up the beach
+and pulled up a plank drawbridge so I couldn't get back till he wanted
+to let me. He stripped me like this, tied me to a whipping-post and
+nearly beat the life out of me. He said he'd been appointed by the
+council to settle with me in private so nobody would know anything
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Said that he had been appointed by the council to whip you?" Norman
+asked, in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what he said, sir," the boy went on. "He gave me forty-nine
+lashes with a cowhide and then set down and talked to me a half hour."</p>
+
+<p>"And what did he say?" Norman inquired, forcing back a smile by a
+desperate effort.</p>
+
+<p>"He told me that he tried to get out of the work, but the council had
+forced it on him. Said there oughtn't to be no hard feelings, that it
+was a dirty, tiresome job, and he didn't have no pleasure in it, but
+it had to be done for the salvation of the people. He said it wasn't
+wise to talk about such things among the Brotherhood. I told him I'd
+tell my ma the minute I got home. He said that would be foolish, that
+none of the others had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>said a word, that they had all taken their
+medicine like little men."</p>
+
+<p>"He told you he had whipped all the others who had taken that walk
+with him?" Norman gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what he said, sir," the boy insisted, "and I guess he had, for
+they'd pawed a hole in the sand 'round that whipping-post big enough
+to bury a horse in."</p>
+
+<p>The boy paused and his mother shook him angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell what else he said to you!"</p>
+
+<p>The cub glanced hastily toward the door and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Said if I opened my mouth about what had happened he'd skin me
+alive."</p>
+
+<p>The council sent the mother and son away with the assurance of
+immediate action.</p>
+
+<p>The court adjourned and Norman started with Barbara at once to find
+Tom. Faithful to his new calling he had strolled up the beach with a
+man who once had been his partner as a prospector and miner. Joe
+Weatherby had been drinking heavily the week before and Tom had keenly
+felt the disgrace his old partner had brought on the Brotherhood by
+his rudeness in the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>Joe had thrown a plate of soup in the face of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>a boy who was making
+facetious remarks about his capacity for strong drink. When rebuked by
+his neighbours he had accentuated his displeasure by overturning the
+table and smashing every dish on it. He ended the affair by roundly
+cursing the Brotherhood for its rules and regulations interfering with
+his personal liberty, threw his pack on his back, and struck the trail
+for the mountains to prospect for gold.</p>
+
+<p>He had just returned, after a week's absence, and Tom seized the
+opportunity to invite Joe to take a walk with him.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing the character of the two men, Norman felt quite sure this walk
+could not possibly have the usual happy ending that attended so many
+of these performances.</p>
+
+<p>He quickened his pace.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry, or we may have a funeral for our next function," he cried,
+with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of a mile up the beach the sound of loud angry words
+suddenly struck their ears from behind a pile of huge boulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, we're just in time!" Barbara cried, "they've begun to
+quarrel."</p>
+
+<p>They cautiously approached the boulders and climbed to the top of the
+larger one overlooking the scene Tom had evidently chosen for his
+debate with Joe.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>"Hadn't you better part them now?" Barbara asked with some anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'll stop them in time. I want to get acquainted with Tom's
+methods of persuasion first."</p>
+
+<p>Tom's voice was rising in accents of wrath. "Joe, I'm a man o'
+peace&mdash;I'm a member o' the Brotherhood and you're my brother, but I'll
+tell ye right now we've got to have law and order in this
+community&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And I say, Tom Mooney, there hain't no law exceptin' what's inside a
+man."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but how kin ye git any law inside a man ef he's always chuck
+full er licker?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't drink to 'mount to nothin'," Joe protested. "Just a drop now
+an' then ter keep me in good health."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, ef you try any more capers in that dinin'-room, your health's
+goin' ter break clean down&mdash;yer hear me?"</p>
+
+<p>Joe eyed Tom a moment and said with sharp emphasis:</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon I can take care o' myself, partner, without you settin' up
+nights to worry about me."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just the trouble, Joe, ye can't. You jined the Brotherhood,
+but yer faith's gettin' weak. I'm afeard you're onregenerate,
+conceived in sin <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>an' brought forth in iniquity, an' ye ain't had no
+change er heart nohow."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, what are ye drivin' at?" Joe asked, beginning to back away
+cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I just want ter strengthen yer faith, partner," Tom protested kindly
+as he advanced good-naturedly and laid his hand on Joe's arm.</p>
+
+<p>Joe shook it off and turned to go. With a sudden spring Tom was on
+him. A brief, fierce struggle ensued marked by low, savage growls like
+two bull-dogs clinched and searching for each other's throats.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop them! Stop them! They'll kill one another," pleaded Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>"No. It'll do them good. Wait," he replied, watching them
+breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Here! Here, you old fool," growled Joe. "Do you call this the
+Brotherhood of Man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my son, and specially the Fatherhood er God. The Lord chastens
+them he loveth!"</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden twist the writhing figures fell in the sand, Tom on top
+pinning Joe down.</p>
+
+<p>Joe fought with fierce strength to rise but it was no use.</p>
+
+<p>Tom clutched his throat and choked him steadily into submission.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm er man o' peace, Joe," he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are!" the bottom one growled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>"But when I mingles with the unregenerate, my son, I trusts in God an'
+keeps my powder dry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me up, you old fool!" Joe growled.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, my son!" was the firm answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get my dander up in a minute and some body's goin' ter git
+hurt," warned the prostrate figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Please make them quit," Barbara whispered tremblingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense. They're enjoying themselves," Norman softly laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you tryin' ter do anyhow?" whined Joe.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm callin' a lost sinner to repentance," was the prompt answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Lemme up, I tell ye," Joe yelled, struggling with desperation.</p>
+
+<p>Tom choked him again into silence and seated himself comfortably
+across Joe's stomach.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Joseph, my boy. I want you ter say over the catechism of the
+Brotherhood of Man. Hit'll freshen yer mind an' be good fer yer
+soul&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Another grim struggle interrupted the teacher.</p>
+
+<p>"Say it after me: I believe in the fatherhood er God&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Joe squirmed.</p>
+
+<p>"Say it!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>Still no sound. Tom firmly gripped his throat and Joe gurgled:</p>
+
+<p>"Fatherhood er God!"</p>
+
+<p>"And brotherhood o' man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Brotherhood er man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yer believe it now?" Tom fiercely asked.</p>
+
+<p>Joe feebly assented.</p>
+
+<p>Tom gripped his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Say it strong!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I believe it!" Joe confessed.</p>
+
+<p>Again the under man struggled desperately and the man on top fiercely
+choked him into a quieter frame of mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Now again: No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom er God!"</p>
+
+<p>Joe repeated, "No drunkard&mdash;shall&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Inherit&mdash;the&mdash;kingdom&mdash;er God&mdash;by golly you've forgot yer Bible too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Inherit&mdash;the&mdash;kingdom er&mdash;God!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who shall not inherit the kingdom of God?"</p>
+
+<p>"No drunkard!" Joe answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Let that soak into yer lost soul!" Tom growled, pausing a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Now once more! Bear&mdash;ye&mdash;one&mdash;another's burdens!"</p>
+
+<p>Joe hesitated and the man on top bumped the words out of him one at a
+time:</p>
+
+<p>"Bear&mdash;ye&mdash;one&mdash;another's&mdash;burdens!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>"An' ye're goin' ter help me bear mine?" the teacher asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't I a-doin' it now?" grumbled the man below.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, once more then: Private property is theft!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lie an' you know it," Joe sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"The big chief says so and it goes&mdash;say it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Private property is theft," Joe repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, once more: Love&mdash;one&mdash;another!"</p>
+
+<p>"Love one another," came the feeble echo.</p>
+
+<p>"Do ye love me?" Tom fiercely inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Joe struggled.</p>
+
+<p>"Say it!" commanded the teacher.</p>
+
+<p>"I love ye," he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>Norman suddenly appeared on the scene followed by Barbara and the two
+miners leaped to their feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom, old boy," the young leader cried, "you mean well, but we are
+told by the preacher that the kingdom of God cometh not of
+observation&mdash;it must be from within."</p>
+
+<p>"Just goin' over his Sunday-school lesson with him, Chief."</p>
+
+<p>Joe made a hostile movement, and Norman stepped between them.</p>
+
+<p>"Come! You two big kids&mdash;enough of this now, shake hands and make
+up!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>The men both hung back stubbornly.</p>
+
+<p>Norman turned to Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you not partners and friends before you joined the Brotherhood?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the old miner replied grudgingly. "We bin tergether twelve
+years an' we worked an' played tergether, starved an' froze tergether,
+lived tergether, an' slept under the same blanket&mdash;he's the only
+partner I ever had&mdash;an' he's my best friend"&mdash;Tom paused and
+choked&mdash;"but I don't like 'im!"</p>
+
+<p>"Shake hands and make up!" Barbara laughed.</p>
+
+<p>They hung back a moment longer until Barbara's smile became
+resistless.</p>
+
+<p>Joe extended his hand, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Shake, you old coyote!"</p>
+
+<p>Norman gave Joe a serious talk&mdash;got a pledge from him to quit drink
+and stand by him in his efforts to bring order out of the confusion
+and chaos in which the colony was floundering.</p>
+
+<p>"You think I can do anything to help you?" Joe asked incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you can. You and Tom are two men I've known all my life. I
+know where to find you if I get into trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there goin' ter be any trouble?" Tom broke in, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, but it's coming. When it does we'll <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>fight it out and win.
+I've set my life on the issue of this experiment."</p>
+
+<p>Joe extended him his hand. "I'm sorry I got drunk. I won't do it
+again&mdash;we'll stand by ye!"</p>
+
+<p>"Through thick an' thin," Tom added.</p>
+
+<p>"And hereafter, Tom," Norman said with a smile, "I'd like to be
+consulted before you hold any more sessions of your court up the
+beach."</p>
+
+<p>Tom started.</p>
+
+<p>"You've heard about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"By gum, I knowed I oughter licked that kid again!" the old miner
+observed, regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>Norman, said gravely: "Tom, we are getting into deep water. I've begun
+to have some doubts about our safety. A leader must lead. And I'm
+going to do it. Can I depend on you to execute my orders and mine
+alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every day in the year," was the firm reply.</p>
+
+<p>"The same here," Joe echoed.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara had drawn apart from the group of men and stood watching them
+with keen, suspicious interest as the two miners started homeward with
+restored good humour.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you mean by saying that you were afraid of coming trouble?"
+Barbara eagerly asked of Norman. "What have you heard? What do you
+suspect?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>"Nothing," he answered, thoughtfully. "But I've had the blues for a
+week. It's been growing on me that we are not getting on except into
+situations more and more impossible. There's a screw loose somewhere
+in our system. There's going to be a wreck unless we find and repair
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have felt this, too, and I think I know the cause."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Liberty which has degenerated into licence. We lack authority and the
+power to enforce it."</p>
+
+<p>"And this is the one thing we cursed in the old system&mdash;the law,
+power, authority."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Barbara quickly objected. "We did not rebel against law or the
+exercise of authority. We rebelled against its unjust use."</p>
+
+<p>"And what depresses me is that I am convinced that we must use the
+power of law with more stern, direct, and personal pressure than ever
+known under the system of capitalism, or we must fail."</p>
+
+<p>"Is not such pressure desirable?"</p>
+
+<p>"It depends on who applies the pressure&mdash;but it seems inevitable&mdash;and
+it depresses me."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara broke into a joyous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Away with gloomy forebodings! It's only a day's fog. It will lift.
+The sun is shining behind it now."</p>
+
+<p>Her laughter was contagious. Norman smiled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>in quick sympathy, and a
+response of hope and courage was just forming itself on his lips when
+he looked toward the house and saw an excited crowd packed in the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is the matter?" Barbara gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Some accident has happened," he replied, quickly. "Come, we must
+hurry!"</p>
+
+<p>Catherine's lithe figure darted down the steps and met them on the
+lawn.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" Norman cried.</p>
+
+<p>"A murder!"</p>
+
+<p>"A murder?" Barbara repeated, incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;wilful, deliberate, cruel, horrible!" Catherine went on
+excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not old Tom and Joe?" Norman broke in.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;Blanche&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, God, I knew it," Barbara gasped. "Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Blanche kept on playing fast and loose with the two boys who fought
+over her the other night. George Mann found his rival in her room just
+now, waylaid him in the hall, and when he came out sprang on him like
+a fiend, stabbed him through the heart and cut his throat. The
+brothers of the dead boy swear they will kill the murderer on sight,
+and they've locked him in your room, Norman, for safety. The men are
+excited to frenzy. Nobody likes the boy who did <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>the crime. The
+rougher ones swear they are going to hang him. They tried to break in
+your door twice, but Herman knocked the ringleaders down and with Tom
+and Joe beat the crowd back. Something must be done at once to prevent
+another outbreak."</p>
+
+<p>Norman hurried to the scene and joined Wolf in his defence of the
+prisoner. Tom formed a guard of ten men heavily armed and marched the
+prisoner to the top of the house, placed him in the small room in one
+of the central towers, and stationed one man inside and five on the
+stairway leading into the tower.</p>
+
+<p>The executive council met immediately and voted unanimously to erect a
+prison, establish a penal colony on the small island at the north of
+Ventura, and restore the whipping-post for minor offenders.</p>
+
+<p>The announcement of this momentous act was made to the general
+assembly without request for debate or an expression of opinion. It
+was received in silence.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard could not protest. He was still confined to his room from the
+effects of a recent argument with his wife.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE CORDS TIGHTEN</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>On Wolf's urgent advice Norman determined to use the autocratic power
+invested in him by the deed of gift to establish a complete code of
+law and enforce it without fear or favour. As the cords tightened,
+scores who became dissatisfied with their lot offered their
+resignations and asked to return to their old homes.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to their clamour Norman posted this notice on the bulletin
+board:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"Every member of the army of the Brotherhood of Man enlisted for
+five years' service. Resignations will not be considered and
+deserters will be tried by court-martial. I am going to use my
+power for the best interests of the Brotherhood. I ask the
+co&ouml;peration of all the loyal members of the colony. Of traitors
+I ask no quarter, and I expect to give none.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="sc" style="padding-right: 15%;">"Norman Worth,</span><br />
+<span style="padding-right: 10%;">"<i>Trustee and General Manager</i>."</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The effects of the proclamation were instantaneous. The helplessness
+of any attempt to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>resist authority firmly established under such
+daring leadership was at once apparent to the most stupid mind.</p>
+
+<p>Loafing, drinking, stealing, carousing, and disorder of all kind were
+reduced at once to a minimum.</p>
+
+<p>One act, however, of the executive council under Norman's direction
+precipitated a storm in an unexpected quarter.</p>
+
+<p>The council removed Blanche and a group of wayward girls with whom she
+associated to a cottage outside the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>The women of the Brotherhood were practically unanimous in their
+demands that the whole group be immediately expelled from the colony.
+A committee of three aggressive women presented their demand to Norman
+in no uncertain language.</p>
+
+<p>His reply was equally emphatic:</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades," he said, firmly, "I shall do nothing of the kind. We are
+going to work out this experiment in human society without compromise.
+We have successfully cut communication with the outside world. The
+crew of our ship are no longer allowed to land and only picked men
+unload her cargo. We are not going to play the baby act and dump these
+girls back on the old civilization which we have denounced. They may
+be wayward but they are our sisters."</p>
+
+<p>"They are not mine," shouted one of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>committee. "The brazen
+creatures! And we do not propose to have our sons and daughters
+corrupted by association with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we must find some other solution than that of transportation,"
+Norman insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Send them to the penal colony, then," demanded the committee.</p>
+
+<p>"And back in a circle we immediately travel to the crimes of
+civilization from which we fled. I prefer to send the boys who
+associate with them. They are the real offenders."</p>
+
+<p>"I deny that assertion," firmly declared the leader of the committee.
+"My boy is one of the unfortunate victims of these brazen wretches.
+Before we came to this island he never gave me a word of impudence.
+From the night he met Blanche at our first ball he was beyond my
+advice or control. These girls are the enemies of society and this
+colony cannot exist if they remain within its life."</p>
+
+<p>"I refuse to believe it," Norman cried, with scorn. "It is your duty
+to reform these girls and restore them to mental and physical sanity,
+and as the leader of this colony I direct you to take up this divine
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"And I, for one," spoke, for the first time, the silent gray-haired
+member of the committee, "refuse to smirch my hands with the task."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>Norman, looked into the calm face of this white-haired, motherly
+looking woman with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand you, comrade mother!" he exclaimed, with
+bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>"That's because you're young, handsome, inexperienced, and, above all,
+because you are a man," was the quick reply. "I have spent a busy life
+since my own children grew out of the home nest in New York City in
+trying to help other people's children less fortunate than my own.
+I've helped scores of boys and never had one to disappoint me yet.
+I've tried to help scores of girls of the type we are discussing. I've
+always regretted it. I found them shallow, false, lazy, stupid,
+worthless. I have never looked at one of them except to blush that I
+am a woman. I speak from the saddest and most hopeless experiences of
+my life."</p>
+
+<p>Norman cut the argument short with a gesture of angry impatience.
+"This discussion is a waste of breath. As long as I am in command of
+this colony no such insane act of injustice shall be committed against
+these girls."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's time you gave place to a man of greater wisdom and less
+sentimental mush in his brain," replied the calm, gray-haired woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," the young leader replied, with chilling politeness, "you
+may be right&mdash;but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>in the meantime I accept the responsibility. Good
+day."</p>
+
+<p>He had made three enemies whose power he was soon to feel. As they
+passed through the doorway Catherine greeted them politely and soothed
+their ruffled spirits with gentle words.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>SOME INTERROGATION POINTS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The establishment of a police and detective service completed the
+efficient organization of the colony. Its life now began to move with
+clock-like regularity.</p>
+
+<p>But these changes were not made without provoking fierce debates and
+bitter prophecies in the general assembly over which Norman presided
+every Friday night.</p>
+
+<p>He began to listen to these endless wrangles, however, with a sense of
+growing anger. It became clearer each week that they were the source
+of cliques and factions, of plots and counter-plots, within the
+colony. His patience reached the limit on the night he announced the
+completion of the jail.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a sad present I am forced to make you to-night, comrades," he
+said, with a note of weariness in his voice. "But I have no choice in
+the matter. It was forced on the executive council. Crimes were
+committed which threatened the existence of our society. We had to
+meet the issue squarely. We could have begged <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>the question by calling
+in the authorities of the State of California, acknowledged our
+defeat, and surrendered. We are not ready to surrender. We haven't
+begun to fight yet."</p>
+
+<p>He had scarcely taken his seat when Diggs, the human
+interrogation-point, slowly unwound his lank figure, adjusted his
+eye-glasses, and gazed smilingly at the chairman.</p>
+
+<p>Norman squirmed with rage as the glint of light from Diggs's big
+lenses began to irritate his spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara slipped her little hand under the table and found his. He
+clasped it gratefully and refused to let go. She allowed him to hold
+it a minute and drew it away laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades," the man of questions slowly began, "we are making rapid
+progress. Our new building will soon be finished and another colony of
+two thousand enthusiastic souls will be added to our commonwealth. If
+we are going to successfully carry on this work we must begin to
+develop with infinite patience the details of this larger life.</p>
+
+<p>"I submit to you some questions that are profoundly interesting to me.</p>
+
+<p>"How are we to prevent speculation, wages being unequal? How is one
+community to exchange products with another? How <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>determine which line
+of goods each community shall make?</p>
+
+<p>"What is to be done with a strong minority who are bitterly opposed to
+the action of the majority when we assume our permanent democratic
+form?</p>
+
+<p>"How are the thousand and one matters pertaining to private life and
+habits to be settled without continually augmenting the power of
+government? The authority of the most absolute despot who ever lived
+never dared to sit on questions we must decide. Can we do it?</p>
+
+<p>"If we are ever to attain a condition of equality must we not forbid
+gifts and exchanges? For, if men are not to be allowed to grow rich by
+trading, must not the State forbid private exchanges of every nature?</p>
+
+<p>"On the other hand, if the State alone can make exchanges, how can we
+prevent a shrewd man from getting rich by dealing with the State
+itself?</p>
+
+<p>"If the State will not make exchanges, what is one to do who has taken
+a piece of property and finds later he has no use for it? For example:
+if Miss Blanche grows tired of looking at her piano, which she cannot
+play, and desires to exchange it for a carriage and pair of horses,
+must she continue to walk because she cannot effect the exchange?</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep214" id="imagep214"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep214.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep214.jpg" width="45%" alt="Barbara." /></a><br />
+<p class="cen sc" style="margin-top: .2em;">Barbara.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"If we solve these troubles by declaring all property in common, who
+shall decide the privilege <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>of use which the various tastes of
+individuals may demand?</p>
+
+<p>"If each member be allowed a fixed number of units of value for each
+day of the year, must he spend them at once, or will the State keep an
+account for each individual? If he doesn't spend all his allowance by
+the end of the year can he save it and thus accumulate a private
+fortune?</p>
+
+<p>"Or will the State force him to spend all, thus encouraging reckless
+habits?</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose that a spendthrift squanders his allowance at once and later
+breaks his leg, has it amputated, and needs a hundred dollars to buy a
+wooden leg, how will he get it? Will the State make good his
+recklessness, force him to buy his own leg, or make him hop through
+the year on one leg?"</p>
+
+<p>"I move we adjourn!" Joe yelled, from the rear.</p>
+
+<p>"Second the motion!" Tom echoed, from the front.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard, who had recovered sufficiently to attend on crutches, rose
+painfully, adjusted the bandage on his eye, and once more raised his
+voice in protest.</p>
+
+<p>"I demand freedom of speech on behalf of my friend whom those rowdies
+are insulting!" he thundered.</p>
+
+<p>With reluctance the chairman rapped for order, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>and Diggs wiped his
+glasses and smilingly proceeded:</p>
+
+<p>"We have established a general nursery for the children. As they grow
+up, who shall decide at what age each child shall begin to work? Some
+children are slow, some quick in growth. Will the new State of Ventura
+take direct charge of all children?</p>
+
+<p>"Or, supposing that separate families are allowed to live apart and
+parents to govern their own children, how is each child to be
+protected so that it gets its exact due? How is it to be known whether
+the parents misappropriate the fund of a child, or favour one more
+than another?</p>
+
+<p>"As our numbers increase we cannot avoid the religious question."</p>
+
+<p>"Amen, O Lord!" shouted Methodist John.</p>
+
+<p>"A number of good people are clamouring for the use of this hall for
+religious services every night. We may deny their demands now. But we
+cannot as they increase. How are we to meet them? Shall we tax the
+unbeliever to support a church? Or shall we tax the believer to pay
+for lighting this hall for a weekly ball?</p>
+
+<p>"If religion is allowed, who shall determine how many preachers each
+denomination can have? How many sisters shall be allowed the Catholics
+and how many monks, and how shall they be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>distributed? To whom shall
+they answer, the State, or their superior church dignitary?</p>
+
+<p>"Shall Protestants be allowed a sum equal to the amount used in
+support of religious orders? If so, who shall determine how it shall
+be expended?</p>
+
+<p>"If churches are built, who shall determine their cost and their style
+of architecture if the State erects them?</p>
+
+<p>"When our theatre is opened, shall admission be free? If not, what
+shall be done when the receipts fall below expenses?</p>
+
+<p>"What compensation can we give to those who hate theatres? If a small
+majority want a dance-hall and musical extravaganza, and a minority
+want only the serious drama, which shall it be? Suppose a majority
+demand a race-course? Shall the resources of the colony be used thus
+against the bitter protest of those who do not believe in racing?
+Suppose, just before the race-course is finished, the majority become
+a minority and the work is stopped&mdash;has the new majority the right to
+destroy the property and accumulate a new fund for a different
+purpose?</p>
+
+<p>"Must a doctor always come when he's called&mdash;even for imaginary,
+hysterical, and foolish causes? Will the people vote for and elect
+their own doctor, or will he be assigned? If the doctor proves a
+failure, how will they get rid of him? If they get <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>rid of him, how
+can he be saddled on another community? Shall one community suffer at
+the hands of an incompetent man, while a physician of genius ministers
+to the one next door? If a great surgeon is needed by ten persons at
+the same hour, who shall decide which operation he shall perform, and
+who shall live or die in consequence?</p>
+
+<p>"Who shall say when a doctor is not fit to practise?</p>
+
+<p>"We have just established a weekly paper. Within a year the population
+will need a daily. Who shall say when an editor is competent?</p>
+
+<p>"Some men fail in early life and make their great success later. At
+what period, or after how long a trial, shall it be decided that a man
+is a failure and must quit his chosen or assigned work?</p>
+
+<p>"Many young men promise well at first and make later miserable
+failures. Many are failures at first and make great successes. Who
+shall decide which to continue and which to stop? If a youth is forced
+to abandon a work on which he has set his heart, how can he be made of
+service to the community in a work he loathes?</p>
+
+<p>"We must continue to make inventions, or progress ceases. When the
+cost of experiments is greater than the total income of a citizen, how
+can the inventor bear the expense? Will any man sacrifice his own
+funds and his own time on an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>uncertain experiment when he can receive
+no benefit from the work?</p>
+
+<p>"Many men are working now over problems all other men believe cannot
+be solved. If the State must furnish the capital to make the
+experiments of inventors, who will be responsible for the enormous
+waste of treasure on senseless and useless and impossible inventions?</p>
+
+<p>"Who can decide whether ideas proposed are useless or impossible? All
+great inventions which have revolutionized the history of ages have
+been laughed at by the world.</p>
+
+<p>"How can we punish the jobbery and waste and corruption which may
+enter from experiments which are not made in good faith? Cannot any
+group of shrewd men pretend to have invented a machine which will save
+over half the labour of the colony, and spend millions on this
+imaginary invention which proves useless? If such an abuse of power
+should be made, would not the effect be to end forever all experiments
+and stop the progress of the world?</p>
+
+<p>"When many cities have been built and one is more healthful,
+beautiful, and cultured than the others, shall those who live in the
+poorer cities be allowed to move or be forced to remain where they
+are? How are sculptors, artists, musicians, or architects to be
+apportioned among different <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>communities? Suppose they all demand the
+right to live in one place?</p>
+
+<p>"Will the State publish all books by all authors, or will selections
+be made? If all books are published will not vast sums be wasted in
+printing worthless trash? If selections are made, what unprejudiced,
+infallible board can be found competent to decide?</p>
+
+<p>"If a man chooses to be a writer, how many years shall he be allowed
+to work at his occupation if in the opinion of the judges he shows no
+talent?</p>
+
+<p>"Will the State permit freedom of opinion in the columns of its papers
+and the books printed? If so, what shall hinder a treasonable
+conspiracy from destroying respect for its authority? If opinions are
+to be edited by the State, how can the freedom of the press be
+maintained?</p>
+
+<p>"What shall be done with the Negro, the Chinaman, and the Indian when
+their numbers largely increase? Will these inferior races be placed on
+an absolute equality with the Aryan and will they be allowed to freely
+intermarry? If so, can the new mongrel race maintain itself against
+the progress and power of the great high-bred races of men?</p>
+
+<p>"Are women to receive the same allowance as men, and married women the
+same as spinsters?</p>
+
+<p>"Shall men and women be required to marry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>or be allowed to remain
+single? Shall all women be made to work? If it continues to cost more
+to support a single woman than a married one, how can equality of
+rights be maintained?</p>
+
+<p>"As food is the basis of all supply, many must be farmers. How shall
+this great industry be conducted ultimately? Can we allow individuals
+to work small farms? If so, who determines the kind of crop each farm
+shall raise? How much land will a man be required to work?</p>
+
+<p>"An Italian from the north of Italy can raise more on one acre than an
+Irishman can on ten&mdash;whose method shall be used, and whose capacity be
+taken for the standard?</p>
+
+<p>"How many hours shall constitute a day on the farm? Shall a farmhand
+get only a dollar a day and a bricklayer two? If so, where is the
+justice and equality of such an arrangement?</p>
+
+<p>"Can a farmer be allowed vacations? If so, must he ask permission
+where to go? If not, suppose he goes at seedtime or harvest, gets
+drunk, stays two weeks or two months, and destroys a year's crop? Who
+shall pay for this enormous damage, and how shall the penalty be
+enforced?</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose a poor manager spoils the crop on an immense tract of land,
+how can any adequate penalty be enforced?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>"Shall one general manager decide what kind of crops to raise on each
+piece of land or each manager decide for himself? Suppose they all
+raise hay&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll have plenty to eat the balance of your life&mdash;you and all
+the other jackasses in the colony!" old Tom growled.</p>
+
+<p>A laugh rippled the crowd and the speaker paused in angry confusion.
+For the first time he lost his temper and stood glaring at his
+tormentors in silent rage.</p>
+
+<p>Norman whispered to Barbara:</p>
+
+<p>"Wolf has urged me for some time to suppress this meeting. Shall I do
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It's a nuisance. I agree with him. Do it."</p>
+
+<p>Norman rose just as Diggs sat down choking with anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades," the young leader said, in commanding tones. "I think this
+assembly has completed its work of discussion. The questions
+propounded here to-night are important. We will meet and solve them in
+due time, as we come to them. What this community needs now is the
+spirit of co&ouml;peration, of loyalty, and industry. We have been assigned
+our tasks for the year. Now every man to his work! We have had enough
+of wrangling and questioning. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>Let's live and breathe awhile. The
+executive council has decided to close the weekly sessions of the
+assembly until the annual election of officers next spring. Hereafter
+a musicale and dance will be held both Monday and Friday evenings."</p>
+
+<p>The young folks broke into hearty applause led by old Tom and his
+partner Joe.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard sprang to his feet, his one good eye blazing with inspired
+wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"And I denounce this act of tyranny as the climax of a series of
+infamies! You have now forged the chains of slavery on every limb.
+Free speech has been suppressed&mdash;in God's name, what next?"</p>
+
+<p>But the crowd only laughed. The Bard had protested so often his words
+ceased to have weight. The halo of romance that once wreathed his
+classic brow had faded with the painful disillusioning which followed
+a thrashing his wife had given him. He was a prophet without honour
+and his warnings fell on deaf ears.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf and Catherine stood at the door with a word of cheer, a friendly
+nod, or a silent pressure of the hand for every one who emerged from
+the hall. These two alone at every turn grew in prestige among all
+jarring factions of the struggling colony.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE MASTER HAND</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The whole machinery of the colony responded instantly to the grip of
+the master's hand. It was the one thing needed to insure successful
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>When the Brotherhood realized that the young poet-athlete was not
+merely a love-sick dreamer and theorist, but a man of quick decisions,
+of firm and inflexible will, and the power to execute his will, they
+fell in line, caught the step, and order emerged from chaos.</p>
+
+<p>When a crisis called for decision he made it with lightning rapidity
+and stuck to it. The situation demanded a dictatorship for the moment,
+and he did not hesitate to assume it. He saw before him sure success.
+If fools and cranks interfered with his plans he would crush and push
+them aside. The consciousness of power and its daily exercise
+developed his faculties to their highest tension. His mind began to
+arrange every detail of the vast and complicated system of the new
+social scheme. Men became the mere tools with which he would work out
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>revolution in human society. Every scrap of knowledge he had ever
+gained flashed through his excited imagination and fell into its place
+in the creation of the new order.</p>
+
+<p>He put the machine-shops to work constructing the big gold dredge on
+which he had experimented one summer.</p>
+
+<p>He had a pet scheme of farming which had come into his mind from
+watching his father's gardener the year before raise the most
+delicious cantaloups he had ever tasted. He discovered the secret of
+their marvellous sweetness and leaped to an instantaneous conclusion.
+He had the opportunity to test this inspiration now on a scale as vast
+as his dreams.</p>
+
+<p>He called the superintendents and overseers of the farm together, and
+asked their plans for the crop on the five hundred acres of fertile
+lands under cultivation. They gave him their schedule for a variety of
+crops.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't this soil grow cantaloups?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>They all reported that it would.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I suggest that the entire acreage be planted in these vines."</p>
+
+<p>To a man they declared the plan absurd.</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose," he persisted, "that we raise and send to the East the
+most delicious melon they have ever tasted, and suppose we get three
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>dollars a crate, we will make three hundred dollars an acre and our
+first crop will be worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>They laughed at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," smilingly inquired the superintendent, "how much it
+will cost to plant and harvest such a crop?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say twenty-five dollars an acre," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Double it," he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, fifty dollars an acre," Norman agreed. "In round numbers
+it will cost us twenty-five thousand dollars. That leaves a profit of
+more than a hundred thousand, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Again the superintendent laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"And would you risk this enormous sum on one experiment? Suppose your
+melons would not be sweet?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such possibility," the young enthusiast declared. "Their
+sweetness depends solely on two things&mdash;the quality of the seed and
+the quantity of rain which falls on them while they are growing. We
+are wasting a supreme opportunity. No rain falls in Ventura during the
+summer. We get our water to the roots by irrigation, not by rainfall.
+Get the right seed and your melons must be perfect. This is a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>scientific fact I have seen demonstrated. Try it on a vast scale and
+success is sure."</p>
+
+<p>They voted unanimously against the proposition. Norman insisted. The
+superintendent resigned and appealed to the executive council. Wolf
+and Catherine, Tom and Barbara advised against placing so much capital
+in a single enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to make you rich and successful in spite of yourselves,"
+Norman finally declared. "For the present I control these funds and
+I'm going to plant this crop. So that settles it. I'm sorry we can't
+agree."</p>
+
+<p>His instantaneous decision fairly took Wolf's breath.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara laughed and congratulated him.</p>
+
+<p>"At least you have the courage of your convictions. I can't help
+admiring it."</p>
+
+<p>As further opposition was useless, the order was put into execution.
+The superintendent finally caught the young man's spirit, withdrew his
+resignation, and undertook the work with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the summer the success of the colony was astounding. The
+wildest prediction of the young leader fell below the facts. The crop
+of cantaloups averaged one hundred and five crates to the acre, and
+brought three dollars <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>and a half a crate. The net profit on the
+melons reached the enormous total of one hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>The men who raised the crop and added this wealth to the treasury of
+the colony were not slow in demanding an immediate readjustment of the
+scale of wages.</p>
+
+<p>Two hundred and fifty men had done all the work of planting,
+cultivating, harvesting this crop and added ten times as much to the
+year's income as the combined labour of all the other members of the
+colony.</p>
+
+<p>Brick-masons were receiving two dollars a day and farm-hands one
+dollar. The miners who were digging for gold in the mountain ranges
+and on the beaches were receiving five dollars a day and had added as
+yet not a single dollar to the wealth of the community. They had
+discovered gold in three new districts and thousands of dollars had
+been wasted in vain efforts to make it pay. The farmers protested
+bitterly against such waste, and demanded the equalization of wages.</p>
+
+<p>Their spokesman astonished Norman by the vehemence and audacity of
+their demands:</p>
+
+<p>"If Socialism means justice," he shouted, "now is the time to prove
+it! Labour creates all value. We have created one hundred and fifty
+thousand dollars' worth of wealth for the colony <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>and we have received
+a mere pittance. If we created this wealth&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute, comrades," Norman interrupted, with irritation. "Why
+should you continue to repeat that foolish assertion? You didn't
+create this wealth."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'd like to know who did?" shouted the orator. "We turned the
+soil, placed the fertilizers, planted every seed, cultivated every
+vine, pulled every melon, packed and placed them on the steamer. If we
+didn't make the wealth, who did?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did," the young leader declared. "I conceived the possibility of
+this crop. I tried to persuade your superintendent and overseers. They
+had no faith. I forced them to plant these particular seeds against
+their own wishes. Your labour is a fixed thing year in and year out.
+All men must work or die. All life is a struggle thus with tooth and
+nail for a living. The creator of wealth is the superior intelligence
+that conceives something better than this clodhopper's daily task. You
+did what you were told to do. Your hands would have worked just as
+many hours at labour just as tiresome over a crop of beans that
+wouldn't have paid a profit at all this year. Wealth belongs to its
+creator. I made the crop, your hands were the mere automata which my
+brain directed. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>Your demands are absurd. I refuse to consider them or
+to permit their discussion."</p>
+
+<p>The farmers refused point-blank to submit to this decision, and voted
+unanimously to quit work until they were given justice. Every plough
+stopped and the entire machinery of food production came to a dead
+standstill.</p>
+
+<p>Norman threatened to refuse them admission to the dining-hall unless
+they returned to work, and they boldly replied that they would smash
+the door down and take what was their own.</p>
+
+<p>Had the farmers been alone in their demands for an equalization of
+wages, the situation would have been easier to handle. But discontent
+over the question of wages had been growing steadily since the day of
+the decision that wages should be unequal.</p>
+
+<p>The distinctions of wealth and poverty were rapidly making their
+appearance as in the old world. The cook had married a scrubwoman and
+the scrubwoman's daughter had married the drainman who had charge of
+the sewers. The combine income of the two highest-salaried workers in
+the colony had at once formed the nucleus of a new aristocracy of
+wealth.</p>
+
+<p>The strike of the entire farming division of the colony was the match
+thrown in the powder <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>magazine. Discontent flamed in every department
+of labour.</p>
+
+<p>The demand for absolute equality of wages became resistless. It was
+the only thing which could once more bring order out of chaos.</p>
+
+<p>Norman called a meeting of the general assembly and submitted the
+question for their discussion and decision. The debate was long,
+fierce, and bitter. In vain did the young leader plead with those who
+were receiving the highest rates that the profits of the colony would
+be greater and that each would share alike in the total wealth of the
+community. They denounced the proposed act as the climax of infamy.</p>
+
+<p>The chef was furious.</p>
+
+<p>"You give me the wages of a clodhopper and ask me to prepare a table
+fit for a king. Well, try it, and see what you get."</p>
+
+<p>He sat down repeating his threat in a series of endless announcements
+to the people around him.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he'll poison us all if you pass this law," Barbara whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"The farmers will run us through with their pitchforks if we don't,"
+he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Poisoning is the easier way," she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>The leader of the brass band raised the biggest row of all. From the
+first these men had refused <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>to lift their hand to do a thing except
+to play at stated hours each day and furnish the music for the three
+evenings of social amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"You place me on an equality with the lout who holds a calf or the
+clodhopper who holds a plough&mdash;I, who feed the soul with ravishing
+melody&mdash;I, who lift man from earth to heaven on the wings of angels!"
+The band leader swelled with righteous wrath and sat down beside the
+cook who was still muttering incoherently:</p>
+
+<p>"Let 'em try it&mdash;and see what they get!"</p>
+
+<p>Yet, in spite of the fierce threats of the cook, the scrubwoman, the
+drainman, the musician, and all the high-salaried favourites of
+labour, the inevitable occurred. When put to a vote equal wages were
+established by an overwhelming majority.</p>
+
+<p>Each member of the colony, man, woman, and child, was voted free food,
+clothes, and shelter, and a credit of five hundred dollars a year at
+the Brotherhood store.</p>
+
+<p>The executive council was abolished and in its place a board of
+governors established, composed of the heads of each department of
+labour and presided over by two regents, a man and a woman, elected by
+the general assembly. Norman and Barbara were elected regents without
+opposition, and the old heads of each department of labour <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>placed on
+the board of governors to serve until the approaching annual election.</p>
+
+<p>The assembly proposed:</p>
+
+<p>"Article I. of the constitution of the new State of Ventura as
+follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Every citizen of the State must labour according to his ability.
+Those who can work and will not shall be made to work."</p>
+
+<p>No man who voted this simple and obviously just law could dream of the
+tremendous results. It was merely the enactment into statutory law of
+the first principle of an effective Socialism:</p>
+
+<p>"From every man according to his ability, unto every man according to
+his needs."</p>
+
+<p>The first obvious requirement of such a law was an immediate increase
+of the police and detective force at the command of the regents and
+the board of governors.</p>
+
+<p>Norman thanked the assembly for the promptness and thoroughness which
+had characterized their work, and closed his congratulations with a
+sentence of peculiarly sinister meaning to the man who had ears to
+hear.</p>
+
+<p>"Hereafter, comrades, we can move forward without another pause. There
+can never be another strike on the island of Ventura. The State is now
+supreme."</p>
+
+<p>The Wolfs, who had modestly declined all office, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>were omnipresent
+during the long sessions of the assembly, which had lasted two days.
+Everywhere they had counselled compromise, forbearance, good
+fellowship, moving quietly from group to group in the big hall, and
+always winning new friends.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf's gnarled hand gripped Norman's at the close of the meeting as he
+bent his massive head and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"A great day's work, Comrade Chief&mdash;one that will make history."</p>
+
+<p>The young leader's face clouded as he slowly replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I were sure that it will be history of the right kind."</p>
+
+<p>"You doubt it?" the old leader asked incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"It all depends on our leadership."</p>
+
+<p>"With your hand on the helm"&mdash;Wolf paused and smiled curiously&mdash;"the
+ship of State is safe."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Again the colony entered on a period of active and efficient industry.
+Every man was at his post and did the work assigned him.</p>
+
+<p>Eight hours was fixed as a working day in all departments. The first
+acts of insubordination were promptly suppressed. The discipline of an
+army was strictly enforced&mdash;the guard-house and whipping-post were
+found sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>No report except the most favourable had ever reached the outside
+world, and thousands of applicants in San Francisco were clamouring
+for admission. The new colony house with accommodation for two
+thousand had been completed, and another of like size was under way.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf had urged Norman to admit a new colony at once and prepare for
+the third. But the difficulties of government and the fights within
+the Brotherhood had alarmed the young leader. He hesitated, and the
+big new building as yet remained empty.</p>
+
+<p>As the day for the annual meeting of the assembly drew near, doubts of
+the future grew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>darker in the young regent's mind. He had the power,
+under the deed of gift, to prolong the experiment another year,
+holding the title to the property for further experiment, or divide
+the profits between the members and reconvey the gift back to its
+donors, or by deed convey at once the whole property to the
+Brotherhood and end his trusteeship.</p>
+
+<p>Which should it be?</p>
+
+<p>His faith in his fellow man had been shaken by the events of the past
+year, and yet the colony had succeeded. Its wealth was great and its
+prospects greater. With the perfect discipline recently inaugurated
+and wisely administered, no limit could be fixed to the productive
+power of such an organization.</p>
+
+<p>That he should hesitate a moment after the achievements of the year
+was a stunning shock to Wolf. The moment he realized the import of the
+crisis, he at once appealed to Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>"You alone can save us, child," he urged. "You must act at once. You
+promised to lead him captive in your train. You have failed for one
+reason only&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," Barbara interrupted. "I haven't tried. I confess it."</p>
+
+<p>"There is not a moment to lose," Wolf urged. "We are entering on the
+most wonderful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>development in the history of the human race. The only
+thing lacking for its triumphant achievement is faith and leadership.
+Secure from our young dreamer the title to this island and you will
+achieve an immortal deed&mdash;you will not hesitate or fail?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," was the firm answer. "I will not fail. I'm going with him to-day
+on a mountain climb. Just for fun, if for nothing else, I'll test my
+power."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll report to me the moment you return?" Wolf urged.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered, dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>Norman found Barbara in a mood resistlessly charming. She seemed to
+have utterly forgotten that she was grown up or had ever been the
+herald of a revolutionary cause. She was a laughing girl of eighteen
+again, with the joy of youth sparkling in her eyes and laughter
+ringing in every accent of her voice.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the mood of the man reflected hers. He threw to the winds
+the cares and worries of the great adventure that had brought them
+together, and the island of Ventura became the enchanted isle of song
+and story.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be just two children to-day&mdash;shall we not?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he responded gaily, "two children who have run away from
+school, tired of books, with hearts hungry for the breath of the
+fields."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>For half an hour hill and dale rang with laughter as they ascended the
+path of the brook. They came to a wide expanse of still water. And
+Norman said with a bantering laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"We leave the stream here and climb the hill to the left. I must wade
+and carry you across this place if you're not afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who's afraid?" she asked with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"All right."</p>
+
+<p>He removed his shoes, and rolled his trousers high.</p>
+
+<p>"Now your arm around my neck, and no jumping or screaming until we're
+safe on the other shore."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated just an instant, blushed, and slipped her soft round arm
+about his neck as he lifted her slight figure and began to pick his
+way across the treacherous surface of the slippery bottom. His foot
+slipped on a muddy stone. She gave a scream, and both arms gripped his
+neck in sudden fear. Her burning cheek pressed his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," she cried, blushing red. "I didn't mean to
+smother you."</p>
+
+<p>"And I distinctly said no jumping or screaming, didn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't do it again&mdash;oh, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>Again both arms clasped his neck in a strangling, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>smothering hug,
+which he purposely prolonged with an extra slip which might have been
+avoided.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was scarlet now and the blushes refused to go. They lingered
+in great red bunches after he had carefully placed her on the smooth
+grass on the opposite bank.</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly, I'm afraid I disgraced myself, didn't I?" she asked,
+timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"No. It was all my fault," he replied. "I did it on purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I choked you on purpose, too!" she answered, blushing again.</p>
+
+<p>Norman looked at her thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You know I never saw you blush before. I like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it becoming?" she asked, demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"You know I was never in a man's arms before."</p>
+
+<p>"And you didn't like it?" he asked, with a smile playing around his
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, I found it very awkward."</p>
+
+<p>"Awkward?" he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"And exciting," she confessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we repeat it until you are used to it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, I'm sufficiently amused for to-day," she answered,
+soberly. "And now we will put on our shoes and be good children."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>For the rest of the journey Norman found her strangely silent. Now and
+then he caught her looking at him furtively out of her big brown eyes,
+as if she had just met him and was half afraid to go further.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself particularly sensitive to her moods. The moment she
+became silent and thoughtful her impulses ruled his, and not a word
+was spoken for a mile. Scarcely two sentences passed between them
+until they reached the summit of the range and sat down on the cliff
+overhanging the sea.</p>
+
+<p>This cliff was one of the numerous headlands which thrust their peaks
+in almost perpendicular lines sheer into the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>They sat for an hour and drank in the peace and solemn grandeur of the
+infinite blue expanse.</p>
+
+<p>"What a little world, the one in which we live down there and fret and
+fume," he whispered. "The one we think so big when in the thick of the
+fight! We forget the dim expanse of ocean kissing ocean&mdash;encircling
+the earth&mdash;of the skies that kiss the sea and lead on and on into
+those great silent deeps where a universe of worlds roll in grandeur!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yet isn't man greater than all these worlds?" she asked, with sudden
+elation.</p>
+
+<p>"If he is a man, yes; a real man with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>conscious divine power in
+his soul which says, I will! Isn't that the only power worth having?
+The herd of cattle we call men, whose souls have never spoken that
+divine word of character and of action&mdash;are they men? Have they souls
+at all? Is it worth the while of those who have to fret and fuss and
+fume trying to make something out of nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara turned suddenly, looked into Norman's eyes, and asked in
+anxious tones:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I'm thinking of giving up this experiment."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that you are just making it a marvellous success?"</p>
+
+<p>"But is it a success? What is the good of achievement for any
+community if that achievement springs from the will of one man? If
+their souls are in subjection to his, has he not degraded them? Is
+life inside or outside? Are we Socialists not struggling merely with
+what is outside? Are we not in reality struggling back into the
+primitive savage herd out of which individual manhood has slowly
+emerged? I'm puzzled. I'm afraid to go on. I've asked you to come up
+here to-day to tell me what to do."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara's breath came quick.</p>
+
+<p>"You wish me to decide the momentous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>question of our colony? Perhaps
+the future of humanity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, just that. You are a woman. Women know things by intuition
+rather than by reason. I'm growing more and more to believe that we
+only know what we feel. I trust you as I would not trust my own
+judgment just now. I'm going to ask you, in the purity and beauty of
+your woman's soul, to read the future for me. I'm going to allow you
+to decide this question. Feel with me its difficulties and its
+prospects, trust utterly to your own intuitions, and you will decide
+right."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara began to tremble and her voice was very low as she bent toward
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you trust me with the greatest question of your life with such
+perfect faith?"</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand, bowed, and kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Because, Barbara, I love you," he whispered with passionate
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked away and smiled while her heart beat in an ecstasy of
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is one of the things that has puzzled me most," he went on,
+rapidly. "Every hope and dream my soul has cherished of you has been
+at war with this scheme of herding men and women together. I want you
+all my very own. I want to seize you now in my arms and carry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>you a
+thousand miles away from every vulgar crowd on earth. A hundred times
+I've been on the point of telling you that I love you, but I drew back
+and sealed my lips. It was treason to the Cause. For how can this
+cause of the herd be one with the heart-cry of the man for the one
+woman on earth his mate? I've tried to reconcile them, but I can't.
+Come, dearest, you are my nobler, better self, the part of me I've
+been searching for and have found. You must answer this cry for light
+and guidance. Your voice shall be to me the voice of God. Shall I go
+back to the faith of my fathers in the old world, and will you come
+with me&mdash;my wife, my mate, my life? Or shall we remain here, and hand
+in hand fight this battle to a finish? The one thing that is
+unthinkable is that I shall lose you. I lay my life at your feet. Do
+with it as you will."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara tried to speak and a sob choked her into silence. She lifted
+her head at last and spoke timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it would be easy. But I find it very, very difficult&mdash;this
+settling the destiny of a man. Of one thing I'm sure. You must not
+give up this work."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll sign the deeds of transfer to-morrow," he interrupted.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>The girl's eyes opened in wonder and a feeling of awe stole into her
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"You trust me so far?" she asked, brokenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must speak softly, must I not? I must weigh every word. You
+frighten me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid. You are the woman I love."</p>
+
+<p>"How long have you loved me?" she asked, studying him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Always, I think. Consciously since the day I tore that flag down on
+our lawn."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you drew away from me at times."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I felt the irrepressible conflict between this ideal and my
+desires. Your voice called me to the work. I determined to put the
+work to the test first&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And I was the inspiration behind your faith and daring leadership?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't asked me if I love you?" Barbara said, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't think you are yet conscious of the meaning of love."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you place yourself absolutely in my power?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>"Absolutely. I love you and I have not made a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Frankly, then, I don't know what love means. In my heart of hearts
+I've always been afraid of men&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not afraid of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"After to-day&mdash;no, I don't think I will be."</p>
+
+<p>"You have made me very happy," he cried joyously. "Come, we must hurry
+back now. I'm going to make out the deeds to-night and place them in
+your hands to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely a word was spoken as they descended the mountain. She had
+gone up in the morning a laughing girl, conscious of her beauty and
+its cruel power, and determined to use it. She came down a sober
+little woman with a great, wondering question growing in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>When Wolf met her with eager questions she answered as in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>"He will deliver the deeds to-morrow?" he gasped in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to-morrow," she answered mechanically.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE FRUITS OF PATIENCE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The next morning Norman asked Barbara to take breakfast alone with him
+in the little rose bower on the lawn where she had first announced her
+choice of work so oddly and charmingly.</p>
+
+<p>She entered with a timid hesitation and a half-frightened look he was
+quick to note. He was sure from the expression of her eyes that she
+had not slept.</p>
+
+<p>"You did not sleep well?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't sleep at all," she confessed.</p>
+
+<p>He attempted to take her hand and she drew back trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you <i>are</i> afraid of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'm afraid I am," she stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Why of me? The one man of all men on earth&mdash;the man who loves you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps that's just why I'm afraid of you," she said, with an effort
+to smile. "But, to tell you the truth, I think it's just because you
+are a man. Last night I lay awake thinking it all over. I'm quite sure
+that I shall always be afraid of men. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>like you better than any man
+I've ever known, but now that you've told me you love me I'm uneasy
+when I'm near you. I think you'd better give me up at once. I'm sure
+I'm hopeless as a sweet-heart. I know I could never marry. The
+domestic instinct seems utterly missing in my nature. I love man in
+the abstract, but I can never surrender to any particular man. It
+seems like suicide. I want to be myself. I hate the idea of losing
+myself in another's being&mdash;I can't endure it, and if you make love to
+me any more I shall be very unhappy&mdash;and&mdash;I'll have to keep out of
+your way. You won't do this any more will you? Promise me, and we will
+be our old selves again&mdash;just comrades."</p>
+
+<p>Norman bowed with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I promise never to speak another word of love to you until you tell
+me that you love me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly?" she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"On my word of honour," he answered, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall be happy again," she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not try to avoid me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You will help and cheer me in the work I've planned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every day," she promised.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall bide my time." He drew the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>deeds to the island from his
+pocket and handed them to her.</p>
+
+<p>"The title to a kingdom which I joyfully deliver by order of the
+queen-regent!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure you do this because I asked you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really doubt it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," was the candid reply. "And I'll be frank enough to confess that
+I feel very proud of my power. You flattered my vanity as never
+before. You have put me under a sense of gratitude for which I fear I
+can never reward you."</p>
+
+<p>"I have my reward in your approval."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled and lifted her finger in warning.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not forget my promise," he said. "From to-day we understand each
+other perfectly. I am permitted to love you in silence. You graciously
+permit this as long as I am silent. In my wounded pride I have vowed
+that you yourself shall break this silence or it shall remain unbroken
+forever. This is our compact?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered extending her hand. He felt it tremble at his
+first touch and then rest contentedly and confidently in his strong
+grasp for a moment before they parted.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>When once his decision was made, Norman threw every doubt to the winds
+and devoted himself with tireless zeal to establishing the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>Brotherhood on the vast scale he had originally planned.</p>
+
+<p>In every step of the expanding life of the colony Barbara was his
+constant companion and silent inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>The transfer of the property was duly made under Wolf's keen gray
+eyes, with every detail of the law carefully guarded.</p>
+
+<p>A second colony of two thousand enthusiasts was landed and established
+in the new building. Under Norman's inspiring leadership their work
+was quickly organized.</p>
+
+<p>A new central administrative colony of five thousand was planned, and
+the foundation of its buildings laid with inspiring ceremonies. The
+huge structure was formed in the shape of a quadrangle covering ten
+acres of ground. In the centre of the court rose the house of the
+regents, in reality a palace of imposing splendour. The assembly hall
+was located in the regents' palace and formed the dining-room of their
+colony. At one end of the magnificent room was placed on an elevated
+platform the table at which the board of governors would sit, while at
+each end of the table stood the gilded chairs of state to be occupied
+by the regent and his consort.</p>
+
+<p>The scheme of imposing grandeur was suggested by Wolf. Norman objected
+at first, but yielded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>at last, convinced by his past experiences that
+a central authority of undisputed power was essential to the existence
+of any state founded on the socialistic ideal.</p>
+
+<p>At each corner of the quadrangle a public building was placed
+connected by the dormitories; on one corner was placed a theatre, on
+another a music hall, on another a school and nursery, on the other a
+lyceum to be used for public gatherings of all kinds, religious,
+social, or political. Each section of the outer buildings was
+connected with the regent's palace in the centre of the court by
+covered walk ways.</p>
+
+<p>The entire force of the four thousand members of the Brotherhood
+(except the farmers) were placed at work to complete this structure at
+the earliest possible moment.</p>
+
+<p>A day before the annual meeting of the Brotherhood at which the board
+of governors and the two regents were to be elected for the term of
+four years, Norman established a daily newspaper, <i>The New Era</i>, and
+the event was celebrated in the evening by a banquet and ball.</p>
+
+<p>As he walked among the joyous throngs of the Brotherhood as they moved
+through the brilliantly lighted ball-room he began to feel for the
+first time the conscious joy of a great achievement.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond a doubt the Brotherhood was an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>accomplished fact. Its fame was
+stirring the world beyond their little island. Pictures of the future
+flashed through his imagination, and always in greater and more
+alluring splendour.</p>
+
+<p>He saw himself becoming more and more the guiding spirit of the great
+enterprise. If men opposed his plans he would mould their wills in
+his.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually he meant to remove the hard and painful elements of force on
+which the efficiency of the colony now rested. The discipline of an
+army with its stern laws of physical violence back of its clock-like
+precision was not to his liking. He winced at the thought of that grim
+relic of barbarism, the whipping-post, which they had found necessary
+to temporarily revive. The jail, guard-house, and penal colony were
+thorns in his flesh which he would remove at the earliest possible
+moment. The one excuse for their existence was the inheritance of evil
+in man's nature due to his wrongs and suffering under the system of
+capitalism. They would outgrow them.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again he encountered Wolf and Catherine in the highest
+spirits, laughing, joking, chatting, shaking hands with each one they
+met.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly it struck him for the first time that he had a poor memory
+for names and faces. He wondered how Wolf could remember the name of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>the most obscure member of the colony without an effort. He had been
+so absorbed in the big problems of the Brotherhood that he had given
+little or no time to cultivating the personal acquaintance of its
+individual members. The arts of the politician were foreign to his
+nature. He had never stooped in his thoughts even to consider them. He
+had always lived in a different world.</p>
+
+<p>Never for a moment had the idea occurred to him that he might have to
+fight for his position as leader of the colony which he had created,
+yet when he took his seat beside Barbara the following night to
+preside over the annual meeting, he was conscious instantly that
+through the crowd of eager faces before him there ran a strong current
+of personal hostility.</p>
+
+<p>It was a disagreeable surprise. But as he recalled the many unpopular
+decisions he had been called on to make during the past year it seemed
+but natural there should be a lingering soreness in some minds. It was
+not until he saw Wolf in deep consultation with Diggs's glasses, and
+Catherine whispering to the smooth, gray-haired woman who had demanded
+the expulsion of Blanche, that he knew an organized plot had been
+formed to depose him from power.</p>
+
+<p>His first impulse was one of blind rage. He recalled now with
+lightning flashes of memory the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>long hours Wolf and his wife had
+spent in soothing the anger of rebellious and troublesome members. At
+every public meeting he recalled their smiling faces at the door or
+moving through the hall. The whole scheme was plain, its low
+chicanery, its shallow hypocrisy, its fawning acceptance of his
+leadership! They had been patiently waiting for him to finish the work
+of strong, legal, invincible, powerful organization to step in and
+take the reins from his hands.</p>
+
+<p>And they had done it with such consummate skill, such infinite care
+and patience, that not one of his own personal followers had
+discovered the plot.</p>
+
+<p>When the smooth, gray-haired woman rose to nominate candidates for
+regent he knew, before she spoke, the names she would pronounce. He
+looked at her with a feeling of contempt and to save his life he
+couldn't recall her name.</p>
+
+<p>She repeated her address to the chair with angry emphasis:</p>
+
+<p>"Comrade Chairman!"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," Norman answered, "but I could not for the moment
+recall your name. The comrade on my right (the woman without a soul,
+he added in low tones) has the floor."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara started at his tone of anger and whispered:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>"How could you be so rude&mdash;what is wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are about to retire from office."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" Barbara gasped as the little woman began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen&mdash;you will understand," he said, with a sudden curve of his
+lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades," the deep, calm voice began, "I place in nomination for the
+office of regents for the four ensuing years the names of a man and
+woman whom every member of the old colony entitled to vote to-night
+has learned to love and honour&mdash;a man and woman whose ripe experience,
+whose sound judgment, whose sense of right, whose powers of reasoning,
+whose executive genius will give to us all the guarantee of perfect
+justice and perfect order&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You bet they will, old girl," Tom cried with enthusiasm, waving his
+hand admiringly toward Norman and Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>The speaker paused, regarded Tom a moment with quiet scorn, and
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>"I have the honour to name for the highest honour in the gift of the
+Brotherhood for the regency of the new State of Ventura Comrades
+Herman and Catherine Wolf."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that you say?" old Tom yelled with anger, leaping to his feet,
+and glaring around the room in a dazed surprise.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>The old miner was too shrewd a politician to doubt now for a moment
+the situation. He made the only possible attack on the programme that
+promised results.</p>
+
+<p>"In view of the fact, feller comrades," he shouted, "that half the
+present members er this here Brotherhood have not been here long
+enough to vote, I move that in justice to the new members we postpone
+this election for six months."</p>
+
+<p>Joe seconded the motion, and the chairman asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any remarks on the motion?"</p>
+
+<p>The Bard moved as if to rise, when Diggs snatched him back into his
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>Amid a silence that was ominous the chairman put the question:</p>
+
+<p>"All in favour of postponing this election for six months that our new
+members may be able to vote will say 'Aye.'"</p>
+
+<p>The response was feeble. Tom and Joe yelled very loudly, but their
+effort was obvious.</p>
+
+<p>"All in favour say 'No.'"</p>
+
+<p>The whole audience seemed to shout in solid trained chorus "No!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom hastened to nominate Norman and Barbara. The old miner's speech
+was couched in plain, uncouth words, but they came from the heart and
+their rugged eloquence stirred the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>crowd with surprising power. Diggs
+glanced over the audience through his flashing glasses, and his
+perpetual smile faded into a look of uneasiness as a round of applause
+swept the house.</p>
+
+<p>He tiptoed to Wolf's side and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Any danger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the slightest. I want him to get some votes. It's better so."</p>
+
+<p>The programme went through without a hitch. Wolf and Catherine were
+elected regents by an overwhelming majority and a new board of
+governors chosen with not a single one whom Norman knew personally.</p>
+
+<p>The young leader sat in sullen silence, and watched the proceedings
+with contempt. Barbara looked on in increasing wonder and pain.</p>
+
+<p>When the result was announced and the cheering had died away she bent
+her beautiful head close to his and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"This is a complete surprise. You believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he quickly answered, "and one touch of your hand will rob
+defeat of its sting."</p>
+
+<p>She pressed his hand with lingering tenderness and sought Catherine
+with a flash of anger in her brown eyes that boded trouble for the
+house of Wolf.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE NEW MASTER</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Wolf lost no time in demonstrating that he was complete master of the
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>At nine o'clock next morning two armed guards, whom he had never seen
+in the house before, entered Norman's room and handed him the first
+official order of the new regents. The deposed young leader read it
+with amusement at first, but as his eyes rested on its brief words of
+command, something of their sinister meaning began to dawn in his
+mind.</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"All citizens of the State of Ventura are ordered to immediately
+surrender their arms. By order of</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="sc" style="padding-right: 35%;">"Herman Wolf,</span><br />
+<span style="padding-right: 30%;">"<i>Regent</i>."</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Norman looked at the revolvers in the holsters of the guards and dryly
+remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"But the State will kindly continue their use, I see!"</p>
+
+<p>Norman surrendered his revolver, and his room was searched in every
+nook and corner for weapons he might have concealed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why this insult?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>The guardsman saluted.</p>
+
+<p>"Special orders of the regent, sir. We are to take no man's word for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Norman sat in silence while the men opened his trunks, ransacked his
+drawers, and searched in every conceivable spot where a weapon of any
+kind might be hid.</p>
+
+<p>"I could have told you at first that I had no other guns. The entire
+colony is being disarmed this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, the work will be completed by two o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>The man fumbled in his pocket and drew out another order.</p>
+
+<p>"And this one for you personally, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;after the disarming?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Norman read the second order and the lines of his mouth tightened
+suddenly. The note was brief but to the point:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"Comrade Norman Worth will report to the regent at ten o'clock
+for orders.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="sc" style="padding-right: 35%;">"Herman Wolf,</span><br />
+<span style="padding-right: 35%;">"<i>Regent</i>."</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>For five minutes after the guards had gone Norman stood in silence
+staring at this order. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>It was the first he had ever received in his
+life except the one from his own father which he had disobeyed.</p>
+
+<p>To be driven into another man's presence to take orders as from a
+master to a servant was an idea that had never entered his
+imagination. He had seen such things. He had given orders, but he had
+never, somehow, counted himself in the class of men who took them.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time he began to realize the meaning of the work he had
+been doing, and began to see how deftly and unconsciously he had been
+forging the chains of a system of irresponsible slavery on his fellow
+men. While the motive which impelled him was one of unselfish love,
+and he had thought only of their best interest, he saw now in a flash
+with what crushing cruelty this power could be used.</p>
+
+<p>It all seemed simple enough when he regarded his own will as the
+centre and source of power. Now that another man had grasped the lever
+and applied this power, the whole scheme of artificial life which he
+had created took on a new and darker meaning.</p>
+
+<p>What should he do?</p>
+
+<p>His first impulse was to walk into Wolf's presence, denounce him as a
+scheming scoundrel, and defy his power. That Wolf would fight was not
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>to be questioned for a minute. His first act of disarming the colony
+was a master-stroke, and the longer the young leader thought of it the
+more hopeless his present situation became.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond a doubt Wolf had been selecting the new regent's guard with the
+same patience and skill with which he had executed his political coup.
+This guard was composed now only of his tried and trusted henchmen. A
+single false step on Norman's part would simply play into the wily
+brute's hands, and he would destroy himself at a single stroke.</p>
+
+<p>He must use his brain. He must fight the devil with fire. He must
+submit for the moment, plan and work and wait with infinite patience,
+and when the work of patience was complete, then strike and strike to
+kill.</p>
+
+<p>And yet the blood rushed to his heart and strangled with the thought
+of submission to such a man. But there was no other way. He had
+himself set the trap of steel he now felt crash into his own flesh.</p>
+
+<p>To appeal to his father was unthinkable&mdash;his pride forbade it, even if
+it were possible.</p>
+
+<p>To escape was out of the question. Every way had been cut and that by
+his own order. The mail was inspected. The steamer held no
+communication with the people of the island. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>No boat was allowed to
+land, and no boat, even the smallest sail or row boat, was permitted
+to a member of the Brotherhood on any pretext.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, resignation or flight could not be thought of for another
+reason. To retreat now and leave thousands of people behind whom he
+had led into this enterprise would be the act of a coward.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing left except to fight it out on the lines he had
+himself laid down.</p>
+
+<p>The one thing that hurt him most was the ugly suspicion that Barbara
+must have known something of this deeply laid scheme by which the
+Wolfs had gained control of the Brotherhood. And yet her surprise had
+been genuine, her anger real. He couldn't be mistaken about it. To
+believe her capable of such treachery and double-dealing was to doubt
+the very existence of truth and purity.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, when he recalled how little he really knew of her past life,
+what dark secrets might lurk in the story of the years she had spent
+under the same roof with these people, he grew sick at the thought.</p>
+
+<p>He knew now that the blond beast with the red scar on his neck and the
+slender, dark-eyed madonna-like mate who had always been his shadow
+were capable of anything. Two people <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>who could smile in treacherous
+silence for a year and suddenly grip the throat of the man who had
+been their best friend, needed no written biography to tell their
+past. It was luminous. And in the glare in which he read it he
+shuddered at the sinister light it threw on the beautiful girl whom
+they had reared as their own.</p>
+
+<p>He took from his mantel a little picture made one day in San Francisco
+by a tintype man. It was a singularly beautiful likeness of Barbara,
+taken on a sudden impulse without a moment's thought or preparation.
+Her laughing face looked out at him, wreathed in a garland of wayward
+ringlets of dark brown hair. Truth, sincerity, beauty, intelligence,
+and a childlike innocence were stamped in every line.</p>
+
+<p>A thousand times since he had seen her just like that. And from the
+moment of their advent on the island this impression of girlish
+innocence and sincerity had grown rather than decreased. The more he
+saw of her in the simpler, quieter moments of their association, the
+stronger, deeper, and more tender his love became, and the deeper grew
+his utter faith in the purity of her soul and body.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll sooner doubt an angel of God!" he said at last, as he placed it
+back on the mantel.</p>
+
+<p>He would see Wolf at once, learn his plans, and then carefully make
+his own.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>He dressed with care and at the appointed hour rapped for admission at
+the executive office where the day before he sat as master.</p>
+
+<p>He was told the regent was busy with others and ordered to wait his
+turn. He flushed with anger, recovered himself, waited a half hour,
+and was ushered into the presence of the new ruler.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf sat in the big revolving chair at his desk with conscious dignity
+and power. Two of his guards stood outside the door, grim reminders of
+the substantial character of the new administration.</p>
+
+<p>Norman seated himself with careless ease without invitation and waited
+for the older man to speak.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf smiled grimly, stroked his thick, coarse reddish beard, and
+looked at Norman thoughtfully a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my boy," the regent began, with friendly patronage, "we'd as
+well come to the point without ceremony. You are down and out. The new
+board of governors will do what I wish. I am in supreme command of the
+ship of state. Do you want to fight or work?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a poor doctor, Wolf," Norman said, coolly, "who can't take his
+own medicine. I came here to work."</p>
+
+<p>"Congratulations on your good sense!" the regent replied. "I've no
+desire to make trouble <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>for you. I have nothing against you
+personally. I had to put you out and take command to save the colony
+from ruin. You meant well, but you were a bungling amateur, and you
+can be of greater service in the ranks than in command. I know you
+don't like me after what has happened, but you don't have to. I'll be
+generous. What sort of work would you like to have assigned you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, that's very kind of you, Wolf, I'm sure. I believe the warden
+of every penitentiary is equally generous to all convicts. However,
+that's a minor detail, seeing that I assisted in the creation of this
+ideal world."</p>
+
+<p>Wolf smashed the desk top with his big fist and suddenly glared at
+Norman, his cold eyes gleaming angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to the point! I've no time to waste! Have you any choice as to
+the kind of work to which you wish to be assigned?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a decided choice. Our mines have all failed. I'll redeem the
+failure by perfecting and completing the big dredge for mining gold
+from the low-grade sands on the beach."</p>
+
+<p>"A waste of time and money," Wolf snapped. "I can't afford to spare
+the men on any more fool inventions. Such things must stop."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to stop all progress by stopping inventions?" Norman asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>"So far as the State is concerned, yes," said the regent, with
+emphasis. "Under your slipshod administration we spent nearly two
+hundred thousand dollars during the past year on so-called inventions.
+Every fool in the colony has invented something. Not one in a hundred
+has produced an idea that is practicable. We cannot afford to waste
+the capital of the State in such idiocy."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me twenty men and I'll complete the dredge."</p>
+
+<p>"Labour is capital in the Socialist State. I can't afford to waste
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are not wasting it," Norman pleaded. "I've spent sixty
+thousand already on this invention. Unless the machine is completed
+the capital will be lost to the colony."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be lost anyhow," Wolf answered, impatiently. "Your whole
+conception is a piece of childish folly. You can't make a profit
+operating a dredge in sand containing only twenty cents' worth of gold
+to a ton of dirt."</p>
+
+<p>"I can do better," Norman urged with enthusiasm. "I can make a hundred
+per cent. on the investment if the dirt pans out ten cents to the ton.
+If it pans twenty cents a ton I can make millions."</p>
+
+<p>"So every crank has claimed for his particular piece of idiocy. I'll
+not permit another dollar or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>another day's labour to be thrown away
+on any such crazy experiment."</p>
+
+<p>Norman's face reddened with a rush of uncontrollable anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Wolf, you can't be serious in this."</p>
+
+<p>"I was never more serious in my life," the big jaws snapped. "I am
+going to issue an order to-day that hereafter any man or woman who
+conceives an invention can work it out himself without aid from the
+State. They must do this at odd hours after working the required time
+each day. They must put their own money into their machine."</p>
+
+<p>"As the State only has capital," Norman protested, "this means the
+practical prohibition of all invention. No man can with his own hands
+make the machinery needed in the progress of humanity. We have
+abolished private capital by abolishing rent, interest, and profit. Do
+you propose thus to stop the progress of the world?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," Wolf cried with a wave of his heavy hand. "Let the ambitious
+inventor work at night and build his own machine. I will grant, in my
+order on the subject, to each successful inventor the right to operate
+his own machine for ten years before it becomes the property of the
+State."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose he succeeds," said Norman, "under such hard conditions with
+his own hands and without capital in perfecting an invention of
+enormous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>value, such as the dredge I have begun, of what use will the
+results be if he cannot invest them in rent or interest, and all gifts
+and exchanges are prohibited?"</p>
+
+<p>"He may build a home and lavish them on his wife and children, or he
+may become a great public benefactor and win the love and gratitude of
+the people by enriching the State and shortening the hours of labour.
+If your dredge can make a million, for example, as you claim&mdash;go
+ahead, work at night, perfect it, put it to work, build yourself a
+palace to live in, give millions to the Brotherhood. Shorten their
+hours from eight to four, and I'll guarantee you'll oust me from my
+position of power."</p>
+
+<p>Norman's eye suddenly flashed with resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not grant me the labour to complete the dredge?" Norman
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not one man for one minute," was the curt reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll finish it myself," Norman said, with determination.</p>
+
+<p>"After you've worked eight full hours a day, under my direction&mdash;you
+understand!" the regent responded sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>Norman sprang to his feet and the two men faced each other a moment,
+the big scar on Wolf's neck flashing red, his enormous fists
+instinctively closing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>"Wolf, this is an infamous outrage!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll teach you not to speak to me in that manner again, sir!" the
+regent slowly said, as he tapped his bell.</p>
+
+<p>The guards sprang to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Show this gentleman to the barnyard&mdash;he is a good farmer. Put him at
+work with old Methodist John cleaning out the stables for the new
+cantaloup crop. He is very fond of cantaloups. If he makes any trouble
+tell the sergeant of your guard to give him thirty-nine lashes without
+consulting me."</p>
+
+<p>Norman stepped closer, and, trembling from head to foot, said to Wolf:</p>
+
+<p>"If ever one of your men lays the weight of his hand on me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet we both agreed that under our system discipline must be
+enforced&mdash;the discipline of an army?" the regent interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>Norman held his gaze fixed without moving a muscle, and slowly
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>"If you ever try it, you'd better finish your job."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember your advice," Wolf answered with a sneer. "Show him to
+his work."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A TEST OF STRENGTH</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>When Catherine saw the furious look on Barbara's face as she descended
+from the platform the night of the election, she avoided a meeting and
+went to bed pleading a headache.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning Barbara rapped for entrance, forced her way in,
+and stood, tense with anger, before the older woman, her eyes red from
+the long vigil of a sleepless night.</p>
+
+<p>"You avoided me last night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Catherine laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I never saw you in quite such a rage. It might be serious if
+it were not so silly."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll find it serious before you are through with this performance,"
+Barbara retorted, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, I am in supreme authority now. Don't you dare speak to me
+in that manner, you ungrateful little wretch!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll dare to tell you the truth&mdash;even if you were the mother who bore
+me&mdash;even if I had not repaid you a hundredfold for every dollar you
+have spent on me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>"Hush, hush, my dear, I do not wish to quarrel," Catherine said,
+recovering herself. "I know your pride is wounded over your defeat.
+I've watched your growing vanity in high office with much amusement
+for the past year."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not thinking of myself," Barbara said with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not&mdash;what woman ever does?" Catherine sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to be relieved of the annoyance of such a position. But
+your treatment of the brave and daring young spirit who conceived this
+colony and created its wealth and influence&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I responsible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Herman is incapable of conceiving such a plot without your
+suggestion. It is your work. You have always loved luxury and power."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I love a man also," Catherine interrupted, as her full
+sensuous lips curled in a curious smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I give you credit for that too," the girl admitted. "Though I
+confess the secret of your infatuation for that hulking brute has
+always been one of the black mysteries of life to me."</p>
+
+<p>"When you're older," again the round lips quivered with a smile,
+"perhaps you will understand. And now, my child, I've been patient
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>with you. But don't you ever again call Herman a brute in my
+presence."</p>
+
+<p>"Take care he doesn't prove it to you!" the girl warned.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine suddenly paled.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?" she whispered, glancing about the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing! nothing! nothing! Only that in every deed of the devil there
+is the seed of death. You have planted the seed. The harvest is sure."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't call me that again! I hate you!" Barbara spoke with deliberate
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you gone mad?" Catherine cried, with impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mad with hatred. From to-day we are enemies, and I'll hate you
+forever!"</p>
+
+<p>The older woman looked at her in astonishment and spoke with a
+deliberate sneer:</p>
+
+<p>"As you like. Remember, then, from this moment that you are a servant
+under my command. I am no longer your foster-mother. Leave this room
+instantly, take your things to the domestic servants' quarters, and
+report to the head-woman for duty in the corridors of this wing of the
+building."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think I'll submit to this?" Barbara gasped.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>Catherine rang the bell, and Barbara gazed at her with a look of
+mingled terror and rage. A sudden light flashed in her brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you in a moment," was the calm reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's war between us," Barbara cried.</p>
+
+<p>She sprang to the door and Catherine caught her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Herman."</p>
+
+<p>"He cannot interfere with my decisions."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara threw her off and bounded through the door crying:</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl rushed past the guard at the door of Wolf's office, trembling
+with rage, her eyes filled with blinding tears.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf sprang to his feet in astonishment and met her with outstretched
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, child?" he asked as his big coarse fists closed
+over the hot little fingers and his gray eyes lighted at the sight of
+her dishevelled hair and bare throat.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara choked back the sobs, and looked appealingly into Wolf's face.</p>
+
+<p>"We have quarrelled about last night. You understand, Herman.
+Catherine has ordered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>me to leave my room and join the servants in
+the halls. You&mdash;you will not allow me to be degraded thus&mdash;will you?"</p>
+
+<p>Wolf drew the trembling girl into his arms, pressed her close a
+moment, stroked her curls with his gnarled hand, and his face flushed
+with a look of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, dear, I'll protect you," he answered, bending and
+kissing her forehead. "Go back to your room, and if any one dares to
+disturb you, call for me."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara murmured through her tears:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Herman."</p>
+
+<p>Wolf's eyes sparkled as he watched the graceful little figure proudly
+leave the room.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A VISION FROM THE HILLTOP</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Catherine's fight with Wolf was long and bitter. For hours she
+struggled to force him to leave in her hands the discipline of the
+women members of the colony. Her tears and threats fell on ears
+equally deaf to all pleading. At last the guards listening outside
+heard only the low sobbing of a woman's voice near the door for a half
+hour without a sound from the man.</p>
+
+<p>And then his short, sharp words came quick and curt and stinging:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you done now with this fool performance?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer was a sob.</p>
+
+<p>"Understand once for all," the cold, hard voice went on, "I am the
+master here. Your office as regent is one of courtesy only as my wife.
+My word alone is supreme. When you cease to be my wife another regent
+will be chosen and I do the choosing. I not only propose to do the
+work of disciplining the women, but it is the one kind of work to
+which I shall devote myself with pleasure."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>"Herman!" Catherine sobbed, as if she had sunk beneath a blow.</p>
+
+<p>The man laughed with brutal enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd as well know this now as later. You can be getting used to it."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes red with weeping, her proud shoulders drooped for the first
+time in her life, Catherine slowly walked from Wolf's office back to
+her room.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara passed her on the stairs without a word or a glance, and
+hurried again to see the regent, her whole being alert with quick
+intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>The guard had received instructions that she was the one privileged
+person in the colony who could enter his office at all hours, day or
+night, without ceremony or delay. They showed her in immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"I've just heard of your order sending Norman to the work of a common
+farm-hand, Herman," Barbara began.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf scowled.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not interfere in this little affair between my rival and
+myself, Barbara," he said, sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"I will interfere," she quickly replied, "both for your sake and his.
+You've made a serious mistake, Herman. Correct it at once."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>"I had to show him his place."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't fair. The men will resent it. You will make enemies. Your
+power is complete. You can afford to be generous."</p>
+
+<p>Wolf looked at her with hungry, admiring gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you're right," he said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'm right!" she replied, "and you know it. You've made him
+a martyr and a hero on the first day of his fall from power. Your true
+policy is just the opposite. Let him do what he pleases for a time.
+Above all things don't put yourself in the position of his enemy. Your
+strength lies in standing as his patron and friend."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, Barbara," Wolf cried, "what a wise head on your little
+shoulders! Come, be honest with me now&mdash;you're not in love with this
+man?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl smiled demurely:</p>
+
+<p>"He is with me, I think," she admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, of course&mdash;so we all are," he cried, with a smile. "But you
+have not accepted his love?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you had better sense. I'll change my order at your
+suggestion."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you would," she cried, joyfully.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf sat down at his desk and wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"Comrade Norman Worth is transferred from the field to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+foundry, with permission, after his day's work, to employ his
+time in the shops perfecting any invention in which he may be
+interested.</p>
+
+<p class="right" style="padding-right: 20%;">
+<span class="sc">"Wolf</span>&mdash;<i>Regent</i>."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>He handed the order to Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this to the youngster and tell him I did it at your suggestion,
+and hereafter give him a wide berth if you wish to be friendly with
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara dropped her eyes and Wolf touched her chin with his coarse,
+short fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"A hint to the wise is sufficient, little girl. You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara took the order, turned toward the door, paused and smiled
+coquettishly:</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, Herman."</p>
+
+<p>She found Norman at work with Methodist John cleaning out a stable. To
+her amazement he was whistling and joking about something with the old
+man. She stopped and listened a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"But what on earth do you want a lightning-rod for, John?" Norman
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"That's my secret, sir," the old man answered, "but I must have
+one&mdash;won't you get it for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, John, but I have no more power now in the State of Ventura
+than you have."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>"But didn't you get the million dollars and didn't you make all the
+money for 'em&mdash;a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the cantaloups
+the others didn't have sense enough to plant? Surely they'll give you
+enough to get me a thirty-foot lightning-rod?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not, John, still I'll do my best. I don't like to press
+you for the secrets of your inner life, old man, but I've immense
+curiosity to know what you want with that lightning-rod? You say
+you're not afraid of lightning?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I'm not afraid of nothin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't no use in askin' sir, I can't tell ye. But I want it. I'm
+going to pray every night for it till I get it. Maybe the Lord will
+send me one by an angel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara suddenly appeared in the door of the stall.</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking of angels," Norman cried, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I have an order for you," Barbara said, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Norman threw his pitchfork full of manure out of the window of the
+stall, stood the fork in the corner, brushed his hands, and bowed
+before Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>"What an exquisite picture you make standing in the doorway there with
+that ocean of blossoming <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>peach trees stretching up the slope until it
+kisses the sky line. I wish I were an artist."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"I expected to find you with murder in your heart. I can't
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>Norman took the note from her white fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I'm laughing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, isn't the joke on me? I've been preaching, preaching,
+preaching, about the dignity of all labour. I kicked the first few
+moments, I confess. The medicine was bitter, but I soon began to find
+that it was good for the soul. I'm getting acquainted with myself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Norman paused, read Wolf's order, and looked tenderly into Barbara's
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"So you heard of my fall and came to my rescue. It's worth the jolt to
+be rescued by such a hand."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped and kissed the tips of her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me up the hill yonder among those blossoming trees," he
+said, leading her toward the orchard. "I want to tell you about a
+vision I saw in that stable a while ago while I wielded the pitchfork
+and talked to my old pauper friend, both of us now comrade equals."</p>
+
+<p>They walked on in silence through the long, clean rows of fruit trees
+in full bloom, the air redolent with sweet perfume and quivering with
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>the electric hum of growing life. On the top of the hill they paused
+and looked toward the sea that stretched away in solemn, infinite
+grandeur. Below, on the next plateau, rolled in apparently endless
+acres, the great white carpet of flowering plum trees and further on
+the tender budding grapes and beyond, lower still, the deep green
+valley with orange trees flashing their golden fruit.</p>
+
+<p>"What a glorious world!" Barbara cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered with a sigh, "a world of endless beauty in which
+after all there's nothing vile but man. And I once thought that in
+such a world angels only could live."</p>
+
+<p>"Must we despair because one man or woman proves false," she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered cheerily, leading her to a boulder and taking his
+seat by her side.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't despair. I've been seeing visions to-day&mdash;visions as old as
+the beat of the human heart, perhaps, yet always new."</p>
+
+<p>He drew the order of Wolf from his pocket and looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>"From the moment of my awakening last night from the fool's paradise
+in which I've been living the past year my mind has been at work on
+solving the one unsolved problem in this dredge to which he refers. It
+came to me like a flash while at work this morning."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>"Your invention will succeed?" she interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," he said, with enthusiasm. "I didn't
+solve it before because I lacked the incentive to apply my mind to
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"And you got the incentive in your defeat?" she asked, in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Deprived of my toys, I came back to myself, the source of
+power."</p>
+
+<p>"But your incentive&mdash;I don't understand&mdash;in such an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"A very simple, very old, but very powerful one, I'm beginning to
+think, the source of all human progress&mdash;the determination to build a
+home here in one of these flower-robed hills overlooking the sea, and
+bring my bride to it some glorious day like this when every tree is
+festooned with joy! I don't want a modest cottage. My bride was born a
+queen. Every line of her delicate and sensitive face proclaims her
+royal ancestry. She shall have a palace. Love, Beauty, Music, Art, and
+Truth shall be her servants. I shall be the magician who will create
+all this out of the dirt men are now trampling under foot along the
+beach."</p>
+
+<p>Barbara drew a deep breath, trembled, and looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"I promised her never to speak of love again until her own dear lips
+called me, and I will not, though I fear sometimes the waiting seems
+long."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>"And if she never calls?" the girl asked, dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>"Then my palace shall remain silent and empty. Her hand alone can open
+its doors."</p>
+
+<p>"And if I do not see you often while your palace is building, you may
+know at least I have not forgotten&mdash;and you will understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will understand," he answered, with elation.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>IN LOVE AND WAR</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>With untiring zeal Norman gave himself to work on the dredge. Wolf
+refused to modify his original order that a full day should first be
+given as a labourer in the foundry and machine shops before he could
+devote himself to his invention.</p>
+
+<p>This proved an advantage rather than a hindrance. By his unfailing
+courtesy, good fellowship, skill, and wit, Norman won his fellow
+workmen as warm personal friends. He was able thus to secure all the
+assistance he needed in his work.</p>
+
+<p>Within two months the big dredge was finished.</p>
+
+<p>From the first the regent had regarded Norman's fad with contempt.
+That he could succeed in making money out of dirt containing but
+twenty cents' worth of gold to a ton was an absurdity on its face.</p>
+
+<p>While the young inventor worked day and night with tireless energy the
+regent quietly perfected his grip on the life of the rapidly growing
+colony. To render escape from the island or communication with the
+coast more impossible than ever, he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>established the strict system of
+double patrol around each community. No member of the Brotherhood was
+allowed to leave his room at night without permission. Beyond the
+outer patrol a mounted guard was established and the entire line of
+beach was guarded by watchmen in relays who reported each hour, day
+and night, by telephone to the commandant.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of two months of Wolf's merciless rule the efficiency of
+labour had so decreased, it was necessary to lengthen the number of
+hours from eight to nine. As every inducement to efficiency of labour
+had been removed there was no incentive to any man to do more than he
+must without a fight with his guard or overseer. No vote was permitted
+on the question of increasing the hours of labour. The board of
+governors passed the order which Wolf wrote out for them without a
+dissenting voice.</p>
+
+<p>Norman had no trouble in getting a gang of willing hands to push the
+monster gold-digger into position on one of the sand-points inside the
+harbour.</p>
+
+<p>It was mounted on a float twenty-five feet wide and sixty-five feet
+long. For power it carried two fifty-horse-power distillate engines.
+Tom was in charge of one and Joe of the other. For raising the sand
+and gravel containing the gold <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>two big Jackson gravel-pumps were
+located on opposite corners at the front end of the float.</p>
+
+<p>Old Tom blew the whistle, the engines started, and in an hour the
+pumps had raised a hundred tons of sand and gravel and deposited them
+in the concentrating flumes. Norman worked the dredge all night
+without a moment's pause and in twelve hours his pumps had lifted
+fifteen hundred tons of sand, showing a capacity of 3,000 tons per
+day. When the gold was extracted and weighed it was found that the
+dredge had averaged twenty cents from each ton of sand and that it
+would cost less than three cents a ton to operate the entire machinery
+of its production. The first experimental machine alone would net $500
+dollars a day, or $150,000 a year. He could put five of these machines
+to work in three months and make $3,000 a day.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>The invention stirred the colony to its depths. Norman's appearance
+was the signal for a burst of cheering wherever he went.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf was dumfounded. He called his board of governors together at once
+and ordered them to enact a new law to meet the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Norman announced in the <i>Era</i> that he would give the Brotherhood from
+the beginning one half the net earnings of his machines, and asked
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>the board of governors at once to grant him the men needed to build
+and operate enough dredges to reduce the hours of labour from nine to
+seven.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf met the emergency with prompt and vigorous action. He suspended
+the editor for printing the announcement and set him to work carrying
+a hod.</p>
+
+<p>He issued a proclamation as regent that the dredge in the hands of its
+inventor threatened the existence of the State, declared the law of
+inventions under which it was built suspended, and ordered Norman to
+at once operate the machine for the sole benefit of the State and
+begin the construction of twenty dredges of equal capacity.</p>
+
+<p>When Norman received this order he set to work without a moment's
+delay and made a half-dozen dynamite bombs, gave one each to Tom and
+Joe and their assistants, laid in a supply of provisions, erected a
+tent on the beach beside the dredge, and set the big machine to work
+for all it was worth.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf promptly ordered his arrest. The men who attempted to execute the
+order fled in terror at the sight of the bombs and reported for
+instructions.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf came in person at the head of a picked company of fifty guards.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>Norman had stretched a rope a hundred feet from the dredge and posted
+a notice that he would kill any man daring to cross it without his
+permission.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf paused at the rope. Norman stood alone on one of the big pumps
+with his arms folded watching his enemy in silence.</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the guard laid his hand on the regent's arm:</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better not try it."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't dare," Wolf growled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he will," the captain insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll risk it," the regent snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad? What's the use? He'll blow it up. You can't rebuild the
+dredge&mdash;no one understands it. Use common sense. Send the girl with a
+flag of truce and ask for a conference."</p>
+
+<p>"A good idea&mdash;if it works," Wolf answered hesitating.</p>
+
+<p>"It's worth trying," the captain urged.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf returned to the house with his men, and in a few minutes Barbara
+came to Norman, her face white with terror, her voice quivering with
+pleading intensity.</p>
+
+<p>"Please," she gasped, "for my sake, I beg of you not to do this insane
+thing! The regent asks for a conference under a flag of truce. He
+recognizes that it is impossible that you should <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>remain here after
+what has happened. He asks for a half-hour's talk with you to offer an
+adjustment under which you can resign and return to San Francisco."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a trick and a lie. He's deceiving you," Norman replied,
+sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I swear it's true. He is in earnest, Catherine is beside herself
+with fear lest he be killed. He swore to her as he swore to me to
+respect your wishes. I'll gladly give my life if he proves false."</p>
+
+<p>Norman turned his face away and looked over the still, blue waters,
+struggling with himself as he felt the tug of her soft hand on his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a hundred men with Wolf at their head sprang over the steep
+embankment and rushed to the dredge. Tom leaped to his feet and lifted
+his bomb without a word.</p>
+
+<p>Norman covered Barbara and grasped his uplifted arm.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all over boys. I've surrendered!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara faced Wolf with blazing eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"You have betrayed my trust!"</p>
+
+<p>Wolf brushed her aside and confronted Norman, who had thrown the bomb
+he had taken from Tom's hand into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Norman paid no attention to Wolf, and seemed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>to see only the girl's
+face convulsed with passion. His eyes never left her for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf turned and secured the other men who had defended the dredge,
+marching them with their hands tied behind their backs between two
+rows of guardsmen off to jail.</p>
+
+<p>Norman spoke at last to Barbara in low, cold tones:</p>
+
+<p>"I congratulate you."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"That you are a superb actress. You have played your part to
+perfection. Your r&ocirc;le was very dramatic, too. A clumsy woman would
+have bungled it, and lost even at the last moment."</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot believe that I willingly betrayed you?" she cried, in
+anguish.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had died before I knew it," he answered, bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara pressed close to his side and seized his hand fiercely. He
+turned away with a shudder.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me," she pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>He turned and faced her with a look of anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Words are idle. Deeds speak louder than words."</p>
+
+<p>"Norman, you are killing me with this cruel doubt!" she sobbed. "I
+give up! I love you! I love you!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>She threw her arms around his neck and her head sank on his breast.</p>
+
+<p>He resisted for a moment, then clasped her to his heart, bent and
+kissed her with passionate tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"You believe me now?" she cried, through her tears.</p>
+
+<p>"God forgive me for doubting you for a moment!" he answered,
+earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>The guard suddenly drew Norman from her arms, tied his hands, and led
+him away to prison while the little figure followed, sobbing in
+helpless anguish.</p>
+
+<p>Wolf walked behind, his big mouth twitching with smiles he could not
+suppress.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A PRIMITIVE LOVER</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Wolf led Barbara into his office, lighted the lamp, and waited in
+patience for her first blinding surrender to grief to spend itself
+before speaking.</p>
+
+<p>He stood over her at last with a smile, bent and touched her brown
+curls.</p>
+
+<p>The girl sprang to her feet and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use, my beauty, I'm on to your tricks now!"</p>
+
+<p>The little figure stiffened, and her gaze was steady, though her
+fingers trembled as she nervously twisted the tiny handkerchief she
+held.</p>
+
+<p>"You've been playing me for a fool for the past two months. Your eyes
+have been laughing into mine with all sorts of little daring
+suggestions when you had an axe to grind at my expense. And then you
+had a habit of disappearing until you needed something else. You were
+off billing and cooing with our hero and smiling at my stupidity
+behind my back."</p>
+
+<p>"I've spoken to him to-day," Barbara answered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>solemnly, "the first
+words of love that ever passed my lips."</p>
+
+<p>"You did pretty well for an amateur, if that was the first kiss you
+ever gave him."</p>
+
+<p>"It was the first!" she said, defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be the last for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," she answered, with a curl to her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"You think I don't mean it?" Wolf demanded, stepping close and
+thrusting his massive head forward while his big fists closed.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it," she answered, firmly. "But I'm not afraid of you,
+Herman."</p>
+
+<p>"You doubt my power?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Over others, no."</p>
+
+<p>"But over you?"</p>
+
+<p>Wolf suddenly grasped her.</p>
+
+<p>The girl shrank back in terror for an instant, and then, to his
+surprise, her hand was still and cold and steady. Not a tremor in the
+tense body. Her brown eyes, staring wide, held his gaze without a sign
+of weakness or of fear. Something in her attitude startled the beast
+within him. He suddenly dropped her hand and changed his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let's not quarrel! Don't be foolish. It is for you I've been
+scheming and planning the past year. For you the regent's palace was
+planned. Within five years a hundred thousand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>people will be here.
+The State will be rich beyond our wildest dreams, and I shall be the
+State. I want you to sit by my side."</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep292" id="imagep292"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep292.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep292.jpg" width="53%" alt="Wolf Grasped Her." /></a><br />
+<p class="cen sc" style="margin-top: .2em;">Wolf Grasped Her.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"You say this to me after all that Catherine has been to you and your
+life?"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not? If I no longer love, should I be chained?"</p>
+
+<p>"And this is the ideal you came here to build?" she asked, with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. It is the essence of Socialism. In my next proclamation I
+shall declare for the freedom of love. Every great Socialist has
+preached this. Marriage and the family form the tap-root out of which
+the whole system of capitalism grew. The system can never be destroyed
+until the family is annihilated. I had thought you a woman whose
+brilliant intellect had faced this issue and broken the chains of a
+degrading bourgeois morality."</p>
+
+<p>"The chains of love, I find, are very sweet," she interrupted, with
+dreamy tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"You talk this twaddle about romantic love? You, the leader of a
+revolution! Come, you are no longer a child. We are living now in the
+world of freedom and reality where men and women say the unspoken
+things and live to the utmost reach of their being, body and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a world worth living in?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>"Was the old world of family life, of starvation and misery, worth
+living in?" Wolf retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I might have said no an hour ago, but now that my lips have
+met my lover's the dream of the old family life, with its sanctity and
+purity, begins to call me. And something deep down within answers with
+a cry of joy. Why should you desire me, knowing that I thus love
+another?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can love where you like," he snapped, as his big jaws came
+together. "I can get along without your love. I just want you&mdash;and I'm
+going to have you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll die first!"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see. Time works wonders."</p>
+
+<p>With a shudder Barbara turned and left him.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>EQUALITY</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Barbara asked Wolf for permission to visit Norman in prison.</p>
+
+<p>The Regent shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my little beauty, it's not wise. I promise you that not a hair of
+his head shall be harmed. He is safe and well. If you wish to test my
+power, try to bribe my guards and see him."</p>
+
+<p>Day after day Barbara sought in vain to gain admittance to the jail,
+send or receive a message from within. Her lover had disappeared as
+completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed his body.</p>
+
+<p>The episode of the dredge was the last effort to question the power of
+the regent. The day after its capture Wolf put the men who had helped
+Norman build it to work operating the big machine, and its huge pumps
+began to throb in perfect time, piling ton on ton of gold-bearing sand
+and gravel into the flumes, as faithful to the touch of the thief who
+had stolen it as to the hand of the man of genius who invented it.</p>
+
+<p>The head machinist he ordered to build <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>five duplicates, and placed
+the entire working force of the mechanical department at once on the
+job.</p>
+
+<p>The daily <i>New Era</i> received a number of protests against the outrage
+of the inventor's arrest and imprisonment. Two protests were signed by
+the names of the writers, Diggs and the Bard. There appeared in the
+paper a warning editorial against sneaks who, under cover of the cause
+of justice, were seeking to aid treason and rebellion against the
+State.</p>
+
+<p>Diggs and the Bard were summoned before Wolf in person.</p>
+
+<p>The regent fixed his gray eyes on Diggs, and the man of questions
+forgot to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not dealing with an amateur now, Diggs," Wolf said, with a
+sneer. "The insulting letter you wrote&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;beg your pardon, Mr. Regent," Diggs stammered, "my questions
+were asked in the spirit of honest inquiry."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand their spirit, sir," Wolf growled. "And don't you
+interrupt me again when I'm talking! Your article was seditious. I've
+a mind to imprison you a year, but as this is your first offence I'll
+simply transfer you from the department of accounts to that of garbage
+and sewerage. Report at once to the overseer."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>Diggs's lips quivered and he tried to speak, but Wolf froze him with a
+look and he dropped to a seat.</p>
+
+<p>"I said report at once, sir, to the overseer of the department of
+garbage and sewerage. Did you hear me?" Wolf thundered.</p>
+
+<p>Diggs leaped to his feet stammering and retreating.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Excuse me. I was only waiting for Comrade Adair,
+sir! Excuse me, sir, I'll go at once!"</p>
+
+<p>He stumbled through the door and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard of Ramcat watched this scene with increasing terror. He had
+prepared an eloquent and daring appeal for freedom of speech. He tried
+to open his mouth, but Wolf's gaze froze the blood in his veins. His
+tongue refused to move. He sat huddled in a heap, trembling and
+shifting uneasily in his seat.</p>
+
+<p>At length the regent spoke with sneering patronage:</p>
+
+<p>"You wield a facile pen, Adair. I admire the glib ability with which
+you pour out gaseous matter from your overheated imagination."</p>
+
+<p>The Bard scrambled to his feet and bowed low in humble submission,
+fumbling his slouch hat tremblingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I meant no harm, sir, I assure you. A great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>leader of your power and
+genius can make allowances for poetic fervour. I'm sure you know that
+my whole soul is aflame with enthusiasm for our noble Cause!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, upon my word," Wolf laughed, "you're developing into a nimble
+liar! You used to be quite brutal in the frankness of your
+criticisms."</p>
+
+<p>"But I see the error of my way, sir," the Bard humbly cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll remit your prison sentence also and merely transfer you to
+the stone-quarry. We need more common labourers on the rock-pile there
+preparing the macadam for the court of the regent's palace. Report at
+once to the foreman of that gang."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," the Bard stammered, feebly, as he backed out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>The poet bent his proud back over the stone-pile for two weeks and
+suddenly disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>His hat was found on a rustic seat on a high cliff whose perpendicular
+wall was washed by the sea. Beneath this hat lay his last manuscript
+protest to the world. It was entitled:</p>
+
+<p>"The Journal of Roland Adair, Bard of Ramcat." It was written in blank
+verse and proved a most harrowing recital of the horrors he had
+suffered at the hands of the tyrant regent. With eloquence fierce and
+fiery he called on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>slaves who were being ground beneath his heel
+to rise in their might and slay the oppressor. He had chosen to die
+that his death-song might stir their souls to heroic action.</p>
+
+<p>Search was made on the beaches for his body in vain. His wife's grief
+was genuine and a few of his friends gathered with her on the tenth
+day after his disappearance to express their sorrow and appreciation
+in a brief formal service.</p>
+
+<p>Diggs was delivering a funeral oration bombarding Death, Hell, and the
+Grave with endless questions, when suddenly the Bard appeared, pinched
+with hunger, his clothes covered with dirt, his long hair dishevelled
+and unkempt. He had evidently been sleeping in the open.</p>
+
+<p>His friends stood in wonder. His wife shrieked in terror.</p>
+
+<p>The Bard solemnly lifted his hand and cried:</p>
+
+<p>"I stood on the hills and waited for slaves to rise and fight their
+way to death or freedom. And no man stirred! Did they not find my
+death-song?"</p>
+
+<p>Diggs spoke in timid accents:</p>
+
+<p>"The regent destroyed it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, but before my death I anticipated his treachery. I left ten
+mimeographed copies where they could be found by the people. If they
+have not been found my death would have been vain. I waited to be
+sure. I've come to ask."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>"They were found all right," his wife cried, angrily. "And if Wolf
+finds you now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She had scarcely spoken when an officer of the secret service suddenly
+laid his hand on the Bard's shoulder and quietly said:</p>
+
+<p>"Come. We'll give you something to sing about now worth while!"</p>
+
+<p>His wife clung to the tottering, terror-stricken figure for a moment
+and burst in tears. His friends shrank back in silence.</p>
+
+<p>The regent had him flogged unmercifully; and Roland Adair, the Bard of
+Ramcat, ceased to sing. He became a mere cog in the wheel of things
+which moved on with swift certainty to its appointed end.</p>
+
+<p>The social system worked now with deadly precision and ceaseless
+regularity. No citizen dared to speak against the man in authority
+over him or complain to the regent, for they were his trusted
+henchmen. Men and women huddled in groups and asked in whispers the
+news.</p>
+
+<p>Disarmed and at the mercy of his brutal guard, cut off from the world
+as effectually as if they lived on another planet, despair began to
+sicken the strongest hearts, and suicide to be more common than in the
+darkest days of panic and hunger in the old world.</p>
+
+<p>A curious group of three huddled together in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>the shadows discussing
+their fate on the day the Bard was publicly flogged.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Bob led the whispered conference of woe.</p>
+
+<p>"I tells ye, gemmens, dis beats de worl'! Befo' de war I wuz er slave.
+But I knowed my master. We wuz good friends. He say ter me, 'Bob
+you'se de blackest, laziest nigger dat ebber cumber de groun'! And I
+laf right in his face an' say, 'Come on, Marse Henry, an' le's go
+fishin'&mdash;dey'll bite ter-day'! An' he go wid me. He nebber lay de
+weight er his han' on me in his life. He come ter see me when I sick
+an' cheer me up. He gimme good clothes an' a good house an' plenty ter
+eat. He love me, an' I love him. I tells ye I'se er slave now an' I
+don't know who de debbil my master is. Dey change him every ten days.
+Dey cuss an' kick me&mdash;an' I work like a beast. Dis yer comrade
+business too much fer me."</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, boys," said a bowed figure by old Bob's side,
+"I lived in a model community once before."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, go 'long dar, man, dey nebber wuz er nudder one!" Bob protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We all wore the same thickness of clothes, ate the same three
+meals regularly, never over-ate or suffered from dyspepsia; all of us
+worked the same number of hours a day, went to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>bed at the same time
+and got up at the same time. There was no drinking, cursing,
+carousing, gambling, stealing, or fighting. We were model people and
+every man's wants were met with absolute equality. The only trouble
+was we all lived in the penitentiary at San Quentin&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Des listen at dat now!" Bob exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I found the world outside a pretty tough place to live in
+when I got out, too. I thought I'd find the real thing here and
+slipped in. What's the difference? In the pen we wore a gray suit.
+We've got it here with a red spangle on it. There they decided the
+kind of grub they'd give us. The same here. There we worked at jobs
+they give us. The same here. There we worked under overseers and
+guards. So we do here. I was sent up there for two years. It looks
+like we're in here for life."</p>
+
+<p>"How long, O Lord, how long, will Thy servant wait for deliverance?"
+cried Methodist John, in plaintive despair. "If I only could get back
+to the poorhouse! There I had food and shelter and clothes. It's all
+I've got here&mdash;but with it work, work, work! and a wicked, sinful,
+cussin' son of the devil always over me drivin' and watchin'!"</p>
+
+<p>John's jaw suddenly dropped as a black cloud swept in from the sea and
+obscured the sun. A <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>squall of unusual violence burst over the island
+with wonderful swiftness. The darkness of twilight fell like a pall,
+and a sharp peal of thunder rang over the harbour.</p>
+
+<p>John watched the progress of the storm with strange elation, quietly
+walked through the blinding, drenching rain to the barn, and drew from
+the forks of two trees a lightning-rod about thirty feet long which
+Norman had finally made for him in answer to his constant pleading.
+The tip of the rod was pointed with a dozen shining spikes.</p>
+
+<p>John seized this rod, held it straight over his head, and began to
+march with firm step around the lawn. He walked with slow, measured
+tread past the two big colony houses to the amazement of the people
+who stood at the windows watching the storm. He held his lightning-rod
+as a soldier a musket on dress-parade, his eyes fixed straight in
+front. As he passed through the floral court between the two buildings
+he burst into an old Methodist song, his cracked voice ringing in
+weird and plaintive tones with the sigh and crash of the wind among
+the foliage of the trees and shrubbery:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I want to be an angel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And with the angels stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A crown upon my forehead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A harp within my hand."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>Over and over he sang this stanza with increasing fervour as he
+marched steadily on through every path around the buildings, his
+rain-soaked clothes clinging to his flesh and flopping dismally about
+his thin legs. As the storm suddenly lifted he stopped in front of the
+kitchen, dropped his rod, and sank with a groan to his knees taking up
+again his old refrain:</p>
+
+<p>"How long, O Lord, how long?"</p>
+
+<p>Old Bob ran out and shook him.</p>
+
+<p>"Name er God, man, what de matter wid you? Is you gone clean crazy?
+What you doin' monkeyin' wid dat lightnin'-rod?"</p>
+
+<p>John lifted his drooping head and sighed:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, neighbour, I don't like to kill myself. It's against my
+religion. It seems like taking things out of the hands of God. But I
+thought the Lord, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, might be kind
+enough to spare me a bolt if I lifted my rod and put myself in the
+way. If he had only seen fit to do it, I'd be at rest now in the
+courts of glory!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dis here's a sad worl', brudder," Bob said comfortingly. "'Pears lak
+ter me de Lawd doan' lib here no mo'."</p>
+
+<p>Before John could reply, a guard arrested him for disorderly conduct.
+The regent kicked him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>from his office and ordered him to prison on a
+diet of bread and water for a week.</p>
+
+<p>The slightest criticism of his reign Wolf resented with instant and
+crushing cruelty. His system of spies was complete and his knowledge
+of every man's attitude accurate and full. Where-ever he appeared, he
+received the most cringing obeisance.</p>
+
+<p>Especially did women tremble at his approach and count themselves
+happy if he condescended to smile.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A BROTHER TO THE BEAST</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>At the end of three months from the time he took possession of the
+dredge, Wolf's men had built five duplicates, and they were all at
+work. More than three thousand dollars' worth of gold he weighed daily
+and stored in secret vaults whose keys never left his grasp.</p>
+
+<p>The new colony he landed in groups of two hundred at intervals of
+sufficient time to assign each new member to work where the least
+trouble could be given. The strictest search for arms and weapons of
+every kind was made before each person was allowed to land.</p>
+
+<p>It took only about two weeks to bring the new group into perfect
+subjection. Spies reported every word of surprise and criticism that
+fell from the lips of a newcomer.</p>
+
+<p>The overseer of each gang of labourers was required to complete the
+task assigned to him by the standard of the very best records labour
+had ever made, and to secure these results it was necessary to
+constantly lengthen the hours of each day's service. As the efficiency
+of labour <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>decreased the entire colony gradually gravitated to the
+basis of convict service. As no man received more than food, clothes,
+and shelter there could be no conceivable motive to induce any one to
+work harder than was necessary to escape the lash of the overseer.
+Consequently the hours of labour were increased from nine to ten.</p>
+
+<p>The one ambition now of every man was to win the favour of the
+authorities, and become one of the regent's guard, an overseer, or
+find relief from the hard, brutal tasks imposed on the great majority.
+The road to promotion could not be found in achievement.</p>
+
+<p>The power to assign and enforce work was the mightiest force ever
+developed in the hand of man.</p>
+
+<p>Under the system of capitalism wealth was desirable because it meant
+power over men. But this power was always limited. Under the free play
+of natural law no man, even the poorest, could be commanded to work by
+a superior power. He could always quit if he liked. He might choose to
+go hungry, or apply to the charity society for help in the last
+resort, but he was still master of his own person. His will was
+supreme. He, and he alone, could say, I will, or I will not.</p>
+
+<p>Here all was changed. A new force in human history had been created.
+Wealth beyond all the dreams of passion and avarice was in the grasp
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>of the regent and his henchmen. He wielded the most autocratic and
+merciless power over men conceivable to the human imagination&mdash;a power
+final and resistless, from which there could be no appeal save in
+death itself.</p>
+
+<p>The results of this power quickly began to show in the development of
+life around the regent and each of his trusted minions.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the theatre and music hall were finished and opened, Wolf
+had selected more than a hundred of the prettiest girls in the colony
+for the two stages.</p>
+
+<p>His method of selection was always the same. The girl he desired he
+secretly ordered to be assigned to a dirty or disgusting form of
+labour. He allowed her to rave in hopeless anger at her tasks until
+she found that all appeal was in vain and her doom sealed.</p>
+
+<p>He then made it his business to call, express his surprise at the task
+to which she had been assigned, and smile vaguely at her eager appeal
+for a change.</p>
+
+<p>If she proved charming to the regent she was promptly assigned to the
+chorus of the State theatre and given luxurious quarters in the
+building adjoining.</p>
+
+<p>Their tasks were light and agreeable. They studied music and dancing
+and elocution. But, above all, they studied day and night the art of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>pleasing the regent, whose frown could send any of them instantly to
+the washtub or the scrubbing-brush.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner around the personality of each guard, overseer,
+secret-service man, superintendent, and governor of departments there
+grew a coterie of favoured ones whose position depended solely on the
+whim of the man in power.</p>
+
+<p>The State only could manufacture arms. The State only could bear arms.
+And the system of law which Socialism developed was so full, so minute
+in its touch on every detail of human life, and so merciless in its
+system of espionage, the very idea of revolution was slowly dying in
+the despairing hearts of the colonists.</p>
+
+<p>So sure was Wolf of his victim when once he had marked her, he was
+merely amused rather than displeased over Barbara's defiance of his
+wishes.</p>
+
+<p>A few days before the opening and dedication of the regent's palace,
+when all his preparations were complete, Wolf summoned Catherine.</p>
+
+<p>"I have here," he began, "my proclamation for the complete
+establishment of a perfect Social State. I publish it to-morrow
+morning. It goes into effect immediately:</p>
+
+<p>"'From to-day the State of Ventura enters upon the reign of pure
+Communism which is the only logical end of Socialism. All private
+property is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>hereby abolished. The claim of husband to the person of
+his wife as his own can no longer be tolerated. Love is free from all
+chains. Marriage will hereafter be celebrated by a simple declaration
+before a representative of the State, and it shall cease to bind at
+the will of either party. Complete freedom in the sex-relationship is
+left to the judgment and taste of a race of equally developed men and
+women. The State will interfere, when necessary, to regulate the
+birth-rate and maintain the limits of efficient population.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Which means for me?" Catherine inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"That you are divorced and free to marry whom you please."</p>
+
+<p>The woman uttered a cry of anguish, threw her arms around Wolf's big
+neck, and burst into sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Herman, surely you have some pity left in your heart! For God's
+sake, don't cast me out of your life in this cruel, horrible way!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned his stolid face away with cold indifference.</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her tapering hand timidly and smoothed the coarse hair back
+from his forehead with a tender gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you forget," she went on, in low, passionate tones, "all we have
+been to one another through the long, dark years of our fight with
+poverty and oppression? All I have done for your sake? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>That I broke
+my husband's heart&mdash;for he loved me even as I love you&mdash;I left my
+babies, and have never seen them since; broke with every friend and
+loved one on earth for you! Have you forgotten all I have done in this
+work? The tireless zeal with which I've fought your battles? Can you
+kick me from your presence now as though I were a dog?"</p>
+
+<p>Wolf pursed his thick lips and scowled.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I mean that you shall stay where you are and take charge of my
+new household. Barbara will need your assistance."</p>
+
+<p>"Barbara!" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"I have chosen her as the new regent," Wolf calmly answered. "I will
+announce our marriage at the dedication of the palace."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think that I will accept such shame?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you will!" he quickly answered with an ominous threat in his
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>The woman sprang to her feet and faced him, her tall, lithe figure
+tense with passion.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare you to try it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dare?" Wolf repeated in a low growl.</p>
+
+<p>"I said it!" she cried, defiantly. "From the very housetop I'll shout
+the story of our life. I'll show you I'm a power you must reckon
+with&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll show you," Wolf answered "that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>there's but one power that
+counts now in the world of realities in which we live&mdash;the elemental
+force of tooth, and nail, and claw&mdash;do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>He thrust his big, ugly face into hers and a look of terror flashed
+from her eyes as she saw his features convulsed with fury.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Herman!" she pleaded at last in a feeble, childish voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You are still daring me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I give up&mdash;surely you will not strike me!" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless I have to," he answered, with cold menace.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>LOVE AND LOCKSMITHS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Barbara sat in the little rose bower on the lawn puzzling her brain
+for the thousandth time over impossible schemes to communicate with
+Norman.</p>
+
+<p>From day to day she had watched with increasing fear the rapid growth
+of Wolf's cruel instincts under the conditions of tyranny he had
+established.</p>
+
+<p>She had appealed in vain to every man in authority. Everywhere the
+same answer. The regent's power inspired a terror which no appeal
+could penetrate.</p>
+
+<p>She started with a sudden thought. Among the guards who stood watch at
+Wolf's door was the nineteen-year-old boy who had acted as usher and
+shown Norman to a seat in the Socialist Hall the night they met.</p>
+
+<p>She had caught a peculiar look in his face the last time she entered
+Wolf's office. Could it be possible he was in love with her in the
+helpless, heroic, boy fashion of his age? She would put him to the
+test. It was worth trying.</p>
+
+<p>She found him on guard in the corridor outside <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>Wolf's door,
+approached him cautiously, touched his hand timidly, and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Jimmy, I'm in great distress."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could help you, Miss Barbara," he answered in low, earnest
+tones, sweeping the corridor with a quick look.</p>
+
+<p>"Even at the risk of your life?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd jump at the chance to die for you!" was the simple answer.</p>
+
+<p>Barbara's voice choked and her little hand caught the boy's
+gratefully. His conquest was too easy, his love too big and generous!
+"I wish I could do it, Jimmy, without letting you risk your life, but
+I must see Norman."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll help you if I can, Miss Barbara, but I don't know how. The
+jailer won't let me in without an order from the regent."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go in now," she went on, "get a piece of paper from his desk,
+forge the order, and sign his name. I can imitate his handwriting.
+I'll give it to you immediately, and watch until you get back to your
+post."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do it!" the boy answered, his eyes shining.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Norman," Barbara whispered, "that I have found Saka in the
+hills. He has built a skiff and has it ready to sail with his message
+for relief."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>She entered Wolf's office unannounced and surprised him with her
+girlish buoyancy of spirit.</p>
+
+<p>With a light laugh she sprang on his big desk, sat down among his
+papers, and deftly closed her hand over one of his small official
+order-pads.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot see Norman, to-day?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-day, my dear. A little later, yes, but not to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed carelessly and turned in his armchair to a messenger:</p>
+
+<p>"Take that order to the captain of the guard and tell him to report to
+me at seven o'clock to-night."</p>
+
+<p>While he spoke, the girl slipped from her place on the desk and thrust
+the order pad in her pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'm wasting breath to plead with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Decidedly. But I congratulate you on the rational way you are
+beginning to look at things."</p>
+
+<p>As she moved to the door she smiled over her shoulder: "Time will work
+wonders, perhaps!"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you so," he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>She hurried to her room and wrote the order signing Wolf's name
+without a moment's hesitation:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"Admit the guard bearing this order for the delivery of a
+personal message to the prisoner, Norman Worth.</p>
+
+<p class="right" style="padding-right: 25%;">"<span class="sc">Wolf</span>&mdash;<i>Regent</i>."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>She stood at the window and watched the boy enter the jail. He stayed
+an interminable time! Each tick of the tiny watch in her hand seemed
+an hour. One minute, two, three, four, five minutes slowly dragged.
+Merciful God, would he never return? A thousand questions began to
+strangle her. Had Wolf suspected and played with her? Had the jailer
+recognized the trick and arrested the boy? Had Wolf discovered the
+boy's absence from his post?</p>
+
+<p>She looked at her watch again. He had been gone seven minutes! The
+door of the jail suddenly opened and the boy appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Her hand was tingling with a curious pain. She looked, and the nails
+of her fingers had cut the flesh as she had stood in agony counting
+the seconds.</p>
+
+<p>The boy walked with leisurely precision as though on an ordinary
+errand for the regent. Barbara waited until he resumed his position on
+guard at the door and quickly reached his side.</p>
+
+<p>He pressed a note into her hand, whispering:</p>
+
+<p>"The jailer held me up at first&mdash;but I found him!"</p>
+
+<p>Barbara glanced down the corridor with a quick look threw her arms
+around the boy's neck and kissed him tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, drew a deep breath, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I'm ready to die!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>"No. To live and fight," she cried. "Fight our way back to freedom.
+You must help me!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned and flew to her room. The note in her hand was burning the
+soft flesh.</p>
+
+<p>She locked her door and read:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"<span class="sc">Heart of My Heart</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"Iron bars have held my body but my soul has been with you! I've
+seen you walking among the flowers a hundred times and tried to
+force my message through the walls. I enclose a telegram to my
+father and one to the Governor of California. Send Saka to Santa
+Barbara with them. The troops should arrive in forty-eight
+hours. All I ask of God now is the chance to fight. I love you!</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="padding-right: 15%;">"Always yours,</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="padding-right: 10%;">Norman."</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>She kissed the note, tore it into fragments, and burned the pieces.</p>
+
+<p>When night had fallen, Jimmy safely passed the patrol lines, delivered
+his message to Saka, helped him launch the skiff, watched the little
+sail spread before a fair wind, and returned to his post.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE SHINING EMBLEM</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>When Wolf's patrol telephoned two days later that a company of troops
+had suddenly landed on the other side of the island, he called the
+captain of the guard:</p>
+
+<p>"A detail of men to move the gold aboard the ship. Order the steam up.
+I'll divide with you. We must beat those soldiers back until we can
+sail. Fight them at every possible stand as they cross the hills. I'll
+join you if the guard is driven in."</p>
+
+<p>The captain hurried to execute Wolf's orders, while the regent began
+with feverish haste to transfer the treasures of the colony to the
+ship.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Norman sat on his cot in prison, awaiting anxiously the first sound of
+the troops.</p>
+
+<p>He suddenly leaped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"They are coming!"</p>
+
+<p>Listening a moment intently, he cried:</p>
+
+<p>"There it is again&mdash;the scream of fifes from the hills!&mdash;now, they are
+driving in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>pickets&mdash;hear the crack of those rifles!&mdash;God in
+heaven, isn't it music!"</p>
+
+<p>He sank back on the cot with a sob of joy.</p>
+
+<p>In a rush the troops surrounded the jail. The sheriff lifted his hand
+and shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"In the name of the peace and dignity of the State of California&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Wolf answered with a defiant wave and charged at the head of his
+guard. The soldiers poured into their ranks a deadly fire. At the
+first volley the leader fell. The charging column hesitated, halted,
+threw down their arms, and surrendered.</p>
+
+<p>In five minutes Colonel Worth entered the jail and father and son
+silently embraced. Barbara followed and Norman clasped her in his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>A shout rose from the troops and the group within moved to the prison
+window. The colour-sergeant had hauled down the red ensign of
+Socialism from the flag-staff on the lawn and lifted the Stars and
+Stripes in its place.</p>
+
+<p>Norman's hand sought his father's. They clasped a moment tremblingly,
+and, still looking through the barred window at the shining emblem in
+the sky, the young man slowly said:</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> beautiful, isn't it Governor!"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The End</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>BOOKS ON NATURE STUDY BY</h2>
+
+<h1>CHARLES G.D. ROBERTS</h1>
+
+<p class="cen">Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>THE KINDRED OF THE WILD. A Book of Animal Life. With
+illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>Appeals alike to the young and to the merely youthful-hearted. Close
+observation. Graphic description. We get a sense of the great wild and
+its denizens. Out of the common. Vigorous and full of character. The
+book is one to be enjoyed; all the more because it smacks of the
+forest instead of the museum. John Burroughs says "The volume is in
+many ways the most brilliant collection of Animal Stories that has
+appeared. It reaches a high order of literary merit."</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD. Illustrated.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>This book strikes a new note in literature. It is a realistic romance
+of the folk of the forest&mdash;a romance of the alliance of peace between
+a pioneer's daughter in the depths of the ancient wood and the wild
+beasts who felt her spell and became her friends. It is not fanciful,
+with talking beasts; nor is it merely an exquisite idyll of the beasts
+themselves. It is an actual romance, in which the animal characters
+play their parts as naturally as do the human. The atmosphere of the
+book is enchanting. The reader feels the undulating, whimpering music
+of the forest, the power of the shady silences, the dignity of the
+beasts who live closest to the heart of the wood.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS. A companion volume to the "Kindred
+of the Wild." With 48 full page plates and decorations from
+drawings by Charles Livingston Bull.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>These stories are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust in
+their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft. "This
+is a book full of delight. An additional charm lies in Mr. Bull's
+faithful and graphic illustrations, which in fashion all their own
+tell the story of the wild life, illuminating and supplementing the
+pen pictures of the authors."&mdash;<i>Literary Digest.</i></p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>RED FOX. The Story of His Adventurous Career in the Ringwaak
+Wilds, and His Triumphs over the Enemies of His Kind. With 50
+illustrations, including frontispiece in color and cover
+design by Charles Livingston Bull.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>A brilliant chapter in natural history. Infinitely more wholesome
+reading than the average tale of sport, since it gives a glimpse of
+the hunt from the point of view of the hunted. "True in substance but
+fascinating as fiction. It will interest old and young, city-bound and
+free-footed, those who know animals and those who do not."&mdash;<i>Chicago
+Record-Herald.</i></p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers, New York</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time, library size,
+printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them finely illustrated. Full and
+handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>NEDRA, by George Barr McCutcheon, with color frontispiece, and
+other illustrations by Harrison Fisher.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>The story of an elopement of a young couple from Chicago, who decide
+to go to London, travelling as brother and sister. Their difficulties
+commence in New York and become greatly exaggerated when they are
+shipwrecked in mid-ocean. The hero finds himself stranded on the
+island of Nedra with another girl, whom he has rescued by mistake. The
+story gives an account of their finding some of the other passengers,
+and the circumstances which resulted from the strange mix-up.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>POWER LOT, by Sarah P. McLean Greene. Illustrated.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>The story of the reformation of a man and his restoration to
+self-respect through the power of honest labor, the exercise of honest
+independence, and the aid of clean, healthy, out-of-door life and
+surroundings. The characters take hold of the heart and win sympathy.
+The dear old story has never been more lovingly and artistically told.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>MY MAMIE ROSE. The History of My Regeneration, by Owen
+Kildare. Illustrated.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>This <i>autobiography</i> is a powerful book of love and sociology. Reads
+like the strangest fiction. Is the strongest truth and deals with the
+story of a man's redemption through a woman's love and devotion.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p><b class="hang">JOHN BURT, by Frederick Upham Adams, with illustrations.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>John Burt, a New England lad, goes West to seek his fortune and finds
+it in gold mining. He becomes one of the financial factors and
+pitilessly crushes his enemies. The story of the Stock Exchange
+manipulations was never more vividly and engrossingly told. A love
+story runs through the book, and is handled with infinite skill.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>THE HEART LINE, by Gelett Burgess, with halftone illustrations
+by Lester Ralph, and inlay cover in colors.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>A great dramatic story of the city that was. A story of Bohemian life
+in San Francisco, before the disaster, presented with mirror-like
+accuracy. Compressed into it are all the sparkle, all the gayety, all
+the wild, whirling life of the glad, mad, bad, and most delightful
+city of the Golden Gate.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers, New York</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
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+
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+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>CAROLINA LEE. By Lillian Bell. With frontispiece by Dora
+Wheeler Keith.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>Carolina Lee is the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Christian Science. Its
+keynote is "Divine Love" in the understanding of the knowledge of all
+good things which may be obtainable. When the tale is told, the sick
+healed, wrong changed to right, poverty of purse and spirit turned
+into riches, lovers made worthy of each other and happily united,
+including Carolina Lee and her affinity, it is borne upon the reader
+that he has been giving rapid attention to a free lecture on Christian
+Science; that the working out of each character is an argument for
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+
+<p>A Christian Science novel that will bring delight to the heart of
+every believer in that faith. It is a well told story, entertaining,
+and cleverly mingles art, humor and sentiment.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>HILMA, by William Tillinghast Eldridge, with illustrations by
+Harrison Fisher and Martin Justice, and inlay cover.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>It is a rattling good tale, written with charm, and full of remarkable
+happenings, dangerous doings, strange events, jealous intrigues and
+sweet love making. The reader's interest is not permitted to lag, but
+is taken up and carried on from incident to incident with ingenuity
+and contagious enthusiasm. The story gives us the <i>Graustark</i> and <i>The
+Prisoner of Zenda</i> thrill, but the tale is treated with freshness,
+ingenuity, and enthusiasm, and the climax is both unique and
+satisfying. It will hold the fiction lover close to every page.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>THE MYSTERY OF THE FOUR FINGERS, by Fred M. White, with
+halftone illustrations by Will Grefe.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>A fabulously rich gold mine in Mexico is known by the picturesque and
+mysterious name of <i>The Four Fingers</i>. It originally belonged to an
+Aztec tribe, and its location is known to one surviving descendant&mdash;a
+man possessing wonderful occult power. Should any person unlawfully
+discover its whereabouts, four of his fingers are mysteriously
+removed, and one by one returned to him. The appearance of the final
+fourth betokens his swift and violent death.</p>
+
+<p>Surprises, strange and startling, are concealed in every chapter of
+this completely engrossing detective story. The horrible fascination
+of the tragedy holds one in rapt attention to the end. And through it
+runs the thread of a curious love story.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers, New York</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>MEREDITH NICHOLSON'S<br />
+FASCINATING ROMANCES</h2>
+
+<p class="cen">Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES. With a frontispiece in colors
+by Howard Chandler Christy.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>A novel of romance and adventure, of love and valor, of mystery and
+hidden treasure. The hero is required to spend a whole year in the
+isolated house, which according to his grandfather's will shall then
+become his. If the terms of the will be violated the house goes to a
+young woman whom the will, furthermore, forbids him to marry. Nobody
+can guess the secret, and the whole plot moves along with an exciting
+zip.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>THE PORT OF MISSING MEN. With illustrations by Clarence F.
+Underwood.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>There is romance of love, mystery, plot, and fighting, and a
+breathless dash and go about the telling which makes one quite forget
+about the improbabilities of the story; and it all ends in the
+old-fashioned healthy American way. Shirley is a sweet, courageous
+heroine whose shining eyes lure from page to page.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>ROSALIND AT REDGATE. Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>The author of "The House of a Thousand Candles" has here given us a
+buoyant romance brimming with lively humor and optimism; with mystery
+that breeds adventure and ends in love and happiness. A most
+entertaining and delightful book.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>THE MAIN CHANCE. With illustrations by Harrison Fisher.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>A "traction deal" in a Western city is the pivot about which the action
+of this clever story revolves. But it is in the character-drawing of
+the principals that the author's strength lies. Exciting incidents
+develop their inherent strength and weaknesses, and if virtue wins in
+the end, it is quite in keeping with its carefully-planned antecedents.
+The N.Y. <i>Sun</i> says: "We commend it for its workmanship&mdash;for its
+smoothness, its sensible fancies, and for its general charm."</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><b>ZELDA DAMERON. With portraits of the characters by John Cecil
+Clay.</b></p></div>
+
+<p>"A picture of the new West, at once startlingly and attractively true.
+* * * The heroine is a strange, sweet mixture of pride, wilfulness and
+lovable courage. The characters are superbly drawn; the atmosphere is
+convincing. There is about it a sweetness, a wholesomeness and a
+sturdiness that commends it to earnest, kindly and wholesome
+people."&mdash;<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers, New York</h4>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p>
+<br />
+Page &nbsp;&nbsp;62: &nbsp;ecomonic replaced with economic<br />
+Page 126: &nbsp;"could be plainly see" replaced with "could be plainly seen"<br />
+Page 162: &nbsp;collasped replaced by collapsed<br />
+Page 246: &nbsp;"he was was quick to note" replaced with "he was quick to note"<br />
+Page 290: &nbsp;kissd replaced with kissed<br />
+Page 297: &nbsp;"with which your pour out" replaced with "with which you pour out"<br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comrades, by Thomas Dixon
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Comrades, by Thomas Dixon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Comrades
+       A Story of Social Adventure in California
+
+Author: Thomas Dixon
+
+Illustrator: C. D. Williams
+
+Release Date: March 1, 2011 [EBook #35447]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMRADES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |
+    | been preserved.                                           |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |
+    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Comrades
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thomas Dixon JR.
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: NORMAN CLASPED HER IN HIS ARMS.]
+
+
+
+
+  COMRADES
+
+  _A STORY OF SOCIAL ADVENTURE
+  IN CALIFORNIA_
+
+  BY
+  THOMAS DIXON, Jr.
+
+  Illustrated by
+  C.D. WILLIAMS
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+  GROSSET & DUNLAP
+  Publishers  ::  New York
+
+
+
+
+  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
+  INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THOMAS DIXON, JR.
+  PUBLISHED, JANUARY, 1909
+
+
+
+
+  DEDICATED TO
+  THE DEAREST LITTLE
+  GIRL IN THE WORLD, MY DAUGHTER
+  LOUISE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                      PAGE
+
+       I. The Woman in Red                                      3
+
+      II. A New Joan of Arc                                    19
+
+     III. The Birth of a Man                                   31
+
+      IV. Among the Shadows                                    37
+
+       V. The Island of Ventura                                48
+
+      VI. The Red Flag                                         56
+
+     VII. Father and Son                                       73
+
+    VIII. Through the Eyes of Love                             85
+
+      IX. A Faded Picture                                      90
+
+       X. Son and Father                                       93
+
+      XI. The Way of a Woman                                  103
+
+     XII. A Royal Gift                                        105
+
+    XIII. The Burning of the Bridges                          110
+
+     XIV. The New World                                       118
+
+      XV. For the Cause                                       123
+
+     XVI. Barbara Chooses a Profession                        130
+
+    XVII. A Call for Heroes                                   134
+
+   XVIII. A New Aristocracy                                   151
+
+     XIX. Some Troubles in Heaven                             166
+
+      XX. The Unconventional                                  181
+
+     XXI. A Pair of Cold Gray Eyes                            186
+
+    XXII. The Fighting Instinct                               192
+
+   XXIII. The Cords Tighten                                   207
+
+    XXIV. Some Interrogation Points                           212
+
+     XXV. The Master Hand                                     224
+
+    XXVI. At the Parting of the Ways                          235
+
+   XXVII. The Fruits of Patience                              246
+
+  XXVIII. The New Master                                      257
+
+    XXIX. A Test of Strength                                  269
+
+     XXX. A Vision from the Hilltop                           274
+
+    XXXI. In Love and War                                     283
+
+   XXXII. A Primitive Lover                                   291
+
+  XXXIII. Equality                                            295
+
+   XXXIV. A Brother to the Beast                              306
+
+    XXXV. Love and Locksmiths                                 313
+
+   XXXVI. The Shining Emblem                                  318
+
+
+
+
+LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
+
+_Scene_: California. _Time_: 1898-1901
+
+  NORMAN WORTH            An Amateur Socialist
+  COLONEL WORTH           His Father
+  ELENA STOCKTON          The Colonel's Ward
+  HERMAN WOLF             A Socialist Leader
+  CATHERINE               His Affinity Wife
+  BARBARA BOZENTA         A New Joan of Arc
+  METHODIST JOHN          A Pauper
+  TOM MOONEY              A Miner
+  JOHN DIGGS              A Truth Seeker
+  ROLAND ADAIR            Bard of Ramcat
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "Norman clasped her in his arms"                 _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                      FACING PAGE
+
+  "'Lift the flag back to its place!'"                         72
+
+  Barbara                                                     214
+
+  "Wolf grasped her"                                          292
+
+
+
+
+COMRADES
+
+
+
+
+COMRADES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WOMAN IN RED
+
+
+"Fools and fanatics!"
+
+Colonel Worth crumpled the morning paper with a gesture of rage and
+walked to the window.
+
+Elena followed softly and laid her hand on his arm.
+
+"What is it, Guardie? I thought you were supremely happy this morning
+over the news that Dewey has smashed the Spanish fleet?"
+
+"And so I am, little girl," was the gentle reply, "or was until my eye
+fell on this call of the Socialists for a meeting to-night to denounce
+the war--denounce the men who are dying for the flag. Read their
+summons."
+
+He opened the crumpled sheet and pointed to its head lines:
+
+"Down with the Stars and Stripes--up with the Red Flag of
+Revolution--the symbol of universal human brotherhood! Come and bring
+your friends. A big surprise for all!" The Colonel's jaws snapped
+suddenly.
+
+"I'd like to give them the surprise they need to-night."
+
+"What?" Elena asked.
+
+"A serenade."
+
+"A serenade?"
+
+"Yes, with Mauser rifles and Gatling guns. I'd mow them down as I
+would a herd of wild beasts loose in the streets of San Francisco."
+
+"Merely for a difference of opinion, Governor?" lazily broke in a
+voice from the depths of a heavy armchair.
+
+"If you want to put it so, Norman, yes. Opinions, my boy, are the
+essence of life--they may lead to heaven or hell. Opinions make
+cowards or heroes, patriots or traitors, criminals or saints."
+
+"But you believe in free speech?" persisted the boy.
+
+"Yes. And that's more than any Socialist can say. I don't deny their
+right to speak their message. What I can't understand is how the
+people who have been hounded from the tyrant-ridden countries of the
+old world and found shelter and protection beneath our flag should
+turn thus to curse the hand that shields them."
+
+"But if they propose to give you a better flag, Governor?" drawled the
+lazy voice. "Why not consider?"
+
+"Look, Elena! Did the sun ever shine on anything more beautiful? See
+it fluttering from a thousand house-tops--the proud emblem of human
+freedom and human progress! Dewey has lifted it this morning on the
+foulest slave-pen of the Orient--the flag that has never met defeat.
+The one big faith in me is the belief that Almighty God inspired our
+fathers to build this Republic--the noblest dream yet conceived by the
+mind of man. Dewey has sunk a tyrant fleet and conquered an empire of
+slaves without the loss of a single man. The God of our fathers was
+with him. We have a message for the swarming millions of the East----"
+
+"Pardon the interruption, Governor, but I must hold the mirror up to
+nature just a moment--your portrait sketched by the poet-laureate of
+the English-speaking world. He speaks of the American:
+
+    "Enslaved, illogical, elate.
+      He greets the embarrassed gods, nor fears
+    To shake the iron hand of Fate
+      Or match with Destiny for beers.
+
+    "Lo! imperturbable he rules,
+      Unkempt, disreputable, vast--
+    And in the teeth of all the schools
+      I--I shall save him at the last!"
+
+The Colonel smiled.
+
+"How do you like the picture?"
+
+"Not bad for an Englishman, Norman. You know we licked England
+twice----"
+
+"And we kin do it again, b' gosh, can't we?" blustered the younger man
+with mock heroics.
+
+"You can bet we can, my son!" continued the Colonel, quietly. "The
+roar of Dewey's guns are echoing round the world this morning. The
+lesson will not be lost. You will observe that even your English poet
+foresees at last our salvation.
+
+    "'And in the teeth of all the schools
+      I--I shall save him at the last!'"
+
+"Even in spite of the Socialists?" queried the boy, with a grin.
+
+"In spite of every foe--even those within our own household. War is
+the searchlight of history, the great revealer of national life, of
+hidden strength and unexpected weakness. I saw it in the Civil
+conflict--I've seen it in this little struggle----"
+
+"Then you do acknowledge it's not the greatest struggle in
+history--that's something to be thankful for in these days of
+patriotism," exclaimed Norman, rising and stretching himself before
+the open fire while he winked mischievously at Elena.
+
+"It's big enough, my boy, to show us the truth about our nation. Our
+old problems are no longer real. The Union our fathers dreamed has
+come at last. We are one people--one out of many--and we can whip
+Spain before breakfast----"
+
+"With one hand tied behind our back!" laughed the boy.
+
+"Yes, and blindfolded. It will be easy. But the next serious job will
+be to bury a half million deluded fools in this country who call
+themselves Socialists."
+
+The Colonel paused and a look of foreboding clouded his face as he
+gazed from the window of his house on Nob Hill over the city of San
+Francisco, which he loved with a devotion second only to his
+passionate enthusiasm for the Union.
+
+Elena sat watching him in silent sympathy. He was the one perfect man
+of her life dreams, the biggest, strongest, tenderest soul she had
+ever known. Since the day she crept into his arms a lonely little
+orphan ten years old she had worshipped him as father, mother,
+guardian, lover, friend--all in one. She had accepted Norman's love
+and promised to be his wife more to please his father than from any
+overwhelming passion for the handsome, lazy young athlete. It had come
+about as a matter of course because Colonel Worth wished it.
+
+The Colonel turned from the window, and his eyes rested on Elena's
+upturned face.
+
+"It will be bloody work--but we've got to do it----"
+
+Elena sprang to her feet with a start and a laugh.
+
+"Do what, Guardie? I forgot what you were talking about."
+
+"Then don't worry your pretty head about it, dear. It's a job we men
+will look after in due time."
+
+He stooped and kissed her forehead. "By-by until to-night--I'll drop
+down to the club and hear the latest from the front."
+
+With the firm, swinging stride of a man who lives in the open the
+Colonel passed through the door of the library.
+
+"Norman, I can't realize that you two are father and son--he looks
+more like your brother."
+
+"At least my older brother----"
+
+"Yes, of course, but you would never take him for a man of
+forty-eight. I like the touch of gray in his hair. It means dignity,
+strength, experience. I've always hated sap-headed youngsters."
+
+"Say, Elena, for heaven's sake, who are you in love with anyhow--with
+me or the Governor?"
+
+A smile flickered around the corners of the girl's eyes and mouth
+before she slowly answered:
+
+"I sometimes think I really love you both, Norman--but there are
+times when I have doubts about you."
+
+"Thanks. I suppose I must be duly grateful for small favours, or else
+resign myself to call you 'Mother.'"
+
+"Would such a fate be intolerable?"
+
+Elena drew her magnificent figure to its full height and looked into
+the young athlete's face with laughing audacity.
+
+"By George, Elena, if I'm honest with you, I'd have to say no. You are
+tall, stately, dignified, beautiful from the crown of your black hair
+to the tip of your dainty toe--the most stunning-looking woman I ever
+saw. I never think of you as a girl just out of school. You always
+remind me of a glorious royal figure in some old romance of the Middle
+Ages----"
+
+"Now I'm sure I love you, Norman--for the moment at least."
+
+"Then promise to go with me on a lark to-night," he suddenly cried.
+
+"A lark?"
+
+Elena's gray-blue eyes danced beneath their black lashes.
+
+"Yes, a real lark, daring, adventurous, dangerous, audacious."
+
+"What is it--what is it? Tell me quick."
+
+The girl seized Norman's arm with eager, childish glee.
+
+"Let's go to that Socialist meeting and beard the lion in his den."
+
+Elena drew back.
+
+"No. Guardie will be furious!"
+
+"Ah, who's afraid? Guardie be hanged!"
+
+"Go by yourself."
+
+"No, you've got to go with me."
+
+"I won't do it. You just want to worry your father and then hide
+behind my skirts."
+
+"You can see yourself that's the easiest way to manage it. If he has a
+fit, I can just say that your curiosity was excited and I had to go
+with you."
+
+"But it's not excited."
+
+"For the purposes of the lark I tell you that it is excited. There's
+too much patriotism in the air. It's giving me nervous prostration. I
+want something to brace me up. I think those fellows can give me some
+good points to tease the Governor with."
+
+"Tease the Governor! You flatter yourself, Norman. He doesn't pay any
+more attention to your talk than he would to the bark of a six weeks'
+old puppy."
+
+"That's what riles me. The Governor's so cocksure of himself. I don't
+know how to answer him, but I know he's wrong. The fury with which he
+hates the Socialists rouses my curiosity. I've always found that the
+good things in life are forbidden. All respectable people are
+positively forbidden to attend a Socialist--traitors'--meeting. For
+that reason let's go."
+
+"No."
+
+"Ah, come on. Don't be a chump. Be a sport!"
+
+"I'd like the lark, but I won't hurt Guardie's feelings; so that's the
+end of it."
+
+"Going to be a surprise, they say."
+
+"What kind of a surprise?"
+
+"Going to spring a big sensation."
+
+Elena's eyes began to dance again.
+
+"The woman called the Scarlet Nun is going to speak, and Herman Wolf,
+the famous 'blond beast' of Socialism, will preside. They are
+mates--affinities."
+
+"Married?"
+
+"God knows. A hundred weird stories about them circulate in the
+under-world."
+
+"I won't go! Don't you say another word!" Elena snapped.
+
+Norman was silent.
+
+"Are you sure it would be perfectly safe, Norman?" the girl softly
+asked.
+
+"Perfectly. I know every inch of that quarter of the city--went there
+a hundred times the year I was a reporter."
+
+"I won't go!"
+
+"It's the wickedest street in town. They say it's the worst block in
+America."
+
+"I don't want to see it." Elena laughed.
+
+"And the hall is a famous red-light dancing dive in the heart of
+Hell's Half Acre."
+
+"Hush! Hush! I tell you I won't--_I won't_ go! But--but if I _do_--you
+promise to hold my hand every minute, Norman?"
+
+"And keep my arm around your waist, if you like."
+
+Elena's cheeks flushed and her voice quivered with excitement as she
+paused in the doorway.
+
+"I'll be ready in twenty minutes after dinner."
+
+"Bully for my chum! I'll tell the Governor we've gone for a stroll."
+
+As the shadows slowly fell over the city, Norman led Elena down the
+marble steps of his father's palatial home and paused for a moment on
+the edge of the hill on which were perched the seats of the mighty.
+Elena fumbled with a new glove.
+
+"Are you ready to descend with me to the depths, my princess in
+disguise?" he gaily asked.
+
+"Did you ever know me to flunk when I gave my word?"
+
+"No, you're a brick, Elena."
+
+Norman seized her arm and strode down the steep hillside with sure,
+firm step, the girl accompanying his every movement with responsive
+joy.
+
+"You're awfully wicked to get me into a scrape of this kind, Norman,"
+she cried, with bantering laughter. "You know I was dying to go
+slumming, and Guardie wouldn't let me. It's awfully mean of you to
+take advantage of me like this."
+
+He stopped suddenly and looked gravely into her flushed face.
+
+"Let's go back, then."
+
+"No! I won't."
+
+Norman broke into a laugh. "Then away with vain regrets! And remember
+the fate of Lot's wife."
+
+Elena pressed his hand close to her side and whispered:
+
+"You are with me. The big handsome captain of last year's football
+team. Very young and very vain and very foolish and very lazy--but I
+do think you'd stand by me in a scrap, Norman. Wouldn't you?"
+
+"Well, I rather think!" was the deep answer, half whispered, as they
+suddenly turned a corner and plunged into the red-light district. His
+strong hand gripped her wrist with unusual tenderness.
+
+"So who's afraid?" she cried, looking up into his face just as a
+drunken blear-eyed woman staggered through an open door and lurched
+against her.
+
+A low scream of terror came from Elena as she sprang back, and the
+woman's head struck the pavement with a dull whack. Norman bent over
+her and started to lift the heavy figure, when her fist suddenly shot
+into his face.
+
+"Go ter hell--I can take care o' myself!"
+
+"Evidently," he laughed.
+
+Elena's hand suddenly gripped his.
+
+"Let's go back, Norman."
+
+"Nonsense--who's afraid?"
+
+"I am. I don't mind saying it. This is more than I bargained for."
+
+The woman scrambled to her feet and limped back into the doorway.
+
+Elena shivered. "I didn't know such women lived on this earth."
+
+"To say nothing of living but a stone's throw from your own door," he
+continued.
+
+"Let's go back," she pleaded.
+
+"No. A thing like this is merely one more reason why we should keep
+on. This only shows that the world we live in isn't quite perfect, as
+the Governor seems to think. These Socialists may be right after all.
+Now that we've started let's hear their side of it. Come on! Don't be
+a quitter!"
+
+Norman seized her arm and hurried through the swiftly moving throng of
+the under-world--gambling touts, thieves, cut-throats, pick-pockets,
+opium fiends, drunkards, thugs, carousing miners, and sailors--but
+above all, everywhere, omnipresent, the abandoned woman--painted,
+bedizened, lurching through the streets, hanging in doorways, clinging
+to men on the sidewalks, beckoning from windows, singing vulgar songs
+on crude platforms among throngs of half-drunken men, whirling past
+doors and windows in dance-halls, their cracked voices shrill and
+rasping above the din of cheap music.
+
+Elena stopped suddenly and clung heavily to Norman's arm.
+
+"Please, Norman, let's go back. I can't endure this."
+
+"And you're my chum that never flunked when she gave her word?" he
+asked with scorn. "We are only a few feet from the hall now."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Right there in the middle of the block where you see that sign with
+the blazing red torch."
+
+"Come on, then," Elena said, with a shudder.
+
+They walked quickly through the long, dimly lighted passage to the
+entrance of the hall. It was densely packed with a crowd of five
+hundred. Elena closed her eyes and allowed Norman to lead her through
+the mob that blocked the space inside the door. At the entrance to the
+centre aisle he encountered an usher who stared with bulging eyes at
+his towering figure. Norman leaned close and whispered:
+
+"My boy, can you possibly get us two seats?"
+
+"Can I git de captain er de football team two seats? Well, des watch
+me!"
+
+The boy darted up the aisle, dived under the platform, drew out two
+folding-chairs, placed them in the aisle on the front row, darted
+back, and bowed with grave courtesy.
+
+"Dis way, sir!"
+
+Norman followed with Elena clinging timidly and blindly to his arm. In
+a moment they were seated. He offered the boy a dollar.
+
+The youngster bowed again.
+
+"De honour is all mine, sir. But you can give it to the Cause when
+they pass the box."
+
+Norman turned to Elena. "Well, doesn't that jar you? A
+sixteen-year-old boy declines a tip, and says give it to the Cause!"
+
+The boy darted up the steps of the platform and whispered to the
+chairman:
+
+"Git on to his curves! Dat's de captain o' de football--de bloke dat's
+worth millions, an' don't give a doggone!"
+
+A woman dressed in deep red who sat beside the chairman leaned close
+and asked with quiet intensity:
+
+"You mean young Worth, the millionaire of Nob Hill?"
+
+"Bet yer life! Dat's him!"
+
+The woman in red whispered to the chairman, who nodded, while his keen
+gray eyes flashed a ray of light from his heavy brows as he turned
+toward Norman.
+
+The woman wheeled suddenly in her chair, and with her back to the
+audience bent over a girl who was evidently hiding behind her.
+
+"Outdo yourself to-night, Barbara. Young Norman Worth, the son of our
+multi-millionaire nabob, is sitting in the aisle just in front of you.
+Win him for the Cause and I'll give you the half of our kingdom."
+
+"How can I know him?" the girl asked excitedly.
+
+"He's not ten feet from the platform in the centre aisle--front
+row--clean shaven--a young giant of twenty-three--the handsomest man
+in the house. Put your soul _and_ your body in every word you utter,
+every breath you breathe--and _win_ him!"
+
+"I'll try," was the low reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A NEW JOAN OF ARC
+
+
+The woman in scarlet rose, lifted her hand, and the crowd sprang to
+their feet to the music of the most stirring song of revolution ever
+written.
+
+Norman and Elena were both swept from their seats in spite of
+themselves. Elena's eyes flashed with excitement.
+
+"What on earth is that they are singing, Norman?" she whispered.
+
+"The Marseillaise hymn."
+
+"Isn't it thrilling?" she gasped.
+
+"It makes your heart leap, doesn't it?"
+
+"And, heavens, how they sing it!" she exclaimed.
+
+Norman turned and looked over the crowd of eager faces--every man and
+woman singing with the passionate enthusiasm of religious fanatics--an
+enthusiasm electric, contagious, overwhelming. In spite of himself he
+felt his heart beat with quickened sympathy.
+
+He was amazed at the character of the audience. He had expected to see
+a throng of low-browed brutes. The first shock he received was the
+feeling that this crowd was distinctly an intellectual one. They might
+be fanatics. They certainly were not fools. The stamp of personality
+was clean cut on almost every face. They were fighters. They meant
+business and they didn't care who knew it. Some of them wore dirty
+clothes, but their faces were stamped with the power of free,
+rebellious thought--a power that always commands respect in spite of
+shabby clothes. He looked in vain for a single joyous face. Not a
+smile. Deep, dark eyes, shining with the light of purpose, mouths
+firm, headstrong, merciless, and bitter, but nowhere the glimmer of a
+ray of sunlight! He felt with a sense of awe the uncanny presence of
+Tragedy.
+
+And to his amazement he noticed a lot of men he knew in the
+crowd--three or four authors, a newspaper reporter evidently off duty,
+two college professors, a clergyman, three artists, a priest, and a
+street preacher.
+
+The hymn died away into a low sigh, like the sob of the wind after a
+storm. The crowd sank to their seats so quietly with the dying of the
+music that Norman and Elena were standing alone for an instant. They
+awoke from the spell, and dropped into their seats with evident
+embarrassment.
+
+A boy of sixteen stepped briskly to the front in answer to a nod from
+the chairman, and recited a Socialist poem. After the first stanza,
+which was crude and stilted, Norman's eye rested on the heavy figure
+of the chairman. He was surprised at the power of his rugged face.
+Through its brute strength flashed the keenest sense of alert
+intelligence--an intelligence which seemed to lurk behind the big,
+shaggy eyebrows as if about to spring on its victim. His heavy-set
+face was covered with a thick, reddish blond beard and his short hair
+stood up straight on his head, like the bristles of a wild boar. Of
+medium height and heavy build, with arms and legs of extraordinary
+muscle and big, coarse short fingers evidently gnarled and knotted, by
+the coarsest labor in youth, he looked like a blacksmith who had taken
+a college course by the light of his forge at night. There was
+something about the way he sat crouching low in his seat, watching
+with his keen gray eyes everything that passed, that bespoke the man
+of reserve power--the man who was quietly waiting his hour.
+
+"By George, a pretty good pet name they've given him--'The Blond
+Beast,'" Norman muttered. "I shouldn't like to tackle him in the
+dark."
+
+The woman in red leaned toward the chairman and said something in low
+tones. He nodded his massive head, smiled, and looked back over his
+shoulder at the girl sitting behind them. The movement showed for the
+first time a long ugly scar on the side of his great neck.
+
+"Look at that fellow's neck!" whispered Elena.
+
+"Yes. He had a close call that time," Norman answered. "But I'll bet
+the other one never lived to tell the story----"
+
+"Sh! 'The Scarlet Nun' is going to speak."
+
+The woman in red rose and walked to the edge of the platform. She
+stood silent for a moment, her tall, graceful, willowy figure erect
+and tense. The crowd burst into a tumult of applause. She smiled,
+bowed, and lifted her slender hand with a quick, imperious gesture for
+silence.
+
+Norman was struck by the note of religious fervour which her whole
+personality seemed to radiate. The peculiar scarlet robe she wore
+accented this impression perhaps, and its strangeness added a touch of
+awe. The dress gave one the impression of a nun's garb except that its
+long folds were so arranged that they revealed rather than concealed
+the beautiful lines of her graceful figure. The colour was the deep,
+warm red of the Socialist flag--the colour of human blood, chosen as
+the symbol of the universal brotherhood of man. The effect of a nun's
+cowl was given by a thin scarlet mantilla thrown over the head, the
+silken meshes of its long fringe mingling with the waves of her thick
+black hair. Her face was that of a madonna of the slender type,
+except that the lips were too full, round, and sensuous and her long
+eyelashes drooped slightly over dark, lustrous eyes.
+
+"Comrades," she began, in slow, measured tones, "after to-night I
+retire from the platform to take up work for which I am better fitted.
+I promised you a big surprise this evening, and you shall not be
+disappointed----"
+
+A murmur rippled the audience and she paused, smiling into Norman's
+face with a curious look. She spoke with a decided foreign accent with
+little moments of coquettish hesitation as though feeling for words.
+Norman felt an almost irresistible impulse to help her.
+
+"I am going to in-tro-duce to you to-night," she continued, "a new
+leader, whose tongue the God of the poor and the outcast and the
+dis-in-herited has touched with divine fire. She is no stran-ger.
+Twenty years ago she was born beneath the bright skies of
+Cal-i-for-nia at Anaheim, in the little Socialist colony of Polish
+dreamers led by Madame Modjeska, Count Bozenta, and Henry Sienkiewicz,
+the distin-guished author of 'Quo Vadis.' As you know, the colony
+failed. Her mother died in poverty and she was placed in an orphan
+asylum until eight years of age, when she was taken back to Poland by
+her foolish kins-men. Four years later I found her, a ragged,
+homeless waif, in the streets of Warsaw, alone and star-ving. Since
+then she has been mine. Amid the squalor and misery of the old world
+her busy little tongue never tired telling of the glories of
+Cali-for-nia! Always she sighed for its groves of oranges and olives,
+its dazzling flowers, its luscious grapes, its rich valleys, its
+cloud-kissed, snow-clad mountains and the mur-mur of its mighty seas!
+It was her tiny hand that led me across the ocean to you. I have sent
+her to school in one of your Western colleges where a great Socialist
+professor has taught her history and e-con-omics. I have the high
+honour, comrades, of intro-ducing to you the child of genius who from
+to-night will be the Joan of Arc of our Cause, Comrade Barbara
+Bozenta!"
+
+She quickly turned and drew forward a trembling slip of a girl whose
+big brown eyes were swimming in tears of excitement. A moment of
+intense silence, and the crowd burst into cheers as the dazzling
+beauty of their new champion slowly dawned on their understanding. The
+woman in red resumed her seat, and the girl stood bowing, trembling,
+and smiling.
+
+The young athlete watched her keenly. Never had he seen such a bundle
+of quivering, pulsing, nervous, ravishing beauty. He could have sworn
+he saw electric sparks flash from the tips of every eyelash, from
+every strand of the mass of brown curls that circled her face and fell
+in rich profusion on her shoulders and across her heaving bosom. He
+felt before she had uttered a word--felt, rather than saw--the
+remarkable effectiveness of the simple, girlish dress which enhanced
+her dark beauty. She wore the same deep red as the older woman, but
+the bottom of the skirt was relieved by a row of ruffles edged with
+white lace. A scarf of white embroidered at the ends with scarlet
+flowers, was thrown gracefully around her shoulders and hung below the
+knees. Her round young arms were bare to the elbows, her throat and
+neck bare to the upper edge of the full bust.
+
+The girl's eyes sought Norman's for an imperceptible instant and a
+smile flashed from her trembling lips. The cheering ceased and she
+began to speak. He watched her with breathless intensity, and listened
+with steadily increasing fascination. Her voice at first was low, yet
+every word fell clear and distinct. Never had he heard a voice so
+tender and full of expressive feeling--soft and mellow, sweet like the
+notes of a flute. There was something in its tone quality that
+compelled sympathy, that stole into the inner depths of the soul of
+the listener, and led reason a willing captive.
+
+In simple yet burning words she told of the darkness and poverty, the
+crime and shame, hunger and cruelty of the old world in which she had
+spent four years of her childhood. And then in a flight of poetic
+eloquence, came the story of her dreams of California, the Golden
+West, the land of eternal sunshine and flowers. And then, in a voice
+quivering and choking with emotion, she drew the picture of what she
+found--of Hell's Half Acre, in which she stood, with its brazen vice,
+its crime, its hopeless misery, its want and despair. With bold and
+fierce invective she charged modern civilization with this infamy.
+
+"Why do strong men go forth to war?" she cried, looking into the
+depths of Norman's soul. "Here is the enemy at your door, gripping the
+soft, white throats of your girls. Watch them sink into the mire at
+your feet and then down, down into the black sewers of the under-world
+never to rise again! I, too, call for volunteers. For heroes and
+heroines--not to fight another--I call you to a nobler warfare. I call
+you to the salvation of a world. Will you come? I offer you stones for
+bread, the sky for your canopy, the earth for your bed, and for your
+wages death! None may enter but the brave. Will you come----?"
+
+The last words of her appeal rang through Norman's heart with
+resistless power. Her round, soft arms seemed about his neck and his
+soul went out to her in passionate yearning. He gripped the chair to
+hold himself back from shouting:
+
+"Yes! I'm coming!"
+
+She sank to her seat before the crowd realized that she had stopped. A
+shout of triumph shook the building--wave after wave, rising and
+falling in ever-increasing intensity. At its height the Scarlet Nun
+sprang to her feet, with a graceful leap reached the edge of the
+platform, and again lifted her hand. A sudden hush fell on the crowd.
+
+"Now, comrades, the battle-hymn of the Republic set to new music! Mark
+its words, and remember that we sing it not as a mem-ory, but as a
+proph-esy of the day our streets may run red with the blood of the
+last struggle of Man to break his chains of Slav-ery--a proph-esy,
+remember, not a mem-ory! Read it Barbara!"
+
+The girl was by her side in an instant, and read from memory, her
+clear sweet voice tremulous with passion:
+
+  "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
+  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
+  He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
+  His truth is marching on!
+
+  I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
+  They have builded Him an altar in the evening's dews and damps;
+  I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
+  His day is marching on!
+
+  He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
+  He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
+  Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer them, be jubilant my feet!
+  Our God is marching on!"
+
+The crowd burst again into triumphant song, and Norman looked at their
+faces with increasing amazement. The immense vitality of their faith,
+the rush of its forward movement, the grandeur and audacity of their
+programme struck him as a revelation. They proposed no half-way
+measures. They meant to uproot the foundations of modern society and
+build a new world on its ruins. Their leaders were fanatics--yes. But
+fanatics were the only kind of people who would dare such things and do
+them. Here was a movement, which at least meant something--something
+big, heroic, daring. His face suddenly flushed and his heart leaped
+with an impulse.
+
+"In heaven's name, Norman, what's the matter?" Elena asked.
+
+The young poet-athlete looked at her in a dazed sort of way and
+stammered:
+
+"Did you ever see anything like it?"
+
+"No, and I don't want to again," she replied with a frown. "Let's go
+home."
+
+"Wait, they are taking up a collection. At least we must pay for our
+seats."
+
+When the usher passed he emptied the contents of his pocket in the
+collection-box.
+
+As the meeting broke up, the boy who placed their seats touched Norman
+on the arm.
+
+"Let me introduce ye to her. I wants ter tell 'er ye er my
+friend--I've yelled my head off for ye many a day on de football
+ground. Jest er minute. I'll fetch 'er right down."
+
+The boy darted up on the platform, and Norman turned to Elena:
+
+"Shall we please the boy?"
+
+"You mean yourself," she replied. "I decline the honour."
+
+She turned away into the crowd as the boy returned leading Barbara.
+
+Norman hastened to meet them at the foot of the platform steps.
+
+"Dis is me friend, Worth, de captain of de football team, Miss
+Barbara," proudly exclaimed the boy.
+
+Barbara extended her soft hand with a warm, friendly smile, and
+Norman clasped it while his heart throbbed.
+
+"I congratulate you," he said, "on your wonderful triumph to-night."
+
+"You were interested?" she asked, quietly.
+
+"More than I can tell you," was the quick response.
+
+"Then join our club and help me in my work among the poor," she urged,
+with frank eagerness. "We meet to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock.
+Won't you come?"
+
+A long, deep look into her brown eyes--his face flushed and his heart
+leaped with sudden resolution.
+
+"Thank you, I will," he slowly answered.
+
+He joined Elena at the door and they walked home in brooding silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BIRTH OF A MAN
+
+
+Norman stood silent and thoughtful before the fire in the dining-room,
+the morning after the meeting of the Socialists. His sleep had been
+feverish and a hundred half-formed dreams had haunted the moments in
+which he had lost consciousness with always the shining face of
+Barbara smiling and beckoning him on.
+
+Elena silently entered and watched him a moment before he saw her.
+
+"Still dreaming of the New Joan of Arc, Norman?" she asked with
+playful banter.
+
+"I'm going to do it, Elena," he said, with slow, thoughtful emphasis.
+
+"What? Marry her without even giving me the usual two weeks' notice?"
+Elena laughed.
+
+"Now, isn't that like a woman! I wasn't even thinking of the girl----"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+Norman laughed. "By Jove, you're jealous at last, Elena."
+
+"You flatter yourself."
+
+"Honestly, I wasn't thinking of the girl----"
+
+"Well, I've been thinking of her. She haunts me. I like her and I hate
+her. I feel that she's charming and vicious, of the spirit and flesh,
+and yet I can't help believing that she's good. The woman who
+introduced her is a she-devil, and the man who presided over that
+meeting is a brute. It's a pity she's mixed up with them. What are you
+going to do--play the hero and rescue her from their clutches?"
+
+"Nonsense. The girl is nothing to me, except as the symbol of a great
+idea. It stirs my blood. I'm going to join the Socialist Club."
+
+"Of which the fair Barbara is secretary."
+
+"Come with me, and join too. We'll go together to every meeting."
+
+"Have you gone mad?" Elena asked, with deep seriousness.
+
+"I'm in dead earnest."
+
+"And you think your father will stand for it?"
+
+"That remains to be seen. I'm going to tackle him as soon as he comes
+down to breakfast."
+
+"Well, if I never see you again, good-bye, old pal." She extended her
+hand in mock gravity.
+
+"I'm not afraid of him."
+
+"No, of course not!"
+
+"You're a coward, or you'd stand by me. Wait, Elena, he's coming now."
+
+"Why stand by? You're not afraid? I'll return in time for the
+inquest. Brace up! Remember Barbara. Be a hero!"
+
+With a ripple of laughter she disappeared as the Colonel's footsteps
+were heard at the door.
+
+Norman braced himself for the ordeal. He had never before dared to
+test his father's iron will. He had grown accustomed to see strong men
+bow and cringe before him, and felt a secret contempt for them all.
+They were bowing to his millions. And yet the boy knew with intuitive
+certainty that beneath the mask of quiet dignity and polished military
+bearing of the man he facetiously called "the Governor" there
+slumbered a will unique, powerful, and overbearing. More than once he
+had resented the silent pressure of his positive and aggressive
+personality. His own budding manhood had begun instinctively to
+bristle at its approach.
+
+The Colonel started on seeing Norman, and looked at him with a
+quizzical expression.
+
+"Was there an earthquake this morning, Norman?"
+
+"I didn't feel it, sir--why?"
+
+"You're downstairs rather early."
+
+Norman smiled. "I've been a little lazy, I'm afraid, Governor. But you
+know I wasn't consulted as to whether I wished to be born. You assumed
+a fearful responsibility. You see the results."
+
+The Colonel dropped his paper and looked at Norman a moment.
+
+"Well, upon my word!" he exclaimed. "What's happened?"
+
+"The biggest thing that ever came into my life, Governor," was the
+low, serious answer.
+
+"What?"
+
+"The decision that hereafter I'd rather be than seem to be, that I'm
+going to do some thinking for myself."
+
+"And what brought you to this decision?" the father quietly asked.
+
+"I went last night to that Socialist meeting."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes," he went on, impetuously, "and I heard the most wonderful appeal
+to which I ever listened--an appeal which stirred me to the deepest
+depths of my being. I think it's the biggest movement of the century.
+I'm going to study it. I'm going to see what it means. What do you say
+to it?"
+
+The boy lifted his tall figure with instinctive dignity, and his eyes
+met his father's in a straight, deep man's gaze.
+
+The faintest smile played about the corners of the Colonel's mouth as
+he suddenly extended his hand.
+
+"I congratulate you!"
+
+"Congratulate me?" Norman stammered.
+
+"Upon the attainment of your majority. Up to date you have written a
+few verses and played football. But this is the first evidence you
+have ever shown of conscious personality. You're in the grub-worm
+stage as yet, but you're on the move. You're a human being. You have
+developed the germ of character. And that's the only thing in this
+world that's worth the candle, my boy. It's funny to hear you say that
+the appeal of Socialism has worked this miracle. For character is the
+one thing the scheme of Socialism leaves out of account. A character
+is the one thing a machine-made society could never produce if given a
+million years in which to develop the experiment."
+
+"And you don't object?" Norman asked with increasing amazement.
+
+"Certainly not. Study Socialism to your heart's content. Go to the
+bottom of it. Don't slop over it. Don't accept sentimental mush for
+facts. Find out for yourself. Read, think, and learn to know your
+fellow man. When you've picked up a few first principles, and know
+enough to talk intelligently, I've something to say to you--something
+I've learned for myself."
+
+The boy looked at his father steadily and spoke with a slight tremor
+in his voice.
+
+"Governor, you're a bigger man than I thought you were. I like
+you--even if you are my father."
+
+"Thanks, my boy," the Colonel gravely replied, "I trust we may know
+each other still better in the future."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AMONG THE SHADOWS
+
+
+Under the tutelage of Barbara, the young millionaire plunged into the
+study of Socialism with the zeal of the fresh convert to a holy
+crusade.
+
+At first he had listened to her stories of the sufferings of the poor
+and the unemployed with mild incredulity. She laid her warm little
+hand on his and said:
+
+"Come and see. If you think that Socialism is a dream, I'll show you
+that capitalism is a nightmare."
+
+He followed her down the ugly pavements of a squalid street into the
+poorest quarter of the city. She entered a dingy hall and pushed her
+way through a swarm of filthy children to the rear room. On a bed of
+rags lay the body of a suicide--a working-man who had shot himself the
+day before. The wife sat crouching on a broken chair, with eyes
+staring out of the window at the sunlit skies of a May morning in
+California. Her body seemed to have turned to stone and her eyes to
+have frozen in their sockets. Her hands lay limp in her lap, her
+shoulders drooped, her mouth hung hopelessly open. She was as dead to
+every sight and sound of earth as though shrouded and buried in six
+feet of clay instead of sunlight.
+
+Barbara touched her shoulder, but she did not move.
+
+"Have you been sitting there all night, Mrs. Nelson?" she asked,
+gently.
+
+The woman turned her weak eyes toward the speaker and stared without
+reply.
+
+"You haven't tasted the food I brought you," Barbara continued.
+
+The drooping figure stirred with sudden energy, as if the realization
+of the question first asked had begun to stir her intelligence.
+
+"Yes. I set up all night with Jim. He'd a-done as much fer me. There's
+nobody else that cared enough to come. Ye know it ain't respectful to
+leave your dead alone----"
+
+"But you must eat something," Barbara urged.
+
+"I can't eat--it chokes me." She paused a moment, and looked at Norman
+in a dazed sort of way. "I tried to eat and something choked me--what
+was it? O God, I remember now!" she cried, with strangling emotion.
+"They are going to bury him in the potter's field unless we can save
+him, and I know we can't. He's got an old mother way back East that
+thinks he's doing well out here. Hit'll kill her dead when she finds
+out he wuz buried by the city."
+
+"He shan't go to the potter's field," Norman interrupted, looking out
+of the window.
+
+The woman rose, and tried to speak, but sank sobbing:
+
+"Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!"
+
+When the first flood of grateful emotion had spent itself, she looked
+up at Norman and said:
+
+"You see, sir, he wasn't strong, and kept losin' his job in Chicago.
+We'd heard about California all our lives. We sold out everything and
+got enough to come. For two years we've made a hard fight, but it was
+no use. Jim couldn't git work. I tried and I couldn't. Folks have
+helped us, but he was proud. He wouldn't beg and he wouldn't let me.
+He wouldn't sell his gun. I think he always meant to use it that way
+when he got to the end, and it come yesterday when they give us notice
+to git out."
+
+She staggered over to the bed and fell across the body, sobbing:
+
+"My poor old boy. He loved me. He was always good to me. I tried to go
+with him. But I couldn't pull the trigger! I was afraid! I was
+afraid!"
+
+When they reached the street, Barbara lifted her brown eyes to
+Norman's face and asked:
+
+"What do you think of a social system that drives thousands of men to
+kill themselves like that?"
+
+"To tell you the truth I never thought of it at all before."
+
+"He would have been buried in a pauper's grave but for your help. I
+brought you here this morning because I knew you would save her that
+anguish when you understood."
+
+"You knew I would?" he softly asked.
+
+"I wouldn't have let you come with me if I hadn't known it," she
+answered, earnestly.
+
+"It's funny how many of us live in this world without knowing anything
+about it," he said, musingly.
+
+"It would be funny were it not a tragedy," she answered, turning
+across the street to the next block. They paused at the entrance of
+another narrow hallway.
+
+"My work as secretary of the club includes, as you see, a wide range
+of calls. I'm a dispenser of alms, the pastor of a great parish, the
+friend, adviser, and champion of a lost world, and you have no idea
+what a big world it is."
+
+"I'm beginning to understand. What's the trouble here? Another
+suicide?"
+
+"No--something worse, I think. A man who was afraid to die and took to
+drink. That's the way with most of them. None but the brave can look
+into the face of Death. This man is good to his family until he's
+drunk. Drink is the only thing that makes life worth the candle to
+him. But when he's under the influence of liquor he's a fiend. Last
+night he beat his wife into insensibility. This morning he sent one of
+the children for me."
+
+They climbed two flights of rickety stairs and entered a room littered
+with broken furniture. Every chair was smashed, the table lay in
+splinters, pieces of crockery scattered everywhere, and the stove
+broken into fragments. Two blear-eyed children with the look of hunted
+rabbits crouched in a corner. A man was bending over the bed, where
+the form of a woman lay still and white.
+
+"For God's sake, brace up, Mary!" he was saying. "Ye mustn't die! Ye
+mustn't, I tell ye! Your white face will haunt me and drive me into
+hell a raving maniac. I didn't know what I was doin', old gal. I was
+crazy. I wouldn't 'a' hurt a hair of your head if I'd 'a' knowed what
+I was doin'!"
+
+He bowed his face in his coarse, bloated hands and sobbed.
+
+The thin white hand of the wife stroked his hair feebly.
+
+"It's all right, Sam. I know ye didn't mean it," she sighed.
+
+Norman sent for a doctor, and left some money.
+
+With each new glimpse of the under-world of pain and despair the
+conviction grew in Norman's mind that he had not lived, and the
+determination deepened that he would get acquainted with his fellow
+men and the place he called his home.
+
+"You are not tired?" Barbara asked, as they hurried into the street.
+
+"No, I'm just beginning to live," he answered, soberly.
+
+"Good. Then you shall be allowed the honour of accompanying me to the
+county jail, to the poorhouse, to the hospital, and to the morgue--the
+four greatest institutions of modern civilization. We must hurry. I've
+another sadder visit after these."
+
+As they hurried through the streets, Norman began to study with
+increasing intensity the phenomena presented in the development of
+Barbara's character. The more he saw of her, the more he realized the
+lofty ideals of her life, the more puerile and contemptible his own
+past seemed.
+
+At the jail they found a boy who had been convicted of stealing and
+sentenced to the penitentiary. His old mother was ill. Barbara bore
+her last message of love.
+
+They stopped at the poorhouse to see a curious old pauper who had
+become a regular attendant on the Socialists' meetings. He was called
+"Methodist John," because he was forever shouting "Glory, Hallelujah!"
+and interrupting the speakers. Barbara was the bearer of a painful
+message to John. Wolf had instructed her to keep him out of the
+meetings. She had decided to try a gentler way--to warn him against
+yelling "Glory" again under penalty of being deprived of a dish of
+soup of which he was particularly fond. The Socialist Club served this
+simple, wholesome meal to all who asked for it after its weekly
+meetings.
+
+John promised Barbara faithfully to stop shouting.
+
+"Remember, John," she warned him finally, "shout--no soup! No
+shout--soup!"
+
+"I understand, Miss Barbara," he answered, solemnly.
+
+"You see, sir," he said, apologetically, turning to Norman, "I get
+along all right till she begins ter speak, and when I hears her soft,
+sweet voice it seems ter run all down my back in little ticklin' waves
+clean down ter my toes, an' I holler 'Glory' before I can stop it!"
+
+Norman laughed.
+
+"I understand, old man."
+
+"You feel that way yerself, don't ye, now, when she looks down into
+yer soul with them big, soft eyes o' hern, an' her voice comes
+a-stealin' inter yer heart like the music of the angels----"
+
+Barbara's face lighted, and a slight blush suffused her cheeks as she
+caught the look of admiring assent in Norman's expression.
+
+"That will do, John," she said, firmly. "Mr. Wolf was very angry with
+you yesterday."
+
+"I'll remember, Miss Barbara," he repeated. "And God bless your dear
+heart fer comin' by ter tell me."
+
+"I suppose he has no people living who are interested in him?" Norman
+asked, as they turned toward the Socialist hall.
+
+"No. He came from a big mill town in the East. His children all died
+before they were grown, and he landed here with his wife ten years
+ago. When she died, he was sent to the poorhouse. He hasn't much mind,
+but there's enough left to burst into flame at the memory of his
+children being slowly ground to death by the wheels of those mills.
+I've seen his dead soul start to life more than once as I've looked
+into his face from our platform. What an awful thing to see dead men
+walking about!"
+
+"Yes. People who are dead and don't know it. I never thought of it
+before." Norman exclaimed.
+
+They stopped in front of a house with a scarlet light in the hall,
+which threw its rays through a red-glass transom over a door of
+coloured leaded glass. The shadows of evening had begun to fall, and
+for the first time the girl showed a sign of hesitation and
+embarrassment.
+
+"I hate to ask you to go in here with me, and I'd hate worse to have
+you see me go alone. Yet I have to do it. My work leads me."
+
+"I'm going with you, whether you ask it or not," he firmly replied.
+
+"Then words are useless," she said, simply, as she rang the bell.
+
+A Negro maid opened the door, and smiled a look of recognition. "She
+ain't no better, miss. She's been crying for you all day."
+
+Barbara led the way up two flights of stairs to a small room in the
+rear, and entered without knocking. With a bound she was beside the
+bed on which lay a slender girl of nineteen. A mass of golden blond
+hair was piled in confusion on the pillow, and a pair of big,
+childish-looking blue eyes blinked at her through her tears.
+
+"Oh! you've come at last! I'm so glad. It makes me strong to see you.
+Your face shines so, Barbara! They say I can't live, but it's not so.
+I shall live! I'm feeling better every day. It's nonsense. The doctors
+haven't got any sense. I wish you'd get me one that knows something.
+Won't you, dear?"
+
+"My friend, Mr. Worth, who has called with me, has kindly agreed to
+send you another doctor, little sister--that's why I brought him to
+see you."
+
+Norman extended his hand, and grasped the thin, cold one the girl
+extended. He felt the chill of death in its icy touch as he stammered:
+
+"I'll send him right away."
+
+"Thank you," the girl replied, as a smile flitted about her weak
+mouth. She turned to Barbara with a look of infinite tenderness.
+
+"I knew you'd come, and I knew you'd save me. You're my angel! When I
+dream at night, you're always hovering over me."
+
+"I'll come again to-morrow, dearie, when the new doctor has seen you,"
+Barbara answered, as she pressed her hand good-bye.
+
+When they reached the street, Norman asked:
+
+"You knew her before she fell into evil ways?"
+
+"Yes," Barbara answered, with feeling. "She was just a little child of
+joy and sunlight. She couldn't endure the darkness. She loved flowers
+and music, beauty and love. She hated drudgery and poverty. She tried
+to work, and gave up in despair. A man came into her life at a
+critical moment and she broke with the world. She's been sending all
+the money she could make the past two years to her mother and four
+little kids. Her father was killed at work in a mine for a great
+corporation."
+
+"She can't live, can she?" Norman asked.
+
+"Of course not. I only did this to humour her. She has developed acute
+consumption--she may not live a month."
+
+Barbara paused.
+
+"I must leave you now--I'm very tired, and I must sleep a while before
+I attend the meeting to-night. It has been a great strain on me
+to-day, this trip with you. How do you like our boasted civilization?
+Do you think it perfect? Are you satisfied with a system which drives
+hundreds of thousands of such girls into a life of shame? Are you
+content with a system which produces three million paupers in a land
+flowing with milk and honey? Do you like a system which drives
+thousands to the madness of drink and suicide every year?"
+
+"And to think," responded Norman, dreamily, "that for the past two
+years of my manhood I've been writing verses and playing football!
+Great God!"
+
+"Then from to-day we are comrades in the cause of humanity?" she asked
+tenderly, extending her hand. His own clasped hers with firm grasp.
+
+"Comrades!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ISLAND OF VENTURA
+
+
+Norman had never been a boy to do things by halves. In college, when
+he went in for football, he made it the one supreme end of life--and
+won. He incidentally managed to pull through a course in mining
+engineering. He knew mining by instinct and inheritance from his
+father. It came easy.
+
+When he had a three months' vacation from football he took up the
+modelling of a dredge for mining gold from the sands of the beaches.
+The thing had never been perfected, but after three months' experiment
+and study he was just on the point of making the castings for the
+machinery when the football season opened and he dropped such trifling
+matters for the more serious work of training his men for a successful
+season. He won the championship and forgot the dredge.
+
+Into the new movement of Socialism he naturally threw his whole
+personality without reservation. Its daring programme thrilled him.
+The audacity of its leaders and their refusal to discuss anything less
+than the salvation of man appealed to every instinct of his nature.
+He devoured every book on the subject he could find, and in his
+new-found enthusiasm for humanity accepted as the inspired voice of
+God their wildest visions of social regeneration.
+
+In his work of charity and organization with Barbara he found
+everything to confirm and nothing to shake his faith in these
+theories. When once he caught the idea that all the ills of modern
+civilization were due directly to the fiendish system of "capitalism"
+and its "iron law of wages," it was the key which unlocked every
+mystery of Pain and every tragedy of the Soul. All sin and crime and
+shame and suffering became the incidents of a social system whose
+movements were as inexorable as Fate, as merciless as Death. There was
+but one thing worth talking about, and that was how to destroy modern
+society, root and branch, and do it quickly, thoroughly and without
+compromise.
+
+The same daring enthusiasm and capacity for leadership which made him
+the captain of his football team brought him at once to the front as a
+Socialist leader. He would have gained this leadership had he been the
+poorest man among them. It was a gift as his birthright.
+
+But, added to this capacity for daring and successful action, was his
+wealth and social prestige. He had cast his lot with a class whose
+avowed purpose was to destroy all social distinctions, to level all
+wealth to a common standard. And for this reason in particular he was
+conspicuous and heroic in the eyes of his Socialist comrades.
+
+He found soon after his entrance into their active councils that the
+woman known to the world as "The Scarlet Nun," to her associates as
+"Sister Catherine," was the inspiring brain of their movement in the
+West. This remarkable woman interested him deeply from their first
+hour's talk. Born in Poland and educated in Germany, she spoke
+fluently the Russian, German, French, and English languages. She had
+led two great strikes of women workers in New York and had been
+arrested, convicted, and sentenced twice to the penitentiary for
+exciting riots. To her associates she had always remained a saint and
+a martyr for their cause.
+
+She had been married before her association with Wolf had begun, ten
+years ago. Her first husband had been divorced, and her marriage to
+Wolf had been merely "announced" at a Socialist meeting. And yet the
+young millionaire had never questioned the sincerity of their devotion
+or the apparent happiness of their union. He was amazed at her
+learning, her grasp of affairs, the simplicity and refinement of her
+manners, and the charm of her conversation.
+
+Wolf he found to be a man of wide reading and deep convictions. As he
+came in daily contact with these two powerful personalities, and
+watched the singular zeal with which they devoted themselves to their
+self-appointed task of destroying modern society, he could not divest
+himself of the impression that they belonged to a religious order and
+were leading a crusade, as the monks of the Middle Ages led men and
+women to die to rescue the tomb of Christ from the desecration of Turk
+and Saracen.
+
+The woman in particular gave him this impression of religious
+fanaticism. The apparent simplicity and austerity of her life, the
+tireless zeal with which she planned and worked for the spread of the
+gospel of Socialism, to his mind gave the lie emphatically to all the
+stories he had read of her affairs with men.
+
+The only moments of suspicion about her which ever clouded his mind
+came with the accidental discovery that she had skilfully managed to
+throw him and Barbara together for a day. It seemed just a little like
+the old habit of a scheming mamma angling for the rich young man, and
+deliberately using the beauty of her daughter as the bait with which
+to land him in the household.
+
+Yet, when he found himself with Barbara he had always dismissed the
+thought as absurd. Whatever might be the dimly formed design in the
+back of the older woman's fancy, her brilliant protege gave no sign of
+being her accomplice.
+
+Norman had found Barbara a charming but baffling enigma. She walked
+through a world of sin and shame, filth and mire, with never a speck
+on the white of her soul or body. She spoke in the simplest and most
+direct way of things about which the ordinary girl in society would
+never dare to utter a word, and yet he took it as a matter of course.
+He grew to feel that she was a mysterious messenger from the spirit
+world. Yet when he took her arm and felt its warm round lines soft and
+thrilling against his own, or the warmth of her lithe body pressing
+close to his side in some lonely or dangerous spot on their rounds of
+work, he was brought up sharply against the fact that she was both
+flesh and spirit. Yet the moment he tried to draw nearer to her inner
+thoughts, he found her a skilful little fencer, an adept in all the
+arts of the most delicate and subtle coquetry.
+
+He grew at last, however, to know, with unerring masculine instinct,
+that with all her brave and frank talk about her "fallen" sisters, she
+hadn't an idea of what their fall really meant. She was as innocent
+as a child, and when at last she caught the young athlete smiling at
+one of her apparently frank and learned discussions of the modern
+degradation of woman, she blushed and became silent. Whereat he
+laughed, and she became so angry they parted in silence.
+
+Baffled in his efforts to approach Barbara's heart, he threw himself
+with zeal into the Cause. When two months had been spent in mastering
+the details of the Socialist programme, in studying its history and
+the condition of its movement, he called a meeting of the council of
+the Socialist Club, and fairly took away the breath of the Wolfs and
+Barbara by the magnitude and audacity of a scheme which he proposed to
+launch immediately.
+
+He had secured, without consulting any of his associates, an option on
+a rich, beautiful, and fertile island off the coast of Southern
+California. It was owned by a corporation which had invested more than
+a million dollars in its improvement. The enterprise had failed for
+two reasons--the money had been expended recklessly in the days of the
+famous land boom, and it had been found impossible to induce labourers
+to isolate themselves on this lonely spot, sixty miles from the coast
+of Santa Barbara, with no means of regular connection with the outside
+world.
+
+His eyes flashing with enthusiasm and his voice ringing with
+conviction, Norman closed his description of the island of Ventura
+with a demand for its immediate purchase by the Socialists.
+
+"It can be bought," he declared impetuously, "for $200,000. A million
+dollars' worth of improvements are already there. I propose that we
+immediately raise $500,000, buy this island, establish a steamship
+line, plant a colony of ten thousand Socialists, found the Brotherhood
+of Man, build a model city, and create a vast fund for the propaganda
+of our faith."
+
+Barbara's brown eyes danced with excitement, her cheeks flushed, while
+her little hands clapped approval.
+
+"Good! Good! It's great! It's beautiful! We must do it!" she cried.
+
+Wolf grimly shook his head.
+
+"The idea has failed a hundred times. We must conquer the world by
+political action--we have the weapon in our hand--manhood suffrage.
+All colonies fail sooner or later. They are corrupted from
+outside----"
+
+"Just so!" Norman interrupted. "But this one you can't reach from the
+outside. We will own the only means of communication. We will inherit
+all the advantages of modern civilization with none of its drawbacks.
+We can demonstrate the truths we hold and from our impregnable
+Gibraltar send out our missionaries to conquer the world. We will not
+merely dream dreams and see visions; we will make history. We will
+prove the God that's in man and establish the fact of his universal
+brotherhood."
+
+"It's a wonderful idea, comrade!" Catherine exclaimed, with
+enthusiasm. "I congratulate you! We will accept your plan, and I move
+that we appoint you our agent vested with full power to collect this
+fund from the enemy!"
+
+The motion was put and carried unanimously, even Wolf voting for it.
+
+Barbara sprang to Norman's side, and grasped his hand:
+
+"Our feud is over! I forgive you for laughing at me. You are a born
+leader. You've won your spurs to-night. You will raise this money?"
+
+"As sure as I'm living!" was the firm reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE RED FLAG
+
+
+Norman lost no time in springing his scheme for the establishment of
+the Socialist colony and headquarters for the propaganda of the new
+social religion on the island of Ventura. The season he had spent as a
+reporter gave him the key to the proper launching of a press story
+which created a profound sensation. It appeared simultaneously in the
+Sunday editions of all the leading dailies of the Pacific coast, and
+in forty-eight hours his mail had grown to such proportions that he
+required two secretaries to assist him in answering it.
+
+He called for a thousand volunteers to join the advance-guard of the
+coming Brotherhood of Man, each contributing a thousand dollars. He
+announced a mass meeting and picnic for the Fourth of July, to be held
+on the big lawn of the Worth country house on the outskirts of
+Berkeley.
+
+Colonel Worth had readily given his consent to the use of the lawn. He
+had not tried in any way to interfere with his son's association with
+the Socialists. He felt sure that in time he would tire of the fad,
+as he had of football, and in a fatherly way he began to admire the
+dash and audacity of the boy's plans.
+
+On the morning of the picnic, when Elena expressed her fears of the
+outcome, the Colonel laughed.
+
+"Don't worry, Elena. He'll come to his senses. It's like a fever. It
+must run its course. I'm rather proud of the extravagance of his
+foolishness. A boy who can forget his games and give his life to
+destroy the foundations of human society and try to rebuild a new
+world on its ruins--well, there's good stuff in him."
+
+"But if he does something rash?" Elena persisted.
+
+"He won't. With all his extravagance and enthusiasm he's not a fool.
+I, too, saw visions like that once."
+
+"You, Guardie?"
+
+"Yes, when I was very, very young--a mere boy of thirteen--I joined a
+colony of Communists."
+
+"I wish I could have seen you at thirteen," Elena cried, with a joyous
+laugh.
+
+The laugh died suddenly and a frown overspread her face as Norman
+appeared.
+
+"I want you and Elena to hear our orator to-day, Governor," Norman
+said, with enthusiasm. "We are going to make it a great day."
+
+"It's already great, my boy--I've just got the news."
+
+"What news?"
+
+The Colonel drew a telegram from his pocket.
+
+"A message from Washington. Sampson and Schley have annihilated the
+Spanish fleet. Admiral Cervera is a prisoner on board the flagship,
+and the army is rapidly closing in on the doomed city of Santiago."
+
+He handed the telegram to Norman, who glanced at it in silence and
+returned it to his father.
+
+"Come to our meeting on the lawn at noon, Governor. We've bigger news
+than that for you."
+
+"Bigger news?" the older man asked with a quizzical look.
+
+"Yes. A message announcing the dawn of a day when every gun on earth
+shall be broken to pieces and melted into ploughshares."
+
+The Colonel looked at Norman a moment, smiled, and slowly said:
+
+"I love the young--because I live myself over again in them."
+
+"Then you'll join us to-day?"
+
+"Thanks--no--Elena and I are going to shoot firecrackers--but we won't
+disturb your crowd. Let them speak to their hearts' content."
+
+The Colonel turned with Elena, and entered the house, which crowned an
+eminence overlooking the distant bay and city, while Norman hurried
+down the green sloping lawn to finish the decorations of the speakers'
+stand.
+
+The crowd had already begun to pour in from Oakland and San Francisco,
+and more than a hundred delegates from Socialist locals in other
+cities were expected.
+
+On a little headland which jutted out from the long sloping mountain
+side on which the lawn was laid out, Colonel Worth had erected a tall
+steel flag-pole. The big flag which flew from its peak could be seen
+by every ship that entered or left the bay and for miles on shore in
+almost every direction.
+
+Around this flag-pole Norman had built the speakers' platform, with
+every inch of its boards covered with the deep-red bunting symbolic of
+the Socialist cause. Behind the stand toward the mountains rose a
+smooth grass-carpeted hillside in semi-circular form, making a natural
+amphitheatre on which five thousand people might sit in tiers one
+above the other and distinctly hear every word uttered on the
+platform.
+
+By noon every inch of this space was packed with a dense crowd of
+Socialists, their friends, and the curious who had come, drawn by the
+sensational announcement of the launching of the Socialist colony on
+the island of Ventura.
+
+In the front row, packed close against the platform, were a number of
+famous people--conspicuous among whom was an author whose impassioned
+stories of the coming social upheaval had resulted in fame for himself
+and a divorce-suit by his first wife. His new wife, the "affinity" who
+caused the disturbance, sat by his side.
+
+On his left sat a solemn looking poet with bushy, unkempt hair. He had
+deliberately chosen the title "The Bard of Ramcat." The name Ramcat
+had been long applied to a shabby section of the outskirts of San
+Francisco. Here the poet had chosen to dwell and sing of social
+horrors which existed only in his fertile imagination.
+
+He had won wide fame, however, as the supreme exponent of the
+"affinity" theory which has always been epidemic among thoughtful
+Socialists. He coolly informed his wife that he had discovered his
+true "affinity" in a woman he had installed as her guest. The two
+affinities accompanied the wife and her child to a steamer for Europe
+with instructions to obtain a divorce.
+
+The poet married the affinity, and on the birth of a new son and heir
+acquired the habit of beating her as a form of relaxation from the
+strain of work. Considerable trouble followed, and he spent a portion
+of his time in jail. He had once gone barefooted and bareheaded. But
+since his "affinity" marriage he had been compelled for reasons best
+known to himself to resume shoe-leather and to buy a hat. Nevertheless
+he was still a striking-looking figure, seated beside his new wife
+whose strong, intellectual face won the sympathy of all who saw her.
+
+Just behind him sat an ex-clergyman with whom a rich young woman in
+his congregation had fallen in love. To avoid trouble, the woman of
+wealth got him to leave the ministry, and bought him from his wife for
+a good round sum. He became an apostle of the new gospel of Socialism,
+and secured a position as a professor of economics. When finally he
+lost this position by his vagaries, his wife hired a hall and set him
+up in business as an inspired leader of new thought emancipated from
+the chains of capitalistic tyranny.
+
+Beside the distinguished ex-clergyman Socialistic apostle sat
+Professor Otto Schmitt, a famous teacher of economics at a Western
+university. His supreme passion was hatred of women. His one big book
+was written to prove that woman has no soul, that she is the mere
+matter on which man by his will acts, that she is not immoral, but
+merely non-moral, having never possessed even the rudiments of a moral
+nature. Schmitt had, therefore, maintained that the entrance of women
+into competition in the economic world presaged the downfall of man
+and the utter extinction of humanity. For this reason he had joined
+the Socialists.
+
+Not three feet away from him sat a thoughtful, elderly, short-haired
+woman who had written a book on the evolution of woman to prove that
+woman alone is the original unit of creation, man a superfluous and
+temporary addition, merely the missing link between woman and the
+monkey, and in the process of human development the male biped would
+be eliminated. She demanded equal rights with man, and more besides,
+and she, too, had joined the Socialists.
+
+Yet through all these ludicrous incongruities there ran the single
+scarlet thread of social discontent which made them one. In every soul
+rang the stirring cry:
+
+"Down with civilization! Up with the Red Flag!"
+
+A more remarkable group of men and women could scarcely be gathered
+together on the face of the earth. But the one mark they all bore,
+distinctly cut deep in the lines of every face on which character had
+set its seal, and written large in the restless, nervous personality
+of the young--they all had a grievance, and though their troubles
+might come from as many different causes as there were men and women
+present, they united in one thought:
+
+"Modern civilization must be destroyed!"
+
+Every heart beat with this fiery resolution, and every incongruity
+melted and faded into insignificance before this consuming belief.
+
+And they had gone about this purpose with a deadly earnestness which
+meant business. Their political campaigns were merely moments when the
+captain of their ship cast the lead-line to feel the bottom and find
+his position with certainty before signalling full speed ahead.
+
+They worked all the year round and every day in every year, from one
+election to the next. They were mastering the tricks of the demagogue
+in their appeal to the masses, and they kept everlastingly at it. No
+man is too high, no man too low, for them to reach for him. They
+couldn't be beaten for they had accepted defeat before they began to
+fight, and began the next fight before they got up from the ground
+where they had been knocked down. They had become the one element in
+American politics to which it was utterly useless to direct any
+argument of expediency.
+
+The Fourth of July, the Nation's birthday, they were now using to
+demand its extinction. The fact that our army and navy had just torn
+the flag of Spain from its last masthead in the Western hemisphere and
+startled the old world with our sudden advent among the great powers
+of the earth, stirred in their hearts no emotion save that of
+contempt. While the souls of millions beat with patriotic pride, they
+had met to uproot the very ideas from whose soil patriotism sprang
+into life.
+
+There was no question as to who should be the orator of the day. The
+fame of Barbara Bozenta had become national from the day of her first
+speech in San Francisco. Her beauty and eloquence were sufficient to
+pack any hall at twenty-four hours' notice.
+
+Her delicate face was radiant to-day with unusual elation. She walked
+with a quick, nervous energy that seemed to lift her whole body into
+the air. As she ascended the platform and bowed to the tumult of
+applause, she trembled from head to foot with intensest excitement. As
+she stood looking over the inspiring scene for a moment, her sensitive
+nostrils dilated, her brown eyes flashed, and her heart beat with a
+great throb of personal pride. She had never before faced such an
+immense throng of excited men and women, and the secret consciousness
+that she had within her soul the message which would sweep their
+heartstrings as she willed, lifted her into the clouds.
+
+She felt for the moment that the whole scene was a tribute to her
+power. The magnificent house whose windows flashed in the sunlight,
+the vast lawn carpeted with green and set in dazzling flowers, the
+emerald waters of the bay, and the spires and domes of the distant
+city set on its proud hills beyond--all were hers to-day! Her voice
+had called to their standard the young millionaire whose name was now
+on every lip. Her voice had inspired his dream of the experiment to be
+made on the island of Ventura which had called this host together. For
+one big moment she felt the thrill of conscious creative genius, the
+pain, the joy, the glory of a positive achievement.
+
+Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she sank to her seat with a
+suppressed sob.
+
+When at last she rose to speak, her whole personality was a quivering
+battery of resistless emotion. Her voice, low and pulsing with
+magnetic waves of suppressed feeling, caught and chained the attention
+of the farthest straggler on the edge of the throng. Instinctively
+they moved closer. Resistlessly she drew them.
+
+She had not spoken two minutes before she was sweeping the hearts of
+her hearers. Men and women who had come to laugh or scoff, as well as
+the young and thoughtless who had drifted with the crowd, were all
+alike caught in the spell and hung breathless on her words.
+
+Every trick and art of persuasive speech were hers without effort.
+Scorn, pathos, humour, passion, were of the breath she breathed. At
+times her eloquence reached the highest conception of its might. It
+was simple thought packed until it took fire. At such moments scores
+of men leaped to their feet and shouted. Nothing disconcerted her or
+changed the swift current of her ideas. She was a master-musician
+whose hands swept a harp of a thousand strings--every string a
+throbbing human soul.
+
+What matter if her appeal was to the emotions and not to the
+intellect? Her purpose was to persuade her hearers. And she did it.
+Her courage, her beauty, her skill, her utter sincerity, commanded the
+respect of the strongest man who listened. If their intellects were
+not convinced, no matter--she carried them with her on a storm of
+resistless emotion.
+
+Suddenly a thing happened which would have destroyed the total
+impression of the average speech. Old Methodist John, her pauper
+protege, had listened with increasing torture, choking down a hundred
+"Glorys" as they leaped from his soul until at last he could endure no
+more. At the climax of one of her impassioned appeals the old man
+leaped to his feet, rushed in front of the speakers' stand and shouted
+into the face of the chairman:
+
+"Look here! Look here, now, Wolf! Soup or no soup--Glory hallelujah!"
+
+Barbara alone smiled. The crowd took up his shout, and a thousand
+voices made the heavens ring with its wild music.
+
+Norman whispered to the old man, who sat down, and Barbara swept on in
+her impetuous triumph without the lapse of a moment's power. She
+seized the instant's hush which followed the storm of cheering to fire
+into the minds of her hearers some of the solid shot of the
+revolutionary programme.
+
+In a voice which swelled to the clarion note of a trumpet she cried:
+
+"The earth for all the people! This is our demand!
+
+"The machinery of all production and distribution for all the people!
+This is our demand!
+
+"The collective ownership and control of all industry! This is our
+demand!
+
+"The elimination of rent, interest, and profit! This is our demand!
+
+"A new social order, a higher civilization, a real republic! This is
+our demand!
+
+"The end of the hell called war, of poverty and shame, of cruelty and
+crime, the birth of freedom, the dawn of brotherhood, the beginning of
+man! These are our demands! This is Socialism! Is this an idle dream?
+Have you no faith in your fellow man?
+
+"In the grim prison beyond the bay I found one day a woman convict who
+was little removed from a fiend. I got permission to hang a beautiful
+picture in her cell--a picture that set her soul to dreaming, that
+melted her at last to tears, and transformed the beast within her to a
+gentle, loving, beautiful, human character.
+
+"I believe in man because he alone possesses this power to look
+through the window of the soul into the infinite and eternal. Here the
+world's real battles are fought. Here the world's real work is done.
+Here cowards run and the brave die. This power to recreate the earth,
+people it with beauty, and fill it with harmony is your birthright.
+
+"Lo, the day of humanity dawns!
+
+"I preach class consciousness that we may destroy all classes. Class
+must perish and Man be glorified. Man, whose inhumanity to his fellow
+man has filled the ages with ashes and tears, is coming forth at last
+purified by suffering, and we shall see his tears turned to smiles
+upon the faces of a nobler race.
+
+"Why should we rejoice to-day in the death of our fellow man? Nations
+are but the dung-heaps out of which the fair flower of a
+world-democracy is slowly growing. Truth is not national, it is
+infinite. France may fight Germany because two titled fools insult
+each other, but there can be no war between the laboratories of
+Pasteur and of Koch. Their work is the common heritage of humanity.
+Who asks if Humboldt was German or English, whether Spinoza was Jew or
+Gentile, Darwin English or French? A German wrote 'Faust,' a Frenchman
+set it to immortal music, and an American girl sang it into the hearts
+of millions. Who cares to know nationalities? The great belong to the
+democracy of the world. And I swear that your children will still
+laugh with the soul of Cervantes in spite of the Fourth of July,
+Santiago, and Manila!
+
+"Why should you fight one another? When called to war by your rulers,
+let the liberty-loving spirits of the modern world say to their
+masters:
+
+"'Go and do your own killing--you who have separated us from our
+brothers and made the earth a slaughter-pen.'
+
+"If you are court-martialed and shot for this act of heroism remember:
+
+    "'They never fail who die
+    In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:
+    Their heads may sodden in the sun: their limbs
+    Be strung to city gates and castle walls--
+    But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
+    Elapse and others share as dark a doom,
+    They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
+    Which overpower all others, and conduct
+    The world at last to freedom!'"
+
+A shout of wild applause rent the air as the last note of Byron's
+immortal song fell from her beautiful lips. And then, in a low,
+intense voice, she closed her speech with a thrilling appeal for human
+brotherhood. To Norman, who hung on her lips, the slight girlish
+figure seemed transformed before their eyes into a radiant messenger
+of the spirit. And when the sweet womanly tones at last broke and
+choked into deep-drawn sobs, his soul and body seemed no longer his
+own. As her last words sank into his heart: "From to-day let each of
+us swear allegiance to but one flag, the deep-red emblem of human
+blood, God's sign of universal brotherhood!" Norman leaped to his
+feet, sprang on the platform, and while the crowd swayed in a frenzy
+of applause, hauled down the Stars and Stripes and quickly raised the
+big red standard of Socialism which was thrown across the speaker's
+table.
+
+And then the great crowd seemed to go mad. Wave after wave of cheering
+rose and fell, rose and fell, in apparently unending power. Catherine
+threw her arms around Barbara in a paroxysm of emotion, while the big
+figure of Wolf towered above them both, shouting and gesturing like a
+madman. Barbara at last lifted her hand and, as the storm subsided,
+began the Marseillaise hymn.
+
+The first stirring notes had just swept the audience when the stalwart
+figure of Colonel Worth suddenly appeared on the platform, his face a
+blaze of anger, his magnificent figure erect, every nerve and muscle
+drawn to the highest tension.
+
+He stepped to the edge of the stand, lifted his head, and his voice
+rang over the crowd like the sudden boom of a cannon:
+
+"Silence!"
+
+He didn't repeat the word.
+
+The singing stopped, and every eye was riveted on the group that stood
+on the platform.
+
+The Colonel confronted Wolf, and shot his words at him as though from
+a machine-gun.
+
+"Who lowered that flag?"
+
+A moment of silence followed. The Colonel spoke with increasing
+rapidity.
+
+"Who lowered that flag? The man who did it must answer to me!"
+
+Some one behind him moved, and the Colonel turned, confronting Norman.
+
+"I did it, Governor," was the quiet answer.
+
+"You?" the father gasped.
+
+"Yes," said the even, firm voice.
+
+"Haul that red rag down and raise the flag back to its place!" The
+Colonel's voice was low and thick with rage.
+
+Elena put her hand on his arm and said gently:
+
+"Guardie!"
+
+"Will you do it?" he firmly asked, ignoring Elena, and holding Norman
+with his gaze.
+
+The young man hesitated an instant, met his father's look with a
+deadly straight stare, and slowly replied:
+
+"I will not."
+
+A smothered cry from Barbara, half joy, half pain, was the only sound
+that followed, until the Colonel said:
+
+"Then I'll do it for you."
+
+Amid a dead silence he hauled down the red flag, threw it on the
+floor, boldly stamped on it, made fast the Stars and Stripes, and
+quickly raised it to the top of its staff. He turned to the crowd, and
+in clear-cut, sharp tones of command shouted:
+
+"This is my flag, my house, my lawn. Get off it! And do it quick!"
+
+As the crowd hastened away, he turned to Norman:
+
+"You and I must come to an understanding at once, young man," he said,
+with angry emphasis.
+
+"I'll meet you in the library in thirty minutes," was Norman's firm
+reply as he led Barbara from the platform and joined the retreating
+throng.
+
+    [Illustration: "LIFT THE FLAG BACK TO ITS PLACE."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FATHER AND SON
+
+
+The Colonel paced the floor of his library with increasing anger as he
+waited the return of Norman. Never in his life had his whole being
+been so abandoned to incontrollable rage. He had always been a man of
+fiery temper, but an iron will had held his temper in control.
+
+His most intimate business associates had always found him suave,
+persuasive, and genial in every hour of trial. Never once had they
+heard a threat or an idle boast fall from his lips. He had the rare
+faculty of beating his enemies in a fight in which no quarter was
+asked or given, and coming out of it with his bitterest foe turned
+into a friend. This was one of the secrets of his fortune--an
+instinctive leadership among powerful men.
+
+For the first time he realized that he had challenged the one man in
+all his personal acquaintance about whose character he knew
+nothing--his own son. For the first time he realized that they were
+strangers. He had been absorbed in the big affairs of life. He had
+taken the boy for granted. Since the death of his mother twelve years
+ago, Norman had spent most of his time at school.
+
+The Colonel had always been in command. His word had been law for so
+many years, it brought him up with a disagreeable start to find that
+the one man with whom his life was bound, and in whom his hopes
+centred, could dare thus to defy and flaunt his wishes. It was the
+most disgusting, enraging fact he had ever encountered. The longer he
+confronted the situation the more furious and blind his anger became.
+
+Elena had timidly entered the room, and stood watching him gravely
+before she spoke.
+
+"Has he returned from that woman yet?" the Colonel asked with sudden
+energy.
+
+"No, and I hope he will stay all day," she answered slowly.
+
+"But he won't," the father snapped.
+
+"I'm sure he will not," the girl sighed. "I don't like you to-day,
+Guardie."
+
+"You, too, side with these fanatics then?"
+
+"No. I hate them--hate everything they say and do and stand for. I
+loathe the very sight of them. But you were unfair to Norman."
+
+"Unfair? How?"
+
+"You allowed him the widest liberty to do as he pleased, think as he
+pleased, associate with whom he pleased, and then all of a sudden you
+sprang on that platform and insulted him before his invited guests."
+
+"How could I dream that he would commit such an act of insane treason
+before my very eyes?"
+
+"You make no allowance for the spell of Barbara Bozenta's eloquence. I
+don't like her, but she's a wonderful little woman, and I envy her her
+power over men."
+
+"I'll end this folly to-day," was the Colonel's firm announcement.
+
+"I'm not so sure," Elena warned.
+
+"I'll show you!"
+
+She came close and laid her hand on the Colonel's arm.
+
+"Will you promise me one thing, Guardie?" she asked, tenderly.
+
+The anger faded from the strong face, and his voice sank low.
+
+"I'm afraid I've never been able to refuse you anything, child. It's
+on your account, I think, I'm most angry with Norman to-day."
+
+"You promise?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes, what is it?" he said, bending to kiss her smooth, white
+forehead.
+
+"Promise to put all anger out of your heart and talk to Norman as a
+father, not as an enemy--won't you?"
+
+"An enemy?" the Colonel slowly asked.
+
+"Yes. I thought you were going to strike him once. It would have been
+horrible. I never could have forgiven you for that. You've always been
+my hero, Guardie--I never saw you give way to anger before. I don't
+like it. You'll talk to him lovingly and tenderly as a father, won't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, dear, for your sake, I will," he answered.
+
+"Then I'll tell him to come. I asked him to wait outside until I saw
+you."
+
+She turned and quickly left the room. In a moment Norman entered and
+stood facing his father.
+
+The Colonel flushed with anger at sight of the insolence with which
+the younger man calmly surveyed him.
+
+"Well, sir," the father said, at length, "have you nothing to say to
+me after what has occurred to-day?"
+
+"I was under the impression that you had something to say to me," was
+the cool answer.
+
+By an effort of will the older man crushed back an angry retort,
+smiled, and said:
+
+"Sit down, please--I've a good deal to say to you."
+
+Norman threw himself lazily into a chair, and continued to watch his
+father with a curious expression of half-amused contempt. The Colonel
+stood in silence, evidently struggling with his emotions, and feeling
+for the right word with which to begin.
+
+Norman anticipated him.
+
+"Honestly, now, Governor, just between us, don't you think you were a
+little bit absurd to-day?"
+
+"Absurd?" his father broke in with rising accent.
+
+"Just a little childish about a piece of red, white, and blue cloth?"
+
+"Perhaps so, my boy," was the answer. "Just about as absurd as you
+were over the red rag you lifted in its place. Why did you do it?"
+
+"On the impulse of the moment, to express my feeling of contempt for
+war, and my faith in my fellow man."
+
+"Exactly. So I acted on the impulse of the moment to express my
+contempt for that crowd of fools and fanatics--my loyalty and faith in
+my country."
+
+"I can't understand how a man of your age, poise and pride, culture
+and power, could be so foolish. A sixteen-year-old school-boy on the
+Fourth of July, yes! But you----"
+
+"Norman," the Colonel interrupted, in even tones, "I'm sorry I've been
+too busy for us to get acquainted. It's time we began. It may
+interest you to know that I, too, hate war--learned to hate it long
+before your Socialist orator was born--learned it in the grim
+University of Hell--war itself. Socialism has no patent on the hope of
+universal peace. I am a member of a peace society. I have always
+believed the Civil War should have been prevented. All the Negroes on
+this earth are not worth the blood and tears of one year of that
+struggle. Whether it could have been prevented God alone knows. When
+it came I volunteered--a drummer-boy at fourteen--and marched to the
+front beneath the flag you tore down to-day."
+
+"I never thought of that, Governor--honestly, I never did!" the boy
+exclaimed.
+
+"I went in," the Colonel continued, "with my head full of silly
+rubbish about the glory of war. When I beat the call to my first
+charge, and saw the men I knew and loved shot to pieces, and heard
+their groans and cries for water, I had no more delusions. I worked on
+the field that night until twelve o'clock, helping the men who were
+wounded--enemies as well as comrades. I learned the brotherhood of man
+and the meaning of red blood in the big, tragic school of life, my
+son. Many a boy in gray, whom I had fought, died in my arms while my
+heart ached for his loved ones in some far-away Southern home.
+
+"But I knew the war had to be when once it was begun. I was fighting
+for the flag I loved--and I grew to love it better than life. To you
+it may be a bit of red, white, and blue bunting; to me it is the
+symbol of truth and right, liberty and human progress.
+
+"My people in western North Carolina were all slave-holders and loyal
+to their state, except my father. He hated slavery, loved the Union,
+and moved on westward before the war. I saw them bury him in the flag
+you tore down to-day, my boy.
+
+"Many a night I've lain on the ground looking up at the stars before
+the dawn of a day of battle and seen visions of that flag flying
+triumphant in the sky. I've seen the men who carried it shot down
+again and again, and another snatch it from their dying grasp and bear
+it on to victory.
+
+"I grew not only to love it, but to believe in it with all the
+passionate faith of my soul. I believe in its destiny, in its sublime
+mission to humanity. The older I've grown and the more I've seen of my
+fellow man, the wider I've travelled in foreign lands, the deeper has
+become my conviction that our flag symbolizes the noblest, freest
+ideal ever born in the soul of man; that we have but to live up to its
+standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and the kingdom of
+human brotherhood is already here.
+
+"After the war, I joined the regular army, not because I loved war,
+but because there seemed nothing else for me to do at the time. I was
+absolutely alone in the world. At twenty-five I was in command of a
+company on the frontier. I had not been in battle since the end of the
+Civil War, when suddenly I found myself surrounded by a horde of
+hostile Indians, and I had to turn my machine guns on them and mow
+them down. The slaughter was something terrific. As the last charge
+was made I saw a young squaw retreat in the face of a withering fire,
+walk backward facing our men, holding a bundle of something behind her
+body. She fell at last, riddled with bullets. I rode up where she lay,
+and found the bundle to be a little Indian baby boy. He was unhurt,
+and stretched out his hand to me in friendly baby greeting. I found
+the squaw quite dead, and discovered the child was not her own. She
+was simply trying to save it for the tribe. I took the child and
+educated him. But he went back to the free life of the plains. I found
+him again, and made him the gamekeeper of our mountain preserves."
+
+"You mean Saka?" Norman asked.
+
+"Yes. That night as I lay in my tent I saw war as it is--a hideous,
+savage nightmare. From that moment I hated the service, hated its
+iron laws of discipline, its cruel machinery devised for suppressing
+the individuality of its members. I saw that night a larger vision of
+life. I made up my mind to create, not to kill--to build up, not to
+tear down. I left the army and mastered mining.
+
+"Your leather-lunged agitators say that I stole my millions from the
+earnings of the men who worked for me. A more stupid lie was never
+uttered. I invented improved mining machinery. I made deserts blossom
+and gave employment to thousands of men who couldn't think for
+themselves. I did their thinking for them, and set their tasks. I have
+made millions, and have added tens of millions to the wealth of the
+West."
+
+"If labour is the creator of all wealth can one man ever earn a
+million dollars?" Norman interrupted.
+
+"Manual labour is not the creator of wealth. The brain which conceives
+is the creator of wealth. The hand which executes these plans is
+merely the automaton moved by a superior power."
+
+"Yet nothing could be accomplished without it," persisted Norman.
+
+His father lifted his hand with a gesture of command.
+
+"We'll not discuss the theory of Socialism to-day, my boy. I grant you
+have plausible arguments which skilful demagogues are using with more
+and more efficiency. I don't object to your study of this subject. I'm
+rather pleased at the serious turn your energies have taken. What I do
+object to is your continued association with the kind of people who
+made up that crowd to-day--people who make the agitation of the
+revolutionary programme of the Socialists a daily profession, people
+who are seeking to destroy modern civilization itself."
+
+"You will have to come down to earth, Governor," Norman said, "in your
+indictment of these people. The time has gone by when you can scare
+anybody with a few high-sounding phrases. If modern civilization is
+rotten, it ought to be destroyed, and who cares if it is?"
+
+"The issue between us, my boy," the Colonel continued, gravely, "is
+not an academic one. It is not open to discussion. Some of the people
+you are associating with have criminal records. If they continue their
+present wild harangues they will be shot down like dogs in the
+streets. I cannot afford to have my name even under the suspicion of
+sympathy for them, through you. Do you understand me?"
+
+"I think I do," Norman replied, holding his father's steady gaze.
+
+"You are my son and the heir of my fortune. But you must remember that
+I am the master of this establishment."
+
+"I am aware of that fact, sir," the boy replied, in cold tones.
+
+"I trust that it will not be necessary, then, for me to repeat to you
+my first positive order--that you will immediately sever your
+connection with the Socialist Club, and never again appear in public
+or private with the three people who were on that platform to-day."
+
+"It will not be necessary for you to repeat your order," the young
+athlete replied, with a curious smile and a slight tightening of the
+lips.
+
+"I thought as much."
+
+Norman laughed, and the Colonel's eyes began to blaze.
+
+"What do you mean, sir?" he sternly asked.
+
+"That it will be unnecessary for you to repeat your order, for the
+very simple reason that I'm a man. I've the right to do my own
+thinking, and I propose to do it."
+
+With a quick stride the Colonel confronted the young rebel, his breath
+quick and laboured, his face aflame with unbridled rage.
+
+"You dare thus to defy my wishes?"
+
+"If you put it that way, yes."
+
+The Colonel stepped to the door and opened it.
+
+"You will obey my order or get out of this house never to enter it
+again. Take your choice!"
+
+"You mean it?" the younger man asked, with sullen emphasis.
+
+"Exactly what I say," was the cold reply.
+
+Norman turned without a word, seized his hat, and left the room. As he
+reached the end of the corridor, and placed his hand on the front
+door, his father's voice rang out suddenly:
+
+"Norman!"
+
+He paused, and looked back without taking his hand from the knob.
+
+"You can't be such a fool!" the Colonel cried.
+
+"It looks that way, Governor!"
+
+He opened the door, softly closed it, and was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE
+
+
+Norman's break with his father created a sensation. The flag episode,
+coming on the Fourth of July and at the very hour when the guns of the
+forts were thundering their celebration of the fleet's victory at
+Santiago, presented the dramatic contrast which stirred the
+indignation of the public to unusual depths. The morning papers
+devoted from four to five columns to the story. The remarkable speech
+of Barbara Bozenta was reported in full, with a sketch of her life,
+interspersed with portraits of the Wolfs, of Norman, Elena, his
+father, the palatial home on Nob Hill, and the country estate where
+the stirring little drama had been played.
+
+The Socialist cause received a tremendous impetus. The very violence
+of the editorial assaults on their programme reacted in their favour.
+Thousands of men who did not know the meaning of the word Socialism
+began to read and think and discuss its principles. Their meetings
+were crowded, and the fame of the little brown-eyed Joan of Arc
+became so great it was no longer possible for her to pass through the
+streets without an escort.
+
+All sorts of stories about the relations of the famous millionaire and
+his son filled the air. Some were printed, others were vague rumours.
+A sensational paper published the story that they had actually come to
+blows, and had fought a duel in the big library which might have ended
+fatally for one or both but for the timely interference of Colonel
+Worth's ward, Elena Stockton.
+
+Norman became at once the hero of the Socialist's cause. His
+appearance at a meeting was the signal for pandemonium to break loose.
+He secured employment on a sensational daily paper, and his signed
+articles were made a feature.
+
+Colonel Worth was so enraged over the vulgar notoriety with which the
+incident had overwhelmed him that he denied himself to all callers,
+refused to speak to a reporter or to allow a word to be uttered in
+confirmation or denial of any stories printed or rumoured.
+
+He issued orders that Norman's name should never again be spoken in
+his house.
+
+When he made this announcement to Elena her full, red lips, quivered
+and she looked at him reproachfully.
+
+"I mean it, Elena," he said, sternly.
+
+The girl spoke in tenderness.
+
+"I don't believe you, Guardie. It isn't like you at all. I'll not
+mention his name to a servant, but I will to you."
+
+"I don't want to hear it!"
+
+"That's because you know you've done a great wrong."
+
+"I accept the responsibility. It's done, and that's the end of it."
+
+"Nothing ends until it ends right, Guardie," spoke the soft, even
+voice.
+
+"I know it's hard on you, dear," the Colonel responded, with feeling.
+"It was for your sake I made the issue. If he has turned from you for
+a loud-mouthed vulgar agitator, he's not worth a thought. Forget that
+he lives. I'm going to leave my fortune to you."
+
+"I don't want it at the price, Guardie," she replied, slipping her arm
+around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. "I couldn't be
+happy with such a fortune. What you've done hurts me more than it
+hurts Norman."
+
+"Yes, yes. I know that you love him, child, but your happiness could
+not be found among a crowd of criminals and revolutionists."
+
+"I'm not thinking of myself," was the low response as she withdrew
+from his arms, "I was thinking of you."
+
+"Of me?"
+
+"Yes. You've broken my idol. To me you were the one perfect man in the
+world. I didn't know you. I didn't know that you were hard and cold
+and cruel and selfish and proud."
+
+"I'm not, Elena."
+
+"You allowed Norman to drift into any crazy theory that might strike
+his fancy. And the moment he fails to agree with your views you turn
+like a madman and drive him into the streets."
+
+"He went of his own accord. I gave him his choice."
+
+"And I admire his pluck. It was a manly thing to do."
+
+"It was the act of a fool."
+
+"Yet, you know, Guardie, in your heart of hearts you admire him for
+it. He showed you that he was made of the same stuff as his father."
+
+The Colonel scowled, and the girl took courage.
+
+"I'm going to meet him this evening----"
+
+"I forbid it!"
+
+"You can't help it," she cried, as the tears slowly gathered. "I'm
+going to tell him you wish to see and talk with him again."
+
+"On one condition only--his absolute obedience to my wishes."
+
+"I love him all the more for defying you--love him better than I ever
+did in my life. And--and, Guardie--I don't love you any more. You are
+cruel and unjust."
+
+With a sob she turned and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A FADED PICTURE
+
+
+Elena's tears had shaken the Colonel's confidence in his position as
+nothing else could possibly have done. Since she had finished her
+course in college two years before, and he had come in daily contact
+with her strong personality, a most intimate and perfect sympathy had
+grown between them. He had never before known her intuitive judgment
+to be wrong. Her impressions of character especially he had found
+singularly accurate, her sense of right and her good taste nearly
+perfect.
+
+He retired to his room at night with a deep sense of uneasiness. His
+anger had cooled, and in its stead a feeling of depression slowly
+settled. From every nook and corner came memories of the boy he had
+driven from his door. His pictures hung on the walls and stared at him
+from every piece of furniture on which a frame could be placed. He had
+learned photography as a pastime years before the kodak was invented,
+and most of the pictures he had taken himself.
+
+One photograph in particular, which stood by the clock on the mantel,
+set in a heavy frame of hammered gold, which he had made himself from
+the product of his first mine, riveted and held his attention. His
+first impulse was to tear these pictures all down and throw them in
+the fire. He had picked this one up first, to carry out his furious
+impulse, but something held his hand and he placed it back in its old
+place with the grim exclamation:
+
+"No! It's the act of a coward. I've got to live with my memories--or
+surrender at once."
+
+Again and again his eye came back to this picture. He had taken it
+twenty-three years ago in a little bedroom in a dirty hotel of a
+desolate, God-forsaken mining town in Nevada. How well he remembered
+it! He was poor then, and had just begun the first big fight of his
+life for wealth and power. The boy was four weeks old, and he had
+insisted on taking the picture of the mother with the baby in her
+arms. He had carefully posed her, standing by the window looking down
+into the child's upturned face. It had turned out a remarkable
+likeness of both--the young mother's face wreathed in smiles, tender
+and frail and happy, with the great joy of the dawn of motherhood
+shining in her eyes.
+
+He looked at it long and tenderly. And, as a thousand memories of
+life crowded his soul, he suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"God in heaven! What does she say to-day if she knows what I've done?"
+
+His eyes blinked, and the tears blinded them.
+
+He kissed the picture and buried his face in his hands as a sob of
+anguish shook his frame.
+
+"The girl's right. My boy's my boy after all. I'm wrong!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SON AND FATHER
+
+
+When the Colonel had greeted Elena at breakfast next morning he
+quietly asked:
+
+"You met Norman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I shall be glad to see him when he comes."
+
+Elena threw her arms impulsively around his neck.
+
+"Now you're a darling! Now you're big and strong and good and great
+again--and I love you."
+
+The Colonel stroked her hair slowly, and asked with a smile:
+
+"What time is he coming?"
+
+"He's not coming." Elena laughed.
+
+"Not coming?" the colonel repeated blankly.
+
+"No. You're going to see him."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"You see, Guardie, he is a chip off the old block."
+
+"It begins to look like he's the whole block," the Colonel remarked,
+dryly.
+
+"Can you blame him after the way you acted?"
+
+"I can't say I do, much. I like a boy of spirit----"
+
+"And individuality--that's your own pet idea Guardie."
+
+The Colonel was silent a moment.
+
+"Yes. I like his grit. Where will I find him?"
+
+"At his desk at work in the newspaper office."
+
+"I'll call him up and make an appointment."
+
+The Colonel seized the telephone, called the newspaper office, and
+asked for Norman. He waited for several minutes before any one reached
+the 'phone. He scarcely recognized the short, sharp business accent of
+Norman's voice:
+
+"Well, well, what is it?"
+
+The Colonel cleared his throat.
+
+"Here! Here! Get a move on you--what's the matter--I'm in a hurry!"
+
+"This is your father, Norman----"
+
+"Get off the wire or quit your kiddin'--what do you want?"
+
+His father laughed.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Governor, honestly I didn't recognize your voice
+until you laughed. I'm awfully glad to hear it again. What can I do
+for you?"
+
+"Well, I must say I like your impudence. What can _you_ do for me? I
+want to see you right away. Shall I call at your office?"
+
+A pause ensued, followed by audible smiles at both ends of the wire.
+
+"Of course not, sir. It seems a long time since I left home but I've
+not forgotten the way. I'll come over as soon as I can leave my desk."
+
+Two hours later he entered the library with a boyish laugh and grasped
+his father's hand.
+
+The Colonel pressed it with deep tenderness.
+
+"You must forgive me, boy. I wasn't fair to you the other day."
+
+Norman tried to laugh, and stammered awkwardly:
+
+"Well, when I hear a man of your age and experience say a thing like
+that, Governor, I begin to fear I'm not quite as big as I thought I
+was."
+
+"Then we're both in the right mind now, to begin all over again, are
+we not?"
+
+"It's with you, sir," was the quick reply.
+
+"Suppose I can convince you that you have entered on a mistaken
+mission--that your programme is foolish, impossible, and dangerous?"
+
+"Do it, and I'll join you in trying to put an end to Socialism."
+
+"Before I begin, let me ask you a very personal question."
+
+"As many as you like, Governor," was the frank response.
+
+"Are you mixed up in any way personally with the young woman who spoke
+here that day?"
+
+"We're comrades in the cause of humanity--that's all."
+
+"You're sure that it is not her personal influence over you that has
+made you a Socialist?"
+
+"Only in so far as she has made me think and feel."
+
+"You have not made love to her?"
+
+"Certainly not. I'm engaged to Elena."
+
+"Then it ought to be easy for us to understand each other. Come down
+out of the clouds of theory now, and tell me exactly how you are going
+to save humanity, and let's see if we can't work together for the same
+end. A great purpose like yours ought not to separate father and
+son--you can't defend such platitudes as this, for example, which one
+of your orators got off last night--listen!"
+
+The Colonel took the morning paper from the table and read:
+
+"Remember in this supreme hour that capitalism has you and your loved
+ones by the throats, is stealing your substance, draining your veins,
+and reducing you inch by inch to the potter's field. Every sweating
+den cries out to you as from the depths of hell to gird up your loins
+and march forth in one solid phalanx to strike the blow that shall
+sound the knell of capitalistic despotism, and set the star of hope in
+the skies of the despairing and dying thousands of your class who are
+at the mercy of the vampires of soulless wealth. How long shall
+capitalism be allowed to work its devastation, spread its blighting
+curse, destroy manhood, debauch womanhood, and grind the flesh and
+blood and bone of childhood into food for Mammon?"
+
+The Colonel paused.
+
+"Such appeals to passion can only end in riot, bloodshed, and prison
+bars. You don't write such rot as that yourself, and yet the men you
+are following preach it."
+
+"I'm not following just now, Governor--I'm trying to direct this
+tremendous impulse, this enthusiasm for humanity, called Socialism,
+into a practical experiment that will demonstrate the truths of their
+faith, and from this white city of a glorified human life send out our
+missionaries to conquer the world. Give me ten thousand earnest men
+and women on the island of Ventura, isolated from contact with the
+corruption of the outside, and I'll show you a miracle more wonderful
+than if they had risen from the dead."
+
+"And what are the foundations on which you propose to build this
+heaven on earth?"
+
+"Squarely on these principles: From every man according to his
+ability; to every man according to his needs; and to every child born
+the right to laugh and play and grow to a strong manhood and
+womanhood. We are not civilized so long as there is one child sobbing
+to be freed from the tomb of the modern workshop, so long as there is
+one man willing to work and not able to find it, so long as there is
+one soul striving upward who is crushed to earth, so long as one man
+lives in idleness and luxury while his neighbour starves, so long as
+there's one spot of this earth on which a man lives by tearing the
+bread from the lips of another."
+
+"Hasn't your imagination been caught by beautiful phrases, my boy?"
+asked the father. "In your new State of Ventura you will give to each
+man according to his needs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And who will decide how much each one needs--the man who feels the
+need or the state?"
+
+"The state, in the last resort."
+
+"Exactly. And who will determine how large the service required of
+each man? Who will decide the question of ability?"
+
+"The state, of course."
+
+"Are you not cutting out a pretty big job for the state, remembering
+that the state is nothing more or less than a lot of ordinary
+second-rate politicians named Tom, Dick, and Harry, who individually
+or collectively haven't as much sense as you or I?"
+
+"In the new world it will be different."
+
+"Then you are going to import a new breed of men and women?"
+
+"No, we will simply give the God in man a chance to be."
+
+"But how about the beast that's in man--the elemental instinct to
+fight and kill--to take the woman he desires by the force of his hands
+and muscle?"
+
+"When man is free and strong and happy he can have no motive to kill
+or play the beast."
+
+"That remains to be seen, my boy! Your assertion does not change the
+nature of man. Another problem in your scheme I can't solve is wages."
+
+"We will abolish wage slavery."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; but man must work--all men must work in your new
+state?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And the man who refuses to work?"
+
+"Will be made to work according to his ability."
+
+"Just so. We live under the wage system now--the system of free
+contract by which labourer and employer agree. Under your system
+contract would be abolished, and men would do what they are _told_ to
+do--a system of _command_ instead of _contract_--is it not so?"
+
+"I should say just the opposite. Men are forced to work now at tasks
+they loathe and for pay that is insufficient. Under our state they
+would be free to choose the work for which they are fitted."
+
+"And suppose they all choose one job?"
+
+"The state would assign their work in the last resort."
+
+"There you are, once more, bowing down to the same Tom, Dick, and
+Harry. And you cannot see that Socialism would impose on man the most
+colossal system of slavery, the most merciless because the most
+impersonal, the world ever saw?"
+
+"No, I cannot. Give me a chance on one spot of earth free from the
+corruption of your present system, and I'll show you that man is a
+child of God, that deep in every human soul is planted the sense of
+brotherhood, justice, and human fellowship."
+
+"And you will abolish private property?"
+
+"Except what each man earns or makes for himself."
+
+The Colonel laughed aloud.
+
+"Can he earn a wife, or make one for himself?"
+
+"No; nor own one as a slave."
+
+"You can never abolish private property, my boy, so long as any man
+has the right to say, 'This woman is mine.' The home is the basis of
+modern civilization. If you destroy it the home will not survive. If
+the home survives it will kill Socialism. The two things can't mix."
+
+Norman laughed.
+
+"And you think capitalism is building ideal homes with its drudgery
+that kills woman--its poverty that starves the man and drives the girl
+to a life of shame?"
+
+"Our conditions are not ideal, my son. But they are growing better
+with each generation. Because all homes are not ideal, you propose to
+abolish the institution. There are ten million homes in America.
+Perhaps a million of them are unhappy. Can we mend matters by
+destroying them all?"
+
+"Socialism proposes to build the highest ideal of home ever seen on
+earth, founded on love--and only love."
+
+The Colonel smiled sadly.
+
+"I see I'm too late. You've got it bad. Socialism is a contagious
+disease, imported from the old world--a brain disease, the result of
+centuries of wrong and oppression. Its reasons for existence in this
+country are purely imaginary. If it were possible for you to build the
+new State of Ventura of which you dream----"
+
+"Dream! We are going to do it, I tell you, Governor! We have a hundred
+thousand dollars already pledged. We hold to-morrow night a great
+mass-meeting at which five thousand Socialists will be present. Four
+hundred thousand dollars more will buy the island and give a capital
+of three hundred thousand with which to begin."
+
+"Then I can't persuade you to give up this madness?" the Colonel
+asked, tenderly.
+
+"It's my life," Norman answered firmly.
+
+The father slipped his arm around the tall, strong figure.
+
+"All right! Remember now, from this moment on, one thing is settled
+for good and all. My boy's my boy, right or wrong, good or bad, wise
+or foolish----"
+
+The Colonel's voice broke, and his grip tightened.
+
+Norman looked out of the window, blinked his eyes, and said in low
+tones:
+
+"I understand, sir!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE WAY OF A WOMAN
+
+
+As Elena entered the library the two men fell suddenly apart as though
+ashamed of the weakness of affection before a woman.
+
+The girl pretended not to have seen, but her face was radiant.
+
+The Colonel paused as he turned to leave the room:
+
+"You will keep up your newspaper grind, my boy?" he asked.
+
+"No. I'll jump at the chance to do the big thing. I'll give my whole
+time to it."
+
+"Well, I suppose you're right. The way to do a thing is to do it."
+
+As the father passed Elena he softly whispered:
+
+"Your face shines like an angel's!"
+
+"I am very happy," was the low answer.
+
+Norman hastened to her side, and seized both her hands.
+
+"I owe this to you, my stately queen."
+
+"He would have come to the same conclusion himself. I only hastened it
+a little by a suggestion," she replied.
+
+"I have my own idea about the way you expressed it," he said with a
+jolly laugh. "Look here, Elena, I hope you don't believe that I have
+been disloyal to you in my association with Barbara Bozenta?"
+
+The girl straightened her superb figure, and broke into a laugh of
+mingled humour and irony.
+
+"Well, I've a confession to make, Norman. I've been disloyal to you."
+
+"You--disloyal--to me!" he gasped.
+
+"Yes. I've felt of late as though you were a big, sick baby on my
+hands, and I've grown tired of the charge."
+
+"Well, upon my soul!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Our engagement is at an end."
+
+"Elena!"
+
+"I'll keep your beautiful ring"--she touched it affectionately--"for
+the memories that will always bind us as brother and sister. Besides,
+it will deceive your father for a while. He has enough to worry him
+just now."
+
+Before Norman could pull himself together, or utter a protest, she had
+turned and left him gasping with astonishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A ROYAL GIFT
+
+
+Norman resumed his place in his father's home and began a systematic,
+persistent, and enthusiastic campaign to raise the funds to purchase
+the island of Ventura and establish the ideal Commonwealth of Man.
+
+On the day of the big mass-meeting of Socialists, who had gathered
+from every state of the Golden West, Elena found her guardian seated
+alone on the broad veranda overlooking the Bay of San Francisco. A
+look of deep trouble clouded his strong face.
+
+"You are worried?" she said, seating herself by his side.
+
+"Yes, dearie," was the moody answer.
+
+"Over Norman's meeting?"
+
+"Yes. The boy's set his heart on this big foolish enterprise. His
+failure is a certainty. I don't know what may follow."
+
+"You are sure he can't raise the money?"
+
+"Absolutely. The disappointment will be a stunning blow to his pride."
+
+"You know that if he did succeed in raising the money, and
+establishing his brotherhood of man, the scheme would end in failure?"
+
+"As clearly as I know I am living."
+
+"Would you be sorry if the dream should be realized?"
+
+"On the other hand, I'd shout for joy to find the human race capable
+of such a miracle."
+
+Elena gently touched his hand. "Then, Guardie, there's but one thing
+to do," she said, with a deep, spiritual look in her blue eyes.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Give Norman a round million dollars to make the experiment."
+
+The Colonel looked at her in amazement, and suddenly sprang to his
+feet, pacing the floor with feverish steps. He stopped at last before
+the girl and studied her.
+
+"Don't let Norman know who gave the money," she continued. "It will be
+a big, noble, beautiful thing to do--and--it will save him."
+
+"What a wonderful woman you are, Elena!"
+
+He paused and looked at her steadily. "I'm going to do it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Norman returned at midnight from the mass-meeting his face was
+flushed and his eyes sparkled.
+
+"It's done, Governor! It's done!" he fairly shouted.
+
+"You mean the half million was subscribed?" the Colonel asked.
+
+"Yes, and more!" he went on, excitedly. "We have succeeded beyond my
+wildest hopes. We had subscriptions for a hundred thousand. Fifty
+thousand more was subscribed at the meeting by the delegates, and just
+as we were about to adjourn Judge Clark, a famous lawyer, rose and
+announced the gift of a round million to the cause by a group of
+friends whose names he refused to make known."
+
+"And what happened?" Elena asked.
+
+"It's hard to tell exactly. The first thing I did was to jump over
+three rows of seats, grab the lawyer, and yell like a maniac. We
+carried him around the room, and shouted and screamed until we were
+hoarse. The scene was indescribable. Strong men fell into each other's
+arms and cried like children."
+
+"And you could get no hint of the identity of the men who gave the
+money?" Elena inquired.
+
+"Not the slightest. The deed of gift was made to me through the lawyer
+as trustee. I don't like one or two conditions, exactly, but it was no
+time to haggle over details."
+
+"What were the conditions?" Elena interrupted, with a glance at the
+Colonel.
+
+"That the title to the island of Ventura should be vested in me
+personally for two years. And five hundred thousand dollars should
+remain a fund in my hands as trustee to administer its income for the
+same period. At the end of one year, or of two, I may transfer the
+whole to the Brotherhood, or reconvey it to the original donors. I
+think it gives too much power into one man's hands--but I'll hold it a
+sacred trust."
+
+The young enthusiast's face glowed with thrilling purpose, and his
+eyes were shining with unshed tears, as he laid his hand on his
+father's shoulder and exclaimed:
+
+"Ah! Governor, you didn't have faith enough in your fellow man! You
+said it couldn't be done!"
+
+"I congratulate you, my son," the Colonel gravely said, "and I wish
+for you the noblest success."
+
+"There's no such word as fail." Norman cried. "No sleep for me
+to-night! I return to the Socialist Club for a celebration. I just
+came to tell you personally of our triumph. The deed is done, and the
+Brotherhood of Man is a thrilling fact!"
+
+With swift, joyous stride he threw himself into the hall and bounded
+down the steps.
+
+"Suppose after all, Guardie, he should succeed?" Elena exclaimed.
+
+"They'll start with many things in their favour," the Colonel
+responded. "The island of Ventura is said to be the most fertile and
+beautiful spot of earth in the West. No adverse influences can reach
+them from without. Five thousand men and women, inspired by a sublime
+faith in themselves, may under such conditions surprise us. If
+Socialism is possible on an island of a hundred thousand acres, it's
+possible on a hundred thousand square miles, and its faith will
+conquer the world. We'll give them two years before we visit them, and
+see what happens."
+
+"Suppose they do succeed!" Elena repeated, musingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE BURNING OF THE BRIDGES
+
+
+The success which attended the launching of the new Brotherhood of Man
+with its million-dollar endowment fund was phenomenal.
+
+The announcement that the books were ready for the enrollment of the
+pioneer group of two thousand who should locate the enterprise on the
+island of Ventura brought twenty-five thousand applicants.
+
+The first shock Norman's faith in man received was to collide with the
+army of cranks who came in troops to join. Every creed of Christendom,
+every cult of the heathen world, every ism of all the philosophies of
+the past and the present came in droves. They got into arguments with
+one another in the waiting-rooms of the Socialist headquarters, and
+sometimes came to blows. Each conceived the hour for establishing his
+own particular patent for saving the human race had come. It was an
+appalling revelation to Norman to find how many of these schemes were
+at work in the brains of people who were evidently incapable of taking
+care of themselves.
+
+The first week he attempted to hear each one with courtesy and
+sympathy. But after wasting six days in idiotic discussions of
+preposterous schemes he was compelled to call on the Wolfs for advice.
+
+Both Wolf and his wife had begun to call Norman "Chief" from the
+moment of their first burst of enthusiasm over the gift of the
+million. At times the young dreamer looked at the massive face of the
+older man with a touch of suspicion at this sudden acceptance of his
+premiership. And yet both Wolf and Catherine (she insisted that he
+call her Catherine) seemed so utterly sincere in their admiration, so
+enthusiastic in their faith in his ability, they always disarmed
+suspicion. Catherine's repeated explanation of this faith when Norman
+halted or hesitated was always flattering to his vanity, and yet
+perfectly reasonable.
+
+"My boy, we take off our hats to you! A man can't do the impossible
+unless he tries. We didn't try. You did. The trouble with Herman, and
+with every man of forty, is that he loses faith in himself. We get
+careful and conservative. We lack the dash and fire and daring of
+youth. I envy you. I salute you as the inspired leader of our
+Cause--you've done the impossible! And you've just begun. We can only
+hope to help you with our larger experience."
+
+At the end of a week of futile and exhausting palaver with this army
+of cranks who infest the West, Wolf, carefully watching his
+opportunity, turned to Norman and said:
+
+"I've been waiting for you to see things a little more clearly before
+I say something to you--I think it's time."
+
+"What is it?" the young leader asked.
+
+Wolf hesitated a moment as if feeling his way.
+
+"Something he should have said sooner," exclaimed Catherine.
+
+"There's but one way, comrade. Kick these fools into the street!"
+
+"But don't we begin to weaken the moment we do a thing like that? We
+accept the brotherhood of man----"
+
+"Of man, yes," the old leader broke in, "but these are not men--they
+are what might have been had they lived in a sane world. They are the
+results of the nightmare we call civilization. The kindest thing you
+can do for a crank is to kill him. You are trying to do what God
+Almighty never undertook--to make something out of nothing. You know,
+when he made Adam he had a ball of mud to start with."
+
+"I'm afraid you're right," Norman agreed.
+
+"When the Brotherhood is established with picked men," Catherine
+added, "we can take in new members with less care. Now it is of the
+utmost importance that we select the pioneer group of the best blood
+in the Socialist ranks--trained men and women who believe with
+passionate faith what you and I believe."
+
+"Then do it," Norman said, with emphasis. "I put you and Wolf in
+charge of this first roll. I've more important work to do in
+organizing the business details of the enterprise."
+
+A look of joy flashed from Wolf's gray eyes into the woman's as he
+calmly but quickly replied:
+
+"I'll do the best I can."
+
+"You ought to know by name every true Socialist on the Coast," Norman
+added.
+
+"I do, comrade, and I'll guarantee the pioneer group."
+
+"Let all applicants for membership hereafter pass your scrutiny," were
+his final orders.
+
+He rose from his desk with a sigh of relief as Barbara entered the
+room, her cheeks flushed with joy, her eyes sparkling with excitement
+from the ovation she had just received from the crowd which packed the
+corridor.
+
+His first impulse was to ask her to accompany him to the country, rest
+and play for a day. His heart beat more quickly at the thought, but as
+the question trembled on his lips, his eyes rested on Wolf's shaggy
+head bending over the piles of papers on his desk, and a grim fear
+shadowed his imagination. Elena's laughter suddenly echoed through his
+memory. He recalled his father's questions. A frown slowly settled on
+his brow, and a firm resolution took shape in his mind.
+
+"No woman's spell to blind your senses! Clear thinking, my boy! You're
+on trial before the man who gave you life. You're on trial before the
+men whose faith gave you a million dollars to put you to the test.
+Success first, and then, perhaps, the joy of living!"
+
+Barbara felt the chill of a sudden barrier between them, and looked at
+him with a little touch of wounded pride.
+
+He merely nodded pleasantly and hurried from the room.
+
+He gave his whole energies at once to the larger business of the
+enterprise. The title to the property was searched with the utmost
+thoroughness and found to be perfect. Enormous sums of money had been
+spent on the island by the bankrupt wild-cat real-estate company which
+had bought it in for improvement and exploitation. They had built a
+magnificent hotel with accommodations for one thousand five hundred
+guests, had planted vineyards, established a winery planted vast
+orchards of plums, apricots, olives, peaches, and oranges, built flour
+mills, an ice factory, and had started a number of mining and
+manufacturing enterprises. When the bubble burst the company was
+bankrupt and the lawyers got the rest. A careful inventory showed to
+Norman that they had acquired a property of enormous value. The
+improvements alone had cost $1,250,000, and they were worth twice that
+sum now to the colony.
+
+He chartered a corporate society, known as "The Brotherhood of Man,"
+for the purpose of legalizing the new social State of Ventura when it
+had passed the experimental stage and he could surrender to it the
+title and money held in trust under the deed of gift. Two hundred
+thousand dollars was paid in cash for the island, and the remaining
+capital held for work. A steamer was purchased to serve the colony by
+plying between the island, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco.
+
+The Wolfs advised Norman that no mail service be asked or permitted.
+
+"The reasons are many, comrade," the old leader urged. "The first
+condition of success in this work is the complete isolation of the
+colony from outside influences. If modern civilization is hell, you
+can't build a heaven with daily communication between the two
+places."
+
+"Every man and woman who enters," Catherine added, "must sign a solemn
+contract to remain five years, enlist as soldier, and communicate with
+the outside world only by permission of the authority of the
+Brotherhood."
+
+"I see," laughed Norman. "I must have the Czar's power to examine
+suspected mail if treason or rebellion threatens."
+
+"Exactly," cried Wolf.
+
+"A large power to put in one man's hands!" Norman protested.
+
+"There's not a man or woman going to that island who wouldn't trust
+you with life, to say nothing of a mail pouch," Catherine declared,
+with a look of genuine admiration.
+
+"You think such drastic measures to prevent communication with the
+outside world will be needed?" Norman argued.
+
+"Let us hope not," Wolf quickly replied. "But it's better to be on the
+safe side. The history of every experiment made in Socialism by the
+heroes and pioneers of the cause in the past shows that failure came
+in every case from just this source. We will start under the most
+favourable conditions ever tried. Our island will be a little world
+within itself. Cut every line of possible communication with modern
+competitive society, and we can prove the brotherhood of man a living
+fact. Open our experiment to the lies and slanders of our enemies from
+without, and they can destroy us before the work is fairly begun. Our
+colony would be overrun with hostile reporters from the capitalist
+press, for example----"
+
+"You're right," exclaimed Norman.
+
+"Let every volunteer enlist in the service of humanity for five
+years," repeated Catherine, "agreeing to hold no communication with
+the world. Make that agreement one impossible for them to break, and
+our success is as sure as that man is made in the image of God. All we
+ask is a chance to prove it without interference."
+
+"I agree with you," cried Norman, at last. "Five years' service, with
+every bridge burned behind us--we'll fight it out on that line."
+
+A look of triumph came from beneath Wolf's shaggy brows as his eyes
+rested again on the smiling madonna-like face of the woman by his
+side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE NEW WORLD
+
+
+On a beautiful Sunday morning in May, 1899, the steamship _Comrade_
+slowly swept through the Golden Gate with two thousand enthusiastic
+Socialists crowding her decks, shouting, cheering, laughing, crying,
+singing their joy and faith in the new world of human brotherhood for
+which they had set sail.
+
+The flag of the republic flew from her stern because the law of the
+port of entry required it. But from her huge prow rose a slender steel
+staff, above the tips of her funnels and masts, on which flew the
+blood-red ensign of Socialism, while from every masthead huge red
+steamers fluttered in the sky.
+
+At noon on the following day the eager eyes of the pioneers sighted
+the island of Ventura. At first a tiny white and blue spot on the
+horizon, and then slowly out of the sea rose its majestic outlines,
+until at last the ship drew in so close to the towering mountains of
+its shore line the colonists could almost touch the stone walls with
+their hands.
+
+The captain was evidently at home in the sparkling blue waters which
+rolled lazily against the perpendicular cliffs.
+
+Norman had climbed over the piles of freight, cordage, and anchors,
+and taken his stand beside the flagstaff on the ship's prow, his soul
+enraptured with the thrilling adventure on which he had embarked.
+
+He had made two trips to the island before, but never had he seen it
+rise from the sea in such matchless glory as to-day.
+
+Far up in the sky loomed the mountain peaks still covered with snow,
+while the rich hills and valleys to the southward rolled laughingly in
+their robes of green.
+
+Five miles down the coast the ship turned her nose inshore, and slowly
+ploughed her way through a narrow channel which opened between two
+hills. She quickly cleared the channel and rounded another headland,
+when a shout rang from her decks. Straight before them, across a
+beautiful landlocked bay, which formed a perfect harbour, rose the
+huge hotel, the home of the Brotherhood. The central building was
+crowned by two tall towers, and the long wings which stretched toward
+the sea pierced the skyline with a dozen minarets of quaint Moorish
+pattern. From the flagpole on the lawn, from each graceful tower and
+each shining sun-kissed minaret, flew the scarlet ensign of Socialism.
+
+When the ship swept in alongside the pier the building loomed from its
+hilltop higher apparently than the mountain range behind it.
+
+Barbara clapped her hands as she ran to Norman's side.
+
+"Look! Look at those flags! Aren't they glorious? Nobody will haul
+them down here, will they?"
+
+Norman lifted his eyes and looked in silence for a moment. A stiff
+breeze was blowing from the southeast, and the two huge banners of
+scarlet stood straight from their staffs on the towers and seemed to
+fill the sky with quivering flame.
+
+"Glorious!" he said, at last. "They speak the end of strife, the dawn
+of love and human brotherhood!"
+
+The Wolfs had preceded them to the colony with a select band of
+enthusiasts, stored the first supplies, and set the place in order to
+receive as welcome guests the first shipload of pioneers.
+
+When the throng of joyous, excited comrades had landed, they formed in
+line and marched up from the pier. The wide, white, smooth road led
+through a wilderness of flowers which had grown in wild profusion
+since they had been abandoned two years before. The Wolfs led the
+procession, with Barbara and Norman by their side.
+
+When they reached the big circle of scarlet geraniums in the centre of
+the floral court between the two wings of the great building they
+stopped, and Catherine began in her clear, thrilling soprano voice the
+Marseillaise hymn. The pioneers crowded around her tall, commanding
+figure and sang with inspired emotion. Every heart beat with high
+resolve. The heaven of which they had dreamed was no longer a dream.
+They were walking its white, shining streets. Their souls were crying
+for joy in its dazzling court of honour. The old world, with its sin
+and shame, its crime and misery, its hunger and cold, its greed and
+lust, its cruelty and insanity, had passed away, and lo! all things
+were new. The very air was charged with faith and hope and love. A
+wave of religious ecstasy swept the crowd. They called each by their
+first names. Strong men embraced, crying "Comrade!" through their
+tears. The older ones had made allowances for the glowing accounts of
+the island. They expected some disillusioning at first. Yet their
+wildest expectations were far surpassed. Such beauty, such grandeur,
+such wealth of nature, such magnificence of equipment, were too good
+to be true, and yet they were facts.
+
+The island of Ventura was enchanted. The impression it gave each heart
+of the certainty of success was the biggest asset of real wealth with
+which the colony began its history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FOR THE CAUSE
+
+
+During the first enchanted days every man woman and child entered the
+strange new system with a determination to see only its beauty, its
+truth, its sure success. Service was the order of the day. Men who had
+never before worked with their hands asked the privilege of the
+hardest tasks.
+
+The whole colony swarmed to unload the ship. They refused to allow the
+crew to touch a piece of freight or handle a piece of baggage.
+
+The only difficulty Norman found was to systematize their work under
+the captain's direction.
+
+The day following they "swarmed" again to clear the lawn of weeds and
+restore the labyrinth of walks and beds of flowers in the great court.
+Merchants exchanged the yardstick for the rake and hoe. Preachers laid
+aside their sermons to wield a spade, and returned from their tasks in
+the evening with song and laughter.
+
+Among the women the spirit of sacrifice and enthusiastic service was
+even higher. Many who loved flowers begged the privilege of using the
+pruning-knife and some even seized a hoe and worked with unwearied
+zeal.
+
+Others, who had never seen the inside of their own kitchens, rolled up
+their sleeves, donned white aprons, entered the great cooking-room of
+the hotel, and made pots and kettles fly. Beautiful girls who had
+spent lives of comparative ease took turns in waiting on the tables,
+and all worked with a spirit of joy which robbed labour of its
+weariness.
+
+By common consent Norman had assumed the general directorship of the
+colony, and by common consent the Wolfs were accepted as his chief
+advisers. This arrangement was formally voted on and unanimously
+approved at the first night's assembly of the Brotherhood in the big
+dining-hall of the building, which they now christened the "Mission
+House of the Brotherhood of Man."
+
+On accepting the position of general manager of the Brotherhood the
+young leader rose and faced the people with deep emotion.
+
+"Comrades," he began, in trembling tones, "I thank you for the
+confidence you have shown in me. I shall strive to prove myself worthy
+of your faith, and I hope within a year that we shall make such
+progress in the development of our new social system that I shall be
+able to convey then the full title to this glorious island to your
+permanent organization."
+
+A round of applause greeted this announcement.
+
+"I'm sure our preliminary work will be completed within a single year.
+I am not a man of many words, but I hope to prove myself a man of
+deeds. I shall consult you in every important step to be taken, and
+for this purpose the General Assembly of the Brotherhood will be held
+in this hall every Friday evening. On Monday evening a ball will be
+given for the pleasure of our young people, and every Wednesday
+evening a social reception. Let us make these three evenings the
+source of inspiration for our daily tasks."
+
+Norman closed his brief speech in a burst of genuine enthusiasm.
+Scores of young men and women crowded to the platform and grasped his
+hand.
+
+When the last echoes of the evening's celebration had died away,
+Catherine led Barbara into her room.
+
+Wolf sat quietly smoking by the window.
+
+"What on earth's the matter?" the girl asked. "You drag me to your
+room half dressed, in the dead of night, and speak in whispers. I
+thought we'd done with the dark and scheming ways of the world."
+
+"And so we have, my child," laughed Wolf. His cold gray eyes lighted
+with sudden warmth as they rested on Barbara's dainty little figure.
+Its exquisite lines could be plainly seen through the silk kimono as
+she walked with languid grace and threw the mass of dishevelled curls
+back from her shoulders.
+
+"Sit down, dear," Catherine said, with a smile. "We have something of
+the utmost importance to say to you."
+
+"I am to go abroad as an ambassador to some foreign court. Don't say
+that--I like it here."
+
+"No. We are going to propose that you establish a court here," Wolf
+interrupted.
+
+"Establish a court!" Barbara exclaimed. "How romantic!"
+
+"In short, my child, it's absolutely necessary for you to become, not
+merely the power behind the throne with our young Comrade Chief, you
+must assume the throne itself."
+
+"But how?" the girl asked.
+
+"As if you didn't know!"
+
+"I honestly don't. My eloquence is of little use here. We are all
+persuaded. Besides, our Comrade Chief has acquired the habit of
+thinking for himself."
+
+"Just so," observed Wolf. "And we want you to do his thinking for
+him."
+
+"What do you mean, Catherine?" Barbara asked, her brow suddenly
+clouding, as she looked straight into her foster-mother's eyes.
+
+"That you must win young Worth."
+
+"Deliberately set out to make him love me?" the girl exclaimed with
+scorn. "I'll do nothing of the kind."
+
+"You must, my dear," Wolf pleaded earnestly. "It's all for the Cause.
+It's in this boy's power to make or wreck this great enterprise. We
+have a kingdom here whose wealth and power may become the wonder of
+the world. It may be wrecked by the whim of one man. A thousand
+difficulties must be faced before we can have smooth sailing. The one
+thing above all to be done is to secure from young Worth the deed to
+this island. He must be convinced of the success of the scheme, and he
+must be convinced before he faces some of the most serious problems
+that are sure to arise--problems which will demand a strong arm and a
+cool, clear head to handle. The boy means well, but he can never meet
+these issues. Win his love and everything will be easy. Slowly and
+patiently I will perfect the organization we must have to succeed."
+
+"I fail to see the necessity of such a shameless act on my part. No
+man here is so enthusiastic as our young leader. He is sure to make
+the deed. You heard his promise to-night."
+
+"He intends to do it, I grant," Catherine argued. "But what Herman and
+I clearly see is that he will sooner or later be overwhelmed with
+difficulties. He may quit in disgust at the very moment when a strong
+policy could save the Cause. We want to be sure. He is a new convert.
+His enthusiasm is now at white heat. We are afraid of what may happen
+when it cools."
+
+"With your great brown eyes looking into his," Wolf broke in, "and
+your little hand in his, it can't cool!"
+
+"I don't think he cares for me in that way at all," the girl
+protested. "He has held himself quite aloof from me of late."
+
+"All the more reason why your woman's pride should be piqued to make
+the conquest," urged Wolf.
+
+"I have no such vulgar ambitions," was the short answer.
+
+"Of course you haven't, child," Wolf said in serious tones. "We
+understand that. But we ask this of you as a brave little soldier of
+the Cause. It's the one big, brave thing you can do."
+
+"I might have to let him kiss me," she said, with a frown.
+
+"Well, he's a handsome youngster--it wouldn't poison you," laughed
+Catherine.
+
+"I hate it! I think I hate every man on earth sometimes," she
+answered.
+
+Wolf laughed and looked at her with quiet intensity.
+
+"Come, dear, you can do this for the Cause we both love," Catherine
+urged.
+
+"I might have to let him put his arm around me----."
+
+Catherine seized her hand, looked at her steadily for a moment, and
+slowly said:
+
+"The woman who would not give both her body and her soul for the Cause
+of Humanity, if called on to make the sacrifice, is not worthy to live
+in the big world of which we've dreamed."
+
+Barbara's face flushed and her eyes sparkled.
+
+"You believe this?" she asked, sternly.
+
+"With all my soul," was the fierce answer.
+
+Barbara hesitated a moment, and firmly said:
+
+"Then I'll do it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BARBARA CHOOSES A PROFESSION
+
+
+When Norman came down to the office next morning, the clerk handed him
+a note. A glance at the smooth, perfect handwriting told him at once
+it was from Barbara. He opened it with a smile of pleasant surprise
+and read with increasing astonishment:
+
+        "You are to take breakfast with me this morning in
+        the rose bower of the floral court.
+
+          "By order of
+                    "BARBARA BOZENTA,
+                  "_Secretary to the General Manager_."
+
+Norman found her alone, seated beside a little table in the bower, her
+face wreathed in mischievous smiles.
+
+She rose and extended her hand:
+
+"Permit me to introduce you to your new secretary."
+
+"I assure you my delight is only equalled by my surprise," he
+answered, with boyish banter.
+
+"Yes, I thought it best to take you by surprise. Now that it's all
+settled, I trust we will get on well." She looked at him with demure
+and charming impudence.
+
+Norman burst into laughter.
+
+"I'm sure we will!" he answered. "All I require is industry, patience,
+wisdom, tact, knowledge, sacrifice, absolute obedience, and a joyous
+desire to assume full responsibility for my mistakes!"
+
+"All of which will come to me," she responded, with mock gravity.
+"Permit me!"
+
+She led him to the chair she had placed beside the table, and poured a
+cup of coffee for him.
+
+Norman watched her with keen enjoyment. "I've never seen you in this
+mood before," he said, quietly.
+
+"You like it?"
+
+"Beyond words! I'm afraid I'll wake up directly and find I'm dreaming.
+I'm sure now, when I look into your eyes, sparkling with fun, that you
+are a flower nymph, and that your home has always been a rose bower on
+the sunny slope of a southern hillside."
+
+"Perhaps I'm just teasing you. Perhaps I won't work," she said,
+glancing at him from the corners of her brown eyes.
+
+"Then you'll find it a serious joke," he answered, firmly.
+"Resignations are not in order. You have chosen your profession. As
+general manager I have given my approval. That settles it, doesn't
+it?"
+
+"If you are pleased, yes," she answered, gravely.
+
+"I am more than pleased. I've been afraid to ask you to do this work
+for me--though I've had it in mind."
+
+"Why afraid?"
+
+"I don't know. I somehow got the impression lately that you didn't
+like me personally."
+
+"How could you think such a thing!" she protested.
+
+"Just a vague impression--caught, perhaps, from little gestures you
+sometimes made, little frowns that sometimes came to your brow, little
+flashes of hostility from your eyes."
+
+"I didn't mean it, comrade!" she said, demurely, while her eyes danced
+and her mouth twitched playfully.
+
+"And you've fully weighed the cost?"
+
+"Fully."
+
+"You know that you will be forced to spend most of your time in my
+office?"
+
+"I'll try to endure it," she laughed.
+
+"Without a frown or a hostile look?"
+
+"Unless you provoke it."
+
+Norman ate in silence for five minutes, listening to Barbara's girlish
+chatter while she bubbled over with the spirit of pure joy. Her whole
+being radiated fun and laughter as the sun pours forth heat and light.
+He wondered where this magic secret of joyous womanhood had been
+hidden in the past.
+
+"What a revelation you've been to me this morning," he said, musingly,
+as he rose from the table.
+
+"How?" she asked.
+
+"I thought you were all seriousness and tragedy, eloquence and
+pathos."
+
+"We're in paradise now. The shadows have lifted."
+
+"And I find you a little ray of dancing sunlight."
+
+"So every girl would be if she had the chance."
+
+"And we're going to give them the chance here, little comrade!" he
+cried, with enthusiasm.
+
+"I'll help you!" she earnestly responded, extending her hand with a
+tender look into the depth of Norman's soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A CALL FOR HEROES
+
+
+The first business before the Assembly of the Brotherhood was the
+permanent assignment of work. The enthusiasm which swept the
+Socialists through the first week of joyous life could not last. No
+one expected it. The novelty of their surroundings, the surprise and
+elation of every one over the beauty and richness of their newly
+acquired empire, carried the pioneers over the opening days as in a
+dream. It all seemed like a great picnic--like the long-hoped-for
+holidays in life of which they had dreamed and never realized, yet
+which somehow had come to pass.
+
+But the time was at hand to face the first big, sober reality of the
+new social system. The dining-hall was packed. Every member of the
+Brotherhood was present.
+
+The orchestra played a lively air in a vain effort to revive the
+spirit of festivity with which every meeting had hitherto buzzed.
+
+But an evil spirit had entered the Garden of Eden, and joy had fled.
+Over every heart hovered a brood of solemn questions. What will be my
+lot? Will I be allowed to choose my work? Or will they tell me what to
+do? Will it be dirty and disagreeable, or pleasant and inspiring?
+
+Norman sat in his chair of state as presiding officer, bending over a
+mass of papers which Barbara had spread before him. She leaned close,
+and a stray hair from one of her brown curls touched his forehead. He
+trembled and stared blankly at the papers, seeing only a beautiful
+face.
+
+"You understand?" she asked. "I've placed under each department the
+number of workers needed."
+
+"Yes, yes, I understand!" he repeated, looking at her, blankly.
+
+"I don't believe you've heard a word I've spoken to you," she said,
+reproachfully.
+
+He was about to answer when the music stopped. Norman lifted his head
+with a start, rose quickly and faced the crowd.
+
+"Comrades," he began, "the time has come for us to make good our faith
+in one another. You have proven yourselves brave and faithful in our
+struggle with the infamies of the system of capitalism. We call now
+for the heroes and heroines of actual work. We are entering, under the
+most favourable auspices, on the most important experiment yet made in
+the social history of the world. We are going to prove that mankind is
+one vast brotherhood--that love, not greed, can rule this earth.
+
+"In our temporary organization we wish to outline the forms on which
+we will later found the permanent State of Ventura. At present we will
+organize four departments--Production, Distribution, Domestic Service,
+and Education.
+
+"I am going to ask each one of you, by secret ballot, to choose your
+permanent work."
+
+A cheer shook the building.
+
+Norman flushed with pleasure, and continued quickly:
+
+"It shall be my constant aim as your general manager under our
+temporary organization to give you the widest personal liberty
+consistent with the success of our enterprise.
+
+"Before preparing your ballots for choice of your work, I shall have
+to ask that each head of a family and each unmarried man and woman
+first pass by the platform and draw lots for the assignment of your
+rooms in our Mission House. There have been some complaints already,
+I'm sorry to say, on this question. Some wish to live on the first
+floor, some on the top, but everybody wants to live on the south side
+of the house with the glorious views of the sea, and nobody wishes to
+live on the north side. There is but one way to determine such a
+question in our ideal state. Fate must decide.
+
+"The numbers of each room and suite are in the basket. The bachelors
+will be assigned to the right wing, the girls to the left wing, the
+married ones to the centre of the building.
+
+"Please form in line on the left and march toward the right aisle past
+the platform."
+
+"Mr. Chairman!" called Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat.
+
+Norman rapped for silence, and those who had risen resumed their
+seats.
+
+"I protest, Mr. Chairman," continued the poet, "against the cruelty of
+such a process. The weak and the aged should be given their choice
+first."
+
+"We left them all behind us!" Norman cried, with a wave of his hand.
+"There are no weak and aged in this crowd. We belong to the elect. We
+have found the secret of eternal youth."
+
+Another cheer swept the crowd, the poet subsided with a sigh of
+contempt, and the people quickly filed past the platform and drew
+their lots for permanent rooms in the building. The larger suites had
+been subdivided, so that the entire pioneer colony of two thousand
+found accommodations under one roof.
+
+When the crowd had resumed their seats, and the last cry of triumph
+over a successful draw and the last groan of disappointment over an
+unlucky lot had subsided, Norman rose and made the most momentous
+announcement the Brotherhood had yet heard:
+
+"In the Department of Production we need hod-carriers, bricklayers,
+carpenters, architects, teamsters, and skilled mechanics for the
+foundry and machine-shops, saw-mill, and flour mills. On the farm and
+orchard we need ploughmen and harvesters for grain and hay, gardeners,
+stablemen, and ditchers.
+
+"In our Department of Domestic Service we need cooks, seamstresses,
+washerwomen, scrubbers and cleaners, waiters, porters, bell-boys,
+telephone girls, steamfitters, plumbers, chimney-sweeps, and sewer
+cleaners.
+
+"In the Department of Education we need artists and artisans,
+teachers, nurses, printers and binders, pressmen and compositors, one
+editor, scientists and lecturers, missionaries, actors, singers, and
+authors.
+
+"Now you each of you know what you can do best. Choose the work in
+which you can render your comrades the highest service of which you
+are capable and best advance the cause of humanity. Write your name
+and your choice of work on the blanks which have been furnished you."
+
+The orchestra played while the ballots were being cast and counted.
+
+The chairman at length rose with the tabulated sheet in his hand and
+faced his audience.
+
+"Comrades," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that old saying I'll
+have to repeat, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!'
+Beyond the shadow of a doubt we shall have to try this election again.
+If I didn't know by the serious look on your faces that you mean it
+I'd say off-hand that you were trying to put up a joke on me."
+
+He paused, and a painful silence followed.
+
+"Give us the ballot!" growled the Bard.
+
+Norman looked at the list he held, and in spite of himself, as he
+caught the gleam of mischief in Barbara's eye, burst into laughter and
+sat down.
+
+Wolf ascended the platform, glanced over the list and whispered:
+
+"It's a waste of time. Call for the election of an executive council
+with full powers."
+
+"We'll try once more," Norman insisted, quickly rising.
+
+"Comrades, I'm sorry to say there is no election. We must proceed to
+another ballot, and if the industries absolutely necessary to the
+existence of any society are not voted into operation, we must then
+choose an executive council with full power to act. I appeal to your
+sense of heroism and self-sacrifice----"
+
+"Give us the ballot! Read it!" thundered the offended poet.
+
+"Yes, read it!"
+
+"Read it!"
+
+The shouts came from all parts of the hall. The crowd was in dead
+earnest and couldn't see the joke.
+
+Once more the young chairman raised the fateful record of human
+frailty before his eyes, paused, and then solemnly began:
+
+"In the first place, comrades, more than six hundred ballots out of
+the two thousand cast are invalid. They have been cast for work not
+asked for. They must be thrown out at once.
+
+"Three hundred and sixty five able-bodied men choose hunting as their
+occupation. I grant you that game is plentiful on the island, but we
+can't spare you, gentlemen!
+
+"Two hundred and thirty-five men want to fish! The waters abound in
+fish, but we have a pound-net which supplies us with all we can eat.
+
+"Thirty-two men and forty-six women wish to preach.
+
+"We do not need at present hunters, fishermen, or preachers, and have
+not called for volunteers in these departments of labour.
+
+"Three hundred and fifty-six women wish to go on the stage, and one
+hundred and ninety-five of them choose musical comedy and light
+opera. I think this includes most of our female population between the
+ages of fourteen and thirty-five!"
+
+A murmur of excitement swept the feminine portion of the audience.
+
+"Allow me to say," he went on, "that the most urgent need of the
+colony at this moment cannot be met by organizing a chorus, however
+beautiful and pleasing its performances would be. We need, and we must
+have, waitresses and milkmaids. The chorus can wait, the cows cannot.
+
+"I asked for one editor. One hundred and seventy-five men and
+sixty-three women have chosen that field. Seventy-five men and
+thirty-two women wish to be musicians."
+
+"We have looked in vain among the ballots for a single hod-carrier, or
+ploughman, ditcher, cook, seamstress, washerman or washerwoman,
+stableman, scrubber, or cleaner. The Brotherhood cannot live a day
+without them. Remember, comrades, we are to make the great experiment
+on which the future happiness of the race may depend. Let us forget
+our selfish preferences and think only of our fellow men. I call for
+heroes of the hod, heroines of the washtub and the scrubbing-brush and
+milk-pail, knights of the pitchfork, spade, and shovel. Let hunters,
+fishermen, preachers, and chorus-girls forget they live for the
+present.
+
+"This is not a joke, comrades, though I have laughed. It's one of the
+gravest problems we must face. It has been suggested that we hire
+outside labour to do this disagreeable work for a generation or two.
+The moment we dare make such a compromise we are lost forever. We must
+solve this problem or quit. A second ballot is ordered at once."
+
+Again the orchestra played, the ushers passed the boxes, the vote was
+taken, and all for naught. Not a single hero of the hod appeared. Not
+a single heroine of the washtub, the scrubbing-brush, or the
+milk-pail.
+
+The young chairman's face was very grave when Barbara handed him the
+results.
+
+She bent and whispered:
+
+"Away with frowns and doubts and fears! There's a better way. A leader
+must lead. Their business is to follow."
+
+Norman's face brightened. He turned to the crowd, and in tones of
+clear, ringing command announced:
+
+"Comrades, I had hoped you could choose your work of your own accord.
+The attempt has failed. Six divisions of labour, each of them
+absolutely essential to the existence of society in any form above
+the primitive savage, have not a single man or woman in them."
+
+"We must elect an executive council of four who shall sit as a court
+of last resort in settling the question of the ability of each comrade
+and the work to which he shall be assigned. Under our temporary
+charter the general manager will preside over this court and cast the
+deciding vote. Nominations are in order for the other four. We want
+two men and two women in this council. In all our deliberations woman
+shall have equal voice with man."
+
+The Bard made a speech of protest against the action about to be
+taken, in the sacred name of liberty.
+
+"This act is the first step on the road to a tyranny more monstrous
+than any ever devised by capitalism!" he shouted, with hands uplifted,
+his long hair flying in wild disorder.
+
+Tom Mooney, an old miner, who had met Norman and become his friend
+during a visit to one of his father's mines, sprang to his feet and
+made a rush for the excited poet. Confronting him a moment, Tom
+inquired:
+
+"Kin I ax ye a few questions?"
+
+"Certainly. As many as you like."
+
+"Kin ye cook?"
+
+"I cannot."
+
+"Kin ye wash?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Kin ye scrub?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Ever swing a hod?"
+
+"I have not."
+
+"Ever milk a cow?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Are ye willin' to learn them things?"
+
+"I didn't come here for that purpose."
+
+"Then, what t' 'ell ye kickin' about?" Tom cried, and, glaring at the
+poet, he thundered fiercely:
+
+"Set down!"
+
+The man of song was so disconcerted by this unexpected onslaught, and
+by the roars of laughter which greeted Tom's final order, that he
+dropped into his seat, muttering incoherent protests, and the
+balloting for the executive council proceeded at once amid universal
+good humour.
+
+A dozen names were proposed as candidates, and the four receiving the
+highest votes were declared duly elected.
+
+The election resulted in the choice of Herman Wolf, Catherine, Barbara
+Bozenta, and Thomas Mooney.
+
+Tom was amazed at his sudden promotion to high office, and insisted
+on resigning in favour of a man of better education.
+
+Norman caught his big horny hand and pressed it.
+
+"Not on your life, Tom. You've made a hit. The people like your hard
+horse-sense. You will make a good judge. Besides, I need you. You're a
+man I can depend on every day in the year."
+
+"I'll stick ef you need me, boy--but I hain't fitten, I tell ye."
+
+"I'll vouch for your fitness--sit down!"
+
+The last command Norman thundered into Tom's ears in imitation of his
+order to the poet, and the old miner, with a grin, dropped into his
+seat.
+
+As Norman was about to declare the meeting adjourned, the steward
+ascended the platform and whispered a message.
+
+The young leader turned to the crowd and lifted his hand for silence.
+
+"Comrades, a prosaic but very important announcement I have to make. I
+have just been informed that there is no milk for supper. The cows
+have been neglected. They must be milked. I call for a dozen volunteer
+milkmaids until this adjustment can be made. Come, now!--and a dozen
+young men to assist them. Let's make this a test of your loyalty to
+the cause. All labour is equally honourable. Labour is the service of
+your fellow man. Who will be the first heroine to fill this breach in
+the walls of our defence?"
+
+Barbara sprang forward, with uplifted head, laughing.
+
+"I will!"
+
+"And I'll help you!" Norman cried, with a laugh. "Who will join us
+now? Come, you pretty chorus-girls! You wouldn't mind if you carried
+these milk-pails on the stage in a play. Well, this is the biggest
+stage you will ever appear on, and all the millions of the civilized
+world are watching."
+
+A pretty, rosy-cheeked girl joined Barbara.
+
+An admirer followed, and in a moment a dozen girls and their escorts
+had volunteered. They formed in line and marched to the cow lot with
+Norman and Barbara leading, singing and laughing and swinging their
+milk-pails like a crowd of rollicking children.
+
+When they reached the pasture where the cows were herded, Norman asked
+Barbara, with some misgivings:
+
+"Honestly, did you ever milk a cow?"
+
+"Of course I have," she promptly replied. "I spent two years on a farm
+once. Do you think I'd make a fool of myself trying before all these
+kids if I hadn't?"
+
+"I didn't know but that you made a bluff at it to lead the others on.
+What can I do, for heaven's sake?"
+
+Norman looked at her in a helpless sort of way while Barbara rolled up
+her sleeves. For the first time he saw her beautifully rounded bare
+arm to its full length. He stood with open-eyed admiration. Never had
+he seen anything so white and round and soft, so subtly and
+seductively suggestive of tenderness and love.
+
+"For heaven's sake, what do I do?" he repeated, blankly.
+
+"Get some meal in that bucket for my cow, and see that her calf don't
+get to her--I'll do the rest."
+
+Norman hustled to the barn with the other boys, got his bucket of
+meal, placed it in front of the cow Barbara had selected, and stood
+watching with admiration the skill with which her deft little hands
+pressed two streams of white milk into the bucket at her feet.
+
+"Goodness, you're a wonder," he cried, admiringly. "But where's the
+calf I'm supposed to be watching?"
+
+"I think that's the one standing close to the gate in the next lot
+watching me with envy. The first time the gate's opened he'll jump
+through if he gets half a chance--so look out!"
+
+"I'll watch him," Norman promised, without lifting his eyes from the
+rhythmic movement of the bare white arms.
+
+He had scarcely spoken when a careless boy swung the gate wide open,
+and the lusty calf, whose soft eyes had been watching Barbara through
+the fence, made a break for his mother. In a swift, silent rush he
+planted one foot in Barbara's milk-pail, knocked her over with the
+other, switched his tail, and fell to work on his own account without
+further concern. It was all done so suddenly it took Norman's breath.
+He sprang to Barbara's side and helped her to her feet.
+
+Norman grabbed the calf by the ear with one hand and by the tail with
+the other, and started toward the gate.
+
+The animal suddenly ducked his head, plunged forward, jerked Norman to
+his knees, and dragged him ten yards before he could regain his feet.
+The young leader rose, tightened his grip, and started with a rush
+toward the gate, but the calf swerved in time to avoid it, gaining
+speed with each step, and started off with his escort in a mad race
+around the lot, galloping at a terrific speed, bellowing and snorting
+at every jump.
+
+The others stopped their work to laugh and cheer as round and round
+the maddened little brute flew with the tall, heroic leader galloping
+by his side.
+
+Norman had no time to call for help. He couldn't let go and he
+couldn't stop the calf.
+
+As he made the second round of the lot, upsetting buckets, smashing
+milk-pails, and stampeding peaceful cows, a boy yelled through the
+roars of laughter:
+
+"Twist his tail! Twist his tail an' he'll go the way you want him!"
+
+Norman misunderstood the order, loosened the head and grabbed the tail
+with both hands. With a loud bellow the calf plunged into a wilder
+race around the lot, dragging his tormentor now with regular, graceful
+easy jumps. He made the rounds twice thus, single file, amid screams
+of laughter, suddenly turned and plunged headlong through an osage
+hedge, and left Norman sitting in a dusty heap on the ground among the
+thorns. He rose, brushed his clothes sheepishly, and looked through
+the hedge at the calf which had turned and stood eyeing him now with
+an expression of injured innocence.
+
+Barbara came up, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes.
+
+"I've learned something new," Norman quietly observed. "All labour
+may be equally honourable. It's not equally expedient. I wish you'd
+look at that beast eyeing me through the fence! It's positively
+uncanny. I believe he's possessed of the devil. I don't wonder at that
+belief of the ancients. I've tackled many a brute on the football
+field--but this is one on me!"
+
+The brilliant young leader of the new moral world led the procession
+of milkmaids back to the house as the shadows of evening fell, a
+sadder but wiser man for the day's experience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A NEW ARISTOCRACY
+
+
+Three members of the executive council, Norman, Barbara, and Tom,
+began at once the task of assigning work. The problems which
+immediately faced the council were overwhelming, but they were urgent
+and could admit of no delay. The absolute refusal of every member of
+the Brotherhood to do the dirty and disagreeable work brought at once
+two issues to a crisis. Either labour must be voluntary or
+involuntary. The people who did this work must be induced to agree to
+perform it or they must be forced to do it by a superior authority
+without their consent.
+
+They could only be led to choose this work by inducements of an
+extraordinary nature--the payment of enormously high wages and the
+shortening of each day's work to a ridiculous minimum.
+
+If wages were made unequal, the old problem of inequality would remain
+unsolved. For equal wages no man would lift his hand.
+
+Confronted by this dilemma the executive council decided at once to
+fix wages on an unequal basis rather than reduce its unwilling members
+to a condition of involuntary labour, which is merely a long way to
+spell slavery.
+
+When this decision was announced, Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+once more lifted his voice in solemn protest:
+
+"I denounce this act in the name of every principle which has brought
+us together," he cried, with solemn warning. "You have established a
+system far more infamous than the unequal wages of the old society
+where the law of the survival of the fittest is the court of last
+resort. You have opened the door of fathomless corruption by
+substituting the whim of an executive council for the law of nature.
+It is the beginning of jealousy, strife, favouritism, jobbery, and
+injustice."
+
+"Then what's a better way?" Old Tom asked, with a sneer.
+
+"It's your business to find a better way," cried the man of visions.
+
+Tom glared at the poet with a look of fury and Norman whispered to the
+old miner:
+
+"Remember, Tom, you're sitting as a judge in the Supreme Court of
+State!"
+
+"Can't help it. I never did have no use for a fool. Ef he can't tell
+us a better way, let 'im shet up."
+
+Barbara pressed Tom's arm, and he subsided.
+
+The court at once entered into the question of wages for domestic
+service.
+
+It had been agreed, at the suggestion of the Wolfs, that they should
+spend their time in quietly investigating the qualifications of each
+member of the Brotherhood for the work to be assigned, and make their
+reports in secret to the majority of the court, which should sit
+continuously until all had been decided.
+
+Neither Norman, Barbara, nor the old miner suspected for a moment the
+deeper motive which Wolf concealed behind this withdrawal from the
+decision of these cases. They found out in a very startling way later.
+
+The chief cook demanded a hundred dollars a month.
+
+Old Tom snorted with contempt. Norman smiled and spoke kindly:
+
+"Remember, Louis, you only received $75 a month in San Francisco. Here
+the Brotherhood provides every man with his food, his clothes, and his
+house. Wages are merely the inducement used to satisfy each individual
+that labour may still be done by free contract, not by force."
+
+"Well, it'll take a hundred a month to satisfy me," was the stolid
+reply. "I didn't come here to cook. I could do that in the old hell we
+lived in. I came here to do better and bigger things. I can do them,
+too----"
+
+"But we've fixed the salary of the general manager at only
+seventy-five dollars a month, and you demand a hundred?"
+
+"I do, and if the general manager prefers my job, I'll trade with you
+and guarantee to do your work better than it's being done."
+
+"Yes, you will!" old Tom growled, as he leaned over Barbara and
+whispered to Norman.
+
+"Make it thirty dollars a month, and if he don't go to work--leave him
+to me, I'll beat him till he does it."
+
+"No, we can't manage it that way, Tom. We must try to satisfy him."
+
+"Hit's a hold-up, I tell ye--highway robbery--the triflin' son of a
+gun! Don't you say so, miss?" Tom appealed earnestly to Barbara.
+
+"We must have cooks, Tom--and we want everybody to be happy."
+
+"Make him cook, make him--that's his business--I'd do it if I knowed
+how. He's got to take what we give 'im. He can't git off this island.
+He enlisted for five years. If he deserts, court-martial and shoot
+him."
+
+In spite of old Tom's bitter protest, Norman and Barbara succeeded in
+persuading the chief cook to accept eighty-five dollars a month--an
+advance of ten dollars over the highest wages he had ever received
+before.
+
+When the eighteen assistant cooks lined up for the settlement of their
+wages a new problem of unexpected proportions was presented. They had
+listened attentively to the case of the chef, and their chosen orator
+presented his argument in brief but emphatic words:
+
+"We demand the exact wages you have voted the chef."
+
+"Well, what do ye think er that?" old Tom groaned to Norman. "Hit's
+jist like I told ye. Hit's a hold-up."
+
+"We must persuade them, Tom," the young leader replied.
+
+"Let me persuade 'em!" the old miner pleaded.
+
+"How?" Barbara asked, with a twinkle in her brown eyes.
+
+"I'll line 'em up agin that wall and trim their hair with my
+six-shooter. I won't hurt 'em. But when I finish the job I'll
+guarantee they'll do what I tell 'em without any back talk. You folks
+take a walk and make me Chief Justice fer an hour, and when you come
+back we'll have peace and plenty. Jest try it now, and don't you butt
+in. Let me persuade 'em!"
+
+Norman shook his head.
+
+"Keep still, Tom! We must reason with them."
+
+"Ye 're wastin' yer breath," the miner drawled in disgust.
+
+"Don't you think, comrades," Norman began, in persuasive tones, "that
+your demands are rather high?"
+
+"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "We come here to get equal
+rights. We don't want to cook. I'm a born actor, myself. I expected to
+play in Shakespeare when I joined the Brotherhood. Anybody that wants
+this job can have it. If we do your hot, dirty, disgusting,
+disagreeable work while the others play in the shade we are going to
+get something for it."
+
+"Even so," the young leader responded, "is it fair that an assistant
+cook should receive equal wages with the chef?"
+
+"And why not? Labour creates all value. The chef's a fakir. We do all
+the work. He never lifts his hand to a pot or pan. He struts and loafs
+through the kitchen and lords it over the men. Let him try to run the
+kitchen without us, and see how much you get to eat! We stand on the
+equal rights of man!"
+
+"But my dear comrade----"
+
+"Don't use them words," old Tom pleaded, "jest let me make a few
+remarks----"
+
+Barbara pinched Tom's arm and he subsided.
+
+"Can't you see," Norman went on, "that we are paying the chef for his
+directive ability, for his inventive genius in creating new dishes and
+making old ones more delicious? You but execute his orders."
+
+"We stand square on our principles. Labour creates all values. The
+chef never works. We make every dish that goes to the table. If it has
+any value we make it. We demand our rights!"
+
+The court agreed on fifty dollars a month, and the men refused to
+consider it.
+
+"We prefer to work in the fields, the foundry, the machine-shop, the
+mills, the forests, anywhere you like except the kitchen. Let the chef
+do your work. Good day!"
+
+They turned and marched out in a body and sat down in the sunshine.
+
+In vain Norman argued and pleaded. They stood their ground with sullen
+determination.
+
+A final clincher which the young leader could not evade always ended
+the argument. The spokesman came back to it with dogged persistence:
+
+"What did you mean, then, when you've been drumming into our ears that
+labour creates all value? We do all the work, don't we?"
+
+The upshot of it was the eighteen assistant cooks marched back into
+the hall, stood before the judges, and all were granted equal wages
+with the chef.
+
+Whereupon the chef sprang to his feet and faced the court with blazing
+eyes.
+
+"You grant these chumps--these idiots--wages equal to mine? Not one of
+them has brains enough to cook an egg if I didn't tell him how. Their
+wages equal to mine. I resign!"
+
+Tom spoke vigorously:
+
+"Now will ye leave him to me?"
+
+Norman and Barbara looked at each other in angry and helpless
+amazement.
+
+The old miner leaped to his feet, made his way down from the platform,
+and with two swift strides reached the chef. He leaned close and
+whispered something in the rebel's ear. There was a moment's
+hesitation and the chef turned, signalled to his assistants, and amid
+cheers marched to the kitchen.
+
+Tom resumed his seat beside Barbara with a smile, quietly saying:
+
+"That's the way to do business, ladies and gentlemen!"
+
+"What did you say to him?" Barbara asked.
+
+"Oh, nothin' much," was the careless answer.
+
+"I hope you didn't threaten him, Tom?" Norman asked with some
+misgiving.
+
+"Na--I didn't threaten him. I spoke quiet and peaceable."
+
+"But what did you tell him?" the young leader persisted.
+
+"I jest told him I'd give him two minutes ter git back ter the kitchen
+or I'd blow his head off!"
+
+"I'm afraid our table will feel the effects of that remark, Tom,"
+Barbara said, doubtfully.
+
+Next to the question of cooks the most urgent issue to be settled was
+the case of the scrubbers, cleaners, and drainmen. The women who had
+been assigned to the tasks of scrubbing the floors, washing the
+windows and dishes, had watched the triumphs of the cooks with keen
+appreciation of their own power. It was easy to see that the more
+disagreeable and disgusting the character of the work, the more
+extravagant the demands which could be made and enforced. The
+scrubbers and dishwashers boldly demanded one hundred dollars a month
+and six hours for a working day, and refused with sullen determination
+to argue the question.
+
+To Barbara's mild and gentle protest their answer was complete and
+stunning:
+
+"You have assigned us this dirty job. Do you want it at any price?"
+asked their orator. "I'll take yours without wages and jump at the
+chance."
+
+Tom lost all interest in the proceedings and drew himself up in a knot
+in his chair. Now and then a growl came from the depths of his
+throat.
+
+Once he was heard to distinctly articulate:
+
+"This makes me tired."
+
+The court begged and pleaded, cajoled, argued in vain with the
+stubborn scrubwomen. Not an inch would they move in their demands. The
+floors were becoming unspeakably filthy. They had not been scrubbed
+since the arrival of the colony.
+
+Norman turned to Barbara.
+
+"Put the question solemnly to ourselves--we don't want the job at any
+price, do we?"
+
+"I couldn't do it!" she admitted, frankly. "Then what's the use? We
+must be fair. It's worth what they ask."
+
+The court granted the demands and the scrubwomen and dishwashers
+marched to the kitchen and once more the chef tore his hair and cursed
+the fate which brought him to such disgrace as to work with stupid
+subordinates at equal wages and gaze on dishwashers and scrubwomen
+whose wages exceeded his own.
+
+The climax of all demands was reached when the drainman demanded a
+hundred and fifty dollars a month and four hours for each working day.
+
+Norman looked at him in dumb confusion. He knew what he was going to
+say before he opened his mouth and he had no answer.
+
+The drainman bowed low in mock humility, but the proud wave of his
+hand belied his words.
+
+"My calling was a humble one in the old world, Comrade Judges," he
+said. "I came here to climb mountain heights and find my way among the
+stars. You have sent me back to the sewers. I always felt that I had
+missed my true calling. I've always wanted to be a poet----"
+
+The Bard shook his mane and groaned.
+
+"I don't want this job at any price. But the sewers are choked. They
+have not been cleaned for two years. It must be done. I've named my
+price. I'll gladly yield to any man who envies my luck. If such a man
+is here let him speak--or forever hereafter hold his peace."
+
+With a grandiloquent gesture the drainman swept the crowd with his
+eye, but no man responded.
+
+The court granted his demand.
+
+The Bard leaped once more to his feet and entered his protest. This
+time old Tom listened with interest. His concluding sentence rang with
+bitter irony:
+
+"Against these absurd decisions I lift my voice once more in solemn
+protest. We came to this charmed island to abolish all class
+distinctions. You have destroyed the old classes based on culture,
+achievement, genius, wealth, and power. You have created a new
+aristocracy on whose shield is emblazoned--a dish-rag and
+scrubbing-brush encircled by a sewer pipe! I make my most humble bow
+to our new king--the drainman! I hail the apotheosis of the
+scrubwoman!"
+
+"Say, you give me a pain--shut up" thundered Tom.
+
+The singer collapsed with a sigh and the crowd laughed.
+
+The foreman of the farm brought two men before the court and asked for
+important instructions.
+
+"Comrade Judges," he began, "I had two men assigned to me a week ago
+whom I don't want and won't have at any price. I return them to the
+Brotherhood with thanks. You can do what you please with them."
+
+"What's the matter?" Norman asked, with some irritation.
+
+The foreman shoved and kicked a man in front of the judges.
+
+"This fool----"
+
+"You must not use such language, Mr. Foreman," Barbara interrupted.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Comrade Judges," he apologized. "This coyote I put
+on a mowing-machine yesterday. He said he knew how to run it. He broke
+it on a smooth piece of ground the first hour. I gave him another and
+he wrecked it before noon. It will take the labour of five men two
+days to repair the damage he has done. I don't want him at any price."
+
+"What have you to say?" Norman asked the accused.
+
+"It wasn't my fault. The thing broke itself."
+
+"But how did it happen twice the same day, sonny?" Tom asked.
+
+"I dunno. Hit jist happened," was the dogged answer.
+
+"I've another scoundrel----"
+
+"You must not use such language," Barbara broke in.
+
+"Again begging the pardon of Comrade Judges," the foreman continued:
+"This dog"--he kicked another slovenly looking lout before the
+judges--"tore to pieces the shoulders of two pairs of horses with
+careless harnessing before I found him and kicked him out of the
+stables. Those four horses can't work for a month. We'll have to pay
+at least $500 for two teams right away to take their places, or lose a
+crop of hay."
+
+Tom glared at the culprit.
+
+"What did ye ruin them horses' shoulders fer?"
+
+"I didn't know it," was the sulking answer.
+
+"He's a liar!" cried the foreman. "He put the same collars on their
+galled necks three days in succession and beat them unmercifully when
+they couldn't pull the load."
+
+"What do you say, Tom?" Norman asked.
+
+The old miner glared at the last culprit and his grim mouth tightened:
+
+"Wall, you kin do as ye please, but any man that'll abuse a hoss will
+commit murder. I'd put the fust one in the cow lot to shovellin'
+compost. This one I'd quietly lynch--no public rumpus about it--jest
+take 'im down by the beach, hang 'im to one of them posts on the pier,
+shoot 'im full of holes, and drop 'im into the sea to be sure he don't
+come back to life."
+
+Norman conferred with Barbara a moment and rendered the decision:
+
+"Mr. Foreman, the first man is transferred from the field machinery to
+the compost-heap in the barnyard. The second man who disabled the
+horses will assist in cleaning the sewers. Their wages will remain the
+same as before."
+
+A round of applause greeted this decision.
+
+The Bard renewed his attack with unusual zeal. Standing before the
+court and shaking his long hair he cried:
+
+"At last the climax of tyranny! Two comrades condemned without a jury
+and without defense! I congratulate you. In one day you have
+established an aristocracy of filth and created a penal colony without
+a hearing or appeal. We are making progress."
+
+The old miner grunted, Barbara smiled tenderly at Norman, and the
+court adjourned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SOME TROUBLES IN HEAVEN
+
+
+Norman found it necessary for the executive council to sit
+continuously for the adjustment of disputes and the settlement of new
+problems which arose at every step of progress in the new moral world.
+
+He had condemned the sins of the old world of capitalism with cocksure
+certainty. Now that he had been made a supreme judge with power to
+adjust the rights and wrongs of his fellow man, he was appalled at the
+magnitude of the task of substituting an ideal for the reign of
+natural law under which civilization had been slowly evolved.
+
+There were two men in the Brotherhood whom he grew early to hate with
+cordial, thorough, murderous hatred--Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+who always denounced every decision as unjust, and a tall,
+hooked-nosed, stoop-shouldered, scholarly looking man named Diggs, who
+invariably sat near him and at every conceivable opportunity asked
+questions. These questions were always put in an innocent, friendly
+way, but when Diggs looked at him through his gleaming spectacles
+Norman always got the impression that an imp of the devil had suddenly
+popped up through the floor.
+
+The first day after the general assignment of work Diggs rose before
+the council, adjusted his glasses, and drew a piece of paper from his
+pocket. Norman knew before he spoke that the document bristled with
+questions. Diggs's glasses had always fascinated him, but to-day they
+seemed of unusual thickness and enormous size, and their concave
+surfaces seemed to flash light from a thousand angles.
+
+Diggs adjusted them on his hook-nose with deliberation and glanced
+carefully over his notes before speaking.
+
+Norman turned to Barbara with a sigh.
+
+She pressed his hand in silent sympathy.
+
+"Don't worry!" she whispered.
+
+Norman's breath quickened as he answered the pressure of the soft,
+warm fingers but he managed to move his chair and break the effects of
+her spell without revealing to her the effort it cost. Each hour of
+their association he felt the cords he dare not try to break tighten
+about his heart. He determined each day to put the thought from him.
+Over and over again with grim resolution he repeated his vow:
+
+"I'll keep a clear head. I've got to decide this issue on its merits.
+I owe it to my generous friends who made it possible."
+
+He had avoided her for the last few days. She guessed the cause
+intuitively and knew that he was fighting with desperation to escape
+the net she was slowly weaving about him. She began to watch the
+struggle now with a curious fascination in which cruelty and
+tenderness were equally mixed. The idea of surrendering her own heart
+had never once entered her pretty head.
+
+Her life had been lived in a strange war with human society. Man had
+always appeared to her imagination as an enemy. She had never trusted
+one--least of all Wolf, the big, impassive animal who had dominated
+the life of her foster-mother.
+
+With deliberate and cruel art she had set out to master the heart of
+the man who sat by her side. The task was accepted as part of her
+work. She had enlisted as a soldier in the Cause. She had received the
+orders from headquarters. When the deed was done she would turn to a
+greater task. She had expected to be bored by his idiotic love making.
+Now her curiosity was beginning to be piqued by his silence. She began
+vaguely to wonder each moment what kind of pictures she was making in
+his mind. Her brown eyes searched the depths of his soul in a dumb way
+that sent the blood rushing to Norman's heart, but each time he had
+eluded her.
+
+He sat in moody silence now, giving no response to her words of cheer.
+She roused him from his reverie with a plaintive protest.
+
+"What's the matter? Have I, too, offended?"
+
+He turned quickly and crushed her hand in his strong grasp:
+
+"For heaven's sake don't _you_ get into the habit of asking me
+questions! How could you offend? Your face is my lighthouse set on the
+cliffs, calm, serene, joyful. I couldn't get through a day without
+you."
+
+A smiling answer was just trembling on her lips when Diggs began to
+speak.
+
+"Now for the human interrogation point," Barbara laughed.
+
+"Comrade Judges," Diggs began, with guileless good humour, "while we
+are shaping the form of our ideal State for its permanent organization
+I wish to submit some questions which may help us in our search for
+truth."
+
+"Questions," Norman whispered, "which any fool can ask, but the angels
+of God can't answer."
+
+"But we will answer them!" she flashed, with defiant courage.
+
+"We agree," Diggs went on, "that society must be governed in some way.
+There must be rulers, but how shall we choose our rulers, and with
+what powers shall we clothe them? We can begin to see that the head of
+our social system must at times exercise the full powers of the State.
+Into whose hands can this enormous power be entrusted, and how shall
+he be called to account?"
+
+Diggs paused, and Norman flushed at this question, for he took it as a
+personal thrust. He had occasion to change his mind later.
+
+"How can we," the questioner went on, "retain our democratic liberties
+as law makers as we grow in numbers? Now we can all meet in general
+assembly. When the State numbers even five thousand this will not be
+possible. Will not our politics become even more corrupt than the old
+system, seeing how enormous the power over the smallest details of
+life which these legislators possess?
+
+"As our society grows--and thousands are now clamouring for
+admission--how is wealth to be distributed? Who shall determine, in
+this larger society, who shall be common labourers, who poets,
+artists, musicians, preachers, managers? Who shall appoint editors?
+And who shall call them to account if they publish treason against the
+State? What shall be done with the ever-increasing number of the
+lazy, dishonest, and criminal members of the community?
+
+"Who shall determine how much mental work is equivalent to so much
+manual labour, seeing how vast is the difference in the value of one
+man's brain product over another's? How can men who are not artists,
+poets, or musicians determine the value of such work? Or how can one
+poet be just to his rival if he be made the judge? When our theatre is
+opened, who shall select the actors? Who shall decide whether they are
+incompetent? Who shall decide on the selection of the star? What shall
+be done with an actor, for example, who should spit in the face of a
+judge deciding adversely? Suppose a man offends the judge? Shall he be
+punished? If so, who shall do it?
+
+"How can we prevent a man from losing his wages playing poker with his
+neighbour if he does so joyfully?
+
+"What shall be done with a man who works outside regular hours and
+accumulates a vast private fortune?"
+
+"Say, ain't you worked your jaw overtime now?" old Tom broke in
+rudely. "We'll take them things up when we come to 'em. We got
+somethin' else to do now--set down!"
+
+"These are only friendly suggestions for thought as we develop our
+ideal," Diggs answered, with smiling good nature, as he resumed his
+seat.
+
+"What makes me want to kill that man," Norman muttered to Barbara, "is
+the unfailing politeness and unction with which he asks those
+questions."
+
+"Patience! patience!" was the low, musical reply. "These little things
+will all adjust themselves."
+
+Methodist John pressed to the front and poured out to the judges a
+story of wrong and asked for justice.
+
+"Miss Barbara," he began, in plaintive tones, "you was always good to
+me in the other world, but since we've got here even you don't seem
+the same. Everybody's hard and cold. They hain't got no sympathy here
+for a poor man. In the other world I missed my callin'--I was born for
+the ministry. I come here to serve the Lord. And now they make me work
+so hard I ain't even got time to pray. I ask for a licence to preach
+the gospel. Just give me a chance. They've put me to feedin' hogs and
+tendin' ter calves. I ain't fit for such work. I want to call sinners
+to repentance, not swine to their swill. I tell ye I've been buncoed.
+It ain't a square deal. I left the poorhouse to come with you to
+heaven and, by gum, I've landed in the workhouse----"
+
+"And ef yer don't shet up and git back ter yer work," Tom thundered,
+"you'll land in the hospital--you hear me!"
+
+"I ain't er talkin' to you, you cussin, swearin', ungodly son of the
+devil," the old man answered.
+
+"Come, come, John," Norman interrupted, as he held Tom back. "We can't
+grant your request. We are not ready to undertake religious work yet."
+
+"Well, God knows ye need it!" John muttered, as the crowd pushed him
+away.
+
+At the door Catherine greeted him as he passed out, whispered
+encouraging words, and sent him back to his tasks more cheerful. She
+had taken her stand thus each day; and, while Wolf was busy quietly
+mingling with the men outside getting the facts as to the progress of
+each department, the tall graceful woman of soft voice and madonna
+face was fast becoming the friend and sympathizer of each discontented
+worker. She had now assumed the task of peacemaker after each harsh
+decision had been rendered, and did her work with rare skill--a skill
+which promised big results in the dawning State of Ventura.
+
+Uncle Bob Worth, an old Negro, bowed low before the judges. He had
+been a slave of Norman's grandfather in North Carolina and had joined
+the colony out of admiration for the young leader.
+
+"Marse Norman," he solemnly began.
+
+"Don't call me 'master,' Bob," Norman interrupted. "Remember that we
+are all comrades here."
+
+"Yassah! Yassah! Marse Norman, I try to 'member dat sah, but 'pears
+ter me dey's somefin' wrong bout dis whole 'comrade' business, sah!
+I'se er 'comrade' now but I'se wuss off dan I eber wuz. 'Fo' I come
+here I wuz er butler, and I wuz er gemmen--yas-sah, ef I do hat ter
+say it myself--and I allus live wid gemmens an' sociate wid gemmens. I
+come out here wid you ter be a white man an' er equal. Dat's what dey
+all say. I be er equal 'comrade.' I make up my mind dat I jine de
+minstrel band, pick de banjer, an' sing de balance er my life. Bress
+God, what happen. Dey make me a hod-carrier and make me 'sociate wid
+low-down po' white trash. I ain't come here ter be no 'comrade' wid
+dem kin' er folks. Dey ain't my equal, sah, an' I can't 'ford to
+'sociate wid 'em. What's fuddermo, sah, carryin' a hod ain't my
+business--hit don't suit my health an' brick-dust ain't good fur my
+complexion, sah!"
+
+Tom grunted contemptuously.
+
+Norman smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Sorry, Comrade Bob," he replied. "We haven't men enough to organize
+the minstrels yet. We must rush the new building. We have thousands
+of new members clamouring to join. We have nowhere to house them."
+
+"Yassah, an' I 'spec' dey'll be clamourin' ter unjine fo' long," old
+Bob muttered, as he passed on to be comforted by Catherine's soothing
+words.
+
+Saka, the Indian, whom Colonel Worth had educated, had followed
+Norman. He demanded a return ticket to the Colonel's hunting lodge.
+
+It was promptly refused. Catherine attempted to soothe his ruffled
+feelings. He snapped his fingers in her face and grunted.
+
+The Brotherhood of Man saw Saka no more for many moons, but the crack
+of his rifle was heard on the mountain side and the smoke of his tepee
+curled defiantly from the neighbouring plains.
+
+The chef appeared before the court in answer to numerous complaints
+about the table.
+
+"I must have the law laid down for the tables, Comrade Judges," he
+demanded. "One man wants one thing and another refuses to eat at the
+table where such food is served. A dozen men and women ask only for
+bread, vegetables, and nuts. They refuse to eat meat. They refuse to
+allow me to cook it or any one else to eat it if they can help it.
+They make my life miserable. I want permission to kick them out of the
+kitchen. They demand the right to inspect my pots and pans to see if
+meat has touched them. They must go or I go. I will not be insulted by
+fools. If you do not give me permission to kick these people out of
+the kitchen I will do so without permission. You can take your
+choice."
+
+The cook mopped his brow and sat down with a defiant wave of his arm.
+
+A woman who had been a leader of the W.C.T.U. pressed forward before
+the cook's demand could be considered.
+
+"And I demand in the name of truth, purity, righteousness, justice,
+faith, and God, that no more wine be allowed on the table. I demand
+that we burn the wine house and issue an order to the cook never
+again, under penalty of imprisonment for life, to use a drop of
+alcohol in the food he serves to the Brotherhood----"
+
+"And I also demand, Comrade Judges," the cook interrupted, "the right
+to throw that woman out of the kitchen and have her fined and
+imprisoned the next time she dares to interfere with my business. She
+got into the pantry yesterday and destroyed five hundred mince pies
+because she smelled brandy in them."
+
+"Yes, and I'll do it again if you dare to poison the bodies and souls
+of my comrades with that hellish stuff!" she cried, triumphantly.
+
+"I'd like to know," the cook shouted, "how I'm to do my work if every
+fool in creation can butt into my business?"
+
+"Softly! Softly!" Norman warned.
+
+"I mean it!" thundered the chef. "This woman swears she will wreck the
+dining-room if I dare to place wine again on our bill of fare. I want
+to know if she's in command of this colony? If so, you can count me
+out!"
+
+"And while we are on this point, Comrade Judges," spoke up a
+mild-looking little man, "I have summoned a neighbour of mine to
+appear before you and show cause why he should _not_ cease to have
+sauerkraut served at breakfast. He sits at my table. I've begged him
+to stop it. I've begged the cook to stop cooking the stuff, but he
+bribes the cook----"
+
+"That's a lie," shouted the chef.
+
+"I saw him do it, your honours," the little man went on. "I'm a
+small-sized man or I'd lick him. I tried to move my seat but they
+wouldn't let me. I pledge you my word when he brings that big dish of
+steaming sauerkraut to our table it fogs the whole end of the
+dining-room. The odour is so strong it not only stops you from eating,
+you can't think. It knocks you out for the day."
+
+"Is it possible," Norman inquired, "that there is a human being among
+us who eats sauerkraut for breakfast?"
+
+"There's no doubt about it, comrade," promptly responded a tall,
+strapping-looking fellow, with a dark, scholarly face, as he stepped
+to the front.
+
+"That's him!" cried the little accuser. "I made him come. Told him I'd
+organize a party to lynch him if he didn't. He won't dare deny it. I
+can prove it."
+
+"I have no desire to deny that I eat sauerkraut, you little ape," he
+replied with scorn. "I come of German ancestry, comrades. My
+great-grandfather helped to create this nation. He was a pure-blooded
+German. I inherit from him my personal likes and dislikes. Sauerkraut
+is the best breakfast food ever served to man. It is a pure vegetable
+malt. It is wholesome, clean, healthful, and keeps the system of a
+brain worker in perfect order. I eat it with ham gravy and good hot
+wheat biscuits. It is some trouble for the cook to prepare this
+particular kind of soft tea-biscuit for me. I paid him a little extra
+for this bread--not the kraut. I suggest to your honours that you make
+sauerkraut a standard breakfast diet as a health measure. They may
+kick a little at first, but I assure you it will improve the health
+and character of the colony. If this little chap who accuses me were
+put on a diet of kraut for breakfast it might even now make a man of
+him. I not only have nothing to apologize for, I bring you good
+tidings. I proclaim sauerkraut the only perfect health food for
+breakfast, and I suggest its compulsory use. The man who sits next to
+me eats snails. I think the habit a filthy and dangerous one. If you
+are going into this question, do it thoroughly. Let us fix by law what
+is fit to eat, and stick to it. I'll back sauerkraut before any
+dietary commission ever organized on earth."
+
+The council appointed a commission to conduct hearings and make a
+rigid code of laws establishing the kind of foods for each meal.
+
+Again Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, rose, shook his long hair and
+cleared his throat.
+
+Norman lifted his hand for silence.
+
+"I anticipate the poet's words. You solemnly protest against the
+further establishment of a tyranny which shall dare prescribe your
+food from day to day. I grieve over the necessity of these laws and
+mingle my tears with yours in advance. But, in the language of a
+distinguished citizen of the old republic, 'we are confronted by a
+condition, not a theory.' The council stands adjourned."
+
+The Bard poured his bitter protest into Catherine's patient ears and
+left with a growing conviction of her wisdom.
+
+The woman with the drooping eyelids stood watching his retreating
+figure while a quiet smile of contempt played about her full, sensuous
+lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE UNCONVENTIONAL
+
+
+Within a week it was necessary to appoint a commission to formulate an
+elaborate code of laws regulating various nuisances which had
+developed in the community.
+
+A kitchen-boy insisted on playing a cornet in his room. He didn't know
+a musical from a promissory note but he swore he'd become a musician
+before he died. His efforts came near proving fatal to his neighbours
+before he was suppressed.
+
+Several women had pet parrots. The people who lived near by
+strenuously objected. The parrots had to go.
+
+A sailor had brought a monkey whose manners were not appreciated by
+any one except his master. The monkey had to go. Cats were arraigned
+for trial and a fierce battle raged over the question of allowing them
+in the building. The question was finally put to the popular vote in
+the assembly and the cats won by a good majority. But strict laws
+regulating the kind of cats, their number, and their care, were put
+into force.
+
+Dogs won by a large majority when they were finally put on trial.
+
+The commission on nuisances had finally to make a code of laws
+regulating table manners and the conduct of all social gatherings.
+
+The one question which all but precipitated a civil war was the
+problem of dress. Inequality of wages meant, of necessity, inequality
+of dress.
+
+A desperate effort was made by a large number to force the community
+to adopt a uniform for both men and women. It was fiercely opposed.
+Every woman who believed herself good looking refused to listen to any
+argument on the subject.
+
+It was necessary at once, however, to formulate some sort of code. A
+number of men had been coming into the dining-room in their shirt
+sleeves. Some of them apparently never combed their hair or changed
+their linen. A number of women had gotten into the habit of coming
+into the dining-room in loose wrappers of variegated colors and
+without corsets.
+
+The Bard of Ramcat was particularly severe in his public criticism of
+these women in the general assembly of the Brotherhood.
+
+"In the name of beauty, I protest!" he cried. "Beauty is an attribute
+of God. It is woman's first duty to be beautiful, and if she isn't, at
+least to make man think she is. I insist that she shall have the
+widest liberty in the choice of dress. Only let her be careful that
+she is beautiful!"
+
+The poet was heartily applauded, and a resolution was passed which
+embodied his ideas, approving the widest freedom of choice in dress,
+approving especially unconventional forms of dress, provided always
+the ideal of beauty was held inviolate.
+
+In his speech advocating the immediate passage of the resolution the
+Bard urged every woman to outdo herself in the struggle for supreme
+beauty of appearance at the weekly ball on Friday evening.
+
+His resolutions and speech bore surprising fruit.
+
+When the festivities were at their height a crowd of fifteen pretty
+girls suddenly swept into the brilliantly lighted ball-room in tights!
+The sensation was so instantaneous and overwhelming the music stopped
+with a crash. The orchestra thought somebody had yelled fire.
+
+The girls in their beautiful but unconventional dress tried to appear
+unconcerned. But even the Bard was appalled at the results.
+
+The pretty young chorus-girls had taken him at his word. They had
+always cherished a secret desire to live in an unconventional real
+world, where they could have a chance to be themselves, without the
+hideous skirts of conventional society veiling their beauty. They had
+brought these costumes with them and joined the new moral world in the
+firm faith that their ideal would be realized. It had come very
+slowly, but it had come at last.
+
+They donned their beautiful costumes with hearts fluttering in
+triumphant pride. But they had huddled into a corner of the ball-room
+in a panic of fright at the insane commotion their honest efforts to
+promote beauty had caused. One by one every woman in skirts save
+Barbara and Catherine left the room. The married ones seized their
+husbands and pushed them out ahead.
+
+Norman, who was dancing with Barbara, broke down and burst into a
+paroxysm of laughter.
+
+Some of the girls began to cry, but others made a brave effort to face
+the crowd of eager, giggling boys who pressed nearer.
+
+The Bard approached with a serious look on his noble brow,
+deliberately put on his glasses and surveyed the crowd.
+
+"My dear girls," he began, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart
+for the sincerity and honesty of your efforts to express beauty in
+unconventional form, but really this is beyond my wildest
+expectation."
+
+Catherine drove the rude boys out of the room and closed the windows,
+while Barbara kissed the tears away from the hysterical innovators and
+led them back to their rooms.
+
+The next morning the general assembly held an unusually solemn meeting
+at which it was voted by a large majority to settle at once and
+forever the question of dress by adopting a Socialist uniform of
+scarlet and white for the women, and for the men a dull gray suit with
+scarlet bands on the sleeve, a scarlet stripe and belt for the
+trousers.
+
+The discussion was brief and Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat,
+protested in vain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A PAIR OF COLD GRAY EYES
+
+
+From the night of the ball at which the group of chorus-girls made
+their sensational entrance in tights, Norman had his hands full.
+Disorder had rapidly grown in the Brotherhood. Two distinct parties
+began to line up for a desperate struggle for supremacy, the one
+standing for the widest liberty of the individual members of the
+community, the other demanding the stern enforcement of law and order
+and the formulation of a complete and strict code of rules for the
+government of daily conduct.
+
+Among the men assigned to various tasks there gradually appeared a
+number who slighted their work. From carelessness they drifted into
+utter incompetency and downright laziness. Groups of these loafers
+began to hang around the house daily.
+
+When they had spent the last penny of their credit at the general
+store of the community, they began to steal. Not a day or night passed
+but complaints of thefts were made from every department of the
+colony. One of the most serious of these burglaries was the robbery
+of the winery of an enormous quantity of the most valuable wines.
+
+Drunkenness had already become one of the serious problems of the
+Brotherhood, and the right to buy of the steward had been denied a
+large number of men and several women. These people began at once to
+show signs of intoxication. It was plain that the thieves had hidden
+this wine and that they were carrying on a secret traffic with those
+to whom it had been forbidden.
+
+With the increase of reckless drunkenness another evil grew with
+alarming rapidity, the carousing of boisterous men and women. One of
+them very quickly passed the limits of tolerance. She was in many
+respects the most beautiful girl in the colony, barely nineteen years
+old, with luxuriant blond hair, and big, wide, staring baby-blue eyes.
+She had with it all a smile so saucy, so winsome, so elfish, and yet
+so innocent, it was impossible for the average man or woman to think
+ill of her. To every appeal of Barbara she merely showed her pretty
+white teeth in a winsome smile, promised her anything she asked, and
+proceeded to do as she liked.
+
+At last her room was declared an intolerable nuisance by a committee
+appointed to enter the complaint on behalf of her neighbours on the
+floor on which she lived. The night before this committee appealed to
+Barbara two boys had fought a desperate fist duel in this room. The
+noise had roused the neighbours, and the case could no longer be
+ignored by the executive council.
+
+Barbara was sent to this room with full power to deal with the
+offender.
+
+"Good heavens," cried the girl, her big blue eyes opening wide with
+injured innocence, "how could I help it? They're both in love with me.
+I don't care a rap for either one of them, but they got to fighting,
+and I couldn't stop them. I threw a pitcher of water on them, but they
+kept right on. I'd have called the police, but there was none to call.
+It wasn't my fault."
+
+"But my dear Blanche," pleaded Barbara, "can't you see that you are
+bringing scandal and disgrace into the colony?"
+
+"It's not me!" the pretty lips pouted. "It's these old women who are
+talking. Let them shut their mouths and attend to their own business.
+I'm not bothering them."
+
+"You deny the accusations they bring against your good name?" Barbara
+said, with some surprise.
+
+"Of course I deny them," she snapped. "I've got to have some fun,
+haven't I? I can't help it that a dozen boys come to see me and nobody
+ever sees the old tabbies who lie about me, can I? I can't help it
+that they are old and ugly, can I?"
+
+Barbara had ceased to listen to the glib tongue, whose lying chatter
+tired her. She looked about the room with increasing amazement. It was
+stuffed with presents of every conceivable description. Costly rugs
+adorned the floor. Soft pillows filled the couch by the window. Dainty
+and expensive works of art adorned her mantel, and the richest and
+most beautiful underwear lay in a smoothly laundered pile on her
+luxuriant bed.
+
+"And how did you get all these costly and beautiful things, my dear?"
+Barbara asked, with a touch of sarcasm.
+
+The big blue eyes opened wide again with wonder.
+
+"Why, the boys who are in love with me gave them. Why shouldn't they?
+I can't help it that they are foolish, can I? God made them so."
+
+"And you accepted these rich and costly things in perfect innocence of
+the evil meaning others might put on them?"
+
+"Of course! How can I keep their tongues from wagging? Life's too
+short. I have but one life to live. I can't waste it worrying over
+nothing."
+
+For the first time in her career Barbara stood face to face with naked
+evil--with a liar to whom a lie was good--a radiantly beautiful girl
+to whom shame was sweet.
+
+For a moment the thought was suffocating. She looked out of the window
+at the infinite blue sea until the tears slowly blinded her. The first
+doubt of her theory of life crept into her heart and threw its shadow
+over the ideal of the new world she had built.
+
+She took the girl's hand, slipped her arm around her neck, kissed the
+soft, shining hair, and sobbed:
+
+"Poor little foolish sister! I'm afraid you've broken my heart
+to-day."
+
+"I haven't done a thing! Honestly, I haven't!" the lusty young liar
+rattled on and on, in a hundred silly, vain protests, which Barbara
+never heard.
+
+She left the room at length with a sickening sense of defeat, though
+the girl had promised her on the honour of her soul never again to
+give the slightest cause for complaint.
+
+Many a day she had trudged through the streets of the great city,
+after hours of nerve-racking struggles with sin and shame and despair
+in the old world, but she had always come home at night with a heart
+singing a battle-hymn of victory. She knew the cause of all the pain,
+and she had given her life to right the wrong. Nothing daunted her,
+nothing disconcerted her. In the end triumph was sure, and while she
+felt this there could be no such thing as failure.
+
+She stood before the full meeting of the executive council, honestly
+reported the case, and for the first time tasted the bitterness of
+defeat, helpless, complete, and overwhelming. While she was talking a
+peculiar expression in Wolf's cold gray eyes suddenly caught her
+attention and fixed her gaze on him with a curious fascination and
+horror. Wolf was quick to note her look, recovered himself and smiled
+in his old fatherly, friendly way.
+
+"Don't worry, comrade. We've got to meet and settle such questions.
+They are merely the inheritance of civilization. It will take a little
+time, that's all."
+
+But as Barbara's gaze lingered on the heavy brutal lines of Wolf's
+massive figure and she caught again the gleam of his gray eyes a
+sickening sense of foreboding gripped her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE FIGHTING INSTINCT
+
+
+As questions of discipline became more and more pressing old Tom
+refused to sit as an active judge in the executive council.
+
+Norman protested in vain against his decision to retire for a while.
+
+"I can't do no good settin' thar listenin' to them fools," the miner
+declared. "They make me sick. Besides, ye all vote me down when I
+tells ye what to do, and things keep on goin' from bad to worse. Jest
+let me git out and move around among the boys a little. I think I can
+do some good. You folks is all too chicken-hearted to run this
+Brotherhood. Love and fellowship is all right, but ye've got ter mix a
+little law and common sense before ye can straighten the kinks out of
+this here community."
+
+Norman gave his consent reluctantly, and was amazed at the end of a
+week to observe a remarkable improvement in the spirit of the colony.
+Loafers disappeared, stealing all but ceased, drinking and fighting
+were on the decrease.
+
+One by one old Tom had taken the loafers with him on a long walk up
+the beach. He was usually gone about an hour and always came back
+laughing and chatting with his friend in the best of humour.
+Invariably the loafer went to work.
+
+In the same way he took a walk with each one of a crowd of wild,
+unmannerly boys, whose rudeness at the table and whose horse-play
+about the building had become unendurable. The effects of these walks
+seemed magical. Always the pair returned in a fine humour and the most
+marked revolution was immediately noted in the conduct of the
+offender.
+
+Norman asked the old man again and again for the secret of his power.
+
+He replied in the most casual way:
+
+"Just had a plain heart-to-heart talk with 'em and told 'em what had
+to be--that's all."
+
+The good work had continued for a week with uninterrupted success,
+when a bomb was suddenly exploded in the executive council by the
+appearance of an irate mother leading an insolent fourteen-year-old
+cub, who walked rather stiffly.
+
+Amid a silence that was painful, the mother stripped the boy to the
+waist, thrust him before Norman and Barbara, and said:
+
+"Now, tell them what you've just told me."
+
+The boy glanced cautiously around to see if his enemy were near and
+poured forth a tale the like of which had never been heard before.
+
+"Old Tom asked me to take a walk with him. He got me away off in a
+lonely place behind the big rocks on that little island up the beach
+and pulled up a plank drawbridge so I couldn't get back till he wanted
+to let me. He stripped me like this, tied me to a whipping-post and
+nearly beat the life out of me. He said he'd been appointed by the
+council to settle with me in private so nobody would know anything
+about it."
+
+"Said that he had been appointed by the council to whip you?" Norman
+asked, in amazement.
+
+"That's what he said, sir," the boy went on. "He gave me forty-nine
+lashes with a cowhide and then set down and talked to me a half hour."
+
+"And what did he say?" Norman inquired, forcing back a smile by a
+desperate effort.
+
+"He told me that he tried to get out of the work, but the council had
+forced it on him. Said there oughtn't to be no hard feelings, that it
+was a dirty, tiresome job, and he didn't have no pleasure in it, but
+it had to be done for the salvation of the people. He said it wasn't
+wise to talk about such things among the Brotherhood. I told him I'd
+tell my ma the minute I got home. He said that would be foolish, that
+none of the others had said a word, that they had all taken their
+medicine like little men."
+
+"He told you he had whipped all the others who had taken that walk
+with him?" Norman gasped.
+
+"That's what he said, sir," the boy insisted, "and I guess he had, for
+they'd pawed a hole in the sand 'round that whipping-post big enough
+to bury a horse in."
+
+The boy paused and his mother shook him angrily.
+
+"Tell what else he said to you!"
+
+The cub glanced hastily toward the door and whispered:
+
+"Said if I opened my mouth about what had happened he'd skin me
+alive."
+
+The council sent the mother and son away with the assurance of
+immediate action.
+
+The court adjourned and Norman started with Barbara at once to find
+Tom. Faithful to his new calling he had strolled up the beach with a
+man who once had been his partner as a prospector and miner. Joe
+Weatherby had been drinking heavily the week before and Tom had keenly
+felt the disgrace his old partner had brought on the Brotherhood by
+his rudeness in the dining-room.
+
+Joe had thrown a plate of soup in the face of a boy who was making
+facetious remarks about his capacity for strong drink. When rebuked by
+his neighbours he had accentuated his displeasure by overturning the
+table and smashing every dish on it. He ended the affair by roundly
+cursing the Brotherhood for its rules and regulations interfering with
+his personal liberty, threw his pack on his back, and struck the trail
+for the mountains to prospect for gold.
+
+He had just returned, after a week's absence, and Tom seized the
+opportunity to invite Joe to take a walk with him.
+
+Knowing the character of the two men, Norman felt quite sure this walk
+could not possibly have the usual happy ending that attended so many
+of these performances.
+
+He quickened his pace.
+
+"Hurry, or we may have a funeral for our next function," he cried,
+with a laugh.
+
+A quarter of a mile up the beach the sound of loud angry words
+suddenly struck their ears from behind a pile of huge boulders.
+
+"Quick, we're just in time!" Barbara cried, "they've begun to
+quarrel."
+
+They cautiously approached the boulders and climbed to the top of the
+larger one overlooking the scene Tom had evidently chosen for his
+debate with Joe.
+
+"Hadn't you better part them now?" Barbara asked with some anxiety.
+
+"No, I'll stop them in time. I want to get acquainted with Tom's
+methods of persuasion first."
+
+Tom's voice was rising in accents of wrath. "Joe, I'm a man o'
+peace--I'm a member o' the Brotherhood and you're my brother, but I'll
+tell ye right now we've got to have law and order in this
+community----"
+
+"And I say, Tom Mooney, there hain't no law exceptin' what's inside a
+man."
+
+"Yes, but how kin ye git any law inside a man ef he's always chuck
+full er licker?"
+
+"I don't drink to 'mount to nothin'," Joe protested. "Just a drop now
+an' then ter keep me in good health."
+
+"Wall, ef you try any more capers in that dinin'-room, your health's
+goin' ter break clean down--yer hear me?"
+
+Joe eyed Tom a moment and said with sharp emphasis:
+
+"I reckon I can take care o' myself, partner, without you settin' up
+nights to worry about me."
+
+"That's just the trouble, Joe, ye can't. You jined the Brotherhood,
+but yer faith's gettin' weak. I'm afeard you're onregenerate,
+conceived in sin an' brought forth in iniquity, an' ye ain't had no
+change er heart nohow."
+
+"Look here, what are ye drivin' at?" Joe asked, beginning to back away
+cautiously.
+
+"I just want ter strengthen yer faith, partner," Tom protested kindly
+as he advanced good-naturedly and laid his hand on Joe's arm.
+
+Joe shook it off and turned to go. With a sudden spring Tom was on
+him. A brief, fierce struggle ensued marked by low, savage growls like
+two bull-dogs clinched and searching for each other's throats.
+
+"Stop them! Stop them! They'll kill one another," pleaded Barbara.
+
+"No. It'll do them good. Wait," he replied, watching them
+breathlessly.
+
+"Here! Here, you old fool," growled Joe. "Do you call this the
+Brotherhood of Man?"
+
+"Yes, my son, and specially the Fatherhood er God. The Lord chastens
+them he loveth!"
+
+With a sudden twist the writhing figures fell in the sand, Tom on top
+pinning Joe down.
+
+Joe fought with fierce strength to rise but it was no use.
+
+Tom clutched his throat and choked him steadily into submission.
+
+"I'm er man o' peace, Joe," he repeated.
+
+"Yes, you are!" the bottom one growled.
+
+"But when I mingles with the unregenerate, my son, I trusts in God an'
+keeps my powder dry!"
+
+"Let me up, you old fool!" Joe growled.
+
+"Not yet, my son!" was the firm answer.
+
+"You'll get my dander up in a minute and some body's goin' ter git
+hurt," warned the prostrate figure.
+
+"Please make them quit," Barbara whispered tremblingly.
+
+"Nonsense. They're enjoying themselves," Norman softly laughed.
+
+"What are you tryin' ter do anyhow?" whined Joe.
+
+"I'm callin' a lost sinner to repentance," was the prompt answer.
+
+"Lemme up, I tell ye," Joe yelled, struggling with desperation.
+
+Tom choked him again into silence and seated himself comfortably
+across Joe's stomach.
+
+"Now, Joseph, my boy. I want you ter say over the catechism of the
+Brotherhood of Man. Hit'll freshen yer mind an' be good fer yer
+soul----"
+
+Another grim struggle interrupted the teacher.
+
+"Say it after me: I believe in the fatherhood er God----"
+
+Joe squirmed.
+
+"Say it!"
+
+Still no sound. Tom firmly gripped his throat and Joe gurgled:
+
+"Fatherhood er God!"
+
+"And brotherhood o' man!"
+
+"Brotherhood er man!"
+
+"Yer believe it now?" Tom fiercely asked.
+
+Joe feebly assented.
+
+Tom gripped his throat.
+
+"Say it strong!"
+
+"Yes--I believe it!" Joe confessed.
+
+Again the under man struggled desperately and the man on top fiercely
+choked him into a quieter frame of mind.
+
+"Now again: No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom er God!"
+
+Joe repeated, "No drunkard--shall--what?"
+
+"Inherit--the--kingdom--er God--by golly you've forgot yer Bible too!"
+
+"Inherit--the--kingdom er--God!"
+
+"Who shall not inherit the kingdom of God?"
+
+"No drunkard!" Joe answered.
+
+"Let that soak into yer lost soul!" Tom growled, pausing a moment.
+
+"Now once more! Bear--ye--one--another's burdens!"
+
+Joe hesitated and the man on top bumped the words out of him one at a
+time:
+
+"Bear--ye--one--another's--burdens!"
+
+"An' ye're goin' ter help me bear mine?" the teacher asked.
+
+"Ain't I a-doin' it now?" grumbled the man below.
+
+"Well, once more then: Private property is theft!"
+
+"That's a lie an' you know it," Joe sneered.
+
+"The big chief says so and it goes--say it!"
+
+"Private property is theft," Joe repeated.
+
+"Well, then, once more: Love--one--another!"
+
+"Love one another," came the feeble echo.
+
+"Do ye love me?" Tom fiercely inquired.
+
+Joe struggled.
+
+"Say it!" commanded the teacher.
+
+"I love ye," he groaned.
+
+Norman suddenly appeared on the scene followed by Barbara and the two
+miners leaped to their feet.
+
+"Tom, old boy," the young leader cried, "you mean well, but we are
+told by the preacher that the kingdom of God cometh not of
+observation--it must be from within."
+
+"Just goin' over his Sunday-school lesson with him, Chief."
+
+Joe made a hostile movement, and Norman stepped between them.
+
+"Come! You two big kids--enough of this now, shake hands and make
+up!"
+
+The men both hung back stubbornly.
+
+Norman turned to Tom.
+
+"Were you not partners and friends before you joined the Brotherhood?"
+
+"Yes," the old miner replied grudgingly. "We bin tergether twelve
+years an' we worked an' played tergether, starved an' froze tergether,
+lived tergether, an' slept under the same blanket--he's the only
+partner I ever had--an' he's my best friend"--Tom paused and
+choked--"but I don't like 'im!"
+
+"Shake hands and make up!" Barbara laughed.
+
+They hung back a moment longer until Barbara's smile became
+resistless.
+
+Joe extended his hand, exclaiming:
+
+"Shake, you old coyote!"
+
+Norman gave Joe a serious talk--got a pledge from him to quit drink
+and stand by him in his efforts to bring order out of the confusion
+and chaos in which the colony was floundering.
+
+"You think I can do anything to help you?" Joe asked incredulously.
+
+"Of course you can. You and Tom are two men I've known all my life. I
+know where to find you if I get into trouble."
+
+"Is there goin' ter be any trouble?" Tom broke in, eagerly.
+
+"Not yet, but it's coming. When it does we'll fight it out and win.
+I've set my life on the issue of this experiment."
+
+Joe extended him his hand. "I'm sorry I got drunk. I won't do it
+again--we'll stand by ye!"
+
+"Through thick an' thin," Tom added.
+
+"And hereafter, Tom," Norman said with a smile, "I'd like to be
+consulted before you hold any more sessions of your court up the
+beach."
+
+Tom started.
+
+"You've heard about it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By gum, I knowed I oughter licked that kid again!" the old miner
+observed, regretfully.
+
+Norman, said gravely: "Tom, we are getting into deep water. I've begun
+to have some doubts about our safety. A leader must lead. And I'm
+going to do it. Can I depend on you to execute my orders and mine
+alone?"
+
+"Every day in the year," was the firm reply.
+
+"The same here," Joe echoed.
+
+Barbara had drawn apart from the group of men and stood watching them
+with keen, suspicious interest as the two miners started homeward with
+restored good humour.
+
+"What did you mean by saying that you were afraid of coming trouble?"
+Barbara eagerly asked of Norman. "What have you heard? What do you
+suspect?"
+
+"Nothing," he answered, thoughtfully. "But I've had the blues for a
+week. It's been growing on me that we are not getting on except into
+situations more and more impossible. There's a screw loose somewhere
+in our system. There's going to be a wreck unless we find and repair
+it."
+
+"I have felt this, too, and I think I know the cause."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Liberty which has degenerated into licence. We lack authority and the
+power to enforce it."
+
+"And this is the one thing we cursed in the old system--the law,
+power, authority."
+
+"No," Barbara quickly objected. "We did not rebel against law or the
+exercise of authority. We rebelled against its unjust use."
+
+"And what depresses me is that I am convinced that we must use the
+power of law with more stern, direct, and personal pressure than ever
+known under the system of capitalism, or we must fail."
+
+"Is not such pressure desirable?"
+
+"It depends on who applies the pressure--but it seems inevitable--and
+it depresses me."
+
+Barbara broke into a joyous laugh.
+
+"Away with gloomy forebodings! It's only a day's fog. It will lift.
+The sun is shining behind it now."
+
+Her laughter was contagious. Norman smiled in quick sympathy, and a
+response of hope and courage was just forming itself on his lips when
+he looked toward the house and saw an excited crowd packed in the
+doorway.
+
+"What on earth is the matter?" Barbara gasped.
+
+"Some accident has happened," he replied, quickly. "Come, we must
+hurry!"
+
+Catherine's lithe figure darted down the steps and met them on the
+lawn.
+
+"What is it?" Norman cried.
+
+"A murder!"
+
+"A murder?" Barbara repeated, incredulously.
+
+"Yes--wilful, deliberate, cruel, horrible!" Catherine went on
+excitedly.
+
+"Not old Tom and Joe?" Norman broke in.
+
+"No--Blanche----"
+
+"Oh, God, I knew it," Barbara gasped. "Go on."
+
+"Blanche kept on playing fast and loose with the two boys who fought
+over her the other night. George Mann found his rival in her room just
+now, waylaid him in the hall, and when he came out sprang on him like
+a fiend, stabbed him through the heart and cut his throat. The
+brothers of the dead boy swear they will kill the murderer on sight,
+and they've locked him in your room, Norman, for safety. The men are
+excited to frenzy. Nobody likes the boy who did the crime. The
+rougher ones swear they are going to hang him. They tried to break in
+your door twice, but Herman knocked the ringleaders down and with Tom
+and Joe beat the crowd back. Something must be done at once to prevent
+another outbreak."
+
+Norman hurried to the scene and joined Wolf in his defence of the
+prisoner. Tom formed a guard of ten men heavily armed and marched the
+prisoner to the top of the house, placed him in the small room in one
+of the central towers, and stationed one man inside and five on the
+stairway leading into the tower.
+
+The executive council met immediately and voted unanimously to erect a
+prison, establish a penal colony on the small island at the north of
+Ventura, and restore the whipping-post for minor offenders.
+
+The announcement of this momentous act was made to the general
+assembly without request for debate or an expression of opinion. It
+was received in silence.
+
+The Bard could not protest. He was still confined to his room from the
+effects of a recent argument with his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE CORDS TIGHTEN
+
+
+On Wolf's urgent advice Norman determined to use the autocratic power
+invested in him by the deed of gift to establish a complete code of
+law and enforce it without fear or favour. As the cords tightened,
+scores who became dissatisfied with their lot offered their
+resignations and asked to return to their old homes.
+
+In answer to their clamour Norman posted this notice on the bulletin
+board:
+
+    "Every member of the army of the Brotherhood of Man enlisted for
+    five years' service. Resignations will not be considered and
+    deserters will be tried by court-martial. I am going to use my
+    power for the best interests of the Brotherhood. I ask the
+    cooperation of all the loyal members of the colony. Of traitors
+    I ask no quarter, and I expect to give none.
+
+                                              "NORMAN WORTH,
+                                 "_Trustee and General Manager_."
+
+The effects of the proclamation were instantaneous. The helplessness
+of any attempt to resist authority firmly established under such
+daring leadership was at once apparent to the most stupid mind.
+
+Loafing, drinking, stealing, carousing, and disorder of all kind were
+reduced at once to a minimum.
+
+One act, however, of the executive council under Norman's direction
+precipitated a storm in an unexpected quarter.
+
+The council removed Blanche and a group of wayward girls with whom she
+associated to a cottage outside the lawn.
+
+The women of the Brotherhood were practically unanimous in their
+demands that the whole group be immediately expelled from the colony.
+A committee of three aggressive women presented their demand to Norman
+in no uncertain language.
+
+His reply was equally emphatic:
+
+"Comrades," he said, firmly, "I shall do nothing of the kind. We are
+going to work out this experiment in human society without compromise.
+We have successfully cut communication with the outside world. The
+crew of our ship are no longer allowed to land and only picked men
+unload her cargo. We are not going to play the baby act and dump these
+girls back on the old civilization which we have denounced. They may
+be wayward but they are our sisters."
+
+"They are not mine," shouted one of the committee. "The brazen
+creatures! And we do not propose to have our sons and daughters
+corrupted by association with them."
+
+"Then we must find some other solution than that of transportation,"
+Norman insisted.
+
+"Send them to the penal colony, then," demanded the committee.
+
+"And back in a circle we immediately travel to the crimes of
+civilization from which we fled. I prefer to send the boys who
+associate with them. They are the real offenders."
+
+"I deny that assertion," firmly declared the leader of the committee.
+"My boy is one of the unfortunate victims of these brazen wretches.
+Before we came to this island he never gave me a word of impudence.
+From the night he met Blanche at our first ball he was beyond my
+advice or control. These girls are the enemies of society and this
+colony cannot exist if they remain within its life."
+
+"I refuse to believe it," Norman cried, with scorn. "It is your duty
+to reform these girls and restore them to mental and physical sanity,
+and as the leader of this colony I direct you to take up this divine
+work."
+
+"And I, for one," spoke, for the first time, the silent gray-haired
+member of the committee, "refuse to smirch my hands with the task."
+
+Norman, looked into the calm face of this white-haired, motherly
+looking woman with amazement.
+
+"I can't understand you, comrade mother!" he exclaimed, with
+bitterness.
+
+"That's because you're young, handsome, inexperienced, and, above all,
+because you are a man," was the quick reply. "I have spent a busy life
+since my own children grew out of the home nest in New York City in
+trying to help other people's children less fortunate than my own.
+I've helped scores of boys and never had one to disappoint me yet.
+I've tried to help scores of girls of the type we are discussing. I've
+always regretted it. I found them shallow, false, lazy, stupid,
+worthless. I have never looked at one of them except to blush that I
+am a woman. I speak from the saddest and most hopeless experiences of
+my life."
+
+Norman cut the argument short with a gesture of angry impatience.
+"This discussion is a waste of breath. As long as I am in command of
+this colony no such insane act of injustice shall be committed against
+these girls."
+
+"Then it's time you gave place to a man of greater wisdom and less
+sentimental mush in his brain," replied the calm, gray-haired woman.
+
+"Thank you," the young leader replied, with chilling politeness, "you
+may be right--but in the meantime I accept the responsibility. Good
+day."
+
+He had made three enemies whose power he was soon to feel. As they
+passed through the doorway Catherine greeted them politely and soothed
+their ruffled spirits with gentle words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+SOME INTERROGATION POINTS
+
+
+The establishment of a police and detective service completed the
+efficient organization of the colony. Its life now began to move with
+clock-like regularity.
+
+But these changes were not made without provoking fierce debates and
+bitter prophecies in the general assembly over which Norman presided
+every Friday night.
+
+He began to listen to these endless wrangles, however, with a sense of
+growing anger. It became clearer each week that they were the source
+of cliques and factions, of plots and counter-plots, within the
+colony. His patience reached the limit on the night he announced the
+completion of the jail.
+
+"This is a sad present I am forced to make you to-night, comrades," he
+said, with a note of weariness in his voice. "But I have no choice in
+the matter. It was forced on the executive council. Crimes were
+committed which threatened the existence of our society. We had to
+meet the issue squarely. We could have begged the question by calling
+in the authorities of the State of California, acknowledged our
+defeat, and surrendered. We are not ready to surrender. We haven't
+begun to fight yet."
+
+He had scarcely taken his seat when Diggs, the human
+interrogation-point, slowly unwound his lank figure, adjusted his
+eye-glasses, and gazed smilingly at the chairman.
+
+Norman squirmed with rage as the glint of light from Diggs's big
+lenses began to irritate his spirit.
+
+Barbara slipped her little hand under the table and found his. He
+clasped it gratefully and refused to let go. She allowed him to hold
+it a minute and drew it away laughing.
+
+"Comrades," the man of questions slowly began, "we are making rapid
+progress. Our new building will soon be finished and another colony of
+two thousand enthusiastic souls will be added to our commonwealth. If
+we are going to successfully carry on this work we must begin to
+develop with infinite patience the details of this larger life.
+
+"I submit to you some questions that are profoundly interesting to me.
+
+"How are we to prevent speculation, wages being unequal? How is one
+community to exchange products with another? How determine which line
+of goods each community shall make?
+
+"What is to be done with a strong minority who are bitterly opposed to
+the action of the majority when we assume our permanent democratic
+form?
+
+"How are the thousand and one matters pertaining to private life and
+habits to be settled without continually augmenting the power of
+government? The authority of the most absolute despot who ever lived
+never dared to sit on questions we must decide. Can we do it?
+
+"If we are ever to attain a condition of equality must we not forbid
+gifts and exchanges? For, if men are not to be allowed to grow rich by
+trading, must not the State forbid private exchanges of every nature?
+
+"On the other hand, if the State alone can make exchanges, how can we
+prevent a shrewd man from getting rich by dealing with the State
+itself?
+
+"If the State will not make exchanges, what is one to do who has taken
+a piece of property and finds later he has no use for it? For example:
+if Miss Blanche grows tired of looking at her piano, which she cannot
+play, and desires to exchange it for a carriage and pair of horses,
+must she continue to walk because she cannot effect the exchange?
+
+    [Illustration: BARBARA.]
+
+"If we solve these troubles by declaring all property in common, who
+shall decide the privilege of use which the various tastes of
+individuals may demand?
+
+"If each member be allowed a fixed number of units of value for each
+day of the year, must he spend them at once, or will the State keep an
+account for each individual? If he doesn't spend all his allowance by
+the end of the year can he save it and thus accumulate a private
+fortune?
+
+"Or will the State force him to spend all, thus encouraging reckless
+habits?
+
+"Suppose that a spendthrift squanders his allowance at once and later
+breaks his leg, has it amputated, and needs a hundred dollars to buy a
+wooden leg, how will he get it? Will the State make good his
+recklessness, force him to buy his own leg, or make him hop through
+the year on one leg?"
+
+"I move we adjourn!" Joe yelled, from the rear.
+
+"Second the motion!" Tom echoed, from the front.
+
+The Bard, who had recovered sufficiently to attend on crutches, rose
+painfully, adjusted the bandage on his eye, and once more raised his
+voice in protest.
+
+"I demand freedom of speech on behalf of my friend whom those rowdies
+are insulting!" he thundered.
+
+With reluctance the chairman rapped for order, and Diggs wiped his
+glasses and smilingly proceeded:
+
+"We have established a general nursery for the children. As they grow
+up, who shall decide at what age each child shall begin to work? Some
+children are slow, some quick in growth. Will the new State of Ventura
+take direct charge of all children?
+
+"Or, supposing that separate families are allowed to live apart and
+parents to govern their own children, how is each child to be
+protected so that it gets its exact due? How is it to be known whether
+the parents misappropriate the fund of a child, or favour one more
+than another?
+
+"As our numbers increase we cannot avoid the religious question."
+
+"Amen, O Lord!" shouted Methodist John.
+
+"A number of good people are clamouring for the use of this hall for
+religious services every night. We may deny their demands now. But we
+cannot as they increase. How are we to meet them? Shall we tax the
+unbeliever to support a church? Or shall we tax the believer to pay
+for lighting this hall for a weekly ball?
+
+"If religion is allowed, who shall determine how many preachers each
+denomination can have? How many sisters shall be allowed the Catholics
+and how many monks, and how shall they be distributed? To whom shall
+they answer, the State, or their superior church dignitary?
+
+"Shall Protestants be allowed a sum equal to the amount used in
+support of religious orders? If so, who shall determine how it shall
+be expended?
+
+"If churches are built, who shall determine their cost and their style
+of architecture if the State erects them?
+
+"When our theatre is opened, shall admission be free? If not, what
+shall be done when the receipts fall below expenses?
+
+"What compensation can we give to those who hate theatres? If a small
+majority want a dance-hall and musical extravaganza, and a minority
+want only the serious drama, which shall it be? Suppose a majority
+demand a race-course? Shall the resources of the colony be used thus
+against the bitter protest of those who do not believe in racing?
+Suppose, just before the race-course is finished, the majority become
+a minority and the work is stopped--has the new majority the right to
+destroy the property and accumulate a new fund for a different
+purpose?
+
+"Must a doctor always come when he's called--even for imaginary,
+hysterical, and foolish causes? Will the people vote for and elect
+their own doctor, or will he be assigned? If the doctor proves a
+failure, how will they get rid of him? If they get rid of him, how
+can he be saddled on another community? Shall one community suffer at
+the hands of an incompetent man, while a physician of genius ministers
+to the one next door? If a great surgeon is needed by ten persons at
+the same hour, who shall decide which operation he shall perform, and
+who shall live or die in consequence?
+
+"Who shall say when a doctor is not fit to practise?
+
+"We have just established a weekly paper. Within a year the population
+will need a daily. Who shall say when an editor is competent?
+
+"Some men fail in early life and make their great success later. At
+what period, or after how long a trial, shall it be decided that a man
+is a failure and must quit his chosen or assigned work?
+
+"Many young men promise well at first and make later miserable
+failures. Many are failures at first and make great successes. Who
+shall decide which to continue and which to stop? If a youth is forced
+to abandon a work on which he has set his heart, how can he be made of
+service to the community in a work he loathes?
+
+"We must continue to make inventions, or progress ceases. When the
+cost of experiments is greater than the total income of a citizen, how
+can the inventor bear the expense? Will any man sacrifice his own
+funds and his own time on an uncertain experiment when he can receive
+no benefit from the work?
+
+"Many men are working now over problems all other men believe cannot
+be solved. If the State must furnish the capital to make the
+experiments of inventors, who will be responsible for the enormous
+waste of treasure on senseless and useless and impossible inventions?
+
+"Who can decide whether ideas proposed are useless or impossible? All
+great inventions which have revolutionized the history of ages have
+been laughed at by the world.
+
+"How can we punish the jobbery and waste and corruption which may
+enter from experiments which are not made in good faith? Cannot any
+group of shrewd men pretend to have invented a machine which will save
+over half the labour of the colony, and spend millions on this
+imaginary invention which proves useless? If such an abuse of power
+should be made, would not the effect be to end forever all experiments
+and stop the progress of the world?
+
+"When many cities have been built and one is more healthful,
+beautiful, and cultured than the others, shall those who live in the
+poorer cities be allowed to move or be forced to remain where they
+are? How are sculptors, artists, musicians, or architects to be
+apportioned among different communities? Suppose they all demand the
+right to live in one place?
+
+"Will the State publish all books by all authors, or will selections
+be made? If all books are published will not vast sums be wasted in
+printing worthless trash? If selections are made, what unprejudiced,
+infallible board can be found competent to decide?
+
+"If a man chooses to be a writer, how many years shall he be allowed
+to work at his occupation if in the opinion of the judges he shows no
+talent?
+
+"Will the State permit freedom of opinion in the columns of its papers
+and the books printed? If so, what shall hinder a treasonable
+conspiracy from destroying respect for its authority? If opinions are
+to be edited by the State, how can the freedom of the press be
+maintained?
+
+"What shall be done with the Negro, the Chinaman, and the Indian when
+their numbers largely increase? Will these inferior races be placed on
+an absolute equality with the Aryan and will they be allowed to freely
+intermarry? If so, can the new mongrel race maintain itself against
+the progress and power of the great high-bred races of men?
+
+"Are women to receive the same allowance as men, and married women the
+same as spinsters?
+
+"Shall men and women be required to marry or be allowed to remain
+single? Shall all women be made to work? If it continues to cost more
+to support a single woman than a married one, how can equality of
+rights be maintained?
+
+"As food is the basis of all supply, many must be farmers. How shall
+this great industry be conducted ultimately? Can we allow individuals
+to work small farms? If so, who determines the kind of crop each farm
+shall raise? How much land will a man be required to work?
+
+"An Italian from the north of Italy can raise more on one acre than an
+Irishman can on ten--whose method shall be used, and whose capacity be
+taken for the standard?
+
+"How many hours shall constitute a day on the farm? Shall a farmhand
+get only a dollar a day and a bricklayer two? If so, where is the
+justice and equality of such an arrangement?
+
+"Can a farmer be allowed vacations? If so, must he ask permission
+where to go? If not, suppose he goes at seedtime or harvest, gets
+drunk, stays two weeks or two months, and destroys a year's crop? Who
+shall pay for this enormous damage, and how shall the penalty be
+enforced?
+
+"Suppose a poor manager spoils the crop on an immense tract of land,
+how can any adequate penalty be enforced?
+
+"Shall one general manager decide what kind of crops to raise on each
+piece of land or each manager decide for himself? Suppose they all
+raise hay----"
+
+"Then you'll have plenty to eat the balance of your life--you and all
+the other jackasses in the colony!" old Tom growled.
+
+A laugh rippled the crowd and the speaker paused in angry confusion.
+For the first time he lost his temper and stood glaring at his
+tormentors in silent rage.
+
+Norman whispered to Barbara:
+
+"Wolf has urged me for some time to suppress this meeting. Shall I do
+it?"
+
+"Yes. It's a nuisance. I agree with him. Do it."
+
+Norman rose just as Diggs sat down choking with anger.
+
+"Comrades," the young leader said, in commanding tones. "I think this
+assembly has completed its work of discussion. The questions
+propounded here to-night are important. We will meet and solve them in
+due time, as we come to them. What this community needs now is the
+spirit of cooperation, of loyalty, and industry. We have been assigned
+our tasks for the year. Now every man to his work! We have had enough
+of wrangling and questioning. Let's live and breathe awhile. The
+executive council has decided to close the weekly sessions of the
+assembly until the annual election of officers next spring. Hereafter
+a musicale and dance will be held both Monday and Friday evenings."
+
+The young folks broke into hearty applause led by old Tom and his
+partner Joe.
+
+The Bard sprang to his feet, his one good eye blazing with inspired
+wrath.
+
+"And I denounce this act of tyranny as the climax of a series of
+infamies! You have now forged the chains of slavery on every limb.
+Free speech has been suppressed--in God's name, what next?"
+
+But the crowd only laughed. The Bard had protested so often his words
+ceased to have weight. The halo of romance that once wreathed his
+classic brow had faded with the painful disillusioning which followed
+a thrashing his wife had given him. He was a prophet without honour
+and his warnings fell on deaf ears.
+
+Wolf and Catherine stood at the door with a word of cheer, a friendly
+nod, or a silent pressure of the hand for every one who emerged from
+the hall. These two alone at every turn grew in prestige among all
+jarring factions of the struggling colony.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MASTER HAND
+
+
+The whole machinery of the colony responded instantly to the grip of
+the master's hand. It was the one thing needed to insure successful
+progress.
+
+When the Brotherhood realized that the young poet-athlete was not
+merely a love-sick dreamer and theorist, but a man of quick decisions,
+of firm and inflexible will, and the power to execute his will, they
+fell in line, caught the step, and order emerged from chaos.
+
+When a crisis called for decision he made it with lightning rapidity
+and stuck to it. The situation demanded a dictatorship for the moment,
+and he did not hesitate to assume it. He saw before him sure success.
+If fools and cranks interfered with his plans he would crush and push
+them aside. The consciousness of power and its daily exercise
+developed his faculties to their highest tension. His mind began to
+arrange every detail of the vast and complicated system of the new
+social scheme. Men became the mere tools with which he would work out
+the revolution in human society. Every scrap of knowledge he had ever
+gained flashed through his excited imagination and fell into its place
+in the creation of the new order.
+
+He put the machine-shops to work constructing the big gold dredge on
+which he had experimented one summer.
+
+He had a pet scheme of farming which had come into his mind from
+watching his father's gardener the year before raise the most
+delicious cantaloups he had ever tasted. He discovered the secret of
+their marvellous sweetness and leaped to an instantaneous conclusion.
+He had the opportunity to test this inspiration now on a scale as vast
+as his dreams.
+
+He called the superintendents and overseers of the farm together, and
+asked their plans for the crop on the five hundred acres of fertile
+lands under cultivation. They gave him their schedule for a variety of
+crops.
+
+"Won't this soil grow cantaloups?" he asked.
+
+They all reported that it would.
+
+"Then I suggest that the entire acreage be planted in these vines."
+
+To a man they declared the plan absurd.
+
+"But suppose," he persisted, "that we raise and send to the East the
+most delicious melon they have ever tasted, and suppose we get three
+dollars a crate, we will make three hundred dollars an acre and our
+first crop will be worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
+
+They laughed at him.
+
+"Do you know," smilingly inquired the superintendent, "how much it
+will cost to plant and harvest such a crop?"
+
+"I should say twenty-five dollars an acre," he replied.
+
+"Double it," he cried.
+
+"Very well, fifty dollars an acre," Norman agreed. "In round numbers
+it will cost us twenty-five thousand dollars. That leaves a profit of
+more than a hundred thousand, doesn't it?"
+
+Again the superintendent laughed.
+
+"And would you risk this enormous sum on one experiment? Suppose your
+melons would not be sweet?"
+
+"There is no such possibility," the young enthusiast declared. "Their
+sweetness depends solely on two things--the quality of the seed and
+the quantity of rain which falls on them while they are growing. We
+are wasting a supreme opportunity. No rain falls in Ventura during the
+summer. We get our water to the roots by irrigation, not by rainfall.
+Get the right seed and your melons must be perfect. This is a
+scientific fact I have seen demonstrated. Try it on a vast scale and
+success is sure."
+
+They voted unanimously against the proposition. Norman insisted. The
+superintendent resigned and appealed to the executive council. Wolf
+and Catherine, Tom and Barbara advised against placing so much capital
+in a single enterprise.
+
+"I've got to make you rich and successful in spite of yourselves,"
+Norman finally declared. "For the present I control these funds and
+I'm going to plant this crop. So that settles it. I'm sorry we can't
+agree."
+
+His instantaneous decision fairly took Wolf's breath.
+
+Barbara laughed and congratulated him.
+
+"At least you have the courage of your convictions. I can't help
+admiring it."
+
+As further opposition was useless, the order was put into execution.
+The superintendent finally caught the young man's spirit, withdrew his
+resignation, and undertook the work with enthusiasm.
+
+At the end of the summer the success of the colony was astounding. The
+wildest prediction of the young leader fell below the facts. The crop
+of cantaloups averaged one hundred and five crates to the acre, and
+brought three dollars and a half a crate. The net profit on the
+melons reached the enormous total of one hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars.
+
+The men who raised the crop and added this wealth to the treasury of
+the colony were not slow in demanding an immediate readjustment of the
+scale of wages.
+
+Two hundred and fifty men had done all the work of planting,
+cultivating, harvesting this crop and added ten times as much to the
+year's income as the combined labour of all the other members of the
+colony.
+
+Brick-masons were receiving two dollars a day and farm-hands one
+dollar. The miners who were digging for gold in the mountain ranges
+and on the beaches were receiving five dollars a day and had added as
+yet not a single dollar to the wealth of the community. They had
+discovered gold in three new districts and thousands of dollars had
+been wasted in vain efforts to make it pay. The farmers protested
+bitterly against such waste, and demanded the equalization of wages.
+
+Their spokesman astonished Norman by the vehemence and audacity of
+their demands:
+
+"If Socialism means justice," he shouted, "now is the time to prove
+it! Labour creates all value. We have created one hundred and fifty
+thousand dollars' worth of wealth for the colony and we have received
+a mere pittance. If we created this wealth----"
+
+"Wait a minute, comrades," Norman interrupted, with irritation. "Why
+should you continue to repeat that foolish assertion? You didn't
+create this wealth."
+
+"Then I'd like to know who did?" shouted the orator. "We turned the
+soil, placed the fertilizers, planted every seed, cultivated every
+vine, pulled every melon, packed and placed them on the steamer. If we
+didn't make the wealth, who did?"
+
+"I did," the young leader declared. "I conceived the possibility of
+this crop. I tried to persuade your superintendent and overseers. They
+had no faith. I forced them to plant these particular seeds against
+their own wishes. Your labour is a fixed thing year in and year out.
+All men must work or die. All life is a struggle thus with tooth and
+nail for a living. The creator of wealth is the superior intelligence
+that conceives something better than this clodhopper's daily task. You
+did what you were told to do. Your hands would have worked just as
+many hours at labour just as tiresome over a crop of beans that
+wouldn't have paid a profit at all this year. Wealth belongs to its
+creator. I made the crop, your hands were the mere automata which my
+brain directed. Your demands are absurd. I refuse to consider them or
+to permit their discussion."
+
+The farmers refused point-blank to submit to this decision, and voted
+unanimously to quit work until they were given justice. Every plough
+stopped and the entire machinery of food production came to a dead
+standstill.
+
+Norman threatened to refuse them admission to the dining-hall unless
+they returned to work, and they boldly replied that they would smash
+the door down and take what was their own.
+
+Had the farmers been alone in their demands for an equalization of
+wages, the situation would have been easier to handle. But discontent
+over the question of wages had been growing steadily since the day of
+the decision that wages should be unequal.
+
+The distinctions of wealth and poverty were rapidly making their
+appearance as in the old world. The cook had married a scrubwoman and
+the scrubwoman's daughter had married the drainman who had charge of
+the sewers. The combine income of the two highest-salaried workers in
+the colony had at once formed the nucleus of a new aristocracy of
+wealth.
+
+The strike of the entire farming division of the colony was the match
+thrown in the powder magazine. Discontent flamed in every department
+of labour.
+
+The demand for absolute equality of wages became resistless. It was
+the only thing which could once more bring order out of chaos.
+
+Norman called a meeting of the general assembly and submitted the
+question for their discussion and decision. The debate was long,
+fierce, and bitter. In vain did the young leader plead with those who
+were receiving the highest rates that the profits of the colony would
+be greater and that each would share alike in the total wealth of the
+community. They denounced the proposed act as the climax of infamy.
+
+The chef was furious.
+
+"You give me the wages of a clodhopper and ask me to prepare a table
+fit for a king. Well, try it, and see what you get."
+
+He sat down repeating his threat in a series of endless announcements
+to the people around him.
+
+"I think he'll poison us all if you pass this law," Barbara whispered.
+
+"The farmers will run us through with their pitchforks if we don't,"
+he laughed.
+
+"Poisoning is the easier way," she sighed.
+
+The leader of the brass band raised the biggest row of all. From the
+first these men had refused to lift their hand to do a thing except
+to play at stated hours each day and furnish the music for the three
+evenings of social amusement.
+
+"You place me on an equality with the lout who holds a calf or the
+clodhopper who holds a plough--I, who feed the soul with ravishing
+melody--I, who lift man from earth to heaven on the wings of angels!"
+The band leader swelled with righteous wrath and sat down beside the
+cook who was still muttering incoherently:
+
+"Let 'em try it--and see what they get!"
+
+Yet, in spite of the fierce threats of the cook, the scrubwoman, the
+drainman, the musician, and all the high-salaried favourites of
+labour, the inevitable occurred. When put to a vote equal wages were
+established by an overwhelming majority.
+
+Each member of the colony, man, woman, and child, was voted free food,
+clothes, and shelter, and a credit of five hundred dollars a year at
+the Brotherhood store.
+
+The executive council was abolished and in its place a board of
+governors established, composed of the heads of each department of
+labour and presided over by two regents, a man and a woman, elected by
+the general assembly. Norman and Barbara were elected regents without
+opposition, and the old heads of each department of labour placed on
+the board of governors to serve until the approaching annual election.
+
+The assembly proposed:
+
+"Article I. of the constitution of the new State of Ventura as
+follows:
+
+"Every citizen of the State must labour according to his ability.
+Those who can work and will not shall be made to work."
+
+No man who voted this simple and obviously just law could dream of the
+tremendous results. It was merely the enactment into statutory law of
+the first principle of an effective Socialism:
+
+"From every man according to his ability, unto every man according to
+his needs."
+
+The first obvious requirement of such a law was an immediate increase
+of the police and detective force at the command of the regents and
+the board of governors.
+
+Norman thanked the assembly for the promptness and thoroughness which
+had characterized their work, and closed his congratulations with a
+sentence of peculiarly sinister meaning to the man who had ears to
+hear.
+
+"Hereafter, comrades, we can move forward without another pause. There
+can never be another strike on the island of Ventura. The State is now
+supreme."
+
+The Wolfs, who had modestly declined all office, were omnipresent
+during the long sessions of the assembly, which had lasted two days.
+Everywhere they had counselled compromise, forbearance, good
+fellowship, moving quietly from group to group in the big hall, and
+always winning new friends.
+
+Wolf's gnarled hand gripped Norman's at the close of the meeting as he
+bent his massive head and whispered:
+
+"A great day's work, Comrade Chief--one that will make history."
+
+The young leader's face clouded as he slowly replied:
+
+"I wish I were sure that it will be history of the right kind."
+
+"You doubt it?" the old leader asked incredulously.
+
+"It all depends on our leadership."
+
+"With your hand on the helm"--Wolf paused and smiled curiously--"the
+ship of State is safe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
+
+
+Again the colony entered on a period of active and efficient industry.
+Every man was at his post and did the work assigned him.
+
+Eight hours was fixed as a working day in all departments. The first
+acts of insubordination were promptly suppressed. The discipline of an
+army was strictly enforced--the guard-house and whipping-post were
+found sufficient.
+
+No report except the most favourable had ever reached the outside
+world, and thousands of applicants in San Francisco were clamouring
+for admission. The new colony house with accommodation for two
+thousand had been completed, and another of like size was under way.
+
+Wolf had urged Norman to admit a new colony at once and prepare for
+the third. But the difficulties of government and the fights within
+the Brotherhood had alarmed the young leader. He hesitated, and the
+big new building as yet remained empty.
+
+As the day for the annual meeting of the assembly drew near, doubts of
+the future grew darker in the young regent's mind. He had the power,
+under the deed of gift, to prolong the experiment another year,
+holding the title to the property for further experiment, or divide
+the profits between the members and reconvey the gift back to its
+donors, or by deed convey at once the whole property to the
+Brotherhood and end his trusteeship.
+
+Which should it be?
+
+His faith in his fellow man had been shaken by the events of the past
+year, and yet the colony had succeeded. Its wealth was great and its
+prospects greater. With the perfect discipline recently inaugurated
+and wisely administered, no limit could be fixed to the productive
+power of such an organization.
+
+That he should hesitate a moment after the achievements of the year
+was a stunning shock to Wolf. The moment he realized the import of the
+crisis, he at once appealed to Barbara.
+
+"You alone can save us, child," he urged. "You must act at once. You
+promised to lead him captive in your train. You have failed for one
+reason only----"
+
+"Yes, I know," Barbara interrupted. "I haven't tried. I confess it."
+
+"There is not a moment to lose," Wolf urged. "We are entering on the
+most wonderful development in the history of the human race. The only
+thing lacking for its triumphant achievement is faith and leadership.
+Secure from our young dreamer the title to this island and you will
+achieve an immortal deed--you will not hesitate or fail?"
+
+"No," was the firm answer. "I will not fail. I'm going with him to-day
+on a mountain climb. Just for fun, if for nothing else, I'll test my
+power."
+
+"You'll report to me the moment you return?" Wolf urged.
+
+"Yes," she answered, dreamily.
+
+Norman found Barbara in a mood resistlessly charming. She seemed to
+have utterly forgotten that she was grown up or had ever been the
+herald of a revolutionary cause. She was a laughing girl of eighteen
+again, with the joy of youth sparkling in her eyes and laughter
+ringing in every accent of her voice.
+
+Instantly the mood of the man reflected hers. He threw to the winds
+the cares and worries of the great adventure that had brought them
+together, and the island of Ventura became the enchanted isle of song
+and story.
+
+"We shall be just two children to-day--shall we not?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he responded gaily, "two children who have run away from
+school, tired of books, with hearts hungry for the breath of the
+fields."
+
+For half an hour hill and dale rang with laughter as they ascended the
+path of the brook. They came to a wide expanse of still water. And
+Norman said with a bantering laugh:
+
+"We leave the stream here and climb the hill to the left. I must wade
+and carry you across this place if you're not afraid?"
+
+"Who's afraid?" she asked with scorn.
+
+"All right."
+
+He removed his shoes, and rolled his trousers high.
+
+"Now your arm around my neck, and no jumping or screaming until we're
+safe on the other shore."
+
+She hesitated just an instant, blushed, and slipped her soft round arm
+about his neck as he lifted her slight figure and began to pick his
+way across the treacherous surface of the slippery bottom. His foot
+slipped on a muddy stone. She gave a scream, and both arms gripped his
+neck in sudden fear. Her burning cheek pressed his forehead.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she cried, blushing red. "I didn't mean to
+smother you."
+
+"And I distinctly said no jumping or screaming, didn't I?"
+
+"I won't do it again--oh, dear!"
+
+Again both arms clasped his neck in a strangling, smothering hug,
+which he purposely prolonged with an extra slip which might have been
+avoided.
+
+Her face was scarlet now and the blushes refused to go. They lingered
+in great red bunches after he had carefully placed her on the smooth
+grass on the opposite bank.
+
+"Honestly, I'm afraid I disgraced myself, didn't I?" she asked,
+timidly.
+
+"No. It was all my fault," he replied. "I did it on purpose."
+
+"Perhaps I choked you on purpose, too!" she answered, blushing again.
+
+Norman looked at her thoughtfully.
+
+"You know I never saw you blush before. I like it."
+
+"Is it becoming?" she asked, demurely.
+
+"Very."
+
+"You know I was never in a man's arms before."
+
+"And you didn't like it?" he asked, with a smile playing around his
+mouth.
+
+"To tell you the truth, I found it very awkward."
+
+"Awkward?" he laughed.
+
+"And exciting," she confessed.
+
+"Shall we repeat it until you are used to it?"
+
+"Thank you, I'm sufficiently amused for to-day," she answered,
+soberly. "And now we will put on our shoes and be good children."
+
+For the rest of the journey Norman found her strangely silent. Now and
+then he caught her looking at him furtively out of her big brown eyes,
+as if she had just met him and was half afraid to go further.
+
+He found himself particularly sensitive to her moods. The moment she
+became silent and thoughtful her impulses ruled his, and not a word
+was spoken for a mile. Scarcely two sentences passed between them
+until they reached the summit of the range and sat down on the cliff
+overhanging the sea.
+
+This cliff was one of the numerous headlands which thrust their peaks
+in almost perpendicular lines sheer into the ocean.
+
+They sat for an hour and drank in the peace and solemn grandeur of the
+infinite blue expanse.
+
+"What a little world, the one in which we live down there and fret and
+fume," he whispered. "The one we think so big when in the thick of the
+fight! We forget the dim expanse of ocean kissing ocean--encircling
+the earth--of the skies that kiss the sea and lead on and on into
+those great silent deeps where a universe of worlds roll in grandeur!"
+
+"Yet isn't man greater than all these worlds?" she asked, with sudden
+elation.
+
+"If he is a man, yes; a real man with the conscious divine power in
+his soul which says, I will! Isn't that the only power worth having?
+The herd of cattle we call men, whose souls have never spoken that
+divine word of character and of action--are they men? Have they souls
+at all? Is it worth the while of those who have to fret and fuss and
+fume trying to make something out of nothing?"
+
+Barbara turned suddenly, looked into Norman's eyes, and asked in
+anxious tones:
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"That I'm thinking of giving up this experiment."
+
+"Now that you are just making it a marvellous success?"
+
+"But is it a success? What is the good of achievement for any
+community if that achievement springs from the will of one man? If
+their souls are in subjection to his, has he not degraded them? Is
+life inside or outside? Are we Socialists not struggling merely with
+what is outside? Are we not in reality struggling back into the
+primitive savage herd out of which individual manhood has slowly
+emerged? I'm puzzled. I'm afraid to go on. I've asked you to come up
+here to-day to tell me what to do."
+
+Barbara's breath came quick.
+
+"You wish me to decide the momentous question of our colony? Perhaps
+the future of humanity?"
+
+"Yes, just that. You are a woman. Women know things by intuition
+rather than by reason. I'm growing more and more to believe that we
+only know what we feel. I trust you as I would not trust my own
+judgment just now. I'm going to ask you, in the purity and beauty of
+your woman's soul, to read the future for me. I'm going to allow you
+to decide this question. Feel with me its difficulties and its
+prospects, trust utterly to your own intuitions, and you will decide
+right."
+
+Barbara began to tremble and her voice was very low as she bent toward
+him.
+
+"Why do you trust me with the greatest question of your life with such
+perfect faith?"
+
+He took her hand, bowed, and kissed it.
+
+"Because, Barbara, I love you," he whispered with passionate
+tenderness.
+
+The girl looked away and smiled while her heart beat in an ecstasy of
+triumph.
+
+"And this is one of the things that has puzzled me most," he went on,
+rapidly. "Every hope and dream my soul has cherished of you has been
+at war with this scheme of herding men and women together. I want you
+all my very own. I want to seize you now in my arms and carry you a
+thousand miles away from every vulgar crowd on earth. A hundred times
+I've been on the point of telling you that I love you, but I drew back
+and sealed my lips. It was treason to the Cause. For how can this
+cause of the herd be one with the heart-cry of the man for the one
+woman on earth his mate? I've tried to reconcile them, but I can't.
+Come, dearest, you are my nobler, better self, the part of me I've
+been searching for and have found. You must answer this cry for light
+and guidance. Your voice shall be to me the voice of God. Shall I go
+back to the faith of my fathers in the old world, and will you come
+with me--my wife, my mate, my life? Or shall we remain here, and hand
+in hand fight this battle to a finish? The one thing that is
+unthinkable is that I shall lose you. I lay my life at your feet. Do
+with it as you will."
+
+Barbara tried to speak and a sob choked her into silence. She lifted
+her head at last and spoke timidly.
+
+"I thought it would be easy. But I find it very, very difficult--this
+settling the destiny of a man. Of one thing I'm sure. You must not
+give up this work."
+
+"I'll sign the deeds of transfer to-morrow," he interrupted.
+
+The girl's eyes opened in wonder and a feeling of awe stole into her
+heart.
+
+"You trust me so far?" she asked, brokenly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I must speak softly, must I not? I must weigh every word. You
+frighten me----"
+
+"I'm not afraid. You are the woman I love."
+
+"How long have you loved me?" she asked, studying him curiously.
+
+"Always, I think. Consciously since the day I tore that flag down on
+our lawn."
+
+"And yet you drew away from me at times."
+
+"Yes. I felt the irrepressible conflict between this ideal and my
+desires. Your voice called me to the work. I determined to put the
+work to the test first----"
+
+"And I was the inspiration behind your faith and daring leadership?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"You haven't asked me if I love you?" Barbara said, after a pause.
+
+"I've been afraid."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I don't think you are yet conscious of the meaning of love."
+
+"And yet you place yourself absolutely in my power?"
+
+"Absolutely. I love you and I have not made a mistake."
+
+"Frankly, then, I don't know what love means. In my heart of hearts
+I've always been afraid of men----"
+
+"You're not afraid of me?"
+
+"After to-day--no, I don't think I will be."
+
+"You have made me very happy," he cried joyously. "Come, we must hurry
+back now. I'm going to make out the deeds to-night and place them in
+your hands to-morrow morning."
+
+Scarcely a word was spoken as they descended the mountain. She had
+gone up in the morning a laughing girl, conscious of her beauty and
+its cruel power, and determined to use it. She came down a sober
+little woman with a great, wondering question growing in her heart.
+
+When Wolf met her with eager questions she answered as in a dream.
+
+"He will deliver the deeds to-morrow?" he gasped in amazement.
+
+"Yes, to-morrow," she answered mechanically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE FRUITS OF PATIENCE
+
+
+The next morning Norman asked Barbara to take breakfast alone with him
+in the little rose bower on the lawn where she had first announced her
+choice of work so oddly and charmingly.
+
+She entered with a timid hesitation and a half-frightened look he was
+quick to note. He was sure from the expression of her eyes that she
+had not slept.
+
+"You did not sleep well?" he asked.
+
+"I didn't sleep at all," she confessed.
+
+He attempted to take her hand and she drew back trembling.
+
+"Now, you _are_ afraid of me?"
+
+"Yes. I'm afraid I am," she stammered.
+
+"Why of me? The one man of all men on earth--the man who loves you?"
+
+"Perhaps that's just why I'm afraid of you," she said, with an effort
+to smile. "But, to tell you the truth, I think it's just because you
+are a man. Last night I lay awake thinking it all over. I'm quite sure
+that I shall always be afraid of men. I like you better than any man
+I've ever known, but now that you've told me you love me I'm uneasy
+when I'm near you. I think you'd better give me up at once. I'm sure
+I'm hopeless as a sweet-heart. I know I could never marry. The
+domestic instinct seems utterly missing in my nature. I love man in
+the abstract, but I can never surrender to any particular man. It
+seems like suicide. I want to be myself. I hate the idea of losing
+myself in another's being--I can't endure it, and if you make love to
+me any more I shall be very unhappy--and--I'll have to keep out of
+your way. You won't do this any more will you? Promise me, and we will
+be our old selves again--just comrades."
+
+Norman bowed with a smile.
+
+"I promise never to speak another word of love to you until you tell
+me that you love me!"
+
+"Honestly?" she laughed.
+
+"On my word of honour," he answered, gravely.
+
+"Then I shall be happy again," she cried.
+
+"You will not try to avoid me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You will help and cheer me in the work I've planned?"
+
+"Every day," she promised.
+
+"Then I shall bide my time." He drew the deeds to the island from his
+pocket and handed them to her.
+
+"The title to a kingdom which I joyfully deliver by order of the
+queen-regent!"
+
+"You are sure you do this because I asked you?"
+
+"Do you really doubt it?"
+
+"No," was the candid reply. "And I'll be frank enough to confess that
+I feel very proud of my power. You flattered my vanity as never
+before. You have put me under a sense of gratitude for which I fear I
+can never reward you."
+
+"I have my reward in your approval."
+
+She smiled and lifted her finger in warning.
+
+"I'll not forget my promise," he said. "From to-day we understand each
+other perfectly. I am permitted to love you in silence. You graciously
+permit this as long as I am silent. In my wounded pride I have vowed
+that you yourself shall break this silence or it shall remain unbroken
+forever. This is our compact?"
+
+"Yes," she answered extending her hand. He felt it tremble at his
+first touch and then rest contentedly and confidently in his strong
+grasp for a moment before they parted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When once his decision was made, Norman threw every doubt to the winds
+and devoted himself with tireless zeal to establishing the
+Brotherhood on the vast scale he had originally planned.
+
+In every step of the expanding life of the colony Barbara was his
+constant companion and silent inspiration.
+
+The transfer of the property was duly made under Wolf's keen gray
+eyes, with every detail of the law carefully guarded.
+
+A second colony of two thousand enthusiasts was landed and established
+in the new building. Under Norman's inspiring leadership their work
+was quickly organized.
+
+A new central administrative colony of five thousand was planned, and
+the foundation of its buildings laid with inspiring ceremonies. The
+huge structure was formed in the shape of a quadrangle covering ten
+acres of ground. In the centre of the court rose the house of the
+regents, in reality a palace of imposing splendour. The assembly hall
+was located in the regents' palace and formed the dining-room of their
+colony. At one end of the magnificent room was placed on an elevated
+platform the table at which the board of governors would sit, while at
+each end of the table stood the gilded chairs of state to be occupied
+by the regent and his consort.
+
+The scheme of imposing grandeur was suggested by Wolf. Norman objected
+at first, but yielded at last, convinced by his past experiences that
+a central authority of undisputed power was essential to the existence
+of any state founded on the socialistic ideal.
+
+At each corner of the quadrangle a public building was placed
+connected by the dormitories; on one corner was placed a theatre, on
+another a music hall, on another a school and nursery, on the other a
+lyceum to be used for public gatherings of all kinds, religious,
+social, or political. Each section of the outer buildings was
+connected with the regent's palace in the centre of the court by
+covered walk ways.
+
+The entire force of the four thousand members of the Brotherhood
+(except the farmers) were placed at work to complete this structure at
+the earliest possible moment.
+
+A day before the annual meeting of the Brotherhood at which the board
+of governors and the two regents were to be elected for the term of
+four years, Norman established a daily newspaper, _The New Era_, and
+the event was celebrated in the evening by a banquet and ball.
+
+As he walked among the joyous throngs of the Brotherhood as they moved
+through the brilliantly lighted ball-room he began to feel for the
+first time the conscious joy of a great achievement.
+
+Beyond a doubt the Brotherhood was an accomplished fact. Its fame was
+stirring the world beyond their little island. Pictures of the future
+flashed through his imagination, and always in greater and more
+alluring splendour.
+
+He saw himself becoming more and more the guiding spirit of the great
+enterprise. If men opposed his plans he would mould their wills in
+his.
+
+Gradually he meant to remove the hard and painful elements of force on
+which the efficiency of the colony now rested. The discipline of an
+army with its stern laws of physical violence back of its clock-like
+precision was not to his liking. He winced at the thought of that grim
+relic of barbarism, the whipping-post, which they had found necessary
+to temporarily revive. The jail, guard-house, and penal colony were
+thorns in his flesh which he would remove at the earliest possible
+moment. The one excuse for their existence was the inheritance of evil
+in man's nature due to his wrongs and suffering under the system of
+capitalism. They would outgrow them.
+
+Again and again he encountered Wolf and Catherine in the highest
+spirits, laughing, joking, chatting, shaking hands with each one they
+met.
+
+Suddenly it struck him for the first time that he had a poor memory
+for names and faces. He wondered how Wolf could remember the name of
+the most obscure member of the colony without an effort. He had been
+so absorbed in the big problems of the Brotherhood that he had given
+little or no time to cultivating the personal acquaintance of its
+individual members. The arts of the politician were foreign to his
+nature. He had never stooped in his thoughts even to consider them. He
+had always lived in a different world.
+
+Never for a moment had the idea occurred to him that he might have to
+fight for his position as leader of the colony which he had created,
+yet when he took his seat beside Barbara the following night to
+preside over the annual meeting, he was conscious instantly that
+through the crowd of eager faces before him there ran a strong current
+of personal hostility.
+
+It was a disagreeable surprise. But as he recalled the many unpopular
+decisions he had been called on to make during the past year it seemed
+but natural there should be a lingering soreness in some minds. It was
+not until he saw Wolf in deep consultation with Diggs's glasses, and
+Catherine whispering to the smooth, gray-haired woman who had demanded
+the expulsion of Blanche, that he knew an organized plot had been
+formed to depose him from power.
+
+His first impulse was one of blind rage. He recalled now with
+lightning flashes of memory the long hours Wolf and his wife had
+spent in soothing the anger of rebellious and troublesome members. At
+every public meeting he recalled their smiling faces at the door or
+moving through the hall. The whole scheme was plain, its low
+chicanery, its shallow hypocrisy, its fawning acceptance of his
+leadership! They had been patiently waiting for him to finish the work
+of strong, legal, invincible, powerful organization to step in and
+take the reins from his hands.
+
+And they had done it with such consummate skill, such infinite care
+and patience, that not one of his own personal followers had
+discovered the plot.
+
+When the smooth, gray-haired woman rose to nominate candidates for
+regent he knew, before she spoke, the names she would pronounce. He
+looked at her with a feeling of contempt and to save his life he
+couldn't recall her name.
+
+She repeated her address to the chair with angry emphasis:
+
+"Comrade Chairman!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," Norman answered, "but I could not for the moment
+recall your name. The comrade on my right (the woman without a soul,
+he added in low tones) has the floor."
+
+Barbara started at his tone of anger and whispered:
+
+"How could you be so rude--what is wrong?"
+
+"We are about to retire from office."
+
+"What!" Barbara gasped as the little woman began to speak.
+
+"Listen--you will understand," he said, with a sudden curve of his
+lip.
+
+"Comrades," the deep, calm voice began, "I place in nomination for the
+office of regents for the four ensuing years the names of a man and
+woman whom every member of the old colony entitled to vote to-night
+has learned to love and honour--a man and woman whose ripe experience,
+whose sound judgment, whose sense of right, whose powers of reasoning,
+whose executive genius will give to us all the guarantee of perfect
+justice and perfect order----"
+
+"You bet they will, old girl," Tom cried with enthusiasm, waving his
+hand admiringly toward Norman and Barbara.
+
+The speaker paused, regarded Tom a moment with quiet scorn, and
+continued:
+
+"I have the honour to name for the highest honour in the gift of the
+Brotherhood for the regency of the new State of Ventura Comrades
+Herman and Catherine Wolf."
+
+"What's that you say?" old Tom yelled with anger, leaping to his feet,
+and glaring around the room in a dazed surprise.
+
+The old miner was too shrewd a politician to doubt now for a moment
+the situation. He made the only possible attack on the programme that
+promised results.
+
+"In view of the fact, feller comrades," he shouted, "that half the
+present members er this here Brotherhood have not been here long
+enough to vote, I move that in justice to the new members we postpone
+this election for six months."
+
+Joe seconded the motion, and the chairman asked:
+
+"Are there any remarks on the motion?"
+
+The Bard moved as if to rise, when Diggs snatched him back into his
+seat.
+
+Amid a silence that was ominous the chairman put the question:
+
+"All in favour of postponing this election for six months that our new
+members may be able to vote will say 'Aye.'"
+
+The response was feeble. Tom and Joe yelled very loudly, but their
+effort was obvious.
+
+"All in favour say 'No.'"
+
+The whole audience seemed to shout in solid trained chorus "No!"
+
+Tom hastened to nominate Norman and Barbara. The old miner's speech
+was couched in plain, uncouth words, but they came from the heart and
+their rugged eloquence stirred the crowd with surprising power. Diggs
+glanced over the audience through his flashing glasses, and his
+perpetual smile faded into a look of uneasiness as a round of applause
+swept the house.
+
+He tiptoed to Wolf's side and whispered:
+
+"Any danger?"
+
+"Not the slightest. I want him to get some votes. It's better so."
+
+The programme went through without a hitch. Wolf and Catherine were
+elected regents by an overwhelming majority and a new board of
+governors chosen with not a single one whom Norman knew personally.
+
+The young leader sat in sullen silence, and watched the proceedings
+with contempt. Barbara looked on in increasing wonder and pain.
+
+When the result was announced and the cheering had died away she bent
+her beautiful head close to his and whispered:
+
+"This is a complete surprise. You believe me?"
+
+"Yes," he quickly answered, "and one touch of your hand will rob
+defeat of its sting."
+
+She pressed his hand with lingering tenderness and sought Catherine
+with a flash of anger in her brown eyes that boded trouble for the
+house of Wolf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE NEW MASTER
+
+
+Wolf lost no time in demonstrating that he was complete master of the
+situation.
+
+At nine o'clock next morning two armed guards, whom he had never seen
+in the house before, entered Norman's room and handed him the first
+official order of the new regents. The deposed young leader read it
+with amusement at first, but as his eyes rested on its brief words of
+command, something of their sinister meaning began to dawn in his
+mind.
+
+    "All citizens of the State of Ventura are ordered to immediately
+    surrender their arms. By order of
+
+                                               "HERMAN WOLF,
+                                                      "_Regent_."
+
+Norman looked at the revolvers in the holsters of the guards and dryly
+remarked:
+
+"But the State will kindly continue their use, I see!"
+
+Norman surrendered his revolver, and his room was searched in every
+nook and corner for weapons he might have concealed.
+
+"Why this insult?" he demanded.
+
+The guardsman saluted.
+
+"Special orders of the regent, sir. We are to take no man's word for
+it."
+
+Norman sat in silence while the men opened his trunks, ransacked his
+drawers, and searched in every conceivable spot where a weapon of any
+kind might be hid.
+
+"I could have told you at first that I had no other guns. The entire
+colony is being disarmed this morning?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the work will be completed by two o'clock."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+The man fumbled in his pocket and drew out another order.
+
+"And this one for you personally, sir."
+
+"Oh--after the disarming?"
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+Norman read the second order and the lines of his mouth tightened
+suddenly. The note was brief but to the point:
+
+    "Comrade Norman Worth will report to the regent at ten o'clock
+    for orders.
+
+                                               "HERMAN WOLF,
+                                                     "_Regent_."
+
+For five minutes after the guards had gone Norman stood in silence
+staring at this order. It was the first he had ever received in his
+life except the one from his own father which he had disobeyed.
+
+To be driven into another man's presence to take orders as from a
+master to a servant was an idea that had never entered his
+imagination. He had seen such things. He had given orders, but he had
+never, somehow, counted himself in the class of men who took them.
+
+For the first time he began to realize the meaning of the work he had
+been doing, and began to see how deftly and unconsciously he had been
+forging the chains of a system of irresponsible slavery on his fellow
+men. While the motive which impelled him was one of unselfish love,
+and he had thought only of their best interest, he saw now in a flash
+with what crushing cruelty this power could be used.
+
+It all seemed simple enough when he regarded his own will as the
+centre and source of power. Now that another man had grasped the lever
+and applied this power, the whole scheme of artificial life which he
+had created took on a new and darker meaning.
+
+What should he do?
+
+His first impulse was to walk into Wolf's presence, denounce him as a
+scheming scoundrel, and defy his power. That Wolf would fight was not
+to be questioned for a minute. His first act of disarming the colony
+was a master-stroke, and the longer the young leader thought of it the
+more hopeless his present situation became.
+
+Beyond a doubt Wolf had been selecting the new regent's guard with the
+same patience and skill with which he had executed his political coup.
+This guard was composed now only of his tried and trusted henchmen. A
+single false step on Norman's part would simply play into the wily
+brute's hands, and he would destroy himself at a single stroke.
+
+He must use his brain. He must fight the devil with fire. He must
+submit for the moment, plan and work and wait with infinite patience,
+and when the work of patience was complete, then strike and strike to
+kill.
+
+And yet the blood rushed to his heart and strangled with the thought
+of submission to such a man. But there was no other way. He had
+himself set the trap of steel he now felt crash into his own flesh.
+
+To appeal to his father was unthinkable--his pride forbade it, even if
+it were possible.
+
+To escape was out of the question. Every way had been cut and that by
+his own order. The mail was inspected. The steamer held no
+communication with the people of the island. No boat was allowed to
+land, and no boat, even the smallest sail or row boat, was permitted
+to a member of the Brotherhood on any pretext.
+
+Besides, resignation or flight could not be thought of for another
+reason. To retreat now and leave thousands of people behind whom he
+had led into this enterprise would be the act of a coward.
+
+There was nothing left except to fight it out on the lines he had
+himself laid down.
+
+The one thing that hurt him most was the ugly suspicion that Barbara
+must have known something of this deeply laid scheme by which the
+Wolfs had gained control of the Brotherhood. And yet her surprise had
+been genuine, her anger real. He couldn't be mistaken about it. To
+believe her capable of such treachery and double-dealing was to doubt
+the very existence of truth and purity.
+
+And yet, when he recalled how little he really knew of her past life,
+what dark secrets might lurk in the story of the years she had spent
+under the same roof with these people, he grew sick at the thought.
+
+He knew now that the blond beast with the red scar on his neck and the
+slender, dark-eyed madonna-like mate who had always been his shadow
+were capable of anything. Two people who could smile in treacherous
+silence for a year and suddenly grip the throat of the man who had
+been their best friend, needed no written biography to tell their
+past. It was luminous. And in the glare in which he read it he
+shuddered at the sinister light it threw on the beautiful girl whom
+they had reared as their own.
+
+He took from his mantel a little picture made one day in San Francisco
+by a tintype man. It was a singularly beautiful likeness of Barbara,
+taken on a sudden impulse without a moment's thought or preparation.
+Her laughing face looked out at him, wreathed in a garland of wayward
+ringlets of dark brown hair. Truth, sincerity, beauty, intelligence,
+and a childlike innocence were stamped in every line.
+
+A thousand times since he had seen her just like that. And from the
+moment of their advent on the island this impression of girlish
+innocence and sincerity had grown rather than decreased. The more he
+saw of her in the simpler, quieter moments of their association, the
+stronger, deeper, and more tender his love became, and the deeper grew
+his utter faith in the purity of her soul and body.
+
+"I'll sooner doubt an angel of God!" he said at last, as he placed it
+back on the mantel.
+
+He would see Wolf at once, learn his plans, and then carefully make
+his own.
+
+He dressed with care and at the appointed hour rapped for admission at
+the executive office where the day before he sat as master.
+
+He was told the regent was busy with others and ordered to wait his
+turn. He flushed with anger, recovered himself, waited a half hour,
+and was ushered into the presence of the new ruler.
+
+Wolf sat in the big revolving chair at his desk with conscious dignity
+and power. Two of his guards stood outside the door, grim reminders of
+the substantial character of the new administration.
+
+Norman seated himself with careless ease without invitation and waited
+for the older man to speak.
+
+Wolf smiled grimly, stroked his thick, coarse reddish beard, and
+looked at Norman thoughtfully a moment.
+
+"Well, my boy," the regent began, with friendly patronage, "we'd as
+well come to the point without ceremony. You are down and out. The new
+board of governors will do what I wish. I am in supreme command of the
+ship of state. Do you want to fight or work?"
+
+"It's a poor doctor, Wolf," Norman said, coolly, "who can't take his
+own medicine. I came here to work."
+
+"Congratulations on your good sense!" the regent replied. "I've no
+desire to make trouble for you. I have nothing against you
+personally. I had to put you out and take command to save the colony
+from ruin. You meant well, but you were a bungling amateur, and you
+can be of greater service in the ranks than in command. I know you
+don't like me after what has happened, but you don't have to. I'll be
+generous. What sort of work would you like to have assigned you?"
+
+"Thanks, that's very kind of you, Wolf, I'm sure. I believe the warden
+of every penitentiary is equally generous to all convicts. However,
+that's a minor detail, seeing that I assisted in the creation of this
+ideal world."
+
+Wolf smashed the desk top with his big fist and suddenly glared at
+Norman, his cold eyes gleaming angrily.
+
+"Come to the point! I've no time to waste! Have you any choice as to
+the kind of work to which you wish to be assigned?"
+
+"I have a decided choice. Our mines have all failed. I'll redeem the
+failure by perfecting and completing the big dredge for mining gold
+from the low-grade sands on the beach."
+
+"A waste of time and money," Wolf snapped. "I can't afford to spare
+the men on any more fool inventions. Such things must stop."
+
+"You mean to stop all progress by stopping inventions?" Norman asked.
+
+"So far as the State is concerned, yes," said the regent, with
+emphasis. "Under your slipshod administration we spent nearly two
+hundred thousand dollars during the past year on so-called inventions.
+Every fool in the colony has invented something. Not one in a hundred
+has produced an idea that is practicable. We cannot afford to waste
+the capital of the State in such idiocy."
+
+"Give me twenty men and I'll complete the dredge."
+
+"Labour is capital in the Socialist State. I can't afford to waste
+it."
+
+"But you are not wasting it," Norman pleaded. "I've spent sixty
+thousand already on this invention. Unless the machine is completed
+the capital will be lost to the colony."
+
+"It will be lost anyhow," Wolf answered, impatiently. "Your whole
+conception is a piece of childish folly. You can't make a profit
+operating a dredge in sand containing only twenty cents' worth of gold
+to a ton of dirt."
+
+"I can do better," Norman urged with enthusiasm. "I can make a hundred
+per cent. on the investment if the dirt pans out ten cents to the ton.
+If it pans twenty cents a ton I can make millions."
+
+"So every crank has claimed for his particular piece of idiocy. I'll
+not permit another dollar or another day's labour to be thrown away
+on any such crazy experiment."
+
+Norman's face reddened with a rush of uncontrollable anger.
+
+"Look here, Wolf, you can't be serious in this."
+
+"I was never more serious in my life," the big jaws snapped. "I am
+going to issue an order to-day that hereafter any man or woman who
+conceives an invention can work it out himself without aid from the
+State. They must do this at odd hours after working the required time
+each day. They must put their own money into their machine."
+
+"As the State only has capital," Norman protested, "this means the
+practical prohibition of all invention. No man can with his own hands
+make the machinery needed in the progress of humanity. We have
+abolished private capital by abolishing rent, interest, and profit. Do
+you propose thus to stop the progress of the world?"
+
+"No," Wolf cried with a wave of his heavy hand. "Let the ambitious
+inventor work at night and build his own machine. I will grant, in my
+order on the subject, to each successful inventor the right to operate
+his own machine for ten years before it becomes the property of the
+State."
+
+"Suppose he succeeds," said Norman, "under such hard conditions with
+his own hands and without capital in perfecting an invention of
+enormous value, such as the dredge I have begun, of what use will the
+results be if he cannot invest them in rent or interest, and all gifts
+and exchanges are prohibited?"
+
+"He may build a home and lavish them on his wife and children, or he
+may become a great public benefactor and win the love and gratitude of
+the people by enriching the State and shortening the hours of labour.
+If your dredge can make a million, for example, as you claim--go
+ahead, work at night, perfect it, put it to work, build yourself a
+palace to live in, give millions to the Brotherhood. Shorten their
+hours from eight to four, and I'll guarantee you'll oust me from my
+position of power."
+
+Norman's eye suddenly flashed with resolution.
+
+"You will not grant me the labour to complete the dredge?" Norman
+asked.
+
+"Not one man for one minute," was the curt reply.
+
+"Then I'll finish it myself," Norman said, with determination.
+
+"After you've worked eight full hours a day, under my direction--you
+understand!" the regent responded sullenly.
+
+Norman sprang to his feet and the two men faced each other a moment,
+the big scar on Wolf's neck flashing red, his enormous fists
+instinctively closing.
+
+"Wolf, this is an infamous outrage!"
+
+"I'll teach you not to speak to me in that manner again, sir!" the
+regent slowly said, as he tapped his bell.
+
+The guards sprang to his side.
+
+"Show this gentleman to the barnyard--he is a good farmer. Put him at
+work with old Methodist John cleaning out the stables for the new
+cantaloup crop. He is very fond of cantaloups. If he makes any trouble
+tell the sergeant of your guard to give him thirty-nine lashes without
+consulting me."
+
+Norman stepped closer, and, trembling from head to foot, said to Wolf:
+
+"If ever one of your men lays the weight of his hand on me----"
+
+"And yet we both agreed that under our system discipline must be
+enforced--the discipline of an army?" the regent interrupted.
+
+Norman held his gaze fixed without moving a muscle, and slowly
+continued:
+
+"If you ever try it, you'd better finish your job."
+
+"I'll remember your advice," Wolf answered with a sneer. "Show him to
+his work."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+A TEST OF STRENGTH
+
+
+When Catherine saw the furious look on Barbara's face as she descended
+from the platform the night of the election, she avoided a meeting and
+went to bed pleading a headache.
+
+Early the next morning Barbara rapped for entrance, forced her way in,
+and stood, tense with anger, before the older woman, her eyes red from
+the long vigil of a sleepless night.
+
+"You avoided me last night----"
+
+Catherine laughed.
+
+"My dear, I never saw you in quite such a rage. It might be serious if
+it were not so silly."
+
+"You'll find it serious before you are through with this performance,"
+Barbara retorted, angrily.
+
+"Remember, I am in supreme authority now. Don't you dare speak to me
+in that manner, you ungrateful little wretch!"
+
+"I'll dare to tell you the truth--even if you were the mother who bore
+me--even if I had not repaid you a hundredfold for every dollar you
+have spent on me."
+
+"Hush, hush, my dear, I do not wish to quarrel," Catherine said,
+recovering herself. "I know your pride is wounded over your defeat.
+I've watched your growing vanity in high office with much amusement
+for the past year."
+
+"I'm not thinking of myself," Barbara said with emphasis.
+
+"Of course not--what woman ever does?" Catherine sneered.
+
+"I am glad to be relieved of the annoyance of such a position. But
+your treatment of the brave and daring young spirit who conceived this
+colony and created its wealth and influence----"
+
+"Am I responsible?"
+
+"Yes. Herman is incapable of conceiving such a plot without your
+suggestion. It is your work. You have always loved luxury and power."
+
+"Perhaps I love a man also," Catherine interrupted, as her full
+sensuous lips curled in a curious smile.
+
+"Yes, I give you credit for that too," the girl admitted. "Though I
+confess the secret of your infatuation for that hulking brute has
+always been one of the black mysteries of life to me."
+
+"When you're older," again the round lips quivered with a smile,
+"perhaps you will understand. And now, my child, I've been patient
+with you. But don't you ever again call Herman a brute in my
+presence."
+
+"Take care he doesn't prove it to you!" the girl warned.
+
+Catherine suddenly paled.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" she whispered, glancing about the room.
+
+"Nothing! nothing! nothing! Only that in every deed of the devil there
+is the seed of death. You have planted the seed. The harvest is sure."
+
+"My dear----"
+
+"Don't call me that again! I hate you!" Barbara spoke with deliberate
+passion.
+
+"Have you gone mad?" Catherine cried, with impatience.
+
+"Yes, mad with hatred. From to-day we are enemies, and I'll hate you
+forever!"
+
+The older woman looked at her in astonishment and spoke with a
+deliberate sneer:
+
+"As you like. Remember, then, from this moment that you are a servant
+under my command. I am no longer your foster-mother. Leave this room
+instantly, take your things to the domestic servants' quarters, and
+report to the head-woman for duty in the corridors of this wing of the
+building."
+
+"And you think I'll submit to this?" Barbara gasped.
+
+Catherine rang the bell, and Barbara gazed at her with a look of
+mingled terror and rage. A sudden light flashed in her brown eyes.
+
+"You mean this?"
+
+"I'll show you in a moment," was the calm reply.
+
+"Then it's war between us," Barbara cried.
+
+She sprang to the door and Catherine caught her arm.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To Herman."
+
+"He cannot interfere with my decisions."
+
+Barbara threw her off and bounded through the door crying:
+
+"We shall see!"
+
+The girl rushed past the guard at the door of Wolf's office, trembling
+with rage, her eyes filled with blinding tears.
+
+Wolf sprang to his feet in astonishment and met her with outstretched
+hands.
+
+"What's the matter, child?" he asked as his big coarse fists closed
+over the hot little fingers and his gray eyes lighted at the sight of
+her dishevelled hair and bare throat.
+
+Barbara choked back the sobs, and looked appealingly into Wolf's face.
+
+"We have quarrelled about last night. You understand, Herman.
+Catherine has ordered me to leave my room and join the servants in
+the halls. You--you will not allow me to be degraded thus--will you?"
+
+Wolf drew the trembling girl into his arms, pressed her close a
+moment, stroked her curls with his gnarled hand, and his face flushed
+with a look of triumph.
+
+"Don't worry, dear, I'll protect you," he answered, bending and
+kissing her forehead. "Go back to your room, and if any one dares to
+disturb you, call for me."
+
+Barbara murmured through her tears:
+
+"Thank you, Herman."
+
+Wolf's eyes sparkled as he watched the graceful little figure proudly
+leave the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+A VISION FROM THE HILLTOP
+
+
+Catherine's fight with Wolf was long and bitter. For hours she
+struggled to force him to leave in her hands the discipline of the
+women members of the colony. Her tears and threats fell on ears
+equally deaf to all pleading. At last the guards listening outside
+heard only the low sobbing of a woman's voice near the door for a half
+hour without a sound from the man.
+
+And then his short, sharp words came quick and curt and stinging:
+
+"Are you done now with this fool performance?"
+
+The answer was a sob.
+
+"Understand once for all," the cold, hard voice went on, "I am the
+master here. Your office as regent is one of courtesy only as my wife.
+My word alone is supreme. When you cease to be my wife another regent
+will be chosen and I do the choosing. I not only propose to do the
+work of disciplining the women, but it is the one kind of work to
+which I shall devote myself with pleasure."
+
+"Herman!" Catherine sobbed, as if she had sunk beneath a blow.
+
+The man laughed with brutal enjoyment.
+
+"You'd as well know this now as later. You can be getting used to it."
+
+Her eyes red with weeping, her proud shoulders drooped for the first
+time in her life, Catherine slowly walked from Wolf's office back to
+her room.
+
+Barbara passed her on the stairs without a word or a glance, and
+hurried again to see the regent, her whole being alert with quick
+intelligence.
+
+The guard had received instructions that she was the one privileged
+person in the colony who could enter his office at all hours, day or
+night, without ceremony or delay. They showed her in immediately.
+
+"I've just heard of your order sending Norman to the work of a common
+farm-hand, Herman," Barbara began.
+
+Wolf scowled.
+
+"You must not interfere in this little affair between my rival and
+myself, Barbara," he said, sternly.
+
+"I will interfere," she quickly replied, "both for your sake and his.
+You've made a serious mistake, Herman. Correct it at once."
+
+"I had to show him his place."
+
+"It isn't fair. The men will resent it. You will make enemies. Your
+power is complete. You can afford to be generous."
+
+Wolf looked at her with hungry, admiring gaze.
+
+"Perhaps you're right," he said slowly.
+
+"Of course I'm right!" she replied, "and you know it. You've made him
+a martyr and a hero on the first day of his fall from power. Your true
+policy is just the opposite. Let him do what he pleases for a time.
+Above all things don't put yourself in the position of his enemy. Your
+strength lies in standing as his patron and friend."
+
+"By Jove, Barbara," Wolf cried, "what a wise head on your little
+shoulders! Come, be honest with me now--you're not in love with this
+man?"
+
+The girl smiled demurely:
+
+"He is with me, I think," she admitted.
+
+"Yes, yes, of course--so we all are," he cried, with a smile. "But you
+have not accepted his love?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I thought you had better sense. I'll change my order at your
+suggestion."
+
+"I knew you would," she cried, joyfully.
+
+Wolf sat down at his desk and wrote:
+
+    "Comrade Norman Worth is transferred from the field to the
+    foundry, with permission, after his day's work, to employ his
+    time in the shops perfecting any invention in which he may be
+    interested.
+
+                                                "WOLF--_Regent_."
+
+He handed the order to Barbara.
+
+"Take this to the youngster and tell him I did it at your suggestion,
+and hereafter give him a wide berth if you wish to be friendly with
+me."
+
+Barbara dropped her eyes and Wolf touched her chin with his coarse,
+short fingers.
+
+"A hint to the wise is sufficient, little girl. You understand?"
+
+Barbara took the order, turned toward the door, paused and smiled
+coquettishly:
+
+"I understand, Herman."
+
+She found Norman at work with Methodist John cleaning out a stable. To
+her amazement he was whistling and joking about something with the old
+man. She stopped and listened a moment.
+
+"But what on earth do you want a lightning-rod for, John?" Norman
+asked.
+
+"That's my secret, sir," the old man answered, "but I must have
+one--won't you get it for me?"
+
+"I'm sorry, John, but I have no more power now in the State of Ventura
+than you have."
+
+"But didn't you get the million dollars and didn't you make all the
+money for 'em--a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the cantaloups
+the others didn't have sense enough to plant? Surely they'll give you
+enough to get me a thirty-foot lightning-rod?"
+
+"I'm afraid not, John, still I'll do my best. I don't like to press
+you for the secrets of your inner life, old man, but I've immense
+curiosity to know what you want with that lightning-rod? You say
+you're not afraid of lightning?"
+
+"No, sir, I'm not afraid of nothin'."
+
+"Then why----"
+
+"'Tain't no use in askin' sir, I can't tell ye. But I want it. I'm
+going to pray every night for it till I get it. Maybe the Lord will
+send me one by an angel----"
+
+Barbara suddenly appeared in the door of the stall.
+
+"Speaking of angels," Norman cried, laughing.
+
+"I have an order for you," Barbara said, quickly.
+
+Norman threw his pitchfork full of manure out of the window of the
+stall, stood the fork in the corner, brushed his hands, and bowed
+before Barbara.
+
+"What an exquisite picture you make standing in the doorway there with
+that ocean of blossoming peach trees stretching up the slope until it
+kisses the sky line. I wish I were an artist."
+
+She looked at him with amazement.
+
+"I expected to find you with murder in your heart. I can't
+understand."
+
+Norman took the note from her white fingers.
+
+"Because I'm laughing?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, isn't the joke on me? I've been preaching, preaching,
+preaching, about the dignity of all labour. I kicked the first few
+moments, I confess. The medicine was bitter, but I soon began to find
+that it was good for the soul. I'm getting acquainted with myself----"
+
+Norman paused, read Wolf's order, and looked tenderly into Barbara's
+eyes.
+
+"So you heard of my fall and came to my rescue. It's worth the jolt to
+be rescued by such a hand."
+
+He stooped and kissed the tips of her fingers.
+
+"Come with me up the hill yonder among those blossoming trees," he
+said, leading her toward the orchard. "I want to tell you about a
+vision I saw in that stable a while ago while I wielded the pitchfork
+and talked to my old pauper friend, both of us now comrade equals."
+
+They walked on in silence through the long, clean rows of fruit trees
+in full bloom, the air redolent with sweet perfume and quivering with
+the electric hum of growing life. On the top of the hill they paused
+and looked toward the sea that stretched away in solemn, infinite
+grandeur. Below, on the next plateau, rolled in apparently endless
+acres, the great white carpet of flowering plum trees and further on
+the tender budding grapes and beyond, lower still, the deep green
+valley with orange trees flashing their golden fruit.
+
+"What a glorious world!" Barbara cried.
+
+"Yes," he answered with a sigh, "a world of endless beauty in which
+after all there's nothing vile but man. And I once thought that in
+such a world angels only could live."
+
+"Must we despair because one man or woman proves false," she asked.
+
+"No," he answered cheerily, leading her to a boulder and taking his
+seat by her side.
+
+"I don't despair. I've been seeing visions to-day--visions as old as
+the beat of the human heart, perhaps, yet always new."
+
+He drew the order of Wolf from his pocket and looked at it.
+
+"From the moment of my awakening last night from the fool's paradise
+in which I've been living the past year my mind has been at work on
+solving the one unsolved problem in this dredge to which he refers. It
+came to me like a flash while at work this morning."
+
+"Your invention will succeed?" she interrupted.
+
+"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," he said, with enthusiasm. "I didn't
+solve it before because I lacked the incentive to apply my mind to
+it."
+
+"And you got the incentive in your defeat?" she asked, in surprise.
+
+"Yes. Deprived of my toys, I came back to myself, the source of
+power."
+
+"But your incentive--I don't understand--in such an hour?"
+
+"A very simple, very old, but very powerful one, I'm beginning to
+think, the source of all human progress--the determination to build a
+home here in one of these flower-robed hills overlooking the sea, and
+bring my bride to it some glorious day like this when every tree is
+festooned with joy! I don't want a modest cottage. My bride was born a
+queen. Every line of her delicate and sensitive face proclaims her
+royal ancestry. She shall have a palace. Love, Beauty, Music, Art, and
+Truth shall be her servants. I shall be the magician who will create
+all this out of the dirt men are now trampling under foot along the
+beach."
+
+Barbara drew a deep breath, trembled, and looked away.
+
+"I promised her never to speak of love again until her own dear lips
+called me, and I will not, though I fear sometimes the waiting seems
+long."
+
+"And if she never calls?" the girl asked, dreamily.
+
+"Then my palace shall remain silent and empty. Her hand alone can open
+its doors."
+
+"And if I do not see you often while your palace is building, you may
+know at least I have not forgotten--and you will understand?"
+
+"Yes, I will understand," he answered, with elation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+IN LOVE AND WAR
+
+
+With untiring zeal Norman gave himself to work on the dredge. Wolf
+refused to modify his original order that a full day should first be
+given as a labourer in the foundry and machine shops before he could
+devote himself to his invention.
+
+This proved an advantage rather than a hindrance. By his unfailing
+courtesy, good fellowship, skill, and wit, Norman won his fellow
+workmen as warm personal friends. He was able thus to secure all the
+assistance he needed in his work.
+
+Within two months the big dredge was finished.
+
+From the first the regent had regarded Norman's fad with contempt.
+That he could succeed in making money out of dirt containing but
+twenty cents' worth of gold to a ton was an absurdity on its face.
+
+While the young inventor worked day and night with tireless energy the
+regent quietly perfected his grip on the life of the rapidly growing
+colony. To render escape from the island or communication with the
+coast more impossible than ever, he established the strict system of
+double patrol around each community. No member of the Brotherhood was
+allowed to leave his room at night without permission. Beyond the
+outer patrol a mounted guard was established and the entire line of
+beach was guarded by watchmen in relays who reported each hour, day
+and night, by telephone to the commandant.
+
+At the end of two months of Wolf's merciless rule the efficiency of
+labour had so decreased, it was necessary to lengthen the number of
+hours from eight to nine. As every inducement to efficiency of labour
+had been removed there was no incentive to any man to do more than he
+must without a fight with his guard or overseer. No vote was permitted
+on the question of increasing the hours of labour. The board of
+governors passed the order which Wolf wrote out for them without a
+dissenting voice.
+
+Norman had no trouble in getting a gang of willing hands to push the
+monster gold-digger into position on one of the sand-points inside the
+harbour.
+
+It was mounted on a float twenty-five feet wide and sixty-five feet
+long. For power it carried two fifty-horse-power distillate engines.
+Tom was in charge of one and Joe of the other. For raising the sand
+and gravel containing the gold two big Jackson gravel-pumps were
+located on opposite corners at the front end of the float.
+
+Old Tom blew the whistle, the engines started, and in an hour the
+pumps had raised a hundred tons of sand and gravel and deposited them
+in the concentrating flumes. Norman worked the dredge all night
+without a moment's pause and in twelve hours his pumps had lifted
+fifteen hundred tons of sand, showing a capacity of 3,000 tons per
+day. When the gold was extracted and weighed it was found that the
+dredge had averaged twenty cents from each ton of sand and that it
+would cost less than three cents a ton to operate the entire machinery
+of its production. The first experimental machine alone would net $500
+dollars a day, or $150,000 a year. He could put five of these machines
+to work in three months and make $3,000 a day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The invention stirred the colony to its depths. Norman's appearance
+was the signal for a burst of cheering wherever he went.
+
+Wolf was dumfounded. He called his board of governors together at once
+and ordered them to enact a new law to meet the situation.
+
+Norman announced in the _Era_ that he would give the Brotherhood from
+the beginning one half the net earnings of his machines, and asked
+the board of governors at once to grant him the men needed to build
+and operate enough dredges to reduce the hours of labour from nine to
+seven.
+
+Wolf met the emergency with prompt and vigorous action. He suspended
+the editor for printing the announcement and set him to work carrying
+a hod.
+
+He issued a proclamation as regent that the dredge in the hands of its
+inventor threatened the existence of the State, declared the law of
+inventions under which it was built suspended, and ordered Norman to
+at once operate the machine for the sole benefit of the State and
+begin the construction of twenty dredges of equal capacity.
+
+When Norman received this order he set to work without a moment's
+delay and made a half-dozen dynamite bombs, gave one each to Tom and
+Joe and their assistants, laid in a supply of provisions, erected a
+tent on the beach beside the dredge, and set the big machine to work
+for all it was worth.
+
+Wolf promptly ordered his arrest. The men who attempted to execute the
+order fled in terror at the sight of the bombs and reported for
+instructions.
+
+Wolf came in person at the head of a picked company of fifty guards.
+
+Norman had stretched a rope a hundred feet from the dredge and posted
+a notice that he would kill any man daring to cross it without his
+permission.
+
+Wolf paused at the rope. Norman stood alone on one of the big pumps
+with his arms folded watching his enemy in silence.
+
+The captain of the guard laid his hand on the regent's arm:
+
+"You'd better not try it."
+
+"He won't dare," Wolf growled.
+
+"Yes, he will," the captain insisted.
+
+"I'll risk it," the regent snapped.
+
+"Are you mad? What's the use? He'll blow it up. You can't rebuild the
+dredge--no one understands it. Use common sense. Send the girl with a
+flag of truce and ask for a conference."
+
+"A good idea--if it works," Wolf answered hesitating.
+
+"It's worth trying," the captain urged.
+
+Wolf returned to the house with his men, and in a few minutes Barbara
+came to Norman, her face white with terror, her voice quivering with
+pleading intensity.
+
+"Please," she gasped, "for my sake, I beg of you not to do this insane
+thing! The regent asks for a conference under a flag of truce. He
+recognizes that it is impossible that you should remain here after
+what has happened. He asks for a half-hour's talk with you to offer an
+adjustment under which you can resign and return to San Francisco."
+
+"It's a trick and a lie. He's deceiving you," Norman replied,
+sullenly.
+
+"No, I swear it's true. He is in earnest, Catherine is beside herself
+with fear lest he be killed. He swore to her as he swore to me to
+respect your wishes. I'll gladly give my life if he proves false."
+
+Norman turned his face away and looked over the still, blue waters,
+struggling with himself as he felt the tug of her soft hand on his
+heart.
+
+Suddenly a hundred men with Wolf at their head sprang over the steep
+embankment and rushed to the dredge. Tom leaped to his feet and lifted
+his bomb without a word.
+
+Norman covered Barbara and grasped his uplifted arm.
+
+"It's all over boys. I've surrendered!" he shouted.
+
+Barbara faced Wolf with blazing eyes:
+
+"You have betrayed my trust!"
+
+Wolf brushed her aside and confronted Norman, who had thrown the bomb
+he had taken from Tom's hand into the sea.
+
+Norman paid no attention to Wolf, and seemed to see only the girl's
+face convulsed with passion. His eyes never left her for a moment.
+
+Wolf turned and secured the other men who had defended the dredge,
+marching them with their hands tied behind their backs between two
+rows of guardsmen off to jail.
+
+Norman spoke at last to Barbara in low, cold tones:
+
+"I congratulate you."
+
+"What do you mean?" she gasped.
+
+"That you are a superb actress. You have played your part to
+perfection. Your role was very dramatic, too. A clumsy woman would
+have bungled it, and lost even at the last moment."
+
+"You cannot believe that I willingly betrayed you?" she cried, in
+anguish.
+
+"I wish I had died before I knew it," he answered, bitterly.
+
+Barbara pressed close to his side and seized his hand fiercely. He
+turned away with a shudder.
+
+"Look at me," she pleaded.
+
+He turned and faced her with a look of anger.
+
+"Words are idle. Deeds speak louder than words."
+
+"Norman, you are killing me with this cruel doubt!" she sobbed. "I
+give up! I love you! I love you!"
+
+She threw her arms around his neck and her head sank on his breast.
+
+He resisted for a moment, then clasped her to his heart, bent and
+kissed her with passionate tenderness.
+
+"You believe me now?" she cried, through her tears.
+
+"God forgive me for doubting you for a moment!" he answered,
+earnestly.
+
+The guard suddenly drew Norman from her arms, tied his hands, and led
+him away to prison while the little figure followed, sobbing in
+helpless anguish.
+
+Wolf walked behind, his big mouth twitching with smiles he could not
+suppress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A PRIMITIVE LOVER
+
+
+Wolf led Barbara into his office, lighted the lamp, and waited in
+patience for her first blinding surrender to grief to spend itself
+before speaking.
+
+He stood over her at last with a smile, bent and touched her brown
+curls.
+
+The girl sprang to her feet and faced him.
+
+"It's no use, my beauty, I'm on to your tricks now!"
+
+The little figure stiffened, and her gaze was steady, though her
+fingers trembled as she nervously twisted the tiny handkerchief she
+held.
+
+"You've been playing me for a fool for the past two months. Your eyes
+have been laughing into mine with all sorts of little daring
+suggestions when you had an axe to grind at my expense. And then you
+had a habit of disappearing until you needed something else. You were
+off billing and cooing with our hero and smiling at my stupidity
+behind my back."
+
+"I've spoken to him to-day," Barbara answered solemnly, "the first
+words of love that ever passed my lips."
+
+"You did pretty well for an amateur, if that was the first kiss you
+ever gave him."
+
+"It was the first!" she said, defiantly.
+
+"It will be the last for him."
+
+"Perhaps," she answered, with a curl to her lips.
+
+"You think I don't mean it?" Wolf demanded, stepping close and
+thrusting his massive head forward while his big fists closed.
+
+"I don't doubt it," she answered, firmly. "But I'm not afraid of you,
+Herman."
+
+"You doubt my power?" he asked.
+
+"Over others, no."
+
+"But over you?"
+
+Wolf suddenly grasped her.
+
+The girl shrank back in terror for an instant, and then, to his
+surprise, her hand was still and cold and steady. Not a tremor in the
+tense body. Her brown eyes, staring wide, held his gaze without a sign
+of weakness or of fear. Something in her attitude startled the beast
+within him. He suddenly dropped her hand and changed his tone.
+
+"Come, let's not quarrel! Don't be foolish. It is for you I've been
+scheming and planning the past year. For you the regent's palace was
+planned. Within five years a hundred thousand people will be here.
+The State will be rich beyond our wildest dreams, and I shall be the
+State. I want you to sit by my side."
+
+    [Illustration: "WOLF GRASPED HER."]
+
+"You say this to me after all that Catherine has been to you and your
+life?"
+
+"And why not? If I no longer love, should I be chained?"
+
+"And this is the ideal you came here to build?" she asked, with scorn.
+
+"Certainly. It is the essence of Socialism. In my next proclamation I
+shall declare for the freedom of love. Every great Socialist has
+preached this. Marriage and the family form the tap-root out of which
+the whole system of capitalism grew. The system can never be destroyed
+until the family is annihilated. I had thought you a woman whose
+brilliant intellect had faced this issue and broken the chains of a
+degrading bourgeois morality."
+
+"The chains of love, I find, are very sweet," she interrupted, with
+dreamy tenderness.
+
+"You talk this twaddle about romantic love? You, the leader of a
+revolution! Come, you are no longer a child. We are living now in the
+world of freedom and reality where men and women say the unspoken
+things and live to the utmost reach of their being, body and soul."
+
+"Is it a world worth living in?" she asked.
+
+"Was the old world of family life, of starvation and misery, worth
+living in?" Wolf retorted.
+
+"Perhaps I might have said no an hour ago, but now that my lips have
+met my lover's the dream of the old family life, with its sanctity and
+purity, begins to call me. And something deep down within answers with
+a cry of joy. Why should you desire me, knowing that I thus love
+another?"
+
+"You can love where you like," he snapped, as his big jaws came
+together. "I can get along without your love. I just want you--and I'm
+going to have you!"
+
+"I'll die first!"
+
+"We shall see. Time works wonders."
+
+With a shudder Barbara turned and left him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+EQUALITY
+
+
+Barbara asked Wolf for permission to visit Norman in prison.
+
+The Regent shook his head.
+
+"No, my little beauty, it's not wise. I promise you that not a hair of
+his head shall be harmed. He is safe and well. If you wish to test my
+power, try to bribe my guards and see him."
+
+Day after day Barbara sought in vain to gain admittance to the jail,
+send or receive a message from within. Her lover had disappeared as
+completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed his body.
+
+The episode of the dredge was the last effort to question the power of
+the regent. The day after its capture Wolf put the men who had helped
+Norman build it to work operating the big machine, and its huge pumps
+began to throb in perfect time, piling ton on ton of gold-bearing sand
+and gravel into the flumes, as faithful to the touch of the thief who
+had stolen it as to the hand of the man of genius who invented it.
+
+The head machinist he ordered to build five duplicates, and placed
+the entire working force of the mechanical department at once on the
+job.
+
+The daily _New Era_ received a number of protests against the outrage
+of the inventor's arrest and imprisonment. Two protests were signed by
+the names of the writers, Diggs and the Bard. There appeared in the
+paper a warning editorial against sneaks who, under cover of the cause
+of justice, were seeking to aid treason and rebellion against the
+State.
+
+Diggs and the Bard were summoned before Wolf in person.
+
+The regent fixed his gray eyes on Diggs, and the man of questions
+forgot to smile.
+
+"You are not dealing with an amateur now, Diggs," Wolf said, with a
+sneer. "The insulting letter you wrote----"
+
+"I--I--beg your pardon, Mr. Regent," Diggs stammered, "my questions
+were asked in the spirit of honest inquiry."
+
+"I understand their spirit, sir," Wolf growled. "And don't you
+interrupt me again when I'm talking! Your article was seditious. I've
+a mind to imprison you a year, but as this is your first offence I'll
+simply transfer you from the department of accounts to that of garbage
+and sewerage. Report at once to the overseer."
+
+Diggs's lips quivered and he tried to speak, but Wolf froze him with a
+look and he dropped to a seat.
+
+"I said report at once, sir, to the overseer of the department of
+garbage and sewerage. Did you hear me?" Wolf thundered.
+
+Diggs leaped to his feet stammering and retreating.
+
+"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Excuse me. I was only waiting for Comrade Adair,
+sir! Excuse me, sir, I'll go at once!"
+
+He stumbled through the door and disappeared.
+
+The Bard of Ramcat watched this scene with increasing terror. He had
+prepared an eloquent and daring appeal for freedom of speech. He tried
+to open his mouth, but Wolf's gaze froze the blood in his veins. His
+tongue refused to move. He sat huddled in a heap, trembling and
+shifting uneasily in his seat.
+
+At length the regent spoke with sneering patronage:
+
+"You wield a facile pen, Adair. I admire the glib ability with which
+you pour out gaseous matter from your overheated imagination."
+
+The Bard scrambled to his feet and bowed low in humble submission,
+fumbling his slouch hat tremblingly.
+
+"I meant no harm, sir, I assure you. A great leader of your power and
+genius can make allowances for poetic fervour. I'm sure you know that
+my whole soul is aflame with enthusiasm for our noble Cause!"
+
+"Well, upon my word," Wolf laughed, "you're developing into a nimble
+liar! You used to be quite brutal in the frankness of your
+criticisms."
+
+"But I see the error of my way, sir," the Bard humbly cried.
+
+"Then I'll remit your prison sentence also and merely transfer you to
+the stone-quarry. We need more common labourers on the rock-pile there
+preparing the macadam for the court of the regent's palace. Report at
+once to the foreman of that gang."
+
+"Thank you, sir," the Bard stammered, feebly, as he backed out of the
+room.
+
+The poet bent his proud back over the stone-pile for two weeks and
+suddenly disappeared.
+
+His hat was found on a rustic seat on a high cliff whose perpendicular
+wall was washed by the sea. Beneath this hat lay his last manuscript
+protest to the world. It was entitled:
+
+"The Journal of Roland Adair, Bard of Ramcat." It was written in blank
+verse and proved a most harrowing recital of the horrors he had
+suffered at the hands of the tyrant regent. With eloquence fierce and
+fiery he called on the slaves who were being ground beneath his heel
+to rise in their might and slay the oppressor. He had chosen to die
+that his death-song might stir their souls to heroic action.
+
+Search was made on the beaches for his body in vain. His wife's grief
+was genuine and a few of his friends gathered with her on the tenth
+day after his disappearance to express their sorrow and appreciation
+in a brief formal service.
+
+Diggs was delivering a funeral oration bombarding Death, Hell, and the
+Grave with endless questions, when suddenly the Bard appeared, pinched
+with hunger, his clothes covered with dirt, his long hair dishevelled
+and unkempt. He had evidently been sleeping in the open.
+
+His friends stood in wonder. His wife shrieked in terror.
+
+The Bard solemnly lifted his hand and cried:
+
+"I stood on the hills and waited for slaves to rise and fight their
+way to death or freedom. And no man stirred! Did they not find my
+death-song?"
+
+Diggs spoke in timid accents:
+
+"The regent destroyed it."
+
+"Yes, yes, but before my death I anticipated his treachery. I left ten
+mimeographed copies where they could be found by the people. If they
+have not been found my death would have been vain. I waited to be
+sure. I've come to ask."
+
+"They were found all right," his wife cried, angrily. "And if Wolf
+finds you now----"
+
+She had scarcely spoken when an officer of the secret service suddenly
+laid his hand on the Bard's shoulder and quietly said:
+
+"Come. We'll give you something to sing about now worth while!"
+
+His wife clung to the tottering, terror-stricken figure for a moment
+and burst in tears. His friends shrank back in silence.
+
+The regent had him flogged unmercifully; and Roland Adair, the Bard of
+Ramcat, ceased to sing. He became a mere cog in the wheel of things
+which moved on with swift certainty to its appointed end.
+
+The social system worked now with deadly precision and ceaseless
+regularity. No citizen dared to speak against the man in authority
+over him or complain to the regent, for they were his trusted
+henchmen. Men and women huddled in groups and asked in whispers the
+news.
+
+Disarmed and at the mercy of his brutal guard, cut off from the world
+as effectually as if they lived on another planet, despair began to
+sicken the strongest hearts, and suicide to be more common than in the
+darkest days of panic and hunger in the old world.
+
+A curious group of three huddled together in the shadows discussing
+their fate on the day the Bard was publicly flogged.
+
+Uncle Bob led the whispered conference of woe.
+
+"I tells ye, gemmens, dis beats de worl'! Befo' de war I wuz er slave.
+But I knowed my master. We wuz good friends. He say ter me, 'Bob
+you'se de blackest, laziest nigger dat ebber cumber de groun'! And I
+laf right in his face an' say, 'Come on, Marse Henry, an' le's go
+fishin'--dey'll bite ter-day'! An' he go wid me. He nebber lay de
+weight er his han' on me in his life. He come ter see me when I sick
+an' cheer me up. He gimme good clothes an' a good house an' plenty ter
+eat. He love me, an' I love him. I tells ye I'se er slave now an' I
+don't know who de debbil my master is. Dey change him every ten days.
+Dey cuss an' kick me--an' I work like a beast. Dis yer comrade
+business too much fer me."
+
+"To tell you the truth, boys," said a bowed figure by old Bob's side,
+"I lived in a model community once before."
+
+"Oh, go 'long dar, man, dey nebber wuz er nudder one!" Bob protested.
+
+"Yes. We all wore the same thickness of clothes, ate the same three
+meals regularly, never over-ate or suffered from dyspepsia; all of us
+worked the same number of hours a day, went to bed at the same time
+and got up at the same time. There was no drinking, cursing,
+carousing, gambling, stealing, or fighting. We were model people and
+every man's wants were met with absolute equality. The only trouble
+was we all lived in the penitentiary at San Quentin----"
+
+"Des listen at dat now!" Bob exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, and I found the world outside a pretty tough place to live in
+when I got out, too. I thought I'd find the real thing here and
+slipped in. What's the difference? In the pen we wore a gray suit.
+We've got it here with a red spangle on it. There they decided the
+kind of grub they'd give us. The same here. There we worked at jobs
+they give us. The same here. There we worked under overseers and
+guards. So we do here. I was sent up there for two years. It looks
+like we're in here for life."
+
+"How long, O Lord, how long, will Thy servant wait for deliverance?"
+cried Methodist John, in plaintive despair. "If I only could get back
+to the poorhouse! There I had food and shelter and clothes. It's all
+I've got here--but with it work, work, work! and a wicked, sinful,
+cussin' son of the devil always over me drivin' and watchin'!"
+
+John's jaw suddenly dropped as a black cloud swept in from the sea and
+obscured the sun. A squall of unusual violence burst over the island
+with wonderful swiftness. The darkness of twilight fell like a pall,
+and a sharp peal of thunder rang over the harbour.
+
+John watched the progress of the storm with strange elation, quietly
+walked through the blinding, drenching rain to the barn, and drew from
+the forks of two trees a lightning-rod about thirty feet long which
+Norman had finally made for him in answer to his constant pleading.
+The tip of the rod was pointed with a dozen shining spikes.
+
+John seized this rod, held it straight over his head, and began to
+march with firm step around the lawn. He walked with slow, measured
+tread past the two big colony houses to the amazement of the people
+who stood at the windows watching the storm. He held his lightning-rod
+as a soldier a musket on dress-parade, his eyes fixed straight in
+front. As he passed through the floral court between the two buildings
+he burst into an old Methodist song, his cracked voice ringing in
+weird and plaintive tones with the sigh and crash of the wind among
+the foliage of the trees and shrubbery:
+
+    "I want to be an angel,
+      And with the angels stand,
+    A crown upon my forehead,
+      A harp within my hand."
+
+Over and over he sang this stanza with increasing fervour as he
+marched steadily on through every path around the buildings, his
+rain-soaked clothes clinging to his flesh and flopping dismally about
+his thin legs. As the storm suddenly lifted he stopped in front of the
+kitchen, dropped his rod, and sank with a groan to his knees taking up
+again his old refrain:
+
+"How long, O Lord, how long?"
+
+Old Bob ran out and shook him.
+
+"Name er God, man, what de matter wid you? Is you gone clean crazy?
+What you doin' monkeyin' wid dat lightnin'-rod?"
+
+John lifted his drooping head and sighed:
+
+"You see, neighbour, I don't like to kill myself. It's against my
+religion. It seems like taking things out of the hands of God. But I
+thought the Lord, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, might be kind
+enough to spare me a bolt if I lifted my rod and put myself in the
+way. If he had only seen fit to do it, I'd be at rest now in the
+courts of glory!"
+
+"Dis here's a sad worl', brudder," Bob said comfortingly. "'Pears lak
+ter me de Lawd doan' lib here no mo'."
+
+Before John could reply, a guard arrested him for disorderly conduct.
+The regent kicked him from his office and ordered him to prison on a
+diet of bread and water for a week.
+
+The slightest criticism of his reign Wolf resented with instant and
+crushing cruelty. His system of spies was complete and his knowledge
+of every man's attitude accurate and full. Where-ever he appeared, he
+received the most cringing obeisance.
+
+Especially did women tremble at his approach and count themselves
+happy if he condescended to smile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+A BROTHER TO THE BEAST
+
+
+At the end of three months from the time he took possession of the
+dredge, Wolf's men had built five duplicates, and they were all at
+work. More than three thousand dollars' worth of gold he weighed daily
+and stored in secret vaults whose keys never left his grasp.
+
+The new colony he landed in groups of two hundred at intervals of
+sufficient time to assign each new member to work where the least
+trouble could be given. The strictest search for arms and weapons of
+every kind was made before each person was allowed to land.
+
+It took only about two weeks to bring the new group into perfect
+subjection. Spies reported every word of surprise and criticism that
+fell from the lips of a newcomer.
+
+The overseer of each gang of labourers was required to complete the
+task assigned to him by the standard of the very best records labour
+had ever made, and to secure these results it was necessary to
+constantly lengthen the hours of each day's service. As the efficiency
+of labour decreased the entire colony gradually gravitated to the
+basis of convict service. As no man received more than food, clothes,
+and shelter there could be no conceivable motive to induce any one to
+work harder than was necessary to escape the lash of the overseer.
+Consequently the hours of labour were increased from nine to ten.
+
+The one ambition now of every man was to win the favour of the
+authorities, and become one of the regent's guard, an overseer, or
+find relief from the hard, brutal tasks imposed on the great majority.
+The road to promotion could not be found in achievement.
+
+The power to assign and enforce work was the mightiest force ever
+developed in the hand of man.
+
+Under the system of capitalism wealth was desirable because it meant
+power over men. But this power was always limited. Under the free play
+of natural law no man, even the poorest, could be commanded to work by
+a superior power. He could always quit if he liked. He might choose to
+go hungry, or apply to the charity society for help in the last
+resort, but he was still master of his own person. His will was
+supreme. He, and he alone, could say, I will, or I will not.
+
+Here all was changed. A new force in human history had been created.
+Wealth beyond all the dreams of passion and avarice was in the grasp
+of the regent and his henchmen. He wielded the most autocratic and
+merciless power over men conceivable to the human imagination--a power
+final and resistless, from which there could be no appeal save in
+death itself.
+
+The results of this power quickly began to show in the development of
+life around the regent and each of his trusted minions.
+
+By the time the theatre and music hall were finished and opened, Wolf
+had selected more than a hundred of the prettiest girls in the colony
+for the two stages.
+
+His method of selection was always the same. The girl he desired he
+secretly ordered to be assigned to a dirty or disgusting form of
+labour. He allowed her to rave in hopeless anger at her tasks until
+she found that all appeal was in vain and her doom sealed.
+
+He then made it his business to call, express his surprise at the task
+to which she had been assigned, and smile vaguely at her eager appeal
+for a change.
+
+If she proved charming to the regent she was promptly assigned to the
+chorus of the State theatre and given luxurious quarters in the
+building adjoining.
+
+Their tasks were light and agreeable. They studied music and dancing
+and elocution. But, above all, they studied day and night the art of
+pleasing the regent, whose frown could send any of them instantly to
+the washtub or the scrubbing-brush.
+
+In like manner around the personality of each guard, overseer,
+secret-service man, superintendent, and governor of departments there
+grew a coterie of favoured ones whose position depended solely on the
+whim of the man in power.
+
+The State only could manufacture arms. The State only could bear arms.
+And the system of law which Socialism developed was so full, so minute
+in its touch on every detail of human life, and so merciless in its
+system of espionage, the very idea of revolution was slowly dying in
+the despairing hearts of the colonists.
+
+So sure was Wolf of his victim when once he had marked her, he was
+merely amused rather than displeased over Barbara's defiance of his
+wishes.
+
+A few days before the opening and dedication of the regent's palace,
+when all his preparations were complete, Wolf summoned Catherine.
+
+"I have here," he began, "my proclamation for the complete
+establishment of a perfect Social State. I publish it to-morrow
+morning. It goes into effect immediately:
+
+"'From to-day the State of Ventura enters upon the reign of pure
+Communism which is the only logical end of Socialism. All private
+property is hereby abolished. The claim of husband to the person of
+his wife as his own can no longer be tolerated. Love is free from all
+chains. Marriage will hereafter be celebrated by a simple declaration
+before a representative of the State, and it shall cease to bind at
+the will of either party. Complete freedom in the sex-relationship is
+left to the judgment and taste of a race of equally developed men and
+women. The State will interfere, when necessary, to regulate the
+birth-rate and maintain the limits of efficient population.'"
+
+"Which means for me?" Catherine inquired.
+
+"That you are divorced and free to marry whom you please."
+
+The woman uttered a cry of anguish, threw her arms around Wolf's big
+neck, and burst into sobs.
+
+"Oh, Herman, surely you have some pity left in your heart! For God's
+sake, don't cast me out of your life in this cruel, horrible way!"
+
+He turned his stolid face away with cold indifference.
+
+She lifted her tapering hand timidly and smoothed the coarse hair back
+from his forehead with a tender gesture.
+
+"Can you forget," she went on, in low, passionate tones, "all we have
+been to one another through the long, dark years of our fight with
+poverty and oppression? All I have done for your sake? That I broke
+my husband's heart--for he loved me even as I love you--I left my
+babies, and have never seen them since; broke with every friend and
+loved one on earth for you! Have you forgotten all I have done in this
+work? The tireless zeal with which I've fought your battles? Can you
+kick me from your presence now as though I were a dog?"
+
+Wolf pursed his thick lips and scowled.
+
+"No, I mean that you shall stay where you are and take charge of my
+new household. Barbara will need your assistance."
+
+"Barbara!" she gasped.
+
+"I have chosen her as the new regent," Wolf calmly answered. "I will
+announce our marriage at the dedication of the palace."
+
+"And you think that I will accept such shame?"
+
+"I'm sure you will!" he quickly answered with an ominous threat in his
+tone.
+
+The woman sprang to her feet and faced him, her tall, lithe figure
+tense with passion.
+
+"I dare you to try it!"
+
+"Dare?" Wolf repeated in a low growl.
+
+"I said it!" she cried, defiantly. "From the very housetop I'll shout
+the story of our life. I'll show you I'm a power you must reckon
+with----"
+
+"And I'll show you," Wolf answered "that there's but one power that
+counts now in the world of realities in which we live--the elemental
+force of tooth, and nail, and claw--do you understand?"
+
+He thrust his big, ugly face into hers and a look of terror flashed
+from her eyes as she saw his features convulsed with fury.
+
+"Please, Herman!" she pleaded at last in a feeble, childish voice.
+
+"You are still daring me?"
+
+"No, I give up--surely you will not strike me!" she gasped.
+
+"Not unless I have to," he answered, with cold menace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+LOVE AND LOCKSMITHS
+
+
+Barbara sat in the little rose bower on the lawn puzzling her brain
+for the thousandth time over impossible schemes to communicate with
+Norman.
+
+From day to day she had watched with increasing fear the rapid growth
+of Wolf's cruel instincts under the conditions of tyranny he had
+established.
+
+She had appealed in vain to every man in authority. Everywhere the
+same answer. The regent's power inspired a terror which no appeal
+could penetrate.
+
+She started with a sudden thought. Among the guards who stood watch at
+Wolf's door was the nineteen-year-old boy who had acted as usher and
+shown Norman to a seat in the Socialist Hall the night they met.
+
+She had caught a peculiar look in his face the last time she entered
+Wolf's office. Could it be possible he was in love with her in the
+helpless, heroic, boy fashion of his age? She would put him to the
+test. It was worth trying.
+
+She found him on guard in the corridor outside Wolf's door,
+approached him cautiously, touched his hand timidly, and whispered:
+
+"Jimmy, I'm in great distress."
+
+"I wish I could help you, Miss Barbara," he answered in low, earnest
+tones, sweeping the corridor with a quick look.
+
+"Even at the risk of your life?"
+
+"I'd jump at the chance to die for you!" was the simple answer.
+
+Barbara's voice choked and her little hand caught the boy's
+gratefully. His conquest was too easy, his love too big and generous!
+"I wish I could do it, Jimmy, without letting you risk your life, but
+I must see Norman."
+
+"I'll help you if I can, Miss Barbara, but I don't know how. The
+jailer won't let me in without an order from the regent."
+
+"I'll go in now," she went on, "get a piece of paper from his desk,
+forge the order, and sign his name. I can imitate his handwriting.
+I'll give it to you immediately, and watch until you get back to your
+post."
+
+"I'll do it!" the boy answered, his eyes shining.
+
+"Tell Norman," Barbara whispered, "that I have found Saka in the
+hills. He has built a skiff and has it ready to sail with his message
+for relief."
+
+"I understand."
+
+She entered Wolf's office unannounced and surprised him with her
+girlish buoyancy of spirit.
+
+With a light laugh she sprang on his big desk, sat down among his
+papers, and deftly closed her hand over one of his small official
+order-pads.
+
+"I cannot see Norman, to-day?" she asked.
+
+"Not to-day, my dear. A little later, yes, but not to-day!"
+
+He laughed carelessly and turned in his armchair to a messenger:
+
+"Take that order to the captain of the guard and tell him to report to
+me at seven o'clock to-night."
+
+While he spoke, the girl slipped from her place on the desk and thrust
+the order pad in her pocket.
+
+"Then I'm wasting breath to plead with you?"
+
+"Decidedly. But I congratulate you on the rational way you are
+beginning to look at things."
+
+As she moved to the door she smiled over her shoulder: "Time will work
+wonders, perhaps!"
+
+"I told you so," he laughed.
+
+She hurried to her room and wrote the order signing Wolf's name
+without a moment's hesitation:
+
+    "Admit the guard bearing this order for the delivery of a
+    personal message to the prisoner, Norman Worth.
+
+                                                "WOLF--_Regent_."
+
+She stood at the window and watched the boy enter the jail. He stayed
+an interminable time! Each tick of the tiny watch in her hand seemed
+an hour. One minute, two, three, four, five minutes slowly dragged.
+Merciful God, would he never return? A thousand questions began to
+strangle her. Had Wolf suspected and played with her? Had the jailer
+recognized the trick and arrested the boy? Had Wolf discovered the
+boy's absence from his post?
+
+She looked at her watch again. He had been gone seven minutes! The
+door of the jail suddenly opened and the boy appeared.
+
+Her hand was tingling with a curious pain. She looked, and the nails
+of her fingers had cut the flesh as she had stood in agony counting
+the seconds.
+
+The boy walked with leisurely precision as though on an ordinary
+errand for the regent. Barbara waited until he resumed his position on
+guard at the door and quickly reached his side.
+
+He pressed a note into her hand, whispering:
+
+"The jailer held me up at first--but I found him!"
+
+Barbara glanced down the corridor with a quick look threw her arms
+around the boy's neck and kissed him tenderly.
+
+He smiled, drew a deep breath, and said:
+
+"Now, I'm ready to die!"
+
+"No. To live and fight," she cried. "Fight our way back to freedom.
+You must help me!"
+
+She turned and flew to her room. The note in her hand was burning the
+soft flesh.
+
+She locked her door and read:
+
+    "HEART OF MY HEART:
+
+    "Iron bars have held my body but my soul has been with you! I've
+    seen you walking among the flowers a hundred times and tried to
+    force my message through the walls. I enclose a telegram to my
+    father and one to the Governor of California. Send Saka to Santa
+    Barbara with them. The troops should arrive in forty-eight
+    hours. All I ask of God now is the chance to fight. I love you!
+
+                                              "Always yours,
+                                                         NORMAN."
+
+She kissed the note, tore it into fragments, and burned the pieces.
+
+When night had fallen, Jimmy safely passed the patrol lines, delivered
+his message to Saka, helped him launch the skiff, watched the little
+sail spread before a fair wind, and returned to his post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+THE SHINING EMBLEM
+
+
+When Wolf's patrol telephoned two days later that a company of troops
+had suddenly landed on the other side of the island, he called the
+captain of the guard:
+
+"A detail of men to move the gold aboard the ship. Order the steam up.
+I'll divide with you. We must beat those soldiers back until we can
+sail. Fight them at every possible stand as they cross the hills. I'll
+join you if the guard is driven in."
+
+The captain hurried to execute Wolf's orders, while the regent began
+with feverish haste to transfer the treasures of the colony to the
+ship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Norman sat on his cot in prison, awaiting anxiously the first sound of
+the troops.
+
+He suddenly leaped to his feet.
+
+"They are coming!"
+
+Listening a moment intently, he cried:
+
+"There it is again--the scream of fifes from the hills!--now, they are
+driving in the pickets--hear the crack of those rifles!--God in
+heaven, isn't it music!"
+
+He sank back on the cot with a sob of joy.
+
+In a rush the troops surrounded the jail. The sheriff lifted his hand
+and shouted:
+
+"In the name of the peace and dignity of the State of California----"
+
+Wolf answered with a defiant wave and charged at the head of his
+guard. The soldiers poured into their ranks a deadly fire. At the
+first volley the leader fell. The charging column hesitated, halted,
+threw down their arms, and surrendered.
+
+In five minutes Colonel Worth entered the jail and father and son
+silently embraced. Barbara followed and Norman clasped her in his
+arms.
+
+A shout rose from the troops and the group within moved to the prison
+window. The colour-sergeant had hauled down the red ensign of
+Socialism from the flag-staff on the lawn and lifted the Stars and
+Stripes in its place.
+
+Norman's hand sought his father's. They clasped a moment tremblingly,
+and, still looking through the barred window at the shining emblem in
+the sky, the young man slowly said:
+
+"It _is_ beautiful, isn't it Governor!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS ON NATURE STUDY BY
+
+CHARLES G.D. ROBERTS
+
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+
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+
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+
+A Christian Science novel that will bring delight to the heart of
+every believer in that faith. It is a well told story, entertaining,
+and cleverly mingles art, humor and sentiment.
+
+
+    =HILMA, by William Tillinghast Eldridge, with illustrations by
+      Harrison Fisher and Martin Justice, and inlay cover.=
+
+It is a rattling good tale, written with charm, and full of remarkable
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+
+
+    =THE MYSTERY OF THE FOUR FINGERS, by Fred M. White, with
+      halftone illustrations by Will Grefe.=
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+discover its whereabouts, four of his fingers are mysteriously
+removed, and one by one returned to him. The appearance of the final
+fourth betokens his swift and violent death.
+
+Surprises, strange and startling, are concealed in every chapter of
+this completely engrossing detective story. The horrible fascination
+of the tragedy holds one in rapt attention to the end. And through it
+runs the thread of a curious love story.
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+MEREDITH NICHOLSON'S FASCINATING ROMANCES
+
+Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
+
+
+    =THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES. With a frontispiece in colors
+      by Howard Chandler Christy.=
+
+A novel of romance and adventure, of love and valor, of mystery and
+hidden treasure. The hero is required to spend a whole year in the
+isolated house, which according to his grandfather's will shall then
+become his. If the terms of the will be violated the house goes to a
+young woman whom the will, furthermore, forbids him to marry. Nobody
+can guess the secret, and the whole plot moves along with an exciting
+zip.
+
+
+    =THE PORT OF MISSING MEN. With illustrations by Clarence F.
+      Underwood.=
+
+There is romance of love, mystery, plot, and fighting, and a
+breathless dash and go about the telling which makes one quite forget
+about the improbabilities of the story; and it all ends in the
+old-fashioned healthy American way. Shirley is a sweet, courageous
+heroine whose shining eyes lure from page to page.
+
+
+    =ROSALIND AT REDGATE. Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller.=
+
+The author of "The House of a Thousand Candles" has here given us a
+buoyant romance brimming with lively humor and optimism; with mystery
+that breeds adventure and ends in love and happiness. A most
+entertaining and delightful book.
+
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+    =THE MAIN CHANCE. With illustrations by Harrison Fisher.=
+
+A "traction deal" in a Western city is the pivot about which the action
+of this clever story revolves. But it is in the character-drawing of
+the principals that the author's strength lies. Exciting incidents
+develop their inherent strength and weaknesses, and if virtue wins in
+the end, it is quite in keeping with its carefully-planned antecedents.
+The N.Y. _Sun_ says: "We commend it for its workmanship--for its
+smoothness, its sensible fancies, and for its general charm."
+
+
+    =ZELDA DAMERON. With portraits of the characters by John Cecil
+      Clay.=
+
+"A picture of the new West, at once startlingly and attractively true.
+* * * The heroine is a strange, sweet mixture of pride, wilfulness and
+lovable courage. The characters are superbly drawn; the atmosphere is
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+sturdiness that commends it to earnest, kindly and wholesome
+people."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page  62: ecomonic replaced with economic                 |
+    | Page 126: "could be plainly see" replaced with            |
+    |           "could be plainly seen"                         |
+    | Page 162: collasped replaced by collapsed                 |
+    | Page 246: "he was was quick to note" replaced with        |
+    |           "he was quick to note"                          |
+    | Page 290: kissd replaced with kissed                      |
+    | Page 297: "with which your pour out" replaced with        |
+    |           "with which you pour out"                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comrades, by Thomas Dixon
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