THE FURNACE 
 _ Dan Poling 
 
 
 

 
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THE FURNACE 
 
 BY 
 
 DAN POLING 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1925, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 THE FURNACE 
 ney 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
JALASON 
 
 g, Apr 43 M Hoover 
 
 TO 
 GENE 
 
 My wife, who has great 
 courage and high faith. 
 

 
THE FURNACE 
 

 
THE FURNACE 
 
 CHAPTER if 
 
 WAV res ienc homeward, the Aquitania steamed 
 through the fading night. She trembled like a 
 living soul, She seemed a sentient being. Behind her 
 mighty breasts eight thousand men strained toward 
 the dawn. 
 
 About the great ship’s cleaving bow rushed up the 
 phosphorescent glow and played like silver elves of 
 welcome along her streaming sides; the gray fogs hung 
 above the narrows as mists that gather over woman’s 
 eyes when waiting days are done and shore lines 
 stretched like mighty arms to clasp returning heroes to 
 a nation’s breast. ‘ 
 
 Three men stood together at the starboard rail and 
 watched the morning come. Their intimate silence 
 spoke the closeness of the ties that bound them. One 
 of the three, a man of thirty-five, wore a chaplain’s 
 cross upon his shoulder; his figure was tall, and his 
 presence commanding; a scar ran through his right eye- 
 brow across his temple and lost itself in his heavy, dark 
 hair; there were lines of pain about his mouth, and a 
 pallor on his cheeks that it would take more than eight 
 days at sea to replace with the color of his old-time 
 rugged health. 
 
 7 
 
8 THE FURNACE 
 
 At the chaplain’s right leaned a major,—a major of 
 artillery at twenty-eight. Slender he was, and with a 
 face that should have been set with laughing eyes, but 
 there was a strange cynicism in the long gaze he turned 
 upon the just appearing shore. His nervous fingers 
 flipped a half-smoked cigarette into the sea, and with a _ 
 quizzical expression about his finely-drawn mouth, he 
 turned to the chaplain and was about to speak, when 
 the third member of the early morning group, a colonel 
 —a youthful, towering figure of a man—dropped a re- 
 straining hand lightly upon his shoulder, while, with a 
 slight inclination of his uncovered head he drew his 
 companion’s attention to an intermittent light that had 
 just come out of the sea,—the beacon of the anchored 
 ship off Sandy Hook, 
 
 A pregnant, utter stillness came upon the three young 
 officers,—the overwhelming sense of home. A few 
 hours later they were to hear the mighty shouts of their 
 comrades lifted in delirious joy when the mayor’s com- | 
 mittee, accompanied by a score of welcoming craft, 
 bands playing, sirens screaming, colors waving, chil- 
 dren singing and women weeping, came down the har- 
 bor. With eyes filled and hearts overflowing, they 
 were to rise to the heights of that ecstatic moment. 
 But never were they to reach again that day the depths 
 of emotion they plumbed together as they stood beside 
 the rail and caught the message of the light that 
 streamed across the gray of dawn. 
 
 Softly, sung in the rich melodiousness of blended 
 negro voices, came from below the decks the strains of 
 “Suwannee River.” 
 
THE FURNACE 9 
 
 “All dis world am sad and dreary, 
 Ebrywhere I roam, 
 
 Oh, darkies, how my heart grows weary,— 
 Far from de old folks at home.” 
 
 And then it was the colonel who broke the over- 
 whelming silence by the rail. In tones that were like 
 the deeper bells of a desert mission, with just a trace 
 of the accent that to his companions spoke of his child- 
 hood in Finland, he repeated: 
 
 An alien and a stranger first I saw thy shores, 
 
 Child of the bondage, born of bleeding lands; 
 
 Here at thy gate I lay, with age-old, open sores, 
 
 And thou, great Freedom, raised me on thy hands :— 
 This is my debt. 
 
 When the speaker had finished, he stood as one trans- 
 figured. Unconsciously his mighty shoulders rose and 
 fell to the rhythm of the throbbing engines of the ship; 
 his great face, with its deep and wide-set eyes, his ample 
 forehead, his mouth half-opened, and his cloven chin 
 caught up the lifting shadows and kindled them from 
 some hidden fire. 
 
 Through that unending last night at sea, eight days 
 out from Brest, Bruce Jayne, the chaplain, Haig Brant, 
 the major, and Malcolm Frank, the colonel, had sat or 
 stood or walked together. For them, as for practically 
 all the others of those khaki-clad returning thousands, 
 there had been no sleep. For the hour immediately pre- 
 ceding their first glimpse of the Sandy Hook Light, 
 they had paced the upper deck in earnest conversation. 
 Their voices low-pitched, though intense, had spoken 
 words that bared their souls. 
 
IO THE FURNACE 
 
 Bruce Jayne was the junior secretary of a Foreign 
 Missionary Board with headquarters in Philadelphia, 
 in July, 1917, when he enlisted. He sailed for Liver- 
 pool with the first ten thousand. On the trip across 
 he met Lieutenant Brant, a young militiaman, who had 
 been a cub reporter on the New York Universal, with 
 some connections in Washington that had given him 
 his “chance.”” Down in the hold with others of the 
 Ist Division of the regular army was Sergeant Mal- 
 colm Frank, a twenty-year-old helper from one of the 
 great steel mills of an Ohio River valley that at night 
 looks like the uncovered regions of the damned. : 
 
 In ways past human understanding, by paths of fate, 
 these three had been thrown and then joined together. 
 The young lieutenant won his first citation when his 
 organization, the 5th Field Artillery, went up for final 
 training with the French. Under a barrage that cut 
 off his battery, he broke through and reported at head- 
 quarters, and then, though shell-shocked and slightly 
 wounded, insisted upon returning to his men. A month 
 later he wore a captain’s chevron, and after Cantigny, 
 where though bleeding from a dozen shrapnel wounds 
 he kept his guns advancing, they pinned a cross upon 
 his breast and made him a major. 
 
 The chaplain was the great heart of the 18th In- 
 fantry, as tender as a woman, as hard as iron. His 
 body, seasoned by the desert that had reared him, 
 gloried in the extra bitterness of front-line duty. To 
 him religion was a super-ministry that reached beyond 
 all other healing. What others did he did, but where 
 their manual stopped he felt himself ordained and 
 called to yet go forward. It was at Seicheprey in Feb- 
 
THE FURNACE II 
 
 ruary, 1918, that he leaped, or rather crawled, into fame 
 and, better still, into the hearts of his regiment. 
 
 One night of rain and sleet there came a dull explo- 
 sion and a shriek of agony from a listening post that 
 lay at the end of a shallow communicating trench which 
 angled out from a portion of the most advanced lines 
 held by the first combat division of the American army. 
 Jayne, on his self-imposed rounds, heard the cry and 
 crept out under the wire and through the mud to find 
 his man. He came upon a half-dead boy lying in a pool 
 of blood, with feet shattered by an enemy grenade. 
 With deft fingers the chaplain applied first aid, and 
 then, with the helpless chap upon his back, he started 
 to return. Halfway in a great shell buried itself in 
 the soft earth beneath rescuer and rescued, and blew 
 -them apart. When Jayne recovered consciousness, he 
 crept again to the side of the wounded soldier, and with 
 infinite pain adjusted the limp burden and crawled on. 
 Somehow he reached the wire, and strong hands drew 
 him through, Over the still unconscious doughboy he 
 crumpled with the caving walls of the trench. But 
 when, a few minutes later, as the bearers lifted the 
 lad to the stretcher, his eyes opened to recognize his 
 savior, and his blue lips whispered, “Father, a prayer,” 
 Jayne knelt in the mud, with blood blinding him, and 
 prayed. That night left him the scar and gave him 
 the everlasting devotion of doughboys and officers. Six 
 weeks later he floundered through gas to provision one 
 of Brant’s sore-pressed batteries, and now on his lungs 
 were scars which though healed would bear watching. 
 
 But of the three men who spent that long last night 
 together, Malcolm Frank is the one who calls for our 
 
12 THE FURNACE 
 
 longer attention. He was the youngest but one of a 
 Finnish coal-miner’s seven children; the son of a 
 father who had brought his family to the land of free- 
 dom and opportunity in the high faith that burns so 
 ardently in the breasts of the vast majority of immi- 
 grants who are hurried in by the Statue of Liberty to 
 the doubtful welcome of Ellis Island. As a lad Mal- 
 colm had spent a pitifully short time in school, but he 
 had made those few days count, and they had been sup- 
 plemented by the home instruction of the well-read, 
 hard-working father. 
 
 Too young to remember clearly the flowered hills of 
 his native land that wept beneath its ancient wrongs, 
 Malcolm related all his childhood fancies—and a 
 dreamer born he was—to the emerald mountains that 
 rose behind the black collieries and smudged spires of 
 the village where soon he learned the way to the 
 “breaker.” Always, at his work and as he stumbled 
 wearily home, he turned his eyes to the hills, and from 
 them came his strength. True son of his father was 
 he, and within the breast of that too early broken man 
 lived the soul of an adventurer who in another time 
 would have followed LaSalle or gone with Clark, down 
 the trail of some new freedom. Even the black death 
 of the mine, the long hours, the cramped labor, the 
 foul air, the burrowing far back from the sun, could 
 not tame the Finlander’s spirit. By the dim light of his 
 mean home, for an hour that robbed him of sleep, he 
 opened the book that recited America’s virtue and 
 greatness; upon it he rested his gnarled hands in 
 strange tenderness while he told of the faith of the | 
 Pilgrims, the suffering of the heroes who followed 
 
THE FURNACE 13 
 
 George Washington, the glory and martyrdom of 
 Abraham Lincoln, and as he spoke, he pointed the way 
 of world service and greatness America’s future would 
 walk in. With weariness and poverty and hardness 
 forgotten, he builded a shrine for Freedom and knelt 
 with his children before it. 
 
 Yes, true son of his father was Malcolm Frank, 
 dreamer of dreams, but made of the stuff of vikings, 
 and seasoned through generations of hardness. Not 
 even the jeers of the boys to whom he was only an- 
 other “hunky” could sour him, though hurt him they 
 did,—deeply. He loved great America. He worshiped 
 the image his father had conjured. He accepted the 
 prophecy and joined his soul to the greater adventure 
 with the ardor of youth and the faith of a devotee. 
 
 To avail himself of wider educational advantages, 
 Malcolm left the mine and his home at eighteen and 
 went to Oldsburg, a mill-suburb of the citadel of steel. 
 Here his size and strength (he was within an inch of 
 his full height then, standing six feet in his stockings, 
 and with sinews and muscles that rippled like quick- 
 silver under the firm flesh of sound health) gave him 
 a job in the great mill that elbowed back the hills and 
 crowded into the course of the sickly stream that ran 
 smoking and red through the foreign quarter of the 
 town. 
 
 From eleven to fifteen hours a day he worked, and 
 at the long turn, eighteen and twenty-four. Seven 
 days in the week he hurried from his lodgings, a long 
 attic room shared with nine others,—always five sleep- 
 ing and five waking,—so that while blankets might be 
 filthy, beds were never cold. Ah, and it was a great 
 
14 THE FURNACE 
 
 life to the mine-town breaker boy !—a life of blistering 
 heat and stupendous loads, of mighty noises and con- 
 suming exhaustion,—a life so elemental that, as in the 
 great din of it, the Finnish lad released his soul and 
 shouted the songs of his people’s untamed bondage, he 
 came into a new heritage of self-confidence and power. — 
 His rioting with strength and energy caused older men, 
 men with bowed legs and crooked backs, legs that were 
 as spotted from molten burns as a zebra is spotted from 
 birth and whose drawn faces were baked to an oven- 
 black,—caused these men whose youth, though not far 
 behind them, was buried forever beneath pig iron and 
 slag,—caused these hurrying, stumbling men bound 
 for the scrap-heap, to shake their heads. 
 
 But Malcolm Frank was living not by the standards 
 of steel,—he was nourished by that which the workers 
 about him knew not of. In his heart was a great joy, 
 for was he not on the road to the larger life, and the 
 freedom of which his father had so often spoken? In 
 his first letter home he had written: 
 
 “T began on the night shift at 5.30,—six hours and 
 a half I shoveled, throwing and carrying bricks and 
 cinders out of the bottom of the old furnace. It was 
 hot! At twelve I ate my lunch, and at twelve-thirty I 
 went back to the cinders with my shovel for three hours 
 more, The noise was great. I worked right by the 
 pneumatic shovel which was drilling slag. At five 
 o'clock we all quit,—I had a full hour,—and it was fine 
 to spend the time with my Latin. I am just beginning. 
 The boss seems a decent fellow. He laughed and 
 swore when he saw me, but did not order me to stop. 
 I started for the house at six o’clock. Say, but I was 
 
THE FURNACE 15 
 
 sore,—that will quickly pass, for I will harden. I 
 washed and ate, and then went to bed; had thought to 
 study for another hour, but fell asleep quickly and only 
 awoke when the man on the day turn who shares my 
 bunk rolled me out. It was 4 p.m. I jumped into my 
 dirty clothes, gulped my supper, or breakfast or what- 
 ever you care to call it. I have lost the run of day and 
 night—got my pack of lunch and reported at 5.30— 
 on time!” 
 
 In a later letter Malcolm wrote, “I am a ‘third 
 helper’ now. I help make what they call the back 
 wall, which means taking a shovel and throwing heavy 
 dolomite (which is a kind of limestone) across the 
 blazing furnace to protect it for its next bath of hot 
 steel. Every third helper makes the back wall on his 
 own furnace and of his neighbor’s; sometimes I have 
 made three or four a shift. 
 
 “Let me describe it. I march by the door of the 
 furnace, which is open in my face for just a minute; 
 the heat is 180° at the point from which I throw the 
 shovelful in, but I wear smoked goggles and can pro- 
 tect my face with my arm as I throw. After making 
 a back wall, a fellow has to rest for at least fifteen 
 minutes. At first I tried to study, but found I could 
 not concentrate. The second and first helpers work 
 with ‘hook’ and ‘spoon’ to spread dolomite for the 
 front wall and it is sure easy for a new man to get a 
 bad burn when he goes up to the furnace to fill his 
 spoon. 
 
 “But, my father, when the front and back walls are 
 both made, there is generally a long ‘spell,’ unless the 
 next furnace needs attention. Sometimes I have four 
 
16 THE FURNACE 
 
 and five hours to myself out of a fourteen-hour shift, 
 but of course sometimes I must work hard all the 
 time. Once I have had three such easy days, but then 
 came a week which was quite terrible, when there 
 seemed to be no rest at all, and I could hardly drag 
 myself from work to bed. It was very discouraging, 
 too, for it seemed that at the end I had forgotten all I 
 had learned ir. those easy’ days, and the instructor at 
 the schoo! where I recited shook his head. 
 
 “After we have the front and back walls of the 
 furnace made, I wheel mud to the tap-hole for lining 
 on the spout. It takes an hour generally, but now I 
 can do it in 40 minutes. It is 110° around the spout. 
 While the furnace is being charged, ‘scrap’ in chunks 
 from small pieces to a thousand pounds, falls from 
 charging boxes, and these must be cleared away by 
 the second and third helpers. 
 
 “Then I fill large bags with coal to throw into the 
 ladle at tap time. Believe me, it is easy to burn your 
 face off! When tap time comes, I help to drill a “bad’ 
 hole, and this takes all the stuff a fellow has, for I must 
 shovel dolomite into a ladle of molten steel too. This 
 is my hottest job,—the temperature is around 180°, but 
 it takes only four or five minutes. Nearly every tap 
 time leaves a fellow with four or five small burns on 
 his face, neck, hands, or legs, and you must keep put- 
 ting out little fires in your clothing, but it is not so bad, 
 I think, as the heavy lifting parts of the furnace job, 
 and I would rather be at this than have to work with 
 the stove gang on the blast furnaces. 
 
 “Tt takes six to ten men in a gang to keep the blast 
 furnace stoves clean. These stoves are ovens for heating 
 
THE FURNACE 17 
 
 the blast. They are as big as the blast furnace itself, and 
 full of bricks that look something like your old checker- 
 board. As the stove cools the gang with pick and 
 shovel cleans out the hardened cinders in the combustion 
 chambers. They must go right inside, and it takes 
 them anywhere from ten minutes to an hour to finish. 
 Before the fellows go in, they put on wooden sandals, 
 a jacket which fits the neck’closely, a heavy cap with 
 ear-flaps, and goggles. They look like Esquimaux, but 
 it is not an Esquimau’s job, believe me!” 
 
CHAPTER: If 
 
 N one of Malcolm’s letters to his father (and he had 
 been very faithful in his writing) he said, “I’m be- 
 ginning to believe that I’ll have a fierce time keeping 
 up with my books,—but I am going to do it,—some- 
 how!’ 
 
 And do it he did, though in a way entirely unfore- 
 seen. One morning a huge piece of scrap crashed down 
 upon his leg and foot, smashing both. An hour later 
 the company doctor had finished with him and he was 
 lying quietly in a clean, white hospital cot. Four weeks 
 it was before he could be about,—four weeks in which 
 the great organization of which the Oldsburg mill was 
 a part gave him every reasonable attention and care. 
 The lad’s heart warmed within him, and there came a 
 strong feeling of gratitude toward those he regarded 
 now as generous benefactors, with a certain resentment 
 against the men who had whispered bitter words in the 
 long watches of those blazing nights. He remem- 
 bered the safety devices and the playgrounds and the 
 company houses—true, none of his associates lived in 
 the houses, and they seemed forever removed from the 
 sphere of the heavy-eyed common laborers, but they 
 were part of the dream of his “forward march’’; they 
 belonged to the height toward which he was striving, 
 and, rested now, he felt again within him the surge of 
 indomitable courage. 
 
 Many things he could not understand,—he knew the 
 18 
 
THE FURNACE Boh ats 
 
 long hours were cruel,—he had suffered them; even his 
 rioting strength had shriveled within him, his vigorous 
 young mind had shrunken and grown listless. He 
 granted the justice of the wage claims of his sullen as- 
 sociates,—he knew that forty per cent of the payroll 
 went to the skilled who numbered but thirty per cent 
 of the workers, and one night in a crowded cellar where 
 every man was sworn to secrecy, he had heard a quiet- 
 voiced speaker declare that the annual earnings of 
 seventy-two per cent of all workers in steel had been 
 for years below the level set by government experts as 
 the minimum of comfort-level for families of five. If 
 his immediate associates were a fair sample of the 
 whole, he knew the speaker was correct and he knew, 
 too, that one half of those who made up the seventy- 
 two per cent earned what they did only because they 
 worked twelve hours a day and seven days a week. 
 
 As to whether the company could afford to pay a 
 higher wage or not, he did not know. Sometimes an 
 uneasiness came upon him when he realized that body- 
 destroying labor purchased for some less than the bare 
 necessities of decency and comfort, while from that 
 same labor others seemed to secure, beyond all necessi- 
 ties, ease and luxury. He thought often of the young 
 mother who rented the attic of the three-roomed house 
 in which she lived to the ten men of whom he was one, 
 —the squalor in which her babies played, the worn-out 
 husband dead in exhausted sleep upon the unkempt bed. 
 
 But he knew, too, the frailty of the poor,—their 
 wastefulness, the ignorance with which they met the 
 welfare workers of the mill,—how a bathtub was 
 quickly turned into a coal-bin and a newly papered 
 
20 THE FURNACE 
 
 wall used as a blackboard on which the father tried to 
 figure out his weekly wage. 
 
 Malcolm Frank was not an ordinary, common la- 
 borer; through generations of poverty and oppression 
 the line of which his family was a strain had kept it- 
 self above the tide of discouragement and had refused 
 to sink beneath the flood of degeneracy. Malcolm’s 
 father and mother, coal miners and “‘hunkies” to the 
 undiscriminating, were brave and resourceful souls. 
 To their son they had given, not only clean blood, and 
 the rudiments of an education, but a native mind ana- 
 lytical as well as ambitious, so that while the young 
 Finn, convalescing from his painful accident, laughed 
 again at long hours and blinding heat, he resolved to 
 get above the earning plane of bare existence, to be- 
 come skilled among the skilled, and to emulate the few 
 who had risen from the ranks to lead them. 
 
 He could also not avoid questioning, “‘What of these 
 others? Do they have what in a free land, what in 
 America, belongs to them? Is theirs a man’s chance, a 
 man’s fighting chance, to win what I shall reach?” And 
 always the benefactors and welfare agencies of the 
 great corporation came to his remembrance to reassure 
 him. 
 
 It was at the end of the fourth week after his leg 
 and foot had been injured, and when he was just able 
 to swing about on his crutches, that a representative 
 from the superintendent’s office came to the hospital 
 and interviewed him. The conversation lifted Mal- 
 colm to the seventh heaven,—the company not only re- 
 gretted the accident, but had noted with interest the 
 spirit of the patient during the long convalescence; also 
 
THE FURNACE \ ME 
 
 his superiors appreciated his studious habits, and wished 
 him to know that for a chap of his apparent qualities 
 the Bancroft Steel Company had a future. As soon as 
 he was able, he was to report to the superintendent for 
 assignment to a new and more attractive position. 
 
 But Frank never reported. A week later he was dis- 
 charged from the hospital as cured; his limb was still 
 weak, but he had the comforting assurance that his re- 
 covery would be complete, and that in another month 
 he would scarcely remember the injury. When he said 
 good-by to the doctors and nurses with whom he had 
 become a great favorite, he had only one thing in mind, 
 —his visit to the office of the mill superintendent. 
 
 And then he met fate. As he swung down the 
 street toward his lodgings, he came to the post-office, 
 and there, on a V-shaped billboard in front of it, he 
 was faced by a startling poster—a man in uniform 
 confronted him, a man with piercing eye and out- 
 stretched hand, beneath whose pointing finger were 
 these words, in foot-high, flaming letters: 
 
 S4OUR COUNTRY NEEDS VOD I 
 
 Now, strange as it may seem, in so emotional a 
 youth, Malcolm Frank had never suffered from an at- 
 tack of military fever. Perhaps his father’s aversion 
 to the man on horseback who had ridden down his 
 native land was indirectly responsible for the disinter- 
 ested attitude the boy had taken toward the great war 
 which for nearly two years now had punished the na- 
 tions of Europe. This, and the fact that the natural 
 sympathies of his family were plunged into hopeless 
 confusion, at the beginning of the struggle, by the 
 
22 THE FURNACE 
 
 alignment of absolute monarchies,—Russia against 
 Germany: Russia, the slave lord of Finland, with 
 France and Belgium and free England had no doubt 
 been responsible for his lack of vital interest. 
 
 But that poster was an awakening shock; a heavier 
 blow it struck him than the half-ton “scrap” that broke 
 his leg. “Your Country Needs You.’ Hypnotized, 
 his eyes fastened to the legend beneath the picture, and 
 he stood trembling on the curb of the busy street. A 
 voice aroused him: 
 
 “Well, buddy,—what about it?” 
 
 The speaker was a dapper, well-groomed sergeant of 
 the marines. Quickly he had appraised the youth be- 
 fore him, sensed the temporary character of his injury, 
 and taken full account of his splendid physique. The 
 keen young officer was not long in telling his story, 
 and he told it well. 
 
 “Sure, your country needs you,—Greasers overrun- 
 ning Texas, spreading terror all along the border; 
 short-handed in the Philippines,—not enough marines 
 to teach the natives how to salute the flag,—and, man, 
 a big war coming, coming sure as fate. We can’t for- 
 get the Lusitania; we wouldn't, and the Huns won’t let 
 us, but when we mix with that—ye gods! it will take 
 the last man! They’ll come and get you later—better 
 ‘Do it now!” 
 
 Malcolm scarcely heard the staccato voice of the 
 sergeant. The poster, the hypnotic spell of that point- 
 ing finger, and “Your Country Needs You,” still held 
 him. Quickly he roused, shook himself, turned to the 
 recruiting officer with a noncommittal smile and swung 
 on, That immaculate and thoroughly-in-earnest ma- 
 
THE FURNACE 23 
 
 rine flung after the retreating figure a snort of disgust, 
 and quickly forgot the incident. 
 
 But Malcolm did not forget. Straight on to his’ 
 lodgings he hurried, with a new light in his eyes and a 
 determination in his mind altogether different from the 
 one with which he had started away from the hospital. 
 Paying his bill for room and bed,—rather for half of 
 the latter,—he said good-by to his haggard-eyed land- 
 lady, and going to the bank that served the foreign 
 element of the town, drew out his savings. The 
 amount was not large, but to the young Finn it seemed 
 so. He however made a quick mental calculation, and 
 discovered that the twenty-five dollars a week he had 
 received for six weeks while learning his job, with the 
 ten-dollar a week advance that had come in his pay 
 envelope for the balance of the time he had worked as 
 a third helper, would look smaller to the head of a 
 household than it did to him. But his heart warmed 
 when he thought of what he could do now for his peo- 
 ple,—his father, always his hero, and his mother, sad- 
 eyed, with a strange tenderness in her coarse hands, 
 and just a hint of youthful comeliness about her wind- 
 hardened features. 
 
 That he had come to a sudden and revolutionary 
 change in his life plan did not at once occur to him. 
 Rather it seemed that he was going forward in the 
 course that had been set for him from the beginning. 
 Later he was to come to himself, but for the moment 
 he was in an exalted mood, and nothing mattered but 
 his new, great resolution. 
 
 He. took the first train for home. Four hours later 
 he sat again at the simple table of his father with his 
 
24 THE FURNACE 
 
 mother’s quiet smile upon him. Later in the evening he 
 asked for permission to enlist in the regular army of the 
 United States. The father listened with clouded brow 
 to the eager words of his son. For weeks he had 
 watched with growing anxiety the gathering war 
 clouds; his sentiments, mixed and battling with each 
 other at the beginning, had more and more turned to 
 the Allies, until the first revolution in Russia finally es- 
 tablished his sympathies. His experience was quite 
 typical of the great body of the nation—a cross sec- 
 tion of the slow-moving mind of the peace-loving re- 
 public. 
 
 But now that so unexpectedly, so abruptly, the call 
 to arms was rung in his ears, and by his own son, he 
 reacted with an aversion to the bloody thing that left 
 him bitter and melancholy. So this it was, and worse 
 it soon would be—out of the night of bondage, the 
 Egypt of militarism, he had come across his Red Sea 
 and Jordan, to the promised land of freedom and peace. 
 ‘Now this promised land was to become another armed 
 camp,—yes, he could no longer hope for a better end- 
 ing. 
 
 When Malcolm had finished speaking the prema- 
 turely old man—and never had he seemed so old to his 
 son as he seemed that night—sat silently through long 
 minutes, and then arose, lighted his bedroom candle, 
 and without looking at the anxious boy said: 
 
 “Yes, we will sleep now, and to-morrow night we 
 will talk again.” 
 
 For Malcolm the next twenty-four hours were trou- 
 bled ones. He knew his father well enough to feel the 
 intense regret with which his request had been re- 
 
THE FURNACE 2s 
 
 ceived. The abrupt termination of the evening’s con- 
 versation caused him anxiety. His decision was made 
 —“His Country Needed Him,’—there could be no 
 turning back. No longer the poster with its pointing 
 finger held him; now the challenge was within him, pos- 
 sessed his soul, and it was as though from his cradle he 
 had been dedicated to some task of which this next step 
 was the beginning. 
 
 But he loved his father, and would rather die than 
 wound him. More, he wanted his father, needed his 
 father, in this great moment. If only with his father’s 
 approbation he could go forward, he would be doubly 
 strong. Again and again as, sleepless, he tossed by the 
 side of his younger brother, he prayed that his father 
 might understand. 
 
 The next day he lost himself in the high hills, the 
 castles of his childhood dreams. In the morning he did 
 not see his father,—purposely he had been avoided, he 
 knew, but at night the family met again at the table, and 
 later the ardent youth and the sad gray man sat alone to- 
 gether. It was the man now who spoke, and with a 
 lucid calm that had come to him in the long hours of 
 the mine. 
 
 “Malcolm,” said he, “I understand,—you will go.” 
 
 And then, as his son started to his feet, relief and 
 joy upon his face, the father rose and breaking from 
 the bonds of cramped and shortened muscles, towered 
 to a height the boy had never known was his, and 
 reaching out his arms, with infinite tenderness he cried: 
 
 “Come, my son.” 
 
 Another month it was before Malcolm was recov- 
 ered sufficiently to be accepted by the examining physi- 
 
26 THE FURNACE ! 
 
 cian. As soon as he was “fit” he enlisted. Almost im- 
 mediately he was ordered to Fort Crockett at Galves- 
 ton, where the joined the tst Division. His father 
 went with him to the city where his real journey began. 
 Their leave-taking was simple and unaffected. The 
 senior felt the forebodings of impending great events; 
 the boy was only eager to go forward. 
 
 On the afternoon of that last free day Malcolm 
 made his long-delayed visit to the superintendent’s of- 
 fice. He was a fine figure of a man in his new uni- 
 form; his presence even then carried conviction, and he 
 came without delay before the superintendent himself. 
 The successful director of a great enterprise smiled 
 rather deprecatingly when Malcolm thanked him for 
 the company’s consideration and kindness, and told him 
 of the decision he had made that had so completely 
 changed his plans. The smile was not lost upon the 
 boy. He flushed and stiffened; then drew from the in- 
 side pocket of his blouse a smaller copy of the poster 
 that had captured him when he left the hospital. 
 Spreading it on the desk before the superintendent, he 
 said, in a voice that trembled with emotion: 
 
 “Sir, that is why I am going.” 
 
 The man for the moment lost the cynicism of his 
 world of trade and caught the spirit of the unspoiled 
 youth. His eye lighted from a half-dead fire as he 
 read the words, “Your Country Needs You,” and he 
 answered : 
 
 “You have done well. Perhaps my son, too, and 
 the rest of us will have to hear that call presently,’ and 
 he smiled again, a different smile. “Come back a 
 brigadier, and don’t forget there’ll be a job waiting.” 
 
; THE FURNACE 27 
 
 Both the superintendent and the young recruit were 
 to have reason to remember that apparently uneventful 
 interview. It gave the man a sort of moral bath that 
 left him with wholesome thoughts, refreshed and re- 
 newed; it send the boy away with warmth in his heart 
 toward the great corporation, and an even keener desire 
 to be worthy of the generous interest taken in him, _ 
 
 The next few months were eventful ones crowded 
 with unnumbered new experiences. He suffered in 
 silence, as a good soldier, the tortures that are meted 
 out to the “rookie,” and the revilements that are heaped 
 upon the awkward squad. He tasted the refinements 
 of discipline, and he learned that a soldier must be first 
 a machine. But all that came to him, he accepted seri- 
 ously, perhaps too seriously, for a soldier’s life, in peace 
 as well as in war, is hopeless unless seasoned with 
 philosophic forgetfulness and humor. These ingredi- 
 ents were mixed in later, however, and the soberness 
 with which the new recruit, who spoke with just the 
 hint of an accent, regarded every detail of his new life, 
 gave him in weeks the finish and éclat of the service 
 that are ordinarily acquired only after months or even 
 years. 
 
 His personal appearance and eager willingness made 
 him a marked man from the beginning. His popu- 
 larity was of the sort that mingles respect with confi- 
 dence, and his great strength needed only one demon- 
 stration to show a roughneck his place. As a corporal 
 he went to Vera Cruz with Funston, and he sailed for 
 England and France with the “first ten thousand,” a 
 top sergeant. He would have been a commissioned 
 officer six months earlier than he was, but for the fact 
 
28 THE FURNACE 
 
 that it was unanimously agreed that he was too valua- 
 ble to be promoted! Lieutenants and captains came 
 from training camps, but a real “top sergeant” was a 
 gift of God! 
 
 At Cantigny, when Major Griffith was decapitated by 
 a shell and a whole battalion was thrown into momen- 
 tary confusion, it was Sergeant Frank who quieted 
 things by sitting down upon a crumpled parapet and 
 coolly cleaning his equipment. Frank it was who broke 
 the stampede on the last night of February, 1918, when 
 for the first time a concentrated gas attack mixed with 
 liquid fire came down upon Company K, in the low 
 ground to the right of battalion headquarters in from 
 Beaumont. Covered with blood, soaked from knees 
 to neck, he crawled out of his ruined dugout and un- 
 aided captured the captain of the attacking Bavarians. 
 
 His auburn head, with just a glint of gold, was al- 
 ways fretful under its helmet—his only break with dis- 
 cipline came when he threw his “tin hat’’ aside—and like 
 a pillar of fire it became to the bedraggled, exhausted 
 men in the midnight of the Argonne. But the croix-de- 
 guerre and D.S.C. are citations not to be denied, and so 
 it was that as a captain he led his men into position 
 when for a second time the old “Fighting First’ 
 marched through the sinister shadows in front of Toul, 
 out toward Mt. Sec, and waited for the order that was 
 to send them into the triumph of San Mihiel. 
 
 From his captaincy he walked into a major’s com- 
 mission before the guns unlimbered in front of Le 
 Bans, and while back in old Base Hospital 455, fretting 
 with a rifle bullet through his shoulder, that just missed 
 his lungs, he was made a lieutenant-colonel. 
 
THE FURNACE 29 
 
 Then came the Armistice! and then, on an afternoon, 
 in front of the gray Fest Halle in Coblenz, his day of 
 days. It was just before the Division fell in to cross 
 _ the Rhine. Down upon the parade ground of kings 
 and emperors mighty Ehrenbreitstein frowned. The 
 frosted hills were set with diamonds as for a corona- 
 tion. But no monarch came. The burnished though 
 battered ranks of a youthful army that had marched by 
 a “Long, long trail,” to deliver the soul of a great, free 
 people from a bondage of silence, when, not to have 
 spoken, would have been ignominy, stood at attention 
 and waited for the Commander-in-chief. 
 
 At high noon, surrounded by his personal staff, 
 Pershing appeared. Always a soldier unsurpassed, and 
 the finest military figure of the war, on this day of 
 triumph, when the ancient pontoon bridge that spans 
 the haughty river was to know for the first time the 
 tread of a conqueror, he rode into the great hollow 
 square like some lion-hearted chieftain of old. It was 
 then, with the sun upon his face, crowning his head 
 with flame, and with ten thousand comrades shouting 
 his name, that Malcolm Frank had the Congressional 
 Medal pinned upon his breast by the great general and 
 received the commission that made him the youngest 
 colonel of infantry in the service. 
 
CHAPTER WU 
 
 A? has already been written, Chaplain Jayne and 
 
 Haig Brant met on the transport en route to 
 Europe, on the same transport which carried Malcolm 
 Frank, a sergeant. Jayne and Brant became friends 
 immediately; they differed widely, differed tempera- 
 mentally. Jayne was a believer; profoundly he be- 
 lieved,—believed in God and in men. Brant was an 
 interrogation mark; if you believed, he was a courteous 
 gentleman, but as for himself, he didn’t know, and his 
 experiences in the newspaper office of a great city daily 
 had caused him to question much of the unction of the 
 church, and to doubt much of the surface integrity of 
 society. Jayne was a wholesome and sane devotee. 
 Brant was little short of a cynic,—and that at twenty- 
 eight. 
 
 The background of the two men was different. 
 Jayne was the son of a missionary to the Indians of 
 the Southwest; his childhood playmates had been the 
 sons and daughters of Apaches ; his home the mountain- 
 land where it breaks up into foothills and disputes with 
 the fruitful desert of northern Arizona. He was a 
 product of the vast open spaces and had listened to the 
 voices that speak in the stillness when one stretches at 
 night among the sage beneath the low-bending skies of 
 the prairie. 
 
 Brant was city born; his playground had been the 
 
 30 
 
THE FURNACE St 
 
 parks throttled by great buildings or crowded alleys. 
 He had known from infancy the stern fight for bread 
 and breath. His father struggled against unfair odds 
 to give his wife and only child the comforts of a modest 
 home, and, when Brant was ten, fell before a sudden 
 onslaught of pneumonia. The young widow, frail and 
 undernourished, but a heroine, refused to die until her 
 son was at an age when he could help himself. Brant 
 had reason for holding the memory of a sweet-faced 
 woman as an idol in his heart, and the memory of her 
 it was—her tears and smiles, her prayers and faith— 
 that made him less than a hopeless cynic. 
 
 But while Jayne and Brant were different, while they 
 differed temperamentally, and in their manner of living 
 and thinking, both were genuine, and so by the law of 
 opposites they came together, and as two vastly differ- 
 ent men of another time, ‘‘their souls clave unto each 
 other.” 
 
 Brant would rail out against the social inequality and 
 injustice of the day, damn the political chicanery of 
 statesmen who made of nations pawns to move upon 
 their chessboards of selfish nationalism; curse the trans- 
 parent-figured grafters, too frail to fight, and too fat 
 with profits to care whether fighting ever ceased; turn 
 his sarcasm upon religious leaders who justified the 
 barbarism of war and worshiped God as some tribal 
 deity, who protected people and gave them victory be- 
 cause they had a thistle for their emblem, instead of a 
 cactus, and then he would grow quiet under the unre- 
 buking smile of his friend who, in one way or another, 
 always managed to terminate the conversation and 
 still its tempest with: 
 
32 THE FURNACE 
 
 “Right you are, old stormer, but God’s in his heaven, 
 and all will be right with the world.” 
 
 There was one picture of the chaplain that Brant 
 would carry to his last day. It was in the early spring 
 of ’18, and just before the rst Division was hurried to 
 Cantigny. For weeks the line had been comparatively 
 inactive, and then one night the enemy let loose with 
 everything, from three-inch to “Big Berthas” and from 
 gas to shrapnel. Knowing that Jayne was quartered 
 in an old barn by a battered church that was an inviting 
 target, the lieutenant (it was just before his second 
 promotion) hurried out of his quarters with the deter- 
 mination to bring his friend back to the colonel’s bomb- 
 proof. When he reached the pump-square of the shat- 
 tered village, he saw flames licking the roof of the barn 
 and heard the screams of broken men who were being 
 carried down from the loft. 
 
 As he leaped through the wide door he came upon a 
 sight that would never again leave him. At the opening 
 of the concentrated fire, and before men could move to 
 safety, a ten-inch high-explosive had dropped through 
 the sieve-like roof of the stable, killing six doughboys 
 in their roll-ups and mangling five others. Going on 
 through, it had killed three mules in the stalls below. 
 Mules and men were so mingled that it was difficult to 
 separate the fragments. Above a boy the chaplain 
 knelt. He was shoeless and stripped to his waist, his 
 helmet cracked (unconsciously he had put it on after 
 a fragment of shell had smashed it), his face and chest 
 bloody, and in his hands the unmarred hemispheres of 
 a human brain—he was putting it back, restoring it 
 to the open skull of the dead lad, who, by a queer freak 
 
THE FURNACE 33 
 
 of the iron killer, had been left with only the one 
 strange wound. 
 
 Hearing Brant’s call, Jayne lifted his carmine, drip- 
 ping face, and in a voice of utter anguish cried: “Great 
 God, and may we all be damned if this is not the last 
 war!’ Later, in the church, beneath a crucifix, and in 
 front of what had been an altar, they put down the 
 canvas-covered baskets, and there, in the midst of the 
 noise and death, the Protestant chaplain offered his 
 prayer: 
 
 “Rest Thou their souls in peace. Comfort Thou the 
 ones who bore them and brought them a priceless offer- 
 ing to the altar of freedom, and save us from this hate. 
 In Jesus’ name, whose heart we break.” 
 
 Through it Brant waited, and then he led the now un- 
 resisting chaplain, who had been himself only slightly 
 wounded, but who was sobbing like a punished child, to 
 the colonel’s dugout. In that day the two men found 
 a new and deeper friendship. | 
 
 The meeting between Chaplain Jayne and Sergeant 
 Frank came just before the latter’s first overseas pro- 
 motion. It occurred ina Y.M.C.A. canteen in a dugout 
 of Rambecourt, presided over by as fine a chap as ever 
 wore the red triangle, a young parson from Iowa 
 named Hart. Jayne, making his rounds one day, had 
 dropped in for a cup of hot drink and a few words of 
 conversation—there was a fine understanding between 
 the two—when suddenly a doughboy plunged headlong 
 down the entrance, crashed through the double gas- 
 curtains and against the legs of the astonished chaplain, 
 who went over backwards, narrowly missing the huge 
 can of boiling chocolate. The chaplain sprang to his 
 
34 THE FURNACE 
 
 feet, mad as the occurrence seemed to fully justify, but 
 the doughboy, a sergeant, lay quiet. 
 
 He was slimy with clay,—later they learned that he 
 had tramped four miles through sloughing trenches, 
 in rain and snow, with gas pains in his chest, and forty 
 days of front line weariness in his limbs, to carry a 
 message to headquarters, which interrupted line service 
 made necessary for somebody to bring back in person. 
 He had reported, and was returning, when, looking for 
 something to eat and drink, he collapsed. The sergeant 
 was Malcolm Frank. A few minutes of rubbing and 
 attention brought him to, and then, while he sat on 
 an empty crate, Jayne plied him with chocolate while 
 Hart went for an ambulance. Two weeks it was before 
 he recovered sufficiently from his first touch of “mus- 
 tard” to return to his outfit. 
 
 The ambulance was long in coming, and the sergeant, 
 whose strength returned quickly, soon became interested 
 in his surroundings. In the far corner of the room 
 which had been a wine-cellar, directly beneath the 
 private chapel of an old chateau, was “Lizzie,” a much- 
 battered talking-machine, chained to a table-leg by some 
 wag who insisted that the army couldn’t afford to lose 
 her. She sat in a jumble of venerable papers and 
 cracked records. The sergeant’s eyes rested longingly 
 upon her, and the chaplain, sensing his wish, stepped 
 over, searched for a minute, and then put on a selection. 
 
 There, beneath the ground, hard by German barbed 
 wire, Alma Gluck sang, “Little Gray Home in the 
 West.” Jayne had heard the song the night before he 
 sailed from New York. For five thousand people who 
 crowded into the Hippodrome to listen to the music 
 
THE FURNACE 35 
 
 of a patriotic concert that brought together some of the 
 supreme artists of the nation, Alma Gluck had sung the 
 plaintive, tender melody, but she did not sing it then 
 as she sang there beneath the ruined chapel, to the ac- 
 companiment of bursting shells, for a homesick soldier 
 who would not have gone home had the way been 
 opened, and for a khaki-clad minister of God. 
 
 When the song was finished, the sergeant wiped 
 away the tears he did not try to hide, and smiled,—the 
 smile that sealed his fate with Jayne—and then said, 
 “Chaplain, did you ever hear the story of the Statue of 
 Liberty?” and the chaplain, rising to the occasion, 
 countered, “Which one?” The sergeant, bowing an 
 acknowledgment, replied: 
 
 “This one: A fellow was invalided home. Presently 
 the transport came on by Sandy Hook, and through the 
 Narrows, and there, standing up in the mists, was Miss 
 Liberty, and she had a light in the window for him. 
 He stood at attention and saluted and said, ‘Mighty 
 glad to see you, madam,—mighty glad to see you; but 
 if you ever see me again, you'll have to turn around!’ ” 
 
 Then Hart came back, and with the chaplain, helped 
 the sergeant up the stairs and into the car. That was 
 the beginning of another abiding friendship and really 
 of a triangular compact in brotherhood, which was to 
 survive and strengthen through many fateful days, for 
 that night Bruce Jayne told Lieutenant Brant the story, 
 and before the auburn-haired sergeant left the hospital 
 he was fast friend to the slender officer of artillery. 
 And the relationship between the three, which at the first 
 found small opportunity for development, came to have 
 a unique significance,—preacher and worker and writer. 
 
36 THE FURNACE 
 
 Malcolm Frank would have been a point of contact for 
 Bruce Jayne and Haig Brant had one been needed; as 
 it was, he became increasingly a good “‘conductor” fof 
 both, and, at times (to change the figure), a shock- 
 absorber ! 
 
 All that the chaplain believed in, Malcolm accepted, 
 and no less a prophet and dreamer was he. Even the 
 mud of a trench became the tinted plaster of storied 
 halls, when he waded by, and every hard road he 
 tramped, the Via Crucis to the way of triumph. But 
 he knew as well the unromantic and blasphemous back- 
 ground of Brant’s near-cynicism. His heart warmed 
 to hear the stern and searching words that the young 
 officer hurled against the sham and hypocrisy of the 
 times; its double thinking and dealing and living. He 
 began to sense the danger of a war won and then per- 
 haps lost,—lost in the scramble and duplicity of peace, 
 its sacrifices squandered, its victories dissipated, its 
 fruits scattered; the high principles that actuated its 
 dying, crucified upon the cross of greed by its living, 
 and eventually the vanquished serving as administrators 
 for some of their too greedy conquerors. 
 
 At the first the difference in rank served as a barrier 
 between Brant and Frank and kept them from frequent 
 or intimate associations. The chaplain suffered no 
 such embarrassment. Later, as rapid promotion came 
 to the young Finn, and especially when the war entered 
 its final stages, the three men were more and more in 
 each other’s company. 
 
 Always at such times Malcolm was haunted by an 
 elusive memory that insisted upon placing Chaplain 
 Jayne somewhere in his earlier life, but that refused 
 
THE FURNACE 37 
 
 to definitely locate him. His presence, the trick that he 
 had of throwing up his head when he laughed, the 
 richness of his voice,—all were strangely, though un- 
 certainly, familiar. But at last his persistent search- 
 ing back through the years was rewarded. 
 
 It was at Montebaur, weeks after the Armistice,— 
 out near the top of the old Coblenz bridgehead, and 
 just a few days after Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm 
 Frank had been decorated by General Pershing, and 
 handed his commission as colonel—that the final recog- 
 nition came. The three officers, with the others who 
 shared the young colonel’s billet, were spending an eve- 
 ning celebrating their comrade’s well-earned promotion. 
 In the course of the conversation, Major Brant turned 
 with good-natured, though at times caustic, bantering 
 upon the Chaplain. 
 
 “Well,” said he, “what’s the big job for the chicken- 
 eating clergy now? Baptisms are falling off since the 
 Armistice was signed,—you’re too active a man to be 
 satisfied with a soft job. I can’t quite ‘see you’ pushing 
 door-bells in a respectable city parish—but then, you’ve 
 earned a rest.’ 
 
 The chaplain grinned, pulled himself out of his chair, 
 and walked over to the window. For quite a time he 
 stood looking down upon the dimly lighted street from 
 which came sounds of a minor disturbance. Then 
 suddenly he swung about and came over to the major. 
 
 “No, Brant,” he said, “I’ve earned nothing,—nothing 
 that I haven’t received. When I get back, if I’m 
 honest, I’ll hand Uncle Samuel a statement endorsed 
 ‘Paid in full,’”’—he hesitated for the fraction of a 
 second and then as though sensing the more serious un- 
 
38 THE FURNACE 
 
 dercurrent of the evening, and as though accepting the 
 unspoken invitation of the group that had waited for 
 his reply, he concluded: | 
 
 “Baptisms have fallen off, and a bunch of the bap- 
 tized have fallen down since—work stopped, but you’ve 
 diagnosed the case wrong. This is no time for my 
 crowd to take a vacation. If your work is done, mine 
 has just begun.” | 
 
 But back came the major: “There you go,—regular 
 preacher stuff now! You sound like a collar buttoned 
 behind. J’d almost forgotten that you wore the brand.” 
 
 The major for no apparent reason was going the 
 limit, but the chaplain, though a bit grimly, was still 
 smiling as he answered in a voice that had something 
 of the quality of the staccato rip of a machine gun: 
 
 “T’d almost rather have you call me ‘Hun’ than yell 
 ‘preacher’ at me like that. I have a notion your con- 
 science is seasick to-night,—it generally is when you’re 
 nasty ;” and the speaker dropped his hand affectionately 
 on the shoulder of his friend. ‘“‘Well,’’ he concluded, 
 “"f it’s the ‘penitent form’ you need, I’m willing to 
 suffer until you get there.” 
 
 The major laughed good-naturedly, and in a tone that 
 had taken on a new note that had lost much of its 
 banter, he replied, “Right you are, padre. I’m a ‘sin- 
 sick’ soul to-night. Not because of my past, but be- 
 cause of my future, or rather because my future is 
 behind me.” He hesitated for an instant, and then 
 concluded, “In the words of a certain gentleman of 
 color, ‘I’se done gone bin whar I’se gwine.’ ” 
 
 Chaplain Jayne threw back his head and joined the 
 laughter that swept the little group of men in uniform. 
 
THE FURNACE 39 
 
 Then he said, “Major, in the words of your patron 
 saint, Henry George, ‘I’m for men, and I’m for you.’ ” 
 
 He stopped suddenly; his face, but a moment before 
 easy and relaxed, became grave, even stern. The group 
 about him as they watched his expression change felt 
 the subtle challenge of his mood. Then very quietly he 
 said, “Haig, that’s your future,—men! We——’ but 
 the sentence was never finished, for at this point the 
 colonel leaped to his feet and in a voice of startled emo- 
 tion cried: 
 
 “Now I’ve got you, chaplain!” 
 
 While his two friends had gone after each other, 
 Malcolm Frank had remained an interested and then 
 absorbed listener. Not that he seemed to be following 
 them particularly, but his eyes were fixed on the face 
 of the chaplain. His expression was at first that of a 
 man who is searching for something that just escapes 
 him, but an instant before he so abruptly ended the de- 
 bate it had suddenly changed, and now, as he spoke, 
 while the half dozen men about the table listened in 
 amazement, his face was flushed and his eyes eager with 
 light. 
 
 “T’ve tried since that first day in the cellar at Rambe- 
 court to place you, to recall something I could neither 
 forget nor remember. But until you pulled that quota- 
 tion of Henry George, I was utterly baffled. Chaplain,” 
 and now the man’s voice was intense, “it was Jonesville 
 in Ohio, the town of the ‘Fighting McCooks,’ on a 
 Memorial Sunday, twelve years ago. You were the 
 speaker—the youngest that Post ever had. There was 
 a band from the coal town under the tipple. My father 
 was the leader. A boy (he was twelve) brought you 
 
40 THE FURNACE 
 
 a note in the morning,—do you remember? ‘You had 
 trouble to read it, but it asked on behalf of some 
 Finnish miners for the privilege of playing at the 
 exercises, and when the man who was with you said, 
 ‘No,’ you smiled and said, “Yes,’ and they came. Down 
 the street they marched from the church, at the head of 
 the column, out to the graves in the grass and the 
 flags on the hillside.” ) 
 
 The chaplain’s face was a study as he listened, and, 
 listening, he searched the face of the speaker, who went | 
 on: 
 
 “Do you remember your speech? The conclusion 
 was not what the paper reported,—taken, I suppose, 
 from your advance copy. Your eyes were upon the 
 Finnish miners, only two of whom could understand 
 you,—my father and the boy who brought you the 
 note, and later marched with a flag in front of the 
 band. No, you do not remember your words, but the 
 boy could not forget. He hurried home repeating them, 
 —hurried home to write them down. To-day he re- 
 members them as Moslems remember their Koran. 
 These were your words,—you were young, very young, 
 and you were filled for the moment with a knowledge 
 of the great mystery of life before you. These were 
 your words,” and in a voice of rare and compelling 
 eloquence Malcolm Frank repeated: 
 
 ““The nation for which these died who are remem- 
 bered here, is for men,—not for kings and emperors, 
 not for rich and poor, but for men,—men who love 
 freedom and would possess it; who cherish democracy 
 and would protect it; men ready with their votes, their 
 service and, if need arises, with their lives, to pay the 
 
THE FURNACE 41 
 
 price of liberty,—and then it seemed to me that you 
 looked straight into my eyes—for I was the boy—as 
 you concluded: ‘It is as plainly written as the Decalogue, 
 that beneath the flag toward which the eyes of 
 millions now bondaged and oppressed, turn as turns the 
 morning flower toward the sun, shall burn out the 
 ancient dross of despotism, shall be the melting of the 
 nations and the blending of the peoples of the earth.’ 
 
 “Bruce Jayne,” said the colonel quietly, ‘‘you are my 
 spiritual father, for that day was born in me the soul 
 my father in the flesh had watched and waited for.” 
 
 In a spell the men had hung upon their host’s words. 
 So held were they by the intensity of his presence and 
 utterance that they had not noticed a sudden and grow- 
 ing disturbance in a room at the far end of the hall 
 of the commodious German house in which the colonel 
 was billeted, but as the chaplain rose to eagerly acknowl- 
 edge the recognition of Colonel Frank, a scream of 
 utter agony and terror, a woman’s scream, cut through 
 the emotion that held them, and sent them as one man 
 catapulting into the hall. 
 
CHAPTER TY: 
 
 HE colonel, already standing, was in the lead. 
 His heavy shoulders smashed through the bolted 
 door from beyond which came the cry, as though it 
 were papier-maché. Then his eyes beheld a sight 
 that sent him mad with rage. A young mother, the 
 widow of a German soldier, lay helpless, senseless, in 
 the crushing arms of a brute who wore the American 
 uniform, and who bore her to the floor as Malcom’s 
 hands closed upon him. With an oath the frenzied 
 fellow turned upon his interrupter. Drunk he was,— 
 mad drunk. In a flash he had whipped out his auto- 
 matic. Just in time Brant struck it up from the 
 colonel’s chest,—the bullet grooved Frank’s cheek and 
 cut his ear. Stunned for an instant, the colonel re- 
 leased his hold. The fiend aimed a kick at his su- 
 perior’s groin and spat in his face. Then the mighty 
 right arm of the iron-maker shot out from the hercu- 
 lean shoulder, and the brain that had cleared as quickly 
 as it clouded planted a sledge-like fist under the foam- 
 smeared chin of the intruder. Across the room the 
 crumpled body hurtled, through the curtains of the 
 high-posted bed which crashed to the floor, and there, 
 all bloody, the would-be rapist lay, tangled in lace 
 and jumbled finery. 
 
 The whole affair was over in a short minute. The 
 still senseless young woman, her white shoulder and 
 swollen throat covered with Brant’s cape, was carried 
 
 42 
 
THE FURNACE > 43 
 
 to the ground floor and into the room of her mother. 
 Her half-dead, but rapidly sobering, assailant,—he had 
 followed her home from the shop, and slinking after 
 her into the hall had waited a favorable opportunity to 
 invade the room she occupied with her child,—was 
 handcuffed and thrown on a cot in the colonel’s quar- 
 ters. There it was discovered that he was a sergeant, 
 Johnson, of Frank’s old organization, a decent enough 
 fellow when sober, a man with a record for courage, 
 but one of the many who fell victims before the re- 
 laxed discipline and slipping morale of the after-Armis- 
 tice period. 
 
 The chaplain dressed the colonel’s slight wound and 
 then cleaned up the prisoner, who was now blubbering 
 in a maudlin way. The faces of the comrades of that 
 rudely disturbed hour of good fellowship were stern 
 and set—a nasty task was before them. The drunken 
 fool on the bed had completely covered the ground in 
 his mad rush to a court-martial sentence of death, and 
 these men about him had hoped that their business with 
 killing was closed out. Brant was the first of the group 
 to speak. 
 
 “Chaplain,” said he, “don’t you think we’d better 
 call on the victim?”—there was no false note in the 
 way he said it. ‘She deserves at least the apology of 
 a disgraced uniform. For one, I’m eager to make it, 
 and now isn’t too soon to assure her that the indignity, 
 in so far as that is possible for the army to do so, will 
 be atoned for. And, Chaplain, the decision of the 
 judges is in,—it is unanimous. You win—Il’m for 
 men.” 
 
 Bruce Jayne threw a restraining, understanding arm 
 
44 THE FURNACE 
 
 of affection across the shoulder of the major and said, 
 “Come on, old stormer.”’ But at the door the colonel 
 stopped them. “Not now, unless I am presentable— 
 this is my party.” And so three instead of two, guards- 
 men of a new order, marched down the hall together. 
 
 Their knock brought no immediate answer, but 
 presently the door was opened slightly and the face of 
 the mother, in questioning fear, appeared. With defer- 
 ence Colonel Frank, who spoke German fluently, en- 
 quired after the daughter and expressed the wish that 
 with his companions he might speak to her for a mo- 
 ment, even at some cost to her already overtaxed 
 strength. 
 
 His bandaged head carried reassurance, and after a 
 hurried consultation behind the again closed door, it 
 was reopened, and they were invited to enter. Propped 
 against the pillows of a great bed reclined a beautiful 
 woman. Close against one cheek she held the face of 
 a wide-eyed little girl; the other was swollen and 
 bruised. It was the chaplain now who took command 
 of the situation. With the memory of his own be- 
 loved and the lad who was a babe at her breast when he 
 left them, he came close to the group, and, losing his 
 fingers in the curls of the wondering child, he voiced the 
 sorrow and shame of his associates. And then his 
 voice broke as he told of the son and the brown-eyed 
 mother who waited for him. 
 
 As he talked, the eyes of the young widow filled, and 
 when he had finished, in a voice of refinement and 
 richness, she replied. Terrible had been the experi- 
 ence—she had prayed for sudden death, and when she 
 
 _— 
 
THE FURNACE 4s 
 
 had swooned she thought that God had answered. And 
 then her eyes flashed, and she cried: 
 
 “Oh, the war,—cruel and worse, beastly and foul. No 
 man it was who came upon me, but a brute war-born 
 and drink-nursed. I have suffered,—he’’—and she 
 whispered a name—“‘is out there in a grave I shall never 
 see. But, sirs, you are kind. You have protected the 
 widow and her orphan,” and, resting her eyes upon 
 the colonel’s bandaged head, and with a woman’s intui- 
 tion sensing what she had not seen, she went on, “and 
 their God will reward you.” , 
 
 She hesitated and then, raising herself against her 
 
 pillows and lifting her hands to her flaming cheeks, 
 she cried, “Oh, sirs, grant me this favor. I know the 
 way of your stern justice, the end that awaits him. 
 «But the anguish of blood is upon my heart and my 
 child. Spare me, oh, spare me its stain on my hands.” 
 Utterly exhausted, she sank panting into the pillows, 
 and quietly the visitors withdrew. 
 
 Brant was the last man out of the room. From the 
 time he suggested the visit in Frank’s quarters until 
 they returned to them, he did not speak, but through- 
 out the interview his eyes had never left the young 
 matron’s face, and like a memory from some treasure 
 room of childhood, her voice remained in his ears. 
 
 When the three men again faced their comrades, 
 where the now thoroughly cowed sergeant lay waiting 
 the beginning of the quick journey to the fateful end- 
 ing he had no hope of evading, Colonel Frank said 
 quietly, “Gentlemen, come into the next room.” 
 Standing then where he could watch the shackled 
 
46 THE FURNACE 
 
 soldier, but speaking in a voice that could not carry to 
 him, he said: 
 
 “T met this man first when he was a private, a red- 
 headed doughboy from Maine. I was his sergeant. 
 He was a good man; war and absinthe make a nasty 
 mixture; he has a plate in his head, and a section of 
 sheep-bone in his thigh, and when he hears, if he ever 
 does, that he spat in my face, he will be ready to jump 
 into the Rhine. He [and the colonel seemed to suffer 
 momentary embarrassment] sets a good deal of store 
 by me. It was at Mandras that I recall him first. He 
 came back one night to the relief billets as nervous as 
 Brant there’—the men relaxed into a smile—“and 
 paced back and forth in front of the old ‘Y’ stove, like 
 aman with a past. Finally he stopped in front of the 
 bench where I was sitting, gulping ‘gold fish’ and crack- 
 ers. Jerking off his tin hat, he said, ‘Say, I saw a 
 Dutchman to-day,—saw him from here up [Frank 
 indicated the portion of his anatomy from his chest to 
 his hair] and you know I’m a pretty good shot. I 
 didn’t see him again’—he hesitated for a moment and 
 then concluded, ‘Sarg. I hope he isn’t in my fix,—lI 
 hope he doesn’t have a wife anda kid.’ That’s Johnson 
 who lies in there, not the brute who tried to ravish her 
 and kill me. Gentlemen, I have talked with the woman: 
 you are my guests; I ask you to leave this man with 
 me. Beyond this I ask you until I release you—should 
 I ever do so—to forget what you have heard and 
 seen.” 
 
 And so ended the evening. In the morning before 
 reveille, a sergeant with a broken jaw was received at 
 the hospital,—he had been picked up by the colonel’s 
 
THE FURNACE 47 
 
 car, and it was pretty generally understood that he had 
 been mixed up in some kind of a drunken brawl, but 
 nothing more was heard of the matter, and two weeks 
 later the patient, who had been most docile and ex- 
 emplary, was discharged. He returned to his company. 
 
 Had a child of two understood what she saw, she 
 might have told of a letter that came into the hands 
 of her mother from the hand of a man who wore 
 plasters over a bruise on his cheek and a cut in his ear. 
 Later Brant sent a safety razor to the colonel, accom- 
 panied by a facetious note suggesting home shaving or 
 a change in barbers,—the note was quite a hit at the 
 officers’ mess. 
 
 Two months later the three friends received their 
 _ orders home. The orders came together, and together 
 the three now inseparable friends started for Brest. 
 It might be interesting to add that Brant was seen to 
 hurry absent-mindedly into the colonel’s old billet after 
 that officer’s final leave-taking, and a young matron in 
 black, with a child in her arms, accompanied him to the 
 door when he left. 
 
 The days that followed until out of the harbor fog 
 one early morning they ran into the clear-canopied open 
 sea were uneventful. The passage across was com- 
 monplace,—they were billeted in a “bridal suite’ on 
 “A” deck and lived like lords. In the twin suite across 
 the deck was a French diplomat and his immediate staff, 
 bound for Washington “to help save the peace we 
 thought we had won, but which Clemenceau and Lloyd 
 George and Wilson and Orlando seem to be having a 
 hard time to find,” as Brant expressed it. 
 
 The conversation which immediately preceded the 
 
 
 
48 THE FURNACE 
 
 early morning experience by the starboard rail, already 
 referred to, proved to be a fateful one. The men had 
 returned to their rooms after dinner, and for two hours 
 had been busy with their equipment,—indications were 
 that the ship would pass quarantine at seven and dock 
 certainly before noon. Their belongings arranged for 
 inspection and landing, they made themselves at ease 
 about the spacious room, and for another hour were 
 engaged in writing and reading. It was characteristic 
 of the deep understanding between them that they were 
 as companionable without words as with them. 
 
 It was Bruce Jayne who changed the order of the 
 night, by sitting down on the edge of the writing table 
 where Brant was busy with his nervous pen, and saying, 
 as he deftly lifted a half-burned cigarette from the 
 major’s mouth, “Old stormer, when are you going to 
 be reasonable with that?” 
 
 There was just a hint of seriousness in his tone. 
 Brant looked up and retorted: | 
 
 “Ts this the beginning of your campaign for the 2oth 
 amendment,—2oth, since the women have a full nelson 
 and a head-lock on the roth?” 
 
 The chaplain smiled and replied, “You're burning 
 yourself up, and you know it—not that I’m interested 
 in you!’”—and the speaker grinned affectionately at 
 the man before him—‘‘but I want no burial services to 
 interfere with my home-coming. But really,’ and the 
 tone lost its banter, “‘you’ve too much in front of you, 
 too much of glorious living, to keep on at this pace,” 
 and then the major, springing to his feet, cried: 
 
 “Well, what have I before me, and what have you? 
 What’s next? Strange, isn’t it, we haven’t said a word 
 
 
 
THE FURNACE 49 
 
 to each other about it since that night in Montebaur. 
 Is the thing we are going to do now worth the candle? 
 Hadn’t I better burn myself up,—quickly? A messed 
 world it is, and it will be worse, terribly worse, before 
 it gets better. Chaplain, I’m tired!’ 
 
 Colonel Frank looked up from his book and waited 
 expectantly for Jayne’s reply. It did not come quickly, 
 but after a long minute, releasing a deep breath, Bruce 
 Jayne said with conviction: 
 
 “Only one thing I see clearly:—having given my 
 life, I cannot take it back again. It seems strange, and 
 a bit uncanny at times, but I cannot feel that it is mine 
 now, any more than it would be mine had I left it out 
 there where Bill Thomas and ‘Wick’ Sanders and the 
 rest left theirs. That much is clear. I gave myself 
 ‘till death do us part,’ and beyond. I married my coun- 
 try, and her cause—and her cause,’’—his voice trailed 
 off wistfully. 
 
 “T’m not a preacher any more. Some day I hope to 
 be a minister. My old desk will be open to-morrow, 
 and Miss Barkins, the finest secretary that ever tried to 
 train a ‘rookie,’ will have a flower on the far left 
 corner. But whether I will stay I do not know. All 
 that is sure I have told you. I cannot take back my 
 life, and I am waiting for the ‘Voice.’ ” 
 
 Malcolm Frank had come forward quietly while 
 Bruce Jayne spoke, and when he finished he pulled the 
 chaplain from the table, squared him around, held him 
 off with both hands at arm’s length, and said: 
 
 “Man, I’m glad you said it. That’s what I’ve been 
 trying to find; it has been toiling around in my mind 
 looking for me, and I’ve been looking for it. Now 
 
50 THE FURNACE 
 
 you've gotten us together. I’m going back to the mill 
 —here’s a letter from the old superintendent, and 
 another from President Branson,—he came up from 
 the pit. They’re mighty decent; they give you faith 
 in the future. Listen,’ he took two letters from his 
 wallet and read from the letter of President Branson: 
 
 “Superintendent Judson has already written you, but 
 I would not care to have you return without a personal 
 word from me. To say that we are proud of you is 
 easy (Judson says that he told you to come back a 
 brigadier,—well, we are not disappointed, colonel), 
 but to say that we need you and wait for you is better. 
 We don’t expect a colonel to juggle slag any more; 
 we have more important business for him. A super- 
 intendency that will relieve you of the technical details 
 you have had no chance to become familiar with, but 
 one that will give your capacity for leadership full 
 opportunity, is standing at the front door of the Olds- 
 burg office to shake hands with you.”’ | 
 
 “Now that is decent, I say,’ Frank interposed, “but 
 listen to this: 
 
 ““For the times of readjustment now immediately 
 upon us, the corporation needs leaders who know and 
 who have the confidence of the men, leaders the men 
 will follow. For such leaders the corporation is ready 
 to pay well, and to share with them the advantages and 
 profits of a future that promises much.’ 
 
 “Chaplain,” Frank concluded, as he folded the letter, 
 “T don’t care for the compliments—much. ‘They are 
 well spoken, but I do care for that big word, ‘opportu- 
 nity’ and that other word ‘share.’ All I ask is ‘oppor- 
 tunity’ and a ‘share.’ When I think of those belching 
 
THE FURNACE SI 
 
 furnaces and broken men, I fairly ache to jump into the 
 biggest game in the world,—the game of steel. I’m not 
 waiting for the ‘Voice,’ I’ve heard it, and again I’m in 
 your debt, Bruce Jayne, for you’ve just told me what 
 it means to follow it.” 
 
 The colonel’s face was radiant with the strength of 
 elemental emotions as he concluded. Then, like a dis- 
 cordant note in an otherwise perfect symphony, broke 
 out Brant’s crisp, harsh voice. 
 
 “Who said anything about broken men? [ didn’t 
 hear it in the letter. ‘Opportunity,’ ‘share,’/—yes, and 
 that’s good, but what?—leadership, power, dollars,— 
 and that’s all. Perhaps it is enough—for some men, 
 for me, but, Malcolm Frank,” and the major stood up 
 and for the first time in his life, though it was not the 
 last, assumed the role of a prophet: 
 
 “Malcolm Frank, it is not enough for you. President 
 Branson of the Bancroft Steel Company promises one 
 thing, and you accept another. There will be a crash 
 there some day and you and he will fall on opposite 
 sides of the heap. But I’m glad the ‘Voice’ you two 
 worthies talk so much about tells you to go and shake 
 hands with that superintendency, because,’ and his 
 words took on an unfamiliar softness, “you are not 
 your own, and steel can’t buy you.” 
 
 The words of Haig Brant were like a gas-shell 
 dropped into the midst of a platoon and left his two 
 companions standing in a sort of stupor of surprise. 
 The chaplain recovered first, and to spare the colonel 
 the embarrassment of replying said tersely: 
 
 “Well, Stormer, what about yourself?” 
 
 Brant was ready. “I’ve heard your blooming ‘Voice’ 
 
 U. OF ILL. Lib, 
 
52 THE FURNACE 
 
 too. I thought half an hour ago that I was sewed up, 
 contracted for, my name entered on the pay-sheet,—but 
 I wasn’t. Here’s a letter, Malcolm. Cut out the pre- 
 amble and eat the berries in the last dish,” and Frank 
 sead the last paragraph: 
 
 “Your old position is filled acceptably, but we’re 
 dusting a desk in the north-east corner and cleaning 
 up a cuspidor for the Foreign Editor. Don’t be in a 
 hurry, and when you come, bring along your own 
 smokes ; no one here buys them wholesale. Yours, with 
 unwritten words to burn, Dice E. Thompson, Managing 
 Editor, the New York Universal.” 
 
 The colonel looked up from the page enquiringly. 
 Taking the letter from him the major continued: 
 
 “Well, I felt pretty fussy over that, so good in fact 
 that I blushed like a débutante, when I thought of show- 
 ing it to you soul swatters, but I sure wanted you to 
 see it. I dropped it casually on the table twice, hoping 
 one of you would come down to earth long enough to 
 read it, but each time the ‘dominie’ blindfolded himself 
 before picking it up and then walked backwards when 
 he handed it to me. Yes, that letter looked good until 
 a little while ago when Jayne announced the first hymn. 
 ‘Foreign Editor,’ ye gods,—and a bunch of regular 
 fellows they are,—western men, young men, Stanford 
 and University of California. They have brains and 
 courage and ideals. You remember what they did and 
 risked in the garment-makers’ strike? But now you’ve 
 gone and busted things!” 
 
 The chaplain’s face had been a study while Brant was 
 speaking, half jestingly, but with an undercurrent of 
 
THE FURNACE 53 
 
 soberness that dominated what he said, and now as he 
 hesitated, Bruce broke in with: 
 
 “T’d be sorry, friend, if I felt that anything of mine, 
 any uncertainty, had loosened the props under you. I 
 can’t imagine a finer proposition than that. I know 
 Dice Thompson. I’d be sorry to see you turn him 
 down.” 
 
 But Brant shook his head, and dropping altogether 
 his bantering tone went on: 
 
 “You haven’t knocked any props out from under me; 
 you've helped me change them. Just now I am not 
 quite in the clear as to why the change, but the change 
 is clear.” He sat down and spreading out his legs and 
 shoving his hands deep into his pockets continued, 
 “There’s a man at 259 Fourth Avenue named Brainard 
 Roberts, a dreamer and greatheart, with brains to match 
 his heart, a guild socialist,—perhaps you would call him 
 a radical because he believes that Jesus meant it when 
 he said, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself, —Roberts 
 runs a society that is a sort of social engineer, it investi- 
 gates problems, tries to get at the reason for strikes and 
 to find the causes of industrial troubles, to reveal a basis 
 for fixing responsibility where conferences between 
 employer and unemployed break down. He is a doctor 
 of human welfare, and has grouped about him a few 
 ardent souls who are willing to live, not by bread alone, 
 although there have been times when I am inclined to 
 think they would have been glad for bread alone. Well, 
 here’s another letter. I didn’t care whether you saw 
 this one or not. Roberts doesn’t have anything to say 
 about my medals. He never got very enthusiastic over 
 
54 THE FURNACE 
 
 my uniform, but, believe me, he did a lot for sound 
 morale at home. Malcolm, read this letter, read it 
 all,’ and the colonel read: 
 
 “Dear Haig: Welcome home. We need you. I 
 can’t say what the salary will be, but I'll share my 
 smokes. Yours, Brainard.” 
 
 Then Major Brant concluded, “And to-morrow I'll 
 report to Roberts.” 
 
 Quietly the three men faced each other for a moment, 
 and then the colonel said: 
 
 “‘Let’s walk,” and so it happened that after they had 
 paced the deck or lounged in the chairs until near the 
 dawn, they came to stand by the starboard rail as the 
 Sandy Hook light rose out of the sea. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 hace Aquitamia docked at eleven on the morning 
 of March 21st, 1919. Eagerly Chaplain Jayne 
 nurried ashore, having given his friends good-by on 
 board. He counted on Faith and the boy being at the 
 dock to meet him. How he had scanned the upturned 
 faces on the pier as the ship warped in, searching for 
 the slip of a woman, the radiant, brown-eyed girl he had 
 married! The tragedy of war rolled from him, a ten- 
 derness possessed him, inexpressible and pregnant with 
 the holiest things of his being. He was eager and ex- 
 pectant as a boy, trembling with gladness. It seemed 
 that his heart would break through his breast, so wildly 
 it pounded, and the months of his eternity of waiting 
 were as a nightmare that has passed with awaking. 
 
 But Faith was not at the landing. Instead, his sister 
 Josephine, the baby “Jo” he had tumbled about on his 
 summer vacations, a senior at Wellesley when he en- 
 listed, swept by the tables of clerks and inspectors with 
 an army of friends behind her, and, laughing and cry- 
 ing, rushed, with a wide-eyed, half-tearful two-year-old, 
 Bruce, Jr., into his arms. 
 
 “Don’t worry, big fellow, she’s waiting,” were the 
 first words that escaped her. He felt like a soul 
 snatched from some hell when he heard them. “She 
 sent Bruce, Jr., and me to bring you. She’s been ill,— 
 wouldn’t let us write you. I ran down a few weeks 
 ago for a rest and to—to look after the baby. Now 
 
 55 
 
56 THE FURNACE 
 
 her ‘cure’ has arrived. Oh, brother! it is good to have 
 you!” and the girl wept with more than the joy of his 
 coming. | 
 
 He sensed the “something’”’ she had not spoken, the 
 something he would not have her speak, that, please 
 God (and his heart brought up the reserves of high 
 courage), now need never be spoken. Then he felt the 
 boy against his breast, and hugged him,—blood of his 
 blood, soul of his soul,—and of hers. There were 
 greetings from friends; the strong hands of men who 
 stood close to the tasks he had served were upon him, 
 and before he could escape with his immediate party in 
 a last wild burst to the gates, he had been lined up with 
 Frank and Brant for a picture that in the morning faced 
 him under captions like these, “Heroes’ return,” “the 
 famous blood brotherhood,” and ‘‘Colonel Frank, the 
 youngest colonel of the war.” 
 
 Malcolm Frank had found just an instant in which 
 to introduce a gray-haired man. Of the three friends 
 the colonel alone had expected no “‘welcome committee,” 
 but now he said, “Chaplain, this is the gentleman I have 
 told you about,—Superintendent Judson,” and his lips 
 trembled slightly as he finished, “he came from Olds- 
 burg to meet me,” and the superintendent, who wore a 
 black band about his arm, said quietly, as he responded 
 to the understanding grip of the chaplain, “I came to 
 represent his father’—the rest he did not need to say. 
 
 It seemed an interminable journey to Philadelphia. 
 The lad, who had quickly forgotten his shyness, alone 
 made bearable the agony of the unanticipated delay. 
 To her brother’s insistent and searching questions, 
 Josephine replied that Faith had been failing for 
 
THE FURNACE 57 
 
 months; that he had scarcely sailed before it was neces- 
 sary to wean the baby; that through the time of his 
 absence she had fought with scarcely a well hour to re- 
 gain her accustomed strength, to become her old self 
 again; that she had kept her true condition a secret 
 from them all until within six weeks, when she had 
 been compelled to give up and go to a sanitarium in 
 Germantown. 
 
 “But,” whispered Jo, as she squeezed her brother’s 
 hand and leaned toward him with eyes that tried hard to 
 be utterly reassuring, “she’s better, oh, much better. 
 She was singing last night, your song, Bruce. She 
 never was lovelier, as she pleaded with the doctor— 
 good old Dr. Williams has been wonderful, just won- 
 derful!—to come over to-day. She said, ‘I just must 
 go. He doesn’t know anything, and if I’m there, he'll 
 never know.’ Those eyes-of hers and that dear smile 
 just naturally broke us all up, but he shook his head 
 and told her it couldn’t be; that you would blow him 
 to Kingdom Come if anything happened. ‘You're bet- 
 ter, worlds better, but we want you to be well, and 
 this is no time to run risks,—not when the war is over,’ 
 he said, and so she submitted and sent us. Now, 
 don’t worry, big fellow, we'll drive right out ‘toot 
 sweet’—that’s it, isn’t it!” 
 
 Bruce had gazed unseeingly out of the window while 
 his sister had spoken, a dull pain, a deep hunger, break- 
 ing his heart. A desperate foreboding and an anguish 
 of fear left him by turns chilled and feverish. Jo had 
 purposely refrained, he was sure, from being explicit, 
 but he knew. There came to him the picture of Faith’s 
 mother, a figure in gold and white among the soft lights 
 
58 THE FURNACE 
 
 of an old Southern plantation; she had faded and died 
 like a rose of the autumn. 
 
 But he shook himself roughly, and filling his lungs 
 till they throbbed like turbines, he claimed her for 
 health, claimed her for health and for life and for love. 
 Like some caged god was his soul, so great his desire, 
 so fretted and anguished his spirit. The boy, stirring 
 uneasily in the tightly closed arms of his far-away 
 father, broke the spell for a moment, and the war- 
 weary soldier smiled deep into the brown eyes—her 
 eyes—lifted wonderingly to him. 
 
 “We'll see the little mother presently, lad; to-night, 
 lad,” and he kissed him, ‘‘and she’ll come back with 
 us soon, lad; and there'll be bags to open, and wonders 
 to unpack: 
 
 “‘Oh! the world is so full of a number of things, 
 I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.’ ” 
 
 Jo gave her brother’s hand another squeeze, and 
 then his hand closed over hers in a grip of the old, per- 
 fect understanding, as he said, “Good little comrade, up 
 to your old tricks, always ministering, always mother- 
 ing,’ and his eyes were luminous. “God will pay 
 you,—I can’t.” Jo only worshiped him with her eyes, 
 and then reached out and took Junior. “Come, let’s 
 watch for the horses,” she said, and, swinging her chair 
 about, left him. He was grateful. 
 
 On across Jersey, by the spires of Princeton, through 
 the just leafing trees of the woodland, he rode, no longer 
 alone. She seemed to be breathing just under his arm, 
 her heart with his heart beating. Again he was lost 
 with his dreams, Through their college courtship at 
 
THE FURNACE 59 
 
 Oberlin where, up from the south and out of the west, 
 they came to meet each other ;—by the path of perfect 
 understanding that led across their short years together, 
 he journeyed with lingering memory. He saw her 
 crowned princess of song and queen of her class; he 
 heard the call of her voice that came to his soul like 
 the clear-throated bell of love’s vespers; he feasted his 
 eyes on her virginal loveliness. Again he walked by 
 her side in the June of their mating; he whispered the 
 words of the troth they plighted and felt the breath of 
 her hair on his forehead; her hands were reaching up 
 to his temples, his arms were about her in their first 
 long embrace, his lips were claiming the exquisite pain 
 of their first lingering kiss. 
 
 And then through the months of their waiting for 
 him the new tenderness that took command of his woo- 
 ing—for their courtship had never been ended. He 
 heard her singing above her swift-flying needle; caught 
 her at play with flimsy, small treasures, and covered her 
 blushes with laughter and kisses. Ah! and that day— 
 he had been half out of himself with foreboding, but 
 how wonderful her faith and her courage! All that she 
 had asked was his hand, and holding it firmly she had 
 gone by the path of her travail, far down into the 
 valley of the shadows. There, in life’s holy of holies, 
 with heaven and death all about, they had battled to- 
 gether, and he had drawn her back to life, bearing their 
 son. His soul leaped as the heart of him shouted, “And 
 back I shall draw her again.” 
 
 Then he felt once more the pangs of their parting; 
 the last evening and the morning of the last day; the 
 touch of her dear hands on his shoulders as her fingers 
 
60 THE FURNACE 
 
 caressed the cross of their service; her radiant, suffer- 
 ing, exalted face as she sent him forth from her last 
 wild and passionate embrace. Oh, dear God, how he 
 had kept unsullied in the sacred inner chamber of his 
 soul his vision of her, always of her, as she stood in 
 the doorway with the babe in her arms and the sun 
 on her face! And how he had waited for this day, 
 always seeing her, longing for her, journeying back to 
 her as he had left her, and now—but he turned again 
 from the folly of his useless regret. 
 
 Instinctively, unconsciously, his hand, as often it had 
 during the trip across, reached for his wallet, and from 
 it took Faith’s last letter reaching him in France. 
 “Beloved,” he read, through the film on his sight, “you 
 are homeward bound. Oh, how wonderful that at last 
 I can write it, say it, feel it. Homeward, meward, 
 usward, bound. Perhaps when your dear eyes follow 
 the way of my pen on this page, you'll be waiting at 
 Brest, just the ocean between us. Dear God, keep me 
 sane with my joy! ‘Sonnie’ is just off to bed. I kissed 
 his dimpled knees till he shouted, and then I placed his 
 arms about my neck and said, ‘Now hug Mother for 
 your soldier Daddy,’ and he held me so tight that I 
 nearly swooned with the joy of him and of you, for he 
 stood in your place to me, and the you of him, oh, my 
 beloved, possessed me. You are coming! coming! 
 I know you are coming. The ‘yes’ of my long suppli- 
 cation is with me to-night. Back from your kingdom 
 task,—oh, my king, you are coming! ... I’m wait- 
 ing.” 
 
 And when she wrote it she had been propped in her 
 pillows. Never a hint of her weariness, nor a glimpse 
 
THE FURNACE 61 
 
 of her bodily woe. Again and again he read the 
 oft-read letter, then folded its wet pages and put it 
 away. 
 
 The little party hurried off the train at North Phila- 
 delphia, not only to save time, but to avoid a possible 
 second reception, as well, and in a swift car of a friend 
 who had sensed the exact needs of the situation, and 
 wired ahead from New York,. were rushed to the 
 chaplain’s modest home. But for the moment it was 
 not home to the returning husband,—only a way-point 
 on the road to fer. As the eager machine turned into 
 the familiar street and came along the gray retaining 
 wall of the lawn, Bruce closed his eyes that he might 
 have again a sense of her there in the doorway just 
 as he left her. Then he opened them to catch the 
 fringe of the grass in its first velvety green and follow 
 it up to the flags that guarded the entrance—the old 
 doorway that had captured the heart of his bride with 
 its simple colonial dignity that suggested the great white 
 pillars of the mansion-house that cradled her. 
 
 But what is it the old door frames like a picture of 
 gold in the sunset? Does he live? ‘She is standing 
 under its whiteness, the glory of light half blinding 
 her,—a figure of infinite welcome. He reached her 
 and clasped her, folded her into his bosom, lifted 
 her with love’s omniscient tenderness, and bore her to 
 the great chair that she had christened, “dear barque of 
 our honeymoon voyage.” Then he knelt with his head 
 on her knees, his arms yet about her, her fingers lost in 
 his hair, her lips whispering, ‘““Bruce, my beloved. O 
 God, thou art good,—I thank thee.” 
 
 Later in the evening Bruce held Faith close against 
 
62 THE FURNACE 
 
 his heart, while the tender old physician, who had at 
 last relented enough to bring her in for the homecom- 
 ing, drove her back to the hospital. She had said, “But, 
 doctor, it will hurt me worse.if I stay. I’ve been good. 
 It nearly broke my heart, but I listened, and gave up 
 New York. Now I must be there when he comes. I 
 simply must. It will cure me—flease!”’ And so he 
 carried her down to his car, lifted her in to the arms of 
 the nurse, tucked the robes close about her, and drove 
 her to that wee, dearest hotse in the world. 
 
 The words that they whispered to each other on the 
 return that evening are not for our ears; not even 
 Bruce, Jr., was there to hear them. Jo took him out 
 of the arms of his father, away from the lingering lips 
 of his mother, who covered his neck with her kisses, 
 and put him early to bed. Then she waited until her 
 brother’s step sounded on the threshold. When, a 
 minute later, he entered, no one was in sight. He stood 
 a moment before the old chair, caressing it with his 
 hands ; then went to his room. Near a half-open window 
 was the crib of his son. He knelt by its side; long he 
 knelt ; then arose and retired. 
 
 The next few days were to Bruce Jayne days of 
 mingled ecstasy and torture. When he was with Faith 
 he was utterly happy. So radiant and convincing was 
 her faith he could not doubt. She nestled like a weary 
 child in his throbbing arms. Sometimes she spoke, 
 sometimes she sang for him a fragment of his song: 
 
 “Oh, promise me that some day you and I 
 
 Will take our love together to some sky, 
 
 Where we can be alone and faith renew, 
 
 And find the hollows where those flowers grew,— 
 
THE FURNACE 63 
 
 The first sweet violets of early spring, 
 
 That come in whispers, thrill us both, and sing 
 Of love unspeakable, that is to be— 
 
 Oh, promise me, oh, promise me.” 
 
 Often she just rested while she loved him with her 
 eyes. 
 
 When he was away, nothing really mattered, and 
 nothing reassured him. The very atmosphere of the 
 office and the forced attempt at naturalness on the part 
 of his friends was maddening. He was conscious of 
 their solicitude and resented their pity. Even the boy 
 irritated him. 
 
 Then one evening Faith took his face between her 
 hands and said, “Man of my heart, you are worried, 
 worried terribly,—about me,—and you mustn't.” She 
 silenced him before he could speak. “You hurt me. 
 I’m getting better, and I will be well. You must,—oh, 
 Bruce, you must be streng,—for Sonnie and for me, 
 and—for men. You are my life. I live in you and 
 will live, and,” she whispered, “there is no death.” 
 
 It was his night of life’s supreme anguish. No other 
 night, not even when her spirit took the wings of the 
 morning and left him with her cold and marble beauty, 
 held for him the torture of those hours when he read in 
 her face the end of his world. On the last day she 
 roused for a moment and called for the boy. She ca- 
 ressed him, and then drew the head of her husband 
 down to her pillow and whispered the words of their 
 song, and then, lingering long on his name, “Bruce, my 
 beloved, hold my hand,—till He meets me.”’ 
 
 The city opened its heart and mourned with the man 
 who had escaped death in France to meet worse than 
 
64 THE FURNACE 
 
 death at home. A great paper, under the caption, the 
 title of Joaquin Miller’s immortal poem, “The Greatest 
 Battle,” wrote: 
 
 “Bruce Jayne’s Faith died that the nation might not 
 perish. As truly as any man who sleeps beneath the 
 poppies that blow on Flanders’ Fields, she went to war; 
 she made the supreme sacrifice; she gave herself to the 
 last full measure of devotion. She becomes the in- 
 carnation of all the wives and mothers who kept the 
 lonely watches of the night above the crib of babyhood; 
 who drew from bleeding hearts the hope of life at 
 home; who kindled and rekindled in the souls of men 
 the divine fires of patriotism; who sent their sons and 
 loved ones courageous down to meet the battle’s hard- 
 ness, and on to meet the victor’s peace.” 
 
 “The greatest battle that ever was fought, 
 Shall I tell you where and when? 
 On the maps of the world you will find it not,— 
 ’Twas fought by the mothers of men.” 
 
 One of the first messages that came to the house of 
 sorrow read, “Faith Jayne,—killed in action. We are 
 standing by.” It was signed ‘Malcolm and Haig,” and 
 on the day when they bore her out to Lone Fir Cemetery 
 and tucked her under the evergreen sod, Bruce saw 
 Malcolm and Haig standing with streaming eyes,—at 
 attention. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 HE weeks that followed were unending agony. 
 Only the boy and her words,—her words which 
 were the orders of his “high command,’’—saved him 
 from shipwreck. Like bells they rang in his ears. “You 
 must be strong for Sonnie and me, and for men,” and 
 “T live in you and will live.’ Mechanically he went 
 back and forth between his old office and the house of 
 great emptiness; always Bruce, Jr., was waiting at the 
 door, until one evening his father turned to Jo as they 
 sat at the table and suggested with unmistakable 
 pathos, ‘Perhaps the lad had better not stand in—the 
 draft.”’ She understood, and from that time on, the 
 small fellow came rushing into the hall with his glad 
 shout, to be tossed in his father’s hungry arms after 
 the white door had closed over its empty threshold. 
 
 Jo’s heart was breaking with grief for him. She had 
 the tact of a woman, mature and experienced. When 
 he came into her presence he found a strange peace. 
 She said little, but she stood at his right hand like an 
 angel of comfort. 
 
 One evening, two months after they had laid Faith 
 away,—months in which Bruce had shouldered his 
 tasks and carried the routine of his office with his old- 
 time efficiency, but with none of his old-time enthusi- 
 asm,—he came home with grim determination written 
 deep in his face. He had his bed-time story for Sonnie, 
 
 and an extra zest he put into it, but when the lad was 
 65 
 
66 THE FURNACE 
 
 snugly stowed away, the man stepped out into the liv- 
 ing-room, squared his shoulders, and called, “Jo, dear, 
 come in and sit down.” } 
 
 The girl came and dropped into a chair, under the 
 eyes of her brother, who stood towering above her as 
 he talked. “I’m going away,—for a week—New York 
 and the West—not far. I'll be back soon; don’t 
 worry. I’ll be back and somehow I know that when I 
 come I’ll be different. I’ve spent time enough in ‘quit- 
 ting.’ She wouldn’t be proud of me now. Tell ‘Son- 
 nie’ to save up for a long story.’’ He stooped and 
 kissed her, and then hurried into his room to pack his 
 bag. When he came out Jo put her arms about his 
 neck and said quietly, “I’m glad you’re going, big fel- 
 low; don’t worry. You'll find it. Sonnie and I will 
 be happy and waiting.” 
 
 - At ten o’clock that night, in response to a wire, Haig 
 Brant met Bruce at the Pennsylvania Station in New 
 York City. It was their first meeting since the day of 
 the funeral. Haig looked at his friend enquiringly, 
 and Bruce answered, “Home, James.” A quick run 
 in a taxi brought them to Brant’s apartments at the 
 University Club. Making themselves at ease, they 
 faced each other, and Brant waited. His friend began: 
 
 “T’m leaving in the morning for Ohio,—going out 
 to see Beckwith at Oberlin. I need a father confessor. 
 He can hear a man through without blinking or inter- 
 rupting or patronizing; and he knows life—has lived 
 and suffered. I’ve told you how he helped me to find 
 myself at a student conference on the Bay of Monterey, 
 years ago, when I was a kid freshman in a Pacific 
 Coast prep school. I’ve needed my father these days, 
 
THE FURNACE 67 
 
 and my mother, but they’re gone, so I’m taking the 
 ‘Clevelander’ out to-morrow.” 
 
 He stopped, but Haig waited. Bruce continued: “TI 
 just wanted to see you and tell you I’m not quitting; 
 that things stand as they did; that I’m waiting for the 
 ‘job’—looking for it. I’m going to resign because the 
 old task—and a great one it is—none greater—is not 
 mine any more. And you know, Haig, there is the rea- 
 son for much of the failure in life and much more of 
 the indifferent, half-success,—men doing things, fine 
 things, perhaps, that don’t call them, challenge them, 
 command them, things that are not theirs, and that 
 never can possess them fully. So few of us ever ‘get 
 away —we are only putterers, our souls are never re- 
 leased. I remember a negro elevator boy in Phila- 
 delphia ; he was a graduate of Wilberforce College, bril- 
 liant and ambitious,—and pathetic. One day I stepped 
 into his car and my eye was caught by a card that was 
 stuck into the lattice just above his control. There was 
 a verse on it,—one of Guest’s, I believe, “He fell in love 
 with his job.’ I couldn’t get the thing off my mind,— 
 small chance that chap had, but he knew the philosophy, 
 and he was game to the core. 
 
 “For days after I began to come to myself, I kept 
 saying, ‘Fall in love with your job,’ and when I 
 couldn't, I blamed myself, until yesterday morning 
 when it seemed that the little woman was very near, I 
 discovered that the old job wasn’t mine any more. And 
 so I’m going out to see Beckwith, and I think that when 
 I return, I'll have something to fall in love with. I 
 haven't gotten down to the bottom of things yet, but 
 it’s something like this—out there we learned the 
 
68 THE FURNACE 
 
 waste and the folly of a divided command,—we were 
 defeated until we found unity. Right now the church 
 is hurrying to forget that lesson. Each little-group is 
 tempted to turn again to its small task, forgetting the 
 great, common program of all. 
 
 “You remember Jim Sterling ?—a chaplain with the 
 42nd Division, the son of a bishop? Well, I had a 
 letter from him saying that they had tried to send him 
 to a church in a small town where another congrega- 
 tion had passed through a holy war and divided. As 
 he expressed it, “They sent me to build on the wreckage, 
 capitalizing my wound to do it.’ He refused to go and 
 is in the real-estate business in Scranton. ‘Better, far 
 better,’ he says, “to divide and sub-divide lots than to 
 serve in a selfish, divided church.’ Brant, I think that 
 T can show him that he’s wrong, as wrong as the church 
 he despised. But the tragedy he refused to be a party 
 to must be faced. Somehow a man who has seen the 
 stripped soul of a dying world’s need must register 
 against this murderous crossfire of churches that 
 threatens the Kingdom with disaster.” 
 
 As Bruce had gone on, his eyes had more and more 
 lighted from hidden fires; he had risen and was walk- 
 ing back and forth, flinging up his dark head with the 
 old familiar gesture of spiritual authority that his 
 friends knew so well. Haig smoked on meditatively 
 and inwardly rejoicing :—he had been anxious, deeply 
 concerned. The blow that Jayne had received was so 
 appalling that men close to him entertained grave fears 
 for his future. It was a relief beyond words to know 
 that he had ‘‘come back” and was going on. 
 
 But when Brant spoke there was not an inflection to 
 
THE FURNACE 69 
 
 betray him,—he was the old half-cynical questioner, 
 and thus did he reward the confidence of his visitor. 
 Bruce remembered afterward the comfort there was in 
 his familiar gesture of doubt: 
 
 “And so you still cling to the old ‘organization,’ ” he 
 began, “‘all shot to pieces and with ‘replacement men’ 
 deserting for cause? Of course I see there’s a chance 
 for you since discipline is relaxed enough to allow you 
 to change ‘outfits.’ Well, luck to you, luck to you. I 
 don’t get the details of what you are saying, but,’’ and 
 he stood now under the eyes of his comrade, upon 
 whose shoulders he placed his hands, and he spoke 
 slowly, “I get you and I’m ready to live again myself, 
 now that I know you’re back. I don’t understand these 
 —judgments, dispensations, or whatever you call them. 
 I was ready to damn God when He allowed it to hap- 
 pen, but, Bruce, that day by the grave I couldn’t have 
 damned anything, and,” his lips twitched, but he went 
 on, ‘‘a verse that my mother taught me—before I lost 
 my soul’ (he put in brusquely to steady himself), 
 “came back to me. 
 
 “¢They pass from work to greater work; 
 They rest before the noon. 
 Oh, God is very good to them; 
 They do not die too soon.’ ” 
 
 Bruce looked long into the eyes of his friend, so 
 deep and full of surprises, and then said, ‘““That’s great, 
 old stormer.” 
 
 Less than forty-eight hours later Chaplain Jayne 
 knocked on the door of Dr. Beckwith’s office in Coun- 
 cil Hall, Oberlin. When the door swung open, a little 
 
70 THE FURNACE 
 
 man looked up at him in quiet surprise, and then, with 
 the sure memory that was the unending wonder as well 
 as joy of all who knew him, said, “Well, Bruce Jayne, 
 come in.’ Thus Jayne came, as hundreds of others 
 had come, to that great heart and generous mind that 
 knew books well and his God better. 
 
 When an hour had passed, the Dean arose and said, 
 “Bruce, I think you’re ready to walk. Come back in 
 an hour, and we'll go to dinner,” and out under the 
 trees of the campus Bruce went. At first he had no 
 objective. He wandered aimlessly to and fro, by build- 
 ings that held sacred associations, but without seeing 
 them. Eventually he found himself at the edge of the 
 town and then he remembered the day that Faith and 
 he had first walked that way. Like rushing waters the 
 flood of memory returned; now every step became a 
 whisper of those times when their love began, and each 
 well-remembered spot a snatch from her song. 
 
 But there was no bitterness, no vain regret, and as 
 he came again to the campus he walked with the step 
 of a man who has found peace. It was dusk; his hour 
 was almost up, but before he reéntered Council Hall, 
 he turned his steps to the arch, that shrine of Oberlin 
 which rises like a pledge to God in memory of brave 
 men and women slain in the Boxer uprising. He read 
 the names again,—heroes of his faith and hers,— 
 Horace Pitkin and the rest; names of deathless glory 
 chiseled deep into the shining stone. Then he stepped 
 back to catch the challenge of the keystone of the arch. 
 With uncovered head he stood where once they stood 
 together, where, on the evening of their Commence- 
 ment Day, she whispered with the softness of some far- 
 
THE FURNACE 71 
 
 borne song of angels, “The blood of martyrs is the 
 seed of the church.” And as now he returned to that 
 altar he was not alone. So real became her presence 
 that unconsciously he reached out to draw her to him. 
 Then, half waiting for her rich voice to speak again, 
 he read, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
 church.” 
 
 The midnight train out of Cleveland landed him in 
 the city early in the morning, and two hours later 
 he was ushered into the office of Superintendent Judson 
 of the Oldsburg Mills of the Bancroft Steel Company. 
 That official’s greeting was cordial in the extreme. 
 
 “Glad to see you. We've thought of youa lot. The 
 colonel will be more than glad—he’s in the mill just 
 now, but will be here very shortly, and I’m rather 
 happy to have you alone for a few minutes. You see 
 the colonel is a worshiper of yours, and you'll be de- 
 lighted to know that he is making good with us in a big 
 way. He is learning the business from the ground up, 
 and I’m inclined to think that some of the rest of us 
 see our finish already.” He laughed and went on, “The 
 colonel is a born leader, and one who carries the confi- 
 dence of all who are associated with him. The men like 
 him and trust him. Chaplain, in a labor trouble here, 
 I prophesy that he will be worth his weight in gold to 
 the corporation.” The speaker’s brow clouded. “I’m 
 afraid we are due for some unpleasantness; you know 
 of course that this is a closed shop; we have nothing to 
 do with the outside labor leader who stirs up most of 
 the trouble in industry. We deal with our employees 
 man to man, and you will find that for generous treat- 
 ment the corporation and the Bancroft Steel Company 
 
72 THE FURNACE 
 
 are always a little ahead of their competitors. But there 
 are signs about that I don’t like, and before snow flies 
 we may head into trouble.” 
 
 The superintendent was just fairly started when 
 Malcolm came hurrying in and with a shout of un- 
 mistakable satisfaction greeted his friend.  Instinc- 
 tively he knew that the tide had turned for Bruce; that 
 his old comrade was again master of himself. : 
 
 After their first greetings Malcolm turned to his su- 
 perior and said, “Superintendent, have you told the 
 Chaplain of my good fortune that you are responsible 
 for? Does he know that I’m living with you, and that 
 he can give me a real visit without running any board- 
 ing house risks?” 
 
 “No,” replied Mr. Judson, “I didn’t get around to 
 that. You got back too soon, but,” turning to Bruce, 
 “we two men have a great house full of rooms, and 
 you can have ee choice to-night and whenever you 
 
 come this way.” 
 
 And so that night the two friends, for the first time 
 since they hurried down the gang-plank of the Aqui- 
 tania, roomed together. They spent the early evening 
 with Mr. Judson, and Bruce Jayne came to feel an in- 
 creasing respect for the well-poised, dynamic man of 
 affairs. 
 
 When finally they excused themselves and returned 
 to their room, Bruce turned to Frank and said, ‘“He’s 
 a fine man—lI’m delighted with him. I wish that the 
 soft-handed parlor socialists who curse capitalists gen- 
 erally and steel employers particularly could meet him. 
 You're lucky to be with him, and doubly fortunate to 
 live in his house.” 
 
THE FURNACE 73 
 
 “Yes,” Malcolm replied, “he is a fine man,—as com- 
 petent an executive as ever directed a great enterprise, 
 and with the soul of a gentleman. He has taken me 
 and made me as his son—that’s what he’s done. He 
 says little about the boy who went to France—and 
 stayed. I fear the lad wasn’t worth much till the war 
 came along and gave him a chance to die like a man. 
 But he was all that the Superintendent had. Now he 
 has forgotten the chap’s weakness and cherishes a 
 heroic memory that he helps keep alive by fathering 
 me.” He looked contentedly about the well-furnished 
 chamber, and went on, “Pretty fine for a ‘hunky’— 
 I’m not worth it, but I’m set on letting him know how 
 much I appreciate his confidence. The opportunity is 
 a great one,—I can’t tell you how big it is. I run up 
 against difficulties that stop me sometimes and face 
 problems that make me afraid, but I am glad that I 
 came.” ‘The man’s voice took on a tone of deep con- 
 viction as he finished, and he turned to Bruce ex- 
 pectantly. 
 
 “How is it with you?’ he queried, and the very 
 question implied the confidence that he felt. Bruce sat 
 for a moment thinking deeply, and then replied: 
 
 “All right, old man, all right. I have come through 
 another Argonne and the wound is deeper than this,” 
 he touched the pink groove on his temple, “but I’m 
 back again, fit for front-line duty. Malcolm, for weeks 
 I walked as a dead man, as a man who has lived. I 
 said, you've nothing big enough, vital enough, to save 
 you. You will never see a red sky again; you will 
 never hear a great noise again; you will never experi- 
 ence an elemental emotion again,—paralyzing terror, 
 
74 THE FURNACE 
 
 physical exhaustion, excruciating pain, overwhelming 
 grief and loss. You have seen and you have heard, you 
 have known the highest and experienced the deepest. 
 Only the boy, only the little chap who waited for me 
 at night—waited in his loneliness—kept me from utter 
 despair. 
 
 “But now I have my marching orders again,—sealed 
 orders they are as yet. You remember how we felt 
 when they started us for Cantigny in the French trucks, 
 and we had not the slightest idea where we were going, 
 but were eager and glad because we were going some- 
 where? Well, that’s where I am to-night, pounding 
 up the road to some Cantigny. Malcolm Frank, we 
 have not lived. Life is not behind us. Life is in front 
 of us. The life that cries with Brant’s old hero, ‘I am 
 for men.’ ” 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Wie Bruce Jayne parted from Malcolm Frank 
 and hurried on to Philadelphia, alert and eager, 
 his mind no longer a tomb for grief, but now a treasury 
 of memories that made him strong to go forward, he 
 left behind him a thoughtful and troubled man. The 
 young colonel on landing from the transport, and after 
 separating from his friends and tearing himself away 
 from newspaper publicity in New York, had hurried 
 home, Superintendent Judson accompanying him. An 
 overnight trip brought them to the city. Here, in spite 
 of the precautions they had taken to keep their move- 
 ments a secret, they found themselves again in the 
 center of the public eye. The mayor, the leading citi- 
 zens generally, and President Branson of the Bancroft 
 Steel Company with his associates were present to give 
 an unmistakably sincere and generous welcome to the 
 returning hero. 
 
 Before he had finally satisfied the first insistent de- 
 mands of the public it was mid-afternoon, and night 
 had fallen when, with Superintendent Judson still by 
 his side, he reached the little cross-road station in the 
 shadow of the grimy tipple where he first learned the 
 heavy way of work. There was nothing of shame in 
 the eyes he cast upon the motley crowd that stood ges- 
 ticulating and shouting upon the platform. Indeed, 
 not since that morning by the starboard rail of the 
 Aquitania, had he been moved as he was now, when he 
 
 75 
 
76 THE FURNACE 
 
 heard his name spoken in half a dozen languages by 
 the neighbors of his boyhood who with simple and un- 
 affected gladness welcomed him home. 
 
 There in the very front of the strangely assorted 
 and vividly garbed company were his parents,—his 
 gray-haired father with an arm about his mother, and 
 his sisters and brother. Beyond that first glimpse he 
 did not see much; the pent-up emotions of the long 
 journey welcomed their release, and the man a nation 
 delighted to honor returned to his people as he had left 
 them, an unspoiled, genuine youth. 
 
 James Judson took in everything,—not an item from 
 that broadly written page of foreign-speaking life here 
 in the heart of America escaped him. He saw the 
 band,—the same band Malcolm in another time had led 
 so proudly down the central street of Jonesville,—heard 
 it play the Star-Spangled Banner, saw, too, the maimed 
 men, some of them young; the soiled children; the 
 shawl-draped, weathered women, and in the midst 
 Malcolm’s family, unquestionably different, though un- 
 mistakably part of the whole. All that he saw he had 
 seen often before, in the great mills of the company, or 
 by the streets of the crowded towns that buttressed 
 them. But now he was conscious of a change,—he 
 knew at once that the change was not in front of him, 
 but within him, that what he saw had always been, 
 but that his eyes had been “holden” and so as this man 
 of affairs, who had suffered, followed the whim of his 
 heart, he came to a place where he took hold on the 
 pulse of the new life in the womb of Freedom. 
 
 That night was never to be forgotten by the princi- 
 pals. There was a noisy home-coming reception, a wild 
 
THE FURNACE - 
 
 serenade in front of the Frank cottage, that ended with 
 Malcolm, his father, and the amazed superintendent 
 riding on the shoulders of husky miners to the long 
 platform of the Company store where speeches were 
 made in the light of oil torches and red fire. The su- 
 perintendent’s remarks were felicitous in the extreme; 
 he finished by saying: 
 
 “T feel like seventeen nationalities to-night, and I’m 
 proud of every drop of my blood.” After that he 
 could have had the town for the asking. 
 
 The heart of Malcolm’s father was too full for much 
 speaking,—he was fast becoming the patriarch of the 
 village, and his tongue of natural eloquence and native 
 wisdom was always respectfully listened to. But he 
 managed to make a typically illuminating declaration: 
 
 “This night proves to us of the far lands and broken 
 peoples that we belong—and are welcome.”’ How the 
 crowd, which had not been strongly supplemented by 
 additions from Jonesville itself, so that it was a real 
 cross-section of the nation’s life, cheered the old miner, 
 —and, cheering, believed him. 
 
 Then came the man of the hour. What a figure he 
 was in the light of that fateful home-coming evening. 
 Not even the great commander, Pershing himself, 
 could have filled out the frame of that night as Mal- 
 colm filled it,—mighty of body, rugged of face, with 
 eyes that had absorbed the fires that leaped up to him 
 from the many-tongued people, and a voice that was 
 vibrant, the soul of his hour. 
 
 “Friends and neighbors,” he began. “I would rather 
 be here than a king.” And then, taking them into his 
 confidence, he told the dreams of his boyhood; took 
 
78 THE FURNACE 
 
 them into the little old kitchen where his father had 
 opened the book of America’s greatness, and on by the 
 way of the green hills and the old tipple and that never- 
 to-be-forgotten Memorial Day in Jonesville to the 
 belching furnaces and into the hospital. His voice rang 
 with his gratitude as, pointing to James Judson, he 
 said: 
 
 “They treated me like a man; proved that they held 
 me as better than slag and more valuable than pig 
 iron.”’ 
 
 About the war he said little. He winced under the 
 infinite pains of its memory when he spoke of the com- 
 rades who “turned not again home,” but his voice be- 
 came as the voice of a prophet, and there was a subtle 
 change in its deepening tones as he concluded: 
 
 “We have learned one thing from the war—there 
 are no separating seas, no remote continents. The 
 farthest tribe lives in our back-yard. We here will 
 never be the same again. We have come up from the 
 mine and out of the factory to help save civilization, as 
 they truly told us, but in coming we have eaten of the 
 fruit of the tree of knowledge. We have learned hu- 
 man values, and we can never go back again. While 
 the fingers of white-gowned nurses and the hands of 
 skilled doctors taught us that our price was above that 
 of the guns and equipment we carried, war’s greater 
 surgeon was cutting away the film from the eyes of 
 our souls. 
 
 “And for this,” now the speaker’s mood became ex- 
 alted; he was again the unquestioning boy by his 
 father’s knee, and how the eyes of two fathers feasted 
 upon him! “and for this, we thank great America, In 
 
THE FURNACE 79 
 
 her arms she has lifted us out of the soot of the mine 
 and the noise of the mill into the sun of her freedom. 
 Aliens and strangers we came, and she welcomed us; 
 fed us and clothed us; taught us and honored us’”—his 
 eyes seemed to rest for an instant upon his khaki-cov- 
 ered breast with its ribbon-line that marked the decora- 
 tions he might have worn—‘“gave us her faith to de- 
 fend, to suffer, to die for,—and to live for.’’ The 
 words of Bruce Jayne, spoken on that last night at 
 sea, came to him, and in their spirit he finished, ““We 
 who return, beyond any discharge the nation may give 
 us, are bound by the oath we have taken, and by the 
 memories that run to the graves that mound behind our 
 old trenches. We have given our lives to our country, 
 and her cause. We can never take them back again.” 
 
 The celebration broke up like a prayer meeting. In- 
 deed, “‘Peg-leg’”’ Schuster confided to his wife an hour 
 later that he “felt like he’d been to early morning mass 
 and confessional. Didn’t the lad talk like a good 
 father; though, instead of a soldier ?”’ 
 
 The kitchen of the Frank home was a congested 
 place until near daybreak. Old friends could not be 
 denied, and afterward the family had much to talk 
 about. James Judson seemed almost a part of it, in 
 spite of the generations of environment that stood 
 between him and Malcolm’s people, so understandingly 
 had he entered into the emotions of the occasion. He 
 told them now of what awaited the returning soldier, 
 and these parents who had known the drudgery and 
 the hardness of labor found their reward in the good 
 fortune of their son. And again the old miner, whose 
 soul was the soul of a poet, thanked “Great America.” 
 
80 THE FURNACE 
 
 When the intimate circle was at last disturbed by 
 thoughts of retiring, an embarrassment immediately 
 made itself known. The Franks had no “spare cham- 
 ber,” and the tippletown had no hotel. But Superin- 
 tendent Judson was quite equal to the occasion. “T’ll 
 bunk with the army,’ he laughed, “unless his young 
 brother objects, in which case I’ll ‘stand post’ here in 
 the kitchen until the seven-twenty, when I must get 
 back to the city.””. And bunk with the army he did. 
 
 Not until years later, and then only to very intimate 
 ears, did Malcolm Frank ever speak of one occurrence 
 of that night. It seemed that he had just fallen asleep 
 when he was roused by an arm creeping under his neck, 
 and a voice, the voice of a sleeper, ‘““There, son !—there, 
 son!—don’t worry; I'll steer you.”’ And almost lost 
 then in deeper breathings, he heard the name that was 
 left James Judson when the wife of his youth fell dead 
 at the altar of motherhood. 
 
 A few weeks later, after his discharge, Malcolm 
 Frank found himself in the general offices of the Olds- 
 burg Steel Mill as assistant superintendent under the 
 man he had come to thoroughly believe in. On his first 
 day with his new assignment he was honored by a visit 
 from the president of the company. Mr. Branson was 
 cordial in the extreme; only one thing in that officer’s 
 greeting jarred a little on the keenly responsive mind 
 of the new assistant. 
 
 “We are mighty glad to have you with us. Not all 
 the disloyalty was smashed when the Hindenburg line 
 was broken, and not all the ‘Reds’ are in Russia. The 
 company has some hard days in front of it. The pam- 
 pering a crowd of these ignorant ‘hunkies’ got during 
 
THE FURNACE 81 
 
 the war has made them too nice for dirty jobs, and 
 we're going to have some trouble before we get back 
 to normal again. We need you, and men like you, 
 who can lead, who are trusted, and who hate treason. 
 Your shoulders are broad; your hands are big ;—you'll 
 need them. Remember,—this company and the cor- 
 poration pay well for efficiency and loyalty.” 
 
 What it was that troubled him young Frank did not 
 know. Of course he resented the old whip-lash of 
 “hunky” and refused to be complimented because the 
 president, in using it, had ignored his former standing, 
 but his feeling was more than a casual, quick-passing 
 resentment. There was foreboding and a sense of 
 presentiment in it. 
 
 Within a short time after he had taken up his duties, 
 Malcolm was astonished by being invited to take a 
 room in the home of Superintendent Judson. His quick 
 refusal had so evidently pained the man who had taken 
 so generous an interest in him that he almost as quickly 
 reconsidered, and within a few days after the invitation 
 had been extended, he found himself enjoying the com- 
 forts and luxuries that had once belonged to the boy 
 whose laughing, reckless eyes looked down upon him 
 from a medallion that stood upon the mantel. 
 
 Soon the lodging arrangement was amended to in- 
 clude breakfast, and before long the two men were fac- 
 ing each other at every meal and sitting together 
 through the long evenings. For Malcolm Frank the ad- 
 justment was most fortunate. It gave him in days the 
 knowledge of steel that otherwise he could have ac- 
 quired only after years of first-hand application. James 
 Judson was a good teacher, and he taught Malcolm as 
 
82 THE FURNACE 
 
 he had hoped to teach another. From his lips the young 
 assistant superintendent heard the romance of Carnegie 
 and those others who without capital and friends built 
 upon their native genius in resourceful poverty the 
 mighty structure that now flings up its shining roof to 
 cover the nation and the world. He came to see the 
 place of steel in the development of America. The 
 rails that gleamed in desert suns and wound through 
 mountain passes became to him the ropes that bound 
 the scattered portions of the nation into one, and those 
 who had drawn them from their molten mass and laid 
 them down were no longer mere workers in metals, 
 but builders of the Republic. He knew, as he listened 
 to James Judson, that it was indeed the ‘“‘voice” he 
 heard, when in response to that indefinable impulse on 
 the great transport, he had answered the chaplain’s 
 self-questioning with, “I know what I’m going to do,— 
 I’m going back to the mill.” 
 
 As for James Judson, the coming of the young as- 
 sociate into his life was the crowning of his career. 
 Even his well-nigh unmovable poise and optimism had 
 been profoundly shaken by the repeated tragedies that 
 had come down upon him, and the death of his only 
 son, killed in action, while in many respects a relief, an 
 anguish of joy,—left him alone. Malcolm Frank lifted 
 him out of himself, out of his past, and gave him a new 
 and fresh reason for living. To all who knew him he 
 was a changed man. The two,—one young, just out 
 of the great melting-pot, burned by its heats, but un- 
 scarred, eager and of high courage; the other approach- 
 ing rapidly the age of retirement, born of the genera- 
 tion that produced in industry America’s empire-build- 
 
THE FURNACE 83 
 
 ers, chastened by disappointment, with a mind highly 
 trained, and a heart that had never grown cold,—these 
 two built rapidly the house of their friendship, and 
 building it, so laid its bricks in the mortar of faith, 
 man.to man, that storms which leveled the era of good 
 feeling that grew up, watered by the tears and blood of 
 the war, left it standing unshaken. 
 
 For the first few weeks of his association with the 
 Oldsburg mills, James Judson’s assistant spent practi- 
 cally all of his time with the men. Into the elemental 
 heat of the furnaces he went again. Here his welcome, 
 while genuine, was marked by restraint,—restraint that, 
 try as he would, he could not altogether overcome. He 
 was liked,—he knew that,—and he was trusted, but, 
 being trusted, he was no longer taken into their confi- 
 dence. This he knew, too. 
 
 “You see,” said the husband of his former landlady, 
 who, having lost a leg under a huge fragment of scrap, 
 was now a bridge-keeper, “you're part of the Com- 
 pany now, and not one of us,”’ and when Malcolm pro- 
 tested, insisting that there must be, and was, no dif- 
 ference, that there was no company apart from its men, 
 and that he was exactly the man among them he had 
 always been, the cripple replied: 
 
 “Tell that to the boss—he’ll show you quick enough 
 where you're wrong. You don’t lie, but you don’t speak 
 the truth,” he continued bluntly. “There is a difference 
 now,—things that are grinding us, don’t touch you,— 
 wages, hours, the right to kick without kicking our- 
 selves out, the right to have somebody kick for us,— 
 somebody outside, who can’t be fired. And,” he hesi- 
 tated for a second, and then gave the young assistant 
 
84 THE FURNACE 
 
 an expression of confidence that warmed that official’s 
 heart, ““Spies—don’t you see it? You can’t be with us 
 and with them. Youcan help us. I’m one that believes 
 you'll try,—but there’s a difference, I tell you. Lis- 
 ten,’ the man’s voice sank to a whisper, and he 
 glanced furtively about as he finished: “If we go on 
 strike for our rights, and for a chance to live decently, | 
 we strike against you.” Dee 
 
 Malcolm said nothing more, beyond leaving with his 
 old friend the assurance that no change in his personal 
 standing with the governing authorities of the organi- 
 zation could ever change his spirit toward workers 
 from among whom he came and of whom he still felt 
 himself to be. But he started back to his office with a 
 disturbed and troubled mind. 
 
 He went over again the clear-cut sentences of Presi- 
 dent Branson’s letter inviting him to come to the or- 
 ganization, his emphasis upon “influence,” the “con- 
 fidence’ the workers would place in him, and “loyalty.” 
 But loyalty to what? To the corporation, of course, 
 but to the men of it! to the flesh and blood of it, first. 
 And he reénforced his argument for the strong wish 
 of his heart with the imposing record of company bene- 
 factions, numbering among them his own unstintedly, 
 generous treatment. 
 
 But the uncomfortable implications as well as the 
 direct charges of the bridge-keeper’s denial persisted, 
 and harassed him as he lived over again that interview 
 with the president just after he came to his desk. 
 Hours, wages, lack of representation, points of contact, 
 and that most distasteful, that nastiest word of all 
 words,—spies. He had already gone over at length 
 
THE FURNACE 8s 
 
 with the superintendent practically all of the ground 
 just covered in that hurried conversation,—all but that 
 last. He refused to believe that. 
 
 As to wages, the company declared it was leading 
 the market. He had resented its effort to force up the 
 average in news stories for the general public by lump- 
 ing all classes together—high-salaried rollers with com- 
 mon laborers. He knew that the man of the street had 
 an utterly wrong conception of what the wage of the 
 steel worker was, and he smiled as he remembered the 
 rather caustic criticism by a local minister as reported 
 in the press, of the workers in the mills who were 
 “drawing wages in excess of teachers and preachers 
 and spending their surplus in financing a prospective 
 strike for more.” 
 
 Malcolm’s argument with the superintendent at this 
 point had not been a vigorous one, for James Judson 
 granted the justice of much claimed by the men. “But,” 
 he had said, “‘we are passing through a period of re- 
 construction ; we cannot pay war wages and keep going; 
 to shut down will be disaster for all. Had these fel- 
 lows saved when they had the chance, had they saved 
 instead of wasted, they would be in position to weather 
 a storm of depression. But they acted as though they 
 had to get rid of the last nickel before the next pay,— 
 why,” he went on, “after the first big raise every 
 automobile in this town was grabbed up. Such busi- 
 ness as was done by the dealers you wouldn’t believe 
 could be possible. One Pole from ‘Goat Hollow’ when 
 he found that the last available car had been taken, 
 bought a second-hand motor-hearse from Stevenson 
 Brothers, and drove back and forth here for months, 
 
bee, THE FURNACE 
 
 with his wife sitting by his side on the driver’s seat, 
 and their mess of kids looking out through the plate- 
 glass windows.” 
 
 When Malcolm had recovered sufficiently for the su- 
 perintendent to proceed, he continued, “As for hours, 
 I’m with you, and so is the company. You’ve read 
 what we said to the congressional committee a year 
 ago. But the change from the twelve-hour day can’t 
 be made in an hour. If it were, you would see indus- 
 trial chaos in a score of cities. For instance, in the 
 Bancroft Steel Company more than 50,000 men are 
 employed. We would have to find 25,000 new laborers 
 to keep going to keep the 50,000 men now employed 
 working. Only the Almighty could find them, and it’s 
 my hunch that He wouldn’t—and if He did, then God 
 pity us! What would we do with them? Frank, has 
 it ever occurred to you that the housing problem alone 
 would be appalling? Not enough rooms now, good, 
 bad and worse” (Malcolm remembered his old attic 
 lodgings), “for the workers we have. Yes, if these 
 sanctified idiots who heap curses upon us would show 
 us how to solve the problem, we would give them carte 
 blanche to go on raving forever.” 
 
 To Malcolm’s often repeated queries as to the lack 
 of opportunity for conference between the employers 
 and their employees, Mr. Judson had said in substance, 
 “Frankly, I have not always been able to fully endorse 
 the corporation’s attitude. I grant that there is room 
 for improvement. But we are, I believe, honestly look- 
 ing for something better, and we are more than will- 
 ing to be shown the way out. Absolutely we draw the 
 line at outside interference. Our men can say their say 
 
THE FURNACE 87 
 
 whenever they want to; we select our foremen, as you 
 know, whenever we can, from among them. Of course 
 the average down there in the pits doesn’t climb out,— 
 poor devils, they can’t,—but that’s not our fault. I’m 
 doing my best here to understand these workers, and, 
 Malcolm, I’ve had new enthusiasm for facing the dis- 
 couragements that at times just about kill my spirit 
 that come to a man when he runs into the dull-witted, 
 slow-moving, many-tongued gibberish that we have 
 here,—new enthusiasm, I say, since I went to your 
 home-coming. I want the worst of them to have a 
 square deal. I’m going to see that they have it. ‘Treat 
 ‘em right’ is the motto in Oldsburg; not ‘treat ’em 
 rough,’ and the foreman who can’t learn that inside the 
 mill, or won't, finishes his education outside” (the 
 young assistant knew the truth of that statement). 
 “But, ye gods, if you turn them over to these mercenary 
 labor leaders, rank outsiders, Bolshevists who know 
 less than nothing about the steel business, what 
 chance do they have,—and what chance do we 
 have? The corporation is watching closely the 
 shop committee plan of the Central Company, 
 —David Strong’s,—a great man he is, and big 
 things he’s doing since he took over control from his 
 father. We’re watching his experiment, I say. Some 
 of the men are frankly skeptical, perhaps a few are 
 unfriendly. There are many minds among us, but I’m 
 interested, more than interested. I’m favorably im- 
 pressed. 
 
 “As for the other thing,—the unionizing of these 
 plants, the interruption and dictation of outsiders, how- 
 ever selected,—we'll close our doors first.” 
 
88 THE. FURNACE 
 
 Thus it stood between James Judson and his young 
 assistant, and the mind of the elder was pretty much 
 the mind of the younger, though the younger added to 
 the interest both held in common, a sense of high moral 
 obligation, obligation to his own, for finding the solu- 
 tion to the problem, for solving the riddle, and closing 
 the great open sore of a wound. 
 
 But Malcolm had grown restive under the changed 
 relations that slowly but surely he came to see now 
 existed between his former mill associates and himself. 
 In the changed atmosphere surrounding the workers he 
 was embarrassed,—embarrassed for the first time in 
 his life; while in the office he was constantly running 
 into things that eluded him,—half-open leads that 
 somehow closed just as he would have entered them. 
 He knew that he was popular with his new associates, 
 —save one, and of him more later,—that he had not 
 only the full confidence of James Judson, as to his in- 
 tegrity and ability, but of President Branson as well, 
 and that among the men of the plant he was trusted, 
 even looked to as an advocate at headquarters. He 
 knew, too, that he had made rapid progress toward 
 learning the intricate ways of the industry, toward be- 
 coming acquainted with steel. He was giving a con- 
 scientious attention to details that left no room to 
 doubt his intention to fully reward the confidence of 
 the men who had given him his “big chance.” 
 
 But after all this has been written, this further must 
 be added. He was not satisfied with the real progress 
 he was making,—progress toward becoming a vital 
 part of the business, a fragment of the soul of the in- 
 dustry. In two directions he was conscious of a handi- 
 
THE FURNACE 89 
 
 cap :—the men held him at half an arm’s length because 
 he was in the great office, and the office, yes, even the 
 superintendent, “‘relieved’”’ him of certain “embarrass- 
 ing responsibilities,’ because he had come to his desk 
 from the pit. 
 
 And now, as he took account of himself and remem- 
 bered the words of “Deeds” Shuski, the crippled 
 bridge-tender, whom he had just left, he knew that the 
 worker was right, but that he had spoken only half of 
 the truth, for it seemed that somehow in coming into 
 success, in taking the high leading way to the goal of 
 his ambition, he had suddenly left his past far behind 
 and cut himself off from the intimacies of old associa- 
 tions without gaining their equivalent in the new. 
 
 With this riot of emotions in full command of his 
 mind, he came by the superintendent’s private entrance 
 into the office he now shared with James Judson, whom 
 he surprised in conversation with Peter Brudidge of 
 the general offices. The two men were bending over 
 some confidentially marked papers. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 N OW Brudidge was the one man who had quite ap- 
 parently not taken kindly to the appointment of 
 Frank as first assistant under Mr. Judson. He was an 
 old employee of the corporation who had risen from 
 the ranks,—indeed at one time he had led them and 
 was looked upon as a dangerous radical by the office. 
 But advancement had come, had been made to come, 
 opportunely, and he was now in charge of a special de- 
 partment, the exact responsibilities of which had never 
 been explained to Malcolm, He had a desk somewhere 
 in the great city at General Headquarters. Why he 
 had resented the advancement of the returning young 
 colonel, James Judson had not seen fit to fully explain 
 to his new associate,—if he knew. He had merely 
 said, “Watch Brudidge, he doesn’t like you,—perhaps 
 he wanted this job himself, and doesn’t know that if 
 he’d been the last man he couldn’t have had it,—but 
 watch. him.” 
 
 Brudidge it was in conversation with Mr. Judson 
 when unexpectedly, and an hour before his usual time 
 for finishing mill inspections, Malcolm walked into 
 the office. Abruptly the conversation stopped,—so 
 abruptly that the assistant superintendent was painfully 
 aware of the interruption his entrance had been. Bru- 
 didge looked up and when he recognized the reason for 
 the sudden dropping of Superintendent Judson’s voice, 
 
 go 
 
THE FURNACE gI 
 
 he glowered, and with a half-vicious snarl said under 
 his breath: 
 
 “Bright angel appears,—business done for the day.” 
 
 Frank did not get the words, but he instantly sensed 
 their direction, and resented the manner behind them. 
 James Judson’s only comment, also under his breath, 
 was: 
 
 “Don’t bother the angels, Brudidge—some of them 
 have stingers as well as wings.” 
 
 Peter Brudidge was no mean figure of a man as he 
 stood that day in open insolence regarding the one he 
 looked upon as an interloper. He was a year over 
 thirty, powerfully built,—he stood chin to chin with 
 Malcolm Frank,—dark of hair and of eye, with a coun- 
 tenance as malevolent as it was crafty. That he was 
 regarded, however, with consideration by no less a per- 
 son than President Branson, Malcolm knew, Why 
 James Judson did not like him, he had never asked. 
 
 Frank stood now, ill at ease, waiting for either his 
 superior or the visitor to break the silence. So intently 
 did he wait that the presence of a young woman seated 
 in his chair at the opposite end of the room from which 
 he had entered escaped him. When Frank entered she 
 had already been there for some time, an interested 
 observer of the conversation she had, of course, not 
 heard. 
 
 It was James Judson who broke the painful silence,— 
 Malcolm thought that he had detected just a trace of 
 irony in his voice as he said: 
 
 “Brudidge, go over that again for the assistant 
 superintendent’s benefit. He will very likely be inter- 
 ested.” 
 
92 THE FURNACE 
 
 Brudidge darted a surprised look at his superior, 
 hesitated for just a fraction of a second, then shrugged 
 his shoulders and replied: 
 
 “As you will, sir.” He began a story the like of 
 which Malcolm Frank had never heard, one that left 
 him hot with anger and then cold with dread, a story 
 of the cruelty of industrial warfare and its treachery, 
 by the side of which the refined barbarisms of modern 
 armed conflict paled, for these latter at least were di- 
 rected against foes,—foes equipped and warned. 
 
 One by one, as he spoke, Brudidge turned over the 
 pages of the file that lay upon the table before them. 
 He continued to disregard the assistant superintendent, 
 his dark face still wore its bianket of studied insolence, 
 and though at the direction of his superior he now 
 talked for the man he thoroughly disliked, he spoke to 
 James Judson. 
 
 “Here is the record of your mill,—the record to date. 
 You have denied that these ‘hunkies’ and a few others 
 who train with them were disloyal,—and I say that the 
 way you have stood by your men is to your credit. I 
 respect you for it, and if ever men had reason to be 
 square with a management, these ” (a vile name 
 coarsened the unmistakable sincerity of the tribute he 
 paid to the gray-headed superintendent) “there in Olds- 
 burg have had it. 
 
 “But my business is to get the facts, and I’ve been 
 getting them. It hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t been 
 swift; we failed with a dozen men, but five hundred 
 dollars was too much for ‘Red’ Poluskiani and here we 
 have at least a beginning.” 
 
 Then began the record, reports on conversations with 
 
 
 
THE FURNACE 93 
 
 men and between men, conversations in lodgings and 
 between shifts, conversations in the pits and words 
 dropped in the ovens. The names of the speakers were 
 there,—how they burned in his mind as Frank read 
 them,—names of men he had worked with, men he 
 had shared his bed and his food with,—branded as 
 plotters against the organization he served. But what 
 had they said and what were they planning to do? He 
 reached down to pick up one of the reports, and Bru- 
 didge carelessly knocked his hand back from the table; 
 but the hand of James Judson reached over and picked 
 _ up the paper while that official said crisply: 
 
 “Tl read it.’ And he read,—read the curses of 
 blistered lips that cried out against their torture, that 
 swore to make the corporation pay. Read the threats, 
 idle for the most part, of boasters who in fancied se- 
 curity gave free rein to their imaginations as well as to 
 their passions. Again and again in those crudely 
 worded sentences of big, unlettered “Red” Malcolm 
 recognized the unmistakable effort of the man to justify 
 his “wage”; to satisfy his “buyer.” Again and again, 
 knowing the workers as he did, he found glaring 
 discrepancies that branded the report as essentially 
 false. 
 
 As the assistant superintendent realized that “Red” 
 was but one cog in a great wheel, and a faulty one at 
 that, he went white with anger,—the sickening spectacle 
 of intrigue and espionage rose like a fog of shame 
 above the great furnaces and hung upon the towering 
 stacks. And now, as his superintendent read, Malcolm 
 Frank stood tingling to his fingertips. His eye never 
 left the face of the man who had challenged him. As 
 
94 THE FURNACE 
 
 for the eyes of Brudidge, there was nothing about their 
 expression to indicate that he knew he was not alone 
 with his superior. 
 
 “What does it all mean?” thought Malcolm, and he 
 remembered “‘Red’’ Poluskiani, a great hulk of a man, 
 a decent sort, too, popular among his associates, always 
 ready to carry an extra shift to ease off a sick ‘‘buddie,” 
 but now playing the miserable game of a spy, worse, 
 the game of a traitor, stealing the words of his friends. 
 “Red” Poluskiani a Judas. 
 
 Then Malcolm’s mood suddenly changed, other 
 things he recalled about Poluskiani,—the two strong 
 sons he gave to the war, to the war that kept even their 
 bodies. ‘The little girl who fell on the street stricken 
 with infantile paralysis, the long weeks of her agony, 
 the slow months of her recovery, and now her braces 
 and hobbling gait,—all this came to him as he stood 
 looking through the face into the soul of Peter Bru- 
 didge,—the motherless home that big ‘Red’ had tried 
 to decently father,—big “Red” whose hours were the 
 hours of steel, big ““Red’’ whose wages were the wages 
 of a helper, big ‘‘Red’’ with the memory of dead sons 
 and the needs of hungry, unfortunate children. 
 
 As James Judson read on through the treason of 
 “Red” Poluskiani, his young assistant became tense 
 with the set of spring steel, and his eyes laid hold more 
 deeply on the face of Brudidge. This, then, was his 
 “job’”—the job of Pete Brudidge, at the hands of the 
 great corporation, corrupter of men. He broke in on 
 his friend who still read on: 
 
 “That’s enough,—too much.” 
 
 The superintendent looked up, startled by the new 
 
THE FURNACE Os 
 
 note, a tone he had never heard before in his associate’s 
 voice. Brudidge made no sign. 
 
 “That’s enough, I say,’ Frank repeated, and then 
 Brudidge broke in: 
 
 “Well, what are you going to do about it?” and like 
 the flash of an answering rifle at night came from 
 Frank’s lips the word, “Something! and he went on 
 with a tremendous passion: 
 
 “That record is a record of treason and shame, and 
 God pity us! the greater treason and shame are not 
 ‘Red’s.’” 
 
 An angry light leaped into the eyes of James Judson, 
 but his voice was easy when he said, “Steady, Frank,— 
 what do you mean?” Brudidge relaxed with a smile 
 of satisfaction as he saw the two friends now facing 
 each other. 
 
 “What do I mean, sir?—and forgive me for for- 
 getting that you were reading—what do I mean? [I 
 mean that the company bought the honor of a man for 
 dirty money, bought the honor of a man, driven by 
 need, distracted by grief, bought him and then turned 
 him loose on his fellows. But when this corporation 
 Bought ‘Red’s’ honor, it had less than he had, and he 
 had nothing. The foulest game in the world, sir, we 
 played—the game of Judas Iscariot. In the war we 
 sent our spies against the enemy, but those men of the 
 secret service were heroes fighting a lone fight for their 
 country within the lines of the foe. Here we fouled 
 our own nest. These men are part of ourselves. A 
 few months ago we called them ‘Americans all.’ Now 
 we treat them like Huns. 
 
 “And what of the stuff big ‘Red’ hands you? When 
 
96 THE FURNACE 
 
 a man sells his soul, what he says doesn’t matter. He 
 gave this company’s intelligence department’ (and 
 Frank shot a lightning glance at Brudidge) “what it 
 paid him to get, but what is it, now that we've got it? 
 Lies,—five hundred dollars’ worth of them,—lies, lies 
 that are dirty and damned.” 
 
 Those last words came from Frank’s lips like leap- 
 ing swords, and his whole attitude indicated that they 
 had eager brothers; that every one of them was born a 
 twin. But now he waited,—James Judson only 
 watched him. It was Brudidge who answered, his 
 voice poorly concealing his intense feeling: 
 
 “Lies are they? You'll prove that? ‘Red’ Polus- 
 kiani got his price, and we've got the goods on as rotten 
 a bunch of anarchists as ever took good company 
 money. A man’s bound to defend his kind,—but don’t 
 cross your breeds, Frank, and don’t double-cross—” but 
 he got no farther. A huge hand closed over his mouth, 
 and before he had time to recover from his first sur- 
 prise he had been spun on his heels like a top and shot 
 through the door. Before he could right himself, he 
 had skidded ten feet down the strip of linoleum that 
 ran between the stenographers’ desks and the railing. 
 Then he turned and charged back like an infuriated 
 bull,—to find the door locked. While he hesitated, un- 
 decided whether to smash his way through or retire, 
 and before he had recovered his vile tongue, his hat 
 shot over the transom, and the voice that followed it 
 said crisply, “Good morning, Mr. Brudidge.” He 
 never was quite sure whether the voice was that of his 
 vanquisher or of James Judson. But without answer- 
 ing he turned and walked blindly away.. 
 
THE FURNACE 97 
 
 Within the office two stern men faced each other,— 
 the younger white with anger and panting from recent 
 exertion, the elder ominously quiet. The younger spoke 
 first: 
 
 “T suppose there’s nothing to do but resign. God 
 knows I’d die rather than disappoint you, but I 
 stood for his filth as long as I could. I—’” his voice 
 broke. 
 
 Then James Judson spoke, “Say, Malcolm, let’s 
 call it a day.” He turned to the desk and pressed a 
 button. “Have the car brought around,” he directed 
 the brisk young woman who responded; “the colonel 
 and I have an important conference—at home.” 
 
 It was then that a strained voice, a voice half of 
 panic and half of laughter, broke in on the startled 
 men: “Oh, pardon me, Mr. Judson, I’m so sorry.” The 
 superintendent swung about and took a step toward 
 the young woman who had risen from the chair of the 
 first assistant and was standing now at the end of his 
 desk, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, her lips 
 parted, and her eyes wide with excitement. Tall and 
 strong, her figure cast in the mold of perfection, her 
 cheeks aflame from the fires of passion that had burned 
 high before her, she was a presence of exquisite beauty. 
 
 “Pardon me, Miss”—James Judson hesitated and 
 went on—‘“‘Miss Stanton. Pardon me, and forgive me. 
 I forgot you completely,” and “Malcolm,” he called as 
 though that completely overcome gentleman were miles 
 away instead of frozen to the spot where the voice of 
 the unnoted guest had reached him, “Malcolm, come 
 here,’—and Malcolm went. 
 
 “Malcolm,—pardon me, Colonel Frank,—Oh, merci- 
 
98 THE FURNACE 
 
 = 
 
 ful Heavens,—pardon me again, Miss—Miss Stanton,” 
 and again he had trouble with the name. “Miss Stan- 
 ton, this is Colonel Frank, our first assistant superin- 
 tendent,—er,—a man who loves peace, Miss Stanton, 
 almost as well as a fight.” 
 
 Miss Stanton unclasped her hands and with an im- 
 pulsive frankness that Malcolm would not soon forget, 
 acknowledged the introduction and said, “It has been a 
 very wonderful morning, Colonel,—a very wonderful 
 morning.” 
 
 _ Superintendent Judson then went on to say that Miss 
 Gene Stanton was a settlement worker from New 
 York, on special assignment, and that she had come to 
 spend several weeks visiting the families of the em- 
 ployees. 
 
 “She is here at the request of President Branson, 
 Colonel,—so however arduous the duty,’ and he 
 grinned at his associate, “we must show her every 
 courtesy. Especially do I warn you against such little 
 _ pleasantries as tossing her hat through the transom.” 
 
 Malcolm grew suddenly dizzy—in the reaction of 
 the last five minutes he had forgotten the tragedy. 
 
 “We'll drop you at the ‘Y.W.,’ Miss Stanton,” Mr. 
 Judson continued, ‘‘and then this ‘Combat Division’ 
 and I will go to our conference.” 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Wyse James Judson and Malcolm Frank entered 
 
 the great living-room of the Superintendent’s 
 home after introducing Gene Stanton to the General 
 Secretary of the Y.W.C.A., which was to be her home 
 during her stay in Oldsburg and in the various other 
 mill towns of the Bancroft Steel Company, they did 
 not at once plunge into their “conference.” Frank, 
 very naturally, waited for his superior to speak, and 
 Mr. Judson was in no hurry. After standing before 
 the mantel for a moment, he excused himself and went 
 upstairs. A few minutes later there were unmistakable 
 sounds indicating that he was taking a bath! It was 
 fully half an hour before he returned. 
 
 In the meantime a former officer in the Army of the 
 United States was “reforming” his “scattered” organi- 
 zation, and “‘fortifying’”’ himself against a vast uncer- 
 tainty. 
 
 “Colonel Frank,” said Mr. Judson, as at last he hur- 
 ried into the room, “Colonel Frank” (with mock for- 
 mality), “I owe you an apology,—the second, I believe, 
 for the afternoon. I have detained you:—very 1m- 
 portant matters,—very important,—have delayed me.” 
 
 But “Colonel Frank” had reached the end of his en- 
 durance, and he said, in a strained voice: 
 
 “For God’s sake, Superintendent, don’t be cruel. Cut 
 the poor thing’s head off—put it out of its misery.” 
 
 “Not on your life, Colonel,” Mr. Judson replied, 
 
 090 
 
100 THE FURNACE 
 
 “not on your life. This is a prize bird; it may suffer, 
 but, by the Eternal, I’ll save it,” and he came close to 
 the young man, reached a hand out, appealingly, with 
 just a suggestion of pathos, and said: 
 
 “Malcolm, you won't leave me?” 
 
 In utter astonishment Frank leaped to his feet; in- 
 credulously he looked into the face of his benefactor 
 and friend. | 
 
 “Leave you,” he shouted, “leave you? Didn’t you 
 see me go out of that door and over the transom? Ye 
 Gods,—would you torture me?” 
 
 “Sit down, Malcolm,” replied Mr. Judson. “Sit 
 down. Yes, my eyes still function. I guess that I 
 didn’t miss any of the exercises this morning, and I 
 wouldn’t hurt you—if I could. I’—and tears that 
 gave Malcolm Frank the last cyclonic shock of the day, 
 welled in the gray man’s eyes—‘“I think too much of 
 you for that.” 
 
 For long minutes there was profound silence in the 
 great room now losing its outlines in the shadows of 
 an approaching storm—profound silence save for the 
 deep breathing of two men—two men who had made 
 a great and mutual avowal, one that was to withstand 
 the shock of abysmal tragedy—men who, being men, 
 did not touch each other, but who sat together in soul 
 communion. 
 
 Later James Judson gave Malcolm his frank judg- 
 ment of the situation. 
 
 “IT put myself into your drive when you sent that 
 carrion through the door. I’ve never liked him. I’ve 
 never trusted him—and I’ve liked his job less. But, 
 just the same, you were hasty. You went too fast for 
 
THE FURNACE IOI 
 
 your ‘cause’—that’s what we'll call it—too fast for 
 your cause. Perhaps you hurt it. Branson is pretty 
 strong for the thing Brudidge stands for,—Pete knows 
 it. Just one thing may save us a show-down at this 
 time. No man ever gave that blackleg a slide for his 
 life before. He'll not advertise the fact if he can 
 avoid doing so. Here’s a telegram I sent as we came 
 through the office.” 
 
 Malcolm read, “Peter Brudidge, Bancroft Steel 
 Company. Conference this morning absolutely confi- 
 dential. All parties here so understand. Judson, Su- 
 perintendent.” The assistant marveled at the intuition 
 of his friend, who now continued: 
 
 “We must see Branson to-morrow. Ill turn you 
 loose on him. God knows what it will mean; but one 
 thing I know,—he won't fire you. As for us, we must 
 be brutally frank with each other from now on. Up to 
 this point I have saved you—but now, my boy, you 
 play the course as it is, and take the ‘rough’ as you find 
 ste 
 
 Malcolm’s heart leaped at the words, and an old un- 
 certainty left him. 
 
 “We're coming close to evil times—a strike, the 
 greatest we have ever known, the most serious in the 
 history of the Company, is due to break any day now, 
 and we’re committed already to a policy I don’t like,— 
 a policy that you'll detest, but, hear me, mark it down, 
 Malcolm, one that will win. You saw part of that 
 policy to-day, and—but what’s the use? you'll grow 
 wise too soon anyhow, and the thing that I want you 
 to see now, the big thing, the only thing that counts, 1s 
 that we need you. I need you, but that isn’t it. We 
 
102 THE FURNACE 
 
 need you,—the corporation, its men, I say, need you. 
 You are young and dynamic, with far-seeing eyes, and 
 you were born to command. I’m old,—sometimes I 
 think that I’ve lived. But since you came, I’ve thought 
 that in you I would live again. Now I see that we 
 must live together for this industry—the men of it, 
 first, the soul of it, to change the wrong of it, to 
 strengthen the good of it, to direct the power of it.” 
 
 After an interval Malcolm Frank answered, speak- 
 ing very quietly, for a great calm had come upon him, 
 as with the darkness that had settled full upon the 
 room: 
 
 “T will go with you, my friend,’ and James Judson 
 spoke the last words of the day then. ‘We will go to- 
 gether,’ he said. How far that meant, they did not 
 know. 
 
 Long into the night Malcolm Frank lay sleepless 
 upon the bed of Judson’s son,—the other son. Again 
 and again the events of the day passed before him— 
 the conversation with “Deeds” Shuski, the clash in the 
 office, the soul-stirring conversation in the room below, 
 and the meeting with Gene Stanton. After he had, as 
 it were, watched the storm sweep over him again—for 
 the calm in which he had separated from the superin- 
 tendent had not deserted him,—the words of the un- 
 expected visitor remained like a song in the night: 
 
 “It has been a very wonderful morning, Colonel,— 
 a very wonderful morning.” 
 
 How vividly the picture of her, standing by his desk, 
 returned,—a picture set in the lights and shadows of 
 deep emotion, framed in tragic passions, a picture that 
 in his eyes would never fade. “A very wonderful 
 
THE FURNACE 103 
 
 morning” were the words with which at last he fell into 
 a deep sleep. 
 
 In the morning James Judson and the first assistant 
 went immediately into the city and were soon closeted in 
 private conference with President Branson. What 
 transpired behind those carefully bolted doors can be 
 very largely surmised by the reader. The attitude of 
 the Bancroft Steel Company toward the issues directly 
 involved in the impending strike and particularly to- 
 ward the matter immediately responsible for the visit 
 to the president of the Company, are already pretty 
 well known, and the viewpoint of Colonel Frank, which 
 we may assume has very largely the support of his im- 
 mediate superior, has been unmistakable from the be- 
 ginning. 
 
 This much should be written of the interview itself, 
 —it was unsatisfactory to both parties. President 
 Branson heard the new assistant through. Naturally 
 an impatient man, he restrained himself while he 
 watched appraisingly the face of the speaker. “As for 
 Malcolm, he was completely in hand, and presented his 
 case as of the Company’s interests and from the view- 
 point of a man who, having come up from the ranks 
 with generous treatment to a position of trust, owes 
 his best judgment and fullest information to his su- 
 periors. His plea was for “first things,’ but when he 
 dealt with what he called “under-cover’’ methods, he 
 did not mince his words, and Jasper Branson flushed a 
 purplish red as he listened, for while even Superin- 
 tendent Judson was unaware of the fact, the depart- 
 ment of Peter Brudidge was a creation and pet of the 
 president. 
 
104 THE FURNACE 
 
 When Malcolm Frank had finished, Mr. Branson 
 did not at once reply. He waited as though to be sure 
 that the speaker had nothing more to say, and when he 
 did speak, James Judson, knowing the man, not only 
 rejoiced in his temper, but eta at his poise and 
 self-control. 
 
 “Colonel Frank,” the president began, “‘you are right 
 in much that you say. I am impressed with your 
 judgments—many of them. I am particularly happy to 
 find that in instance after instance you have grasped 
 our viewpoint. I have reason to know that you have 
 had success in getting our viewpoint ‘over’ with others.” 
 He paused rather impressively for an instant, and Mal- 
 colm thought of “spies” who might have made reports 
 that did not pass first through the hands of Peter Bru- 
 didge. 
 
 “As to hours, I need say nothing—time will solve 
 that problem. As to wages, we are doing the best that 
 we can now. As to conference methods, we are wait- 
 ing and looking for light, but by [with an oath] 
 I began where you did, and have gone through the 
 grades; slaved with the slaves, and I say that the man 
 with the stuff in him gets up and out. There is now 
 no plan in sight equal to that of first-hand contact of 
 the foreman with his men. Why, when I was a fore- 
 man in the plant of David Strong’s father, and later the 
 superintendent, I knew every man by his first name,— 
 six hundred of them. I knew their family affairs; they 
 trusted me,—came to me with their problems. That’s 
 the plan we have here, the best plan yet evolved. Some 
 silver-spooned babies, wiser than their fathers, have 
 something better to propose, but the Bancroft Steel 
 
 
 
THE FURNACE 105 
 
 
 
 Company follows the lead of experience, and by 
 [with another oath] we are not in the business of mak- 
 ing ‘pap’ for weak infants.” 
 
 For a moment the president had gotten out of hand, 
 indicated his true form, perhaps—his two auditors won- 
 dered at his rather coarse reference to the present mana- 
 ger of the Central Metal Company, and the younger 
 had an almost irresistible desire to ask him whether he 
 thought that a foreman, a superintendent, or president, 
 could have in mind the names and become familiar with 
 the personal problems of fifty thousand men instead of 
 six hundred, the majority of them foreign-born and 
 foreign-gpeaking, and whether he had any sort of a 
 plan for providing a square deal for the workers whose 
 foreman might be the kind of fellow to deny them a 
 voice and refuse them their rights. But he was as good 
 a listener now as the speaker had been. 
 
 President Branson continued, “Your indignation 
 against what you call ‘under-cover methods’ which you 
 no doubt regard as worse than spying—I believe you 
 intimated that you regard it as utterly reprehensible >— 
 is commendable.’ Was it sarcasm that put a bite into 
 the words? “Indeed,” he continued slowly, “I don’t 
 like that story about ‘Red’ Poluskiani,”’ and his honesty 
 here was apparent. “I’ve made a mental note of that 
 case,—you keep in touch with it, too,—we don’t need to 
 do that; but,’ and his voice hardened, “you wouldn’t 
 have us go into this war blindfolded,—war is war. 
 You killed men, perhaps women and children in inno- 
 cent cities far behind the lines, for a cause. We are 
 getting ready to fight, but, hear me, to fight in defense 
 of our rights, our investments, our liberties. We're 
 
106 THE FURNACE 
 
 not starting anything, but, by [again the oath] we 
 are going to finish some things if others start them.” 
 
 Frank was appalled at what he regarded as the utter 
 inability of the man to see the issue, to comprehend the 
 principle for which he had sought out the conference. 
 He saw that he had failed utterly to convince the power- 
 ful official that these under-cover methods were as abso- 
 lute as Kaiserism, as wrong as autocracy, and in the 
 long run, destroyers of morale, builders of hate; that 
 they were enemies of the company’s best interests, and 
 finally worse than futile. They might defeat a strike, 
 but they could never win a peace. He was resigned to 
 the fate of the interview, and committing himself to 
 future developments, held his soul in leash to be de- 
 livered at another time, while President Branson con- 
 cluded. 
 
 “After to-day I value you personally more than ever, 
 —your manifest sincerity and your courage especially. 
 All that I have written you and all that I have said 
 stand. We need you, and, Judson,” turning now 
 whimsically to the third member of the conference, who 
 beyond his introductory words at the beginning had 
 said nothing, “I begin to believe that the industry has a 
 place for him that will bring the rest of us, hat in 
 hand, to his desk—we wouldn’t want to lose you.”’ Was 
 there the whisper of a threat in those last well-spoken 
 words? 
 
 As the Oldsburg officials went out, Mr. Branson 
 called after them, “Oh, Judson, Brudidge wants to see 
 you for just a minute; he ’phoned my secretary while 
 we were busy.” 
 
 It had of course been apparent at the opening of the 
 
 
 
THE FURNACE 107 
 
 interview in the president’s office that the impromptu 
 acrobatic exhibition of the preceding morning had not 
 been a subject of conversation between Peter Brudidge 
 and his superior, and when a little later Mr. Judson 
 joined Colonel Frank for the ride back to the mills, he 
 said: 
 
 “Peter is running true to form. This morning he 
 forgives and forgets,—he won’t mention it! But, be- 
 lieve me, you're in for trouble some day or I have 
 never sgen the face of the devil.”’ And there was undis- 
 guised concern in the face of James Judson as he spoke. 
 
 As for Malcolm, he was listening to a voice that 
 said, “It has been a very wonderful morning, Colonel, 
 —a very wonderful morning.” 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 HREE weeks after the interview in the head- 
 quarters office of the company, on September 
 toth, the great strike was called. In the meantime 
 things had gone on as usual in the Oldsburg plant. Mal- 
 colm continued his daily rounds; continued to strive 
 for a better, a fuller, understanding, and for freer re- 
 lationship with the men. While he made progress that 
 heartened him, it was all too slow to satisfy him. The 
 complete confidence now given him by Superintendent 
 Judson, which was quickly reflected by the entire staff, 
 was some compensation. He knew that a strike was 
 impending ; that the men of the local plant were reluc- 
 tant to joint it,—a striking testimony to the manage- 
 ment. He knew that the men would lose,—knew it, 
 because he had always known them, and because now he 
 knew the power and resources of the company. 
 Knowing what he did, with all the strength of his 
 influence he worked to keep the men from “downing 
 tools”; to serve the industry he worked? yes, but the 
 men of it, first, their wives and their children. To 
 strike now would mean immediate suffering and a long 
 disaster. He saw the efforts of the hot-blooded, emo- 
 tional trouble-makers,—saw much and sensed more; 
 knew that a rising tide of restlessness was driving saner 
 counsel before it, ahead of organization, financing and 
 
 sound leadership. He groaned in his soul as he visioned 
 108 
 
THE FURNACE 169 
 
 the wreckage,—losses that all must suffer, with the 
 helpless, as ever, drinking the dregs of the cup. 
 
 Then came a subtle change in the attitude of head- 
 quarters. For days he fought against a growing con- 
 viction, but finally was compelled to acknowledge the 
 fact. The Bancroft Steel Company no longer feared, 
 no longer opposed, a strike,—it welcomed it, and by un- 
 mistakable propaganda furthered the efforts of rash and 
 headstrong leaders who incited the men to hasten the 
 break. 
 
 When this appalling situation opened out before the 
 first assistant, a great anger laid hold on him. He 
 raged before James Judson, only to hear that now 
 generally silent man remind him of the compact 
 entered into on that never-to-be-forgotten night in the 
 library. 
 
 Thus he went on. That he made progress was evi- 
 denced by the fact that President Branson finally called 
 him into his office to reveal to him there the grand 
 strategy of the company. 
 
 “The fight is on, Colonel,—we haven’t. made it, but 
 now, by , we choose the field and name the time. 
 Things are breaking right; it is their next move, but 
 we have figured it out ahead of them, and: always they 
 will find us one move ahead. You're too ‘good.’ Why, 
 if we turned you loose, you’d break up the strike before 
 it started, and we want it to start. Do you get me?” 
 
 Malcolm “got” him, and nearly got him! But he was 
 learning fast now, and kept his counsel. 
 
 In the Oldsburg mill, however, not for an hour did 
 he relax his efforts to save the company, the human part 
 of it, from disaster. For weeks, or ever since his long 
 
 
 
rio THE FURNACE 
 
 talks with Jasper Branson, he had watched “Red” 
 Poluskiani carefully. There was nothing he could do, 
 but watch. His heart bled for the man. He knew his 
 body and mind-breaking burdens, and he trembled, 
 too, for the poor dupe’s fate were his perfidy to be dis- 
 covered by the workers. 
 
 Through the sweltering summer weeks Malcolm took 
 little recreation. Sometimes he felt that it was the 
 Argonne over again, where, as he grimly expressed it 
 to the superintendent one day, “I spent my vacation last 
 year.” Save for one week-end trip to his parents, he 
 was constantly in the dirt and smoke and heat—and 
 hate—of the mill. 
 
 Of Gene Stanton he saw much, but not enough. She 
 came and went quietly. Her work was apparent in a 
 hundred ways among the mill-town workers, but her 
 mission, as her origin, was never quite revealed. She 
 had come to spend ten days, President Branson had 
 said to Mr. Judson, announcing her arrival, but the 
 days had become weeks and the weeks were to run into 
 months before she would leave. That there were some 
 things about the young and beautiful settlement worker 
 which were known to President Branson and Superin- 
 tendent Judson, that he knew nothing about, Malcolm 
 Frank was aware, but when nettled, and, as he knew, 
 foolishly exasperated one day, he had taken his friend 
 to task for not giving him all of the facts, that wise 
 man of years had replied: 
 
 “Tt’s a personal confidence, Malcolm, and, boy, don’t 
 let your fancy play tricks with you—if it does, the 
 tricks will play havoc and bring pain.” 
 
 Of course there was nothing to be said after that. 
 
 y 
 
THE FURNACE III 
 
 Malcolm was the soul of honor, and when he knew 
 that the matter lay in the plane of personal confidence, 
 he was angry with himself for his asking. The tone in 
 which his friend had spoken his cryptic warning, and 
 his very apparent solicitude, disarmed him completely, 
 when he was tempted to resent its personal and some- 
 what embarrassing implications. But even so he saw as 
 much of Gene Stanton as time and opportunity allowed, 
 and as days drew on toward mid-September, and be- 
 came more and more charged with expectant bitterness, 
 he threw an extra guard about her. 
 
 One evening he was called to the telephone by the 
 maid after he had returned late and weary from the 
 office. 
 
 “Colonel Frank,” the voice on the line said,—a voice 
 that always thrilled him, “could you give me an hour 
 to-night? I have a family I want you to see,—here in 
 Oldsburg.” 
 
 Ten minutes later—and it is to be seriously doubted 
 whether the distance has ever again been negotiated as 
 quickly—Malcolm Frank was in the office of the 
 Y.W.C.A. waiting for the speaker. As she greeted 
 him, he noted the dark lines under her eyes; the droop 
 of her shoulders; the drag of her step—and he was 
 angry, angry with everything that troubled her, un- 
 reasonably angry with mill and men and with him- 
 self. But she silenced and rebuked his protest with a 
 look before it was uttered, and in a perfectly imper- 
 sonal tone told her story. 
 
 “We are going to John Webber’s. You know him,” 
 and Malcolm at once remembered John Webber as the 
 roller who had eased his dog’s life in those first hard 
 
112 THE FURNACE 
 
 days of his apprenticeship. “His little girl died of 
 pneumonia this morning. He is frantic with grief. A 
 woman can’t handle a man in such a crisis. I don’t 
 know what you can do, but don’t you think, in such a 
 case, the company, the ‘soul of it’ you talk about, should 
 try to do something ?” 
 
 Malcolm looked at his fair and eager questioner, and 
 dimly conscious that she was grooming him for a new 
 role; conscious, too, that “company comforter’? would 
 sound like a “sick fish,’ as one of his old corporals 
 used to say, answered her: 
 
 “Yes, I do. You picked the wrong man, I’m afraid, 
 but he’ll do his dead-level best,’ and she, remembering 
 what that meant on the occasion of her first visit to his 
 office, replied, ‘‘That will be quite enough, I am sure.” 
 However, he failed to see any reason for the half smile 
 that followed her answer. 
 
 When they reached the home of John Webber, they 
 found a dim light burning in the kitchen, and only the 
 faint tapers of the church to dispute with the darkness 
 in the combination dining-and-living room. ‘The 
 mother sat by the small casket as the bitter-eyed father 
 opened the door. 
 
 At sight of Gene Stanton’s companion he started 
 back in surprise. “You here,’ he said, “big kid?’— 
 that had been his name in the pit. “What the : 
 but the sight of the young woman stopped the first 
 rush of profanity. 
 
 “Yes, Webber, I’m here,” Frank broke in. “I wish 
 I could help you. You helped me once, a lot. Man, 
 I'll never forget it. I wish that I could do as much 
 for you now.” 
 
 
 
THE FURNACE 113 
 
 The evident sincerity of the speaker, his calling up 
 of the other’s friendship, and his simple frankness in 
 his helplessness, completely disarmed John Webber. 
 His voice broke, as, with an attitude completely changed, 
 he cried from the anguish of his soul: 
 
 “Man! not even God can help me now. The kid 
 is gone, and I never knew her. Right now I ought to 
 be at work,—and might as well be,—it doesn’t matter. 
 My chance is gone. Half the time while she slept, I 
 worked, and half the time while I slept she played,— 
 and, God! it kills me to remember, when her laughter 
 woke me, I cursed her,—but, man! I didn’t mean it. 
 I was dead,—dead with the heat and the fumes, dead 
 with the hours and the days after days, dead in my 
 head and my heart. Now I’m alive again, and she’s 
 gone,—and I never knew her. There wasn’t a chance.” 
 
 He brought both of his great, black, twisted hands 
 down upon the shoulders of the assistant superintend- 
 ent until they shook that mighty frame as some oak 
 tree is shaken by a storm, and he thundered on: 
 
 “Wages be damned! I’ve had the best in the mill, but 
 what did they buy me?—this ache in my heart, this 
 hell in my house! I’m going out with the ‘hunkies,’ ”’ 
 he roared, so beside himself that he utterly forgot that 
 one of his hearers was officially, at least, one of the 
 “enemy, ’—‘“going out with the ‘hunkies’ to fight for 
 a man’s chance to know his kids.” 
 
 Never in the presence of death, even when it came 
 like thunder down the plains of war, had Malcolm 
 Frank looked upon such elemental agony. Responding 
 to something within him that broke as breaks a leash 
 that holds an untamed lion, he threw his arms about 
 
114 THE FURNACE 
 
 the shoulders of the distracted father, lifted him from 
 his feet, crushed him until it seemed that his chest must 
 break, and whispered, with an undescribable passion: 
 “Fight! John Webber. Fight!” 
 
 The shock of the physical contact with the young 
 giant seemed to quiet the roller; he sank into a chair 
 and for the first time in the long, hard years of his 
 manhood he wept. Silently Malcolm Frank stood 
 above him,—softly Gene Stanton withdrew, and so it 
 was that the assistant superintendent presently walked 
 home alone. 
 
 Later in the evening as he talked with James Judson, 
 he said, “No organization in the United States has a 
 right to allow men to work as men work in steel. For 
 the good of the race and for the sake of the flag, if 
 they want to do it they should be stopped.’”’ And to this 
 James Judson made no audible reply. 
 
 Early in the morning, before there was any chance 
 that Gene Stanton could have started on her rounds, 
 Malcolm appeared at the office of the Y.W.C.A. When 
 the one he was looking for approached, he greeted her 
 with a half bantering request: “I went with you last 
 night, and you deserted me. Now I ask that to atone 
 for the past, you give me an hour to-day.” 
 
 She laughed without embarrassment and replied, “Of 
 course I'll give you the hour if you’ll come with me. 
 IT run on schedule, you know. The round this morning 
 is here in Oldsburg, and it is a long one.” Malcolm 
 suddenly discovered that his own plan to take Miss 
 Stanton through the blast furnace section of the mill, 
 where “Red” Poluskiani worked, could easily wait; 
 that what he wanted was the chance to be with this 
 
THE FURNACE 115 
 
 settlement-worker who so stirred him, and so they went 
 out together. 
 
 Gene Stanton in her work had been a law unto her- 
 self. That she had the backing of the company was 
 generally known; this very fact for a time handicapped 
 her. The homes of the laborers were suspicious, and 
 in some instances unfriendly. But quietly she had gone 
 on weeks beyond the limits first set for her stay, as has 
 been written, ministering with her heart and her hands 
 like an angel of mercy, until now she had won a way, 
 her way, into the confidence and love of hundreds. 
 They called her ‘fair woman,’’—not because of her 
 hair, which was as dark as her eyes,—perhaps it was 
 her face, high-colored and radiant, or perhaps it was 
 the soul of her that sang in her voice and played in her 
 smile. 
 
 On this day she was visiting babies, new babies, help- 
 less bits of humanity that, whatever their racial origin, 
 wailed in the universal language of infancy. The 
 assistant superintendent carried the medicine-case with 
 all the accessories and waited outside the door,—for 
 generally, that day, one room served as nursery, living 
 room and kitchen,—while the nurse of the morning 
 completed her task. 
 
 At last they came to a familiar street again after 
 having been in a portion of Oldsburg that even Mal- 
 colm had not known. And to his surprise they stopped 
 at the door of the Shuskies. ‘‘What! it isn’t—” and 
 Gene Stanton finished the sentence, “possible? Yes— 
 Mrs. Shuskie’s seventh baby came yesterday. A 
 tragedy it is, too,—nothing less.” 
 
 Knowing the house, Frank followed Miss Stanton 
 
116 THE FURNACE 
 
 across the threshold and waited in one of the two 
 down-stairs rooms while she ministered to the mother 
 and child in the other. He found four of the roomers, 
 men who occupied the attic that only a few years before 
 had housed him, playing cards on the half of the living- 
 room table that had been cleared of its day-old dishes,— 
 dishes that his intuition told him Gene Stanton would 
 wash presently. One of the men recognized the as- 
 sistant superintendent, and immediately the group be- 
 came silent. 
 
 Frank waited for an interval, and then tried to open 
 a sort of kill-time conversation, while he impatiently 
 watched the door between the rooms. Addressing him- 
 self to one of the men he knew had only recently ar- 
 rived from the old country, he queried, “Well, how 
 do you like America?” and the fellow, startled at first 
 to hear the “boss” speak in his language, replied, 
 simply, “I don’t know, sir—I have not yet seen it.” 
 
 For many a day this soldier of the war that some 
 nations fought to make a world, wracked by fears and 
 well-nigh wrecked, safe for democracy, was to remem- 
 ber that answer. Often it was to crowd into his think- 
 ing when he longed to be at ease in his mind. The 
 appalling fact that men,—men new to the land he loved 
 and half died for ; men coming with hope in their hearts 
 as his father had come, should live in her cities, work 
 in her mills, slave in her pits, to die there, or to return 
 whence they came, broken and embittered,—that these 
 men should so come, and so stay, and so go, without 
 seeing her, robbed him of sleep and left trouble for 
 peace in his mind. 
 
 When Gene Stanton came out, the lodgers had re- 
 
THE FURNACE 117 
 
 tired, and so the assistant superintendent of the Olds- 
 burg mills escaped running the risk of losing caste with 
 the men of the plant, for in spite of the young woman’s 
 protests, he insisted upon wiping the dishes that she 
 washed. 
 
 On the way back to Miss Stanton’s lodgings, Malcolm 
 Frank was generally silent, unless spoken to,—in fact, 
 he said so little that when abruptly he turned to his 
 companion with the invitation, “Miss Stanton, I wish 
 that you would run down to a little coal town in Ohio 
 with me next Sunday,—the town where my parents 
 live. It’s different,—there are mountains about it, 
 green and restful; it is dirty and mean, but it touches 
 the sky in spots. We could be back for your Vespers if 
 we started at seven,’ she nearly collapsed, and literally 
 did drop everything she carried—extra packages she 
 had refused to surrender to her escort. Malcolm hav- 
 ing exploded his bomb, one that ten minutes before it 
 “let loose’ he had no dream of ever using, was glad 
 for a chance to “take cover.” He spent the rest of the 
 day (or so it seemed to the waiting young woman) 
 in gathering together her scattered parcels. But it also 
 gave her time to recover, and when at last her escort 
 stood erect, to walk “like a man,” she answered: 
 
 “T’m sorry, but I’m leaving for New York to- 
 morrow,—to-morrow night. I’ve overstayed and my 
 people are up in arms. President Branson came to see 
 me last evening,—that was why I left you so hurriedly, 
 —that was one reason,” her innate honesty would not 
 sanction the half truth. ‘He practically ordered me 
 out,’ she laughed, “so I’m leaving. There’s a house 
 party at our place,—over Sunday. Thank you, Colonel 
 
118 THE FURNACE 
 
 Frank, very much for the invitation,—and for your 
 kindness and for the wonderful time,—the very won- 
 derful time’ (Was Gene Stanton laughing at him? 
 His distracted eyes would not let him see her clearly) 
 “vou have helped make possible since I came.” 
 
 They were at her door now. She gave him her hand, 
 and then, following some intuition, she waited—long 
 years afterwards she was to remember that she waited. 
 Malcolm looked down upon her and said, with the calm 
 of a great conviction, ““You’re coming back.” 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 UT Gene Stanton did not return, for she did not 
 
 go away. The next morning the strike was called, 
 
 and that night the “Limited” pulled out with an un- 
 
 occupied drawing-room—strange, too, that a settle- 
 
 ment worker, even a very beautiful one, should have 
 
 had so elaborate a reservation made for her,—and by 
 
 the President of the Bancroft Steel Company, who came 
 
 to the city ticket office in person. But strange happen- 
 ings are the order of these disturbed social times. 
 
 As for Gene Stanton, she asked no one’s consent 
 when, after reading the morning paper, she suddenly 
 changed her plans. ‘The telegram that went under 
 another name than that of Gene Stanton, to an address 
 on Long Island, was convincing, though quite unsatis- 
 factory to the one who received it. 
 
 In the office of the Oldsburg Mills all was confusion 
 when the two superintendents came in after the general 
 conference at headquarters. Later things settled down 
 to the old routine, for the clerical staff was not dis- 
 turbed by the strike, and, indeed, was practically unani- 
 mous against it. James Judson went at once to his 
 desk, but his associate turned to the furnaces after 
 reassuring the stenographers and clerks. 
 
 Here he found a few stragglers, company pen- 
 sioners and guards. The rollers and other high-salaried 
 laborers who had in only a few instances gone out, 
 notably that of John Webber, were at their homes, hav- 
 
 119 
 
‘ 
 120 THE FURNACE 
 
 ing been released on call until the badly shaken organi- 
 zation could be put into running order again. 
 
 Frank was grimly quiet as he went on. The thing 
 had happened. The end of another period in his life 
 was soon at hand. He felt the grip of fate upon him. 
 Already he knew that much of his sympathy was with 
 the strikers, with that part of the organization, as he 
 expressed it to himself, that had gone out. But how 
 to translate that sympathy into action he did not know. 
 He felt keenly the unwisdom of the step the workers 
 had taken—its untimeliness. He knew, or thought that 
 he did, they were headed for defeat. But how should 
 he serve the immediate moment? 
 
 One thing he was sure of,—his compact with James 
 Judson. He knew that he would stand by the side of 
 his superintendent, knew that though they had not 
 spoken, their hearts were as one. He thought of Bruce 
 Jayne, and wished for an hour with his discerning 
 spirit—they had not seen each other since the short 
 evening when Bruce had dropped off en route home 
 from Oberlin, and that had been just before Gene 
 Stanton came. How he dated everything back to her 
 arrival! He knew, too, that all things for him would 
 forever be waiting her return, but he did not know that 
 she was still in the immediate vicinity ! 
 
 He had come at last to the far end of the great en- 
 closure, surrounded by a barbed wire, balconied fence. 
 The bridge kept by “Deeds” Shuski was immediately in 
 front of him,—deserted. As he remembered his con- 
 versation there of weeks before, and looked up once 
 more to the wire, he seemed in one mighty leap to have 
 landed again in the old, red-running fields of war. And 
 
THE FURNACE 121 
 
 as war he accepted the challenge,—war for men and 
 not against them. 
 
 He turned to retrace his steps, but as he did so, he 
 found his way blocked by “Red” Poluskiani. The man 
 was a hulking picture of abject misery—that the assist- 
 ant superintendent knew of his relation to the depart- 
 ment of Peter Brudidge, he had of course not been 
 informed, but something in the attitude of the young 
 officer for weeks past had given him a growing feel- 
 ing of confidence when in his presence,—a confidence 
 that was like a restful haven to his uneasy, tortured 
 soul. Like a whipped and hopeless cur he came now. 
 
 “Superintendent,” he said, “I’ve got to talk or die,” 
 and talk he did. In broken English he talked. Through 
 blinding tears he talked; incoherently, unceasingly, he 
 talked. Until he became half maudlin, Frank made no 
 effort to stop him, but when he was rapidly approach- 
 ing a state of complete mental collapse, the younger 
 man broke into his misery. 
 
 “Red, take a brace; take a brace for the kids you 
 sold your honor to feed—I know all about it. I’ve 
 known it for weeks. God knows you are as foul as 
 you've said; God knows, too, the ones who are worse, 
 but what are you going to do now?” , 
 
 The man shook his head and was silent for an in- 
 terval. Then he replied, “I can’t go out, for they’ve 
 got the goods on me. I’m marked; for days [ve been 
 feeling it coming ; guess they let me get by until now to 
 cover their plans, but last night ‘Deeds’ Shuski came 
 down and said casual-like, ‘Better kiss the kids good-by 
 and hang up in the mill to-morrow night—I smell dead 
 men.’ ‘Deeds’ never forgot that I lifted a thousand 
 
122 THE FURNACE 
 
 pounds of scrap off’n his legs. So I’m here,—inside,— 
 to stay until they get me. But, God! Superintendent, 
 what am I going to do about the kids?” 
 
 And then Malcolm Frank began the great war. “T’ll 
 look after the kids. You keep your red knob out of 
 sight.” The giant worker crumpled, a groveling heap, 
 on the cinders, and kissed the boots of the man who 
 had spoken. | 
 
 Events for the next few days followed each other 
 in rapid succession and in kaleidoscopic fashion. First 
 came the state troops, spick and span in well-kept uni- 
 forms and on well-groomed steeds; beardless lads, 
 generally, a trifle nervous at first, but eager and well- 
 meaning; victims of orders, and of the system that 
 called them, if their coming was a mistake. Their pres- 
 ence was resented by the strikers, of course. They 
 stood for the protection of the things these too-often 
 blindly-led blind were trying to make terms with,— 
 their own terms. They represented the authority of 
 power,—power that thus far had not dealt kindly. 
 
 There were minor clashes in the streets,—not as 
 many in Oldsburg at the first as elsewhere, for the 
 generous policy of the administration of James Judson 
 had done its work well and could not quickly be for- 
 gotten. But gradually a deep animosity developed in 
 the breasts of the strikers, and a bitterness that equaled 
 it took possession of the sinewy hands of the troopers 
 who had automatics within quick reach and sharp-shod 
 hoofs beneath them. As Malcolm drove to the office 
 one morning, he was passed by a member of the con- 
 stabulary who carried a jagged brick-bat wound over 
 
THE FURNACE 123 
 
 his eye, and the limp body of the lad who had hurled 
 it over his pommel. 
 
 There were injunctions that choked the courts, and 
 wild stories in the press,—the press of the great city 
 that told little more than what the great industry dic- 
 tated or inspired. Malcolm stopped reading the papers 
 until, remembering what Brant had said about the New 
 York Universal, and hoping to get the news that even 
 to a man in his position was unavailable in home dai- 
 lies, he sent in a mail-order subscription. 
 
 But when a court handed down a decision that barred 
 strikers from holding street meetings, after they had 
 been shut out of every hall and public common of the 
 town, he could not longer remain silent. Straight to 
 James Judson he went. “Read this,—no, I'll read it,” 
 he said, and he read, word for word, the decision that 
 declared no man had an inherent right to do anything 
 more than walk in a public thoroughfare! That closed 
 absolutely the way to public assemblage for thousands 
 of law-abiding members of society. 
 
 “There go your last civil liberties,’ Judson’s asso- 
 ciate cried, “into the lap of ‘big business,’ into the hands 
 of ‘selfish interest,’ under the orders of the industry, 
 this industry we serve. I’ve tried to be true to the 
 words of the book I found on my father’s knee. [I fol- 
 lowed the vision he conjured to France and back again; 
 but, James Judson, it has gone on ahead of me now. 
 Don’t, don’t, for God’s sake, don’t ask me to lose it 
 forever!” And James Judson replied, ““You’ll not lose 
 it,—hold steady; this is a war, not a battle.’ And so 
 he stood fast and waited. 
 
124 THE FURNACE 
 
 He had not forgotten his promise to “Red” Polus- 
 kiani. Of Gene Stanton’s change of plans he knew 
 nothing, and for two weeks after the strike began she 
 was completely occupied with her work in other centers 
 of the company’s territory,—so completely, in fact, that 
 she had temporarily abandoned her lodgings in Olds- 
 burg. But Malcolm Frank had transferred an assistant 
 housekeeper from the Judson establishment to the 
 wreck of a house in which the steel worker’s seven 
 children lived; had doubled her wages, paying the 
 difference out of his own salary, and had given her in- 
 structions to ‘‘mother those motherless kids,” as she 
 would have mothered her own had they survived the 
 diphtheria,—and mother them she did. 
 
 As the first assistant thanked his superior who had 
 been as eager to fall in with the whole plan as Malcolm 
 had been in making it, he added, ‘“Doesn’t it grind you 
 to work at this end of that proposition? Looking after 
 those youngsters now when it’s too late, when somehow 
 we should have looked after them before by saving 
 their father? Perhaps by saving their mother? What 
 is the company problem of wages alongside of that?” 
 And James Judson had answered his young associate 
 nothing. 
 
 The next day, just at the turn of the shifts, Malcolm 
 Frank awoke to the fact that Gene Stanton was still in 
 his immediate vicinity. As he stood at the window of 
 the outer office, watching the little group of men go 
 straggling through the guarded gates, silently com- 
 menting upon the change that had come upon the busy 
 place in a few hectic days, his quick eye caught a puff 
 of white smoke that rose in an unfolding ball above the - 
 
THE FURNACE 125 
 
 high fence at the far end of the mill property, and im- 
 mediately the casings and doors rattled with the force 
 of an explosion that smote upon his ears like the de- 
 tonation of a heavy hand grenade of the ‘‘offensive” 
 variety. In another flash he was at the head of a 
 group of workers who rushed down the switching 
 tracks toward the point of commotion. 
 
 Seconds before they reached it, they were able to 
 appraise its disaster: the drawbridge was wrecked, 
 the keeper’s house was in ruins, and there, as they 
 came closer, lay the mangled form of what had 
 been “Red” Poluskiani, broken upon the twisted girders 
 and shattered timbers—scattered across the smoking 
 cinders. The crimson line of his lips was set to the 
 death-agony of his blackened face. Malcolm stripped 
 off his coat and dropped it over the bloody ruin. Turn- 
 ing to issue an order, he faced Gene Stanton; in her 
 eyes was a look of utter horror. 
 
 “You!” he cried. ‘You here? My God! how did 
 you come?” and she answered, as one in a trance, “I— 
 I could not leave.” She swayed, and as she would have 
 fallen, he caught her up and, as a man who walks with 
 death in his arms through a tortured heaven, bore her 
 back to the office. Leaving her there with the company 
 nurse, he returned to the grewsome scene of disaster. 
 
 At a distance he sensed a change; added disorder was 
 apparent; men passed him, carrying a canvas-covered 
 burden, but new figures strode through the smoldering 
 débris, and by the edge of the draw-bridge pit stood 
 Peter Brudidge, his right hand holding at near arm’s 
 length the figure of a senseless man, a peg-legged man, 
 upon whose face and head he rained blow on blow with 
 
126 THE FURNACE 
 
 t 
 
 his powerful left fist. It was only the instinct of blind 
 rage that sent Malcolm Frank to that black throat, and 
 that tore the bleeding body of “Deeds” Shuski from 
 that brutal grip. Then, like very devils, the perfect 
 haters faced each other. 
 
 “You!” Brudidge cried, “you—traitor!’’ and aimed 
 a blow full at Frank’s face. It did not land, and be- 
 fore its brother could be found, strong arms bore the 
 two apart. Again the feud between them waited on the 
 slowly turning wheel of fate. Peter Brudidge was be- 
 side himself ; he roared his nameless blasphemy and like 
 a beast gone mad struggled in the iron hands of those 
 who restrained him. The assistant superintendent, with 
 his back upon the spectacle, watched the slow return to 
 semi-consciousness of his former employee. The blood 
 was swabbed from Shuski’s nostrils and eyes; his cloth- 
 ing was loosened, and his half-crushed chest was sup- 
 ported upon blankets brought hastily from the inside 
 sleeping quarters of the company guards. 
 
 In the meantime Malcolm was told the story of what 
 had happened during his absence. Having apparently 
 hidden behind a huge pile of pig iron, just before the 
 explosion, immediately after the catastrophe ‘‘Deeds” 
 had been discovered in the act of scaling the fence; he 
 was slightly wounded and appeared dazed from the 
 shock. As the guards who made the capture hauled 
 ‘him back into the enclosure, he had cried, ‘Too late! 
 Too late!” apparently wild with terror at his failure to 
 escape. 
 
 Just at this moment Peter Brudidge had rushed, 
 cursing, upon the scene, and, taking in the situation at 
 once, had snatched the half-dead prisoner from his cap- 
 
THE FURNACE 127 
 
 tors and begun his murderous attack. That the victim 
 of the Brudidge jungle methods was guilty of some 
 vital part in the successful plot against the life of “Red” 
 was of course taken for granted. But when a little 
 later Superintendent Frank told what he knew, repeat- 
 ing his earlier conversation with the murdered man, and 
 when this was still later supplemented by the testimony 
 of Shuski, who whispered of the despairing, desperate 
 effort he had made to warn his former “buddie” of the 
 bomb, but who, with his last breath, steadfastly refused 
 to reveal the perpetrators of the crime, the misdirection 
 of Peter Brudidge’s insane rage was fully established. 
 
 While Brudidge was taken into custody on the tech- 
 nical charge of homicide, he was released at once, and 
 for reasons which will appear later never came before 
 a mortal bar of justice. There was no doubt, however, 
 in the minds of the spectators who watched the agony- 
 written face of Malcolm Frank, as he told his story, and 
 who remembered the might with which he had hurled 
 himself upon the “black killer,” as Brudidge had already 
 come to be called,—no uncertainty at all as to what the 
 testimony of the first assistant superintendent of the 
 Oldsburg mills would be when stern justice called the 
 roll in the name of “Deeds” Shuski, the cripple, and his 
 seven fatherless children. 
 
 But even the dark happenings of the immediate 
 present could not efface from Malcolm’s mind the mem- 
 ory of the white face of Gene Stanton as he left her on 
 the emergency cot in the company’s office, and as soon 
 as the compulsion of the tragedy permitted, he hastened 
 to the office. Gene Stanton was gone, nor did a call 
 at her old lodgings locate her. Eagerly, and then 
 
128 THE FURNACE : 
 
 frantically, he canvassed the city to find her, but with- 
 out success. Not until morning was his agony of sus- 
 pense lifted. Then a letter was delivered to him by 
 one of “Deeds” Shuski’s children. It read: 
 
 “My dear Colonel Frank: Forgive me for leaving— 
 again! but this time I had even a better reason. Mary 
 Shuski needed me. I spent the night with her. You 
 will pardon my intruding and my changing your 
 plan,—your generous plan,—but for the time being at 
 least, the two families will strengthen each other, and ~ 
 so both are now together. It makes a very pathetic 
 orphans’ home, and the woman from Mr. Judson’s es- 
 tablishment is a wonderful matron. 
 
 “Pardon my weakness yesterday, and thank you. I 
 am unspeakably ashamed and humiliated. I am quite 
 myself again, and will be very busy. I will call at the 
 office when I return.” And then as Malcolm’s eyes 
 dropped to the closing sentence, it seemed to him that 
 something on the page beyond the vision of any eyes 
 to see leaped up to him, laid hold upon him. The 
 words were natural enough under the circumstances: 
 
 “They have told me all,—James Judson will be very 
 proud and grateful, and all of us will rejoice with him 
 because so great a shame was not allowed to rest, un- 
 rebuked, upon the company,—but be very careful, for 
 the way before us is, I fear, very long. Sincerely and 
 gratefully, Gene Stanton.” 
 
 A divine dissatisfaction was that letter, but from it 
 there was no appeal, and so, not knowing where her 
 path of ministry had led her, he stood by, worked on, 
 and—waited. 
 
CILLA LMR ALT 
 
 D AILY, hourly, local conditions became more acute. 
 
 The presence of the constabulary was a constant 
 irritant, and the refusal to the strikers of practically 
 every legitimate method of open protest and expression 
 a source of growing menace. The difference between 
 the Oldsburg atmosphere and that of other company 
 towns was no longer apparent. Thus quickly the work 
 of James Judson was carried down by the rushing tide 
 of class and partisan hate. 
 
 At the strikers’ store, where an ever-increasing 
 crowd came for relief rations, men with furtive glances 
 and fearing constantly that their words would come to 
 unfriendly ears, talked of their wrongs, boasted of the 
 anticipated triumph, and told impossible stories of huge 
 accessions to their ranks in other places,—always in 
 other places. 
 
 John Webber, grim and silent, stood behind the coun- 
 ter, and with two assistants handed out the orders 
 which were filled on requisitions supplied to the heads 
 of families by the strike committee. His lot was a 
 particularly hard one, for he had broken with his class; 
 he had gone out with the “hunkies,” and as time wore 
 on, and the fighting lines were more tightly drawn, he 
 was made to feel the bitterness of his decision in a 
 hundred ways and places. Boys jeered him on the 
 street of the business district; he was the first striker 
 
 129 
 
130 THE FURNACE 
 
 to receive notice of ejection from a company-owned 
 house; his wife was “cut dead” by her former friends, 
 and morning after morning he woke to find notes of 
 intimidation and revilement shoved under his door 
 or plastered over his windows. One night a barrage 
 of stones was laid down upon his porch, and a little 
 later the thin panels of his front door were smashed by 
 heavy missiles. 
 
 Nor were the passions of the strikers idle. Loyal 
 workers in spite of their company protection were as- 
 saulted as they went and came from work; women 
 fought in the unkempt streets. Every now and then 
 troopers under the sting of the epithet ‘Cossacks,’ 
 would ride down a sidewalk group, and one night two 
 of them, pursuing a shadowy figure that had let fly with 
 a handful of gravel, charged into a rooming-house 
 entrance and trampled half to death a woman with her 
 child. Thus the innocent suffered with the guilty. — 
 
 Nor did Malcolm Frank escape the dregs of the cup. 
 More and more his old friends looked upon him with 
 suspicion. Silence now greeted him when he passed 
 among the men,—a sinister silence. As to his com- 
 pany associates, of James Judson only was he sure, and 
 when he thought of him he was greatly troubled, for 
 nearer and nearer he approached the conviction that 
 his benefactor was suffering and would suffer increas- 
 ingly because of the distrust with which he himself 
 was more and more regarded. Peter Brudidge was 
 doing his work, doing it slowly, craftily, thoroughly. 
 But the first assistant superintendent knew that the 
 trail had no turning; that it led straight ahead; that it 
 ‘was again as it had been with the war,—“‘the only way 
 
THE FURNACE 131 
 
 out is the way through,” and so he went steadfastly 
 about the “company’s business.” 
 
 When the order came down dispersing two or more 
 men standing together on the street in conversation,— 
 the order to “keep them moving,’—Malcolm went to 
 the superintendent with a quiet protest,—and his pro- 
 tests were more quietly voiced, though not less posi- 
 tively, as the strike entered more and more upon its 
 sterner periods. 
 
 “We are wrong, Superintendent,—absolutely wrong, 
 if this is America and if we still live under the Consti- 
 tution, to ‘anticipate possible trouble’ by continuing to 
 abridge, to destroy civil liberty. There has been no 
 trouble with those groups,—they were about the only 
 safety valve the strikers had left. We act as though 
 we had to shut liberty up to keep her, when history and 
 all human experience teach that, bind and gag her, and 
 she will go mad. Release her, direct her, and slowly, 
 perhaps, but surely, she will find her way. I’ve been 
 silent for days in the face of this growing folly. I saw 
 public assembly thrown to the discard because of fear 
 and without the semblance of a real reason for doing 
 so. I choked my dissent when the court closed the 
 street to democracy and freedom. But I am bound to 
 speak now, unless you command against it, and J ask 
 you not to do that.” 
 
 James Judson turned his now drawn and tired face 
 away when he answered, but he said, “I have no com- 
 mands for you, Malcolm. Do as you see fit.” 
 
 The next day there was a storm in the general offices 
 when Colonel Frank’s courteously worded but incisive 
 protest against what he termed the “serious and un- 
 
132 THE FURNACE 
 
 warranted abridgment of civil liberties’? came under 
 the eye of President Branson. ‘There is no record of 
 what he said, but there is no secret now about what he 
 wrote in reply,—dictated hours after his first outburst. 
 Jasper Branson was no fool. The statement of the 
 head of the Bancroft Steel Company was, if a trifle 
 caustic, nevertheless courteous and considerate,—the 
 latter because of the admittedly grave possibility 
 that lay in too serious a disagreement with the first 
 assistant superintendent at the Oldsburg Mills over the 
 particular question now raised as an issue. 
 
 “You learned in a hard school that war is war,—hell, 
 I believe a great and loyal American once called it. I 
 admire again your frankness, but let me be equally 
 frank and say that I question now your judgment. 
 Would you have suggested speeches by the enemy in 
 front of your lines in France?—unmolested propa- 
 ganda for the ears of your soldiers, and with a battle 
 in progress? Would you have waited until some se- 
 cretly planned attack had actually been launched before 
 taking precautions against it? Colonel, we appreciate 
 what you have done and are doing for the company, 
 but you have seen how quickly the humane and gener- 
 ous policies of a man like James Judson are forgotten 
 by those who have benefited by them. Now is the time 
 for us to put into our spirit some of the metal this 
 company produces. Don’t weaken. Cordially yours, 
 Jasper Branson. 
 
 “P.S. Iam sending this by special messenger. To- 
 morrow at nine a.m. there is to be a conference in my 
 office. Stephen B. Price of Caxton, a special secretary © 
 attached to the Chamber of Commerce there, who has 
 
THE FURNACE 133 
 
 had quite a record in several cities for straightening out 
 difficulties between capital and labor, and who is indi- 
 rectly related to our organization, has been invited to 
 address our superintendents and general officers. As 
 of course you know, practically all the men in Caxton 
 have gone back to work. This, by the way, is no ‘news- 
 paper story.’ Come along with Superintendent Jud- 
 son.” 
 
 When Malcolm Frank read that letter, he just about 
 despaired of ever bringing Branson to see the difference 
 between an enemy and a partner or of helping the com- 
 pany Branson led to stop making enemies out of part- 
 ners. 
 
 After dispatching the above letter, the president 
 called Peter Brudidge to his desk. There had been a 
 marked coolness in the attitude of Mr. Branson toward 
 his master sleuth since that worthy’s fatal outbreak at 
 Oldsburg,—a killing of that kind could not be kept 
 under cover, could not be convincingly explained, when 
 company guards and an organization official refused to 
 condone it. Besides, Jasper Branson was not a “killer.” 
 As he saw it, he could not discharge Brudidge and avoid 
 weakening company morale, but his enthusiasm for the 
 man was cooled, and he called him now, only because 
 he had gone so far in his under-cover program with the 
 fellow, that he was embarrassed to the point where it 
 was impossible for him to turn back. 
 
 “Mr. Brudidge,” he said, with no attempt to hide his 
 aversion, “Judson and Frank need help at Oldsburg— 
 need it more than they know.” And he eyed the uneasy 
 man before him as he emphasized the last words of his 
 sentence. “Send your best men down there,—no rough 
 
134 THE FURNACE 
 
 stuff; you understand,” and he went on ominously, 
 “there’s been too much of that already. I want 
 ‘whispering corporals’ and ‘silent watchers,—and I 
 want you to keep on keeping away, but I want results. 
 Get the facts at Oldsburg,” and he stood up as he fin- 
 ished, and spoke his concluding words with a half- 
 growl under his breath, ‘—all the facts.” | 
 
 Peter Brudidge had paled under the whip-lash of his 
 superior’s words. Fear and hatred joined now in per- 
 fect blending on his face as he said with the candor 
 that cunning never uses until desperate: 
 
 “Mr. President, if you mean that last, you mean 
 Frank, and if you mean Frank, you mean that I go to 
 Oldsburg,—myself. I have too much at stake to queer 
 the game again’ (Had Bronson known the stakes he 
 would have destroyed him before he would have given 
 him his way.), “too much at stake,” he hissed, “and let 
 me stake my life on this now,” he went on, “Frank will 
 break with the company, will betray it to the ‘Reds’; 
 will hurt it for years, whatever happens to this strike,— 
 unless you stop him,—stop him quick.”’ 
 
 The president never liked Peter Brudidge less than 
 he liked him then, but never believed him more. He did 
 not betray a single emotion that stirred him, however, 
 as he brusquely concluded the unsavory interview by 
 snapping out, “You heard me,—I hold you accountable 
 for results. That’s all.” There were to be results 
 a-plenty. 
 
 The next morning at nine o’clock the president’s 
 room at the general offices was comfortably filled when 
 Mr. Branson introduced Stephen Price of the Caxton 
 
 
 
THE FURNACE 135 
 
 Chamber of Commerce, and that manifestly self-satis- 
 fied individual plunged at once into the heart of his 
 subject: 
 
 “Gentlemen,” said he, “you came to hear a story 
 and I came to tell one. Six thousand men went out; 
 not many less than that went back, because—”’ and here 
 began a long but snappily told story of the compulsion 
 of power, power organized, financed and splendidly led. 
 Power administered legally but ruthlessly. Power laid 
 down upon a disorganized babel, a many-tongued mass 
 of ignorant foreigners. 
 
 For an hour Malcolm Frank sat under the spell of the 
 slender, black mustached wizard of the practical psy- 
 chology of mob control. There was no bitterness in the 
 speaker’s voice; rather there was in it the disinterested, 
 detached satisfaction of a specialist who has demon- 
 strated a scientific formula. Colonel Frank followed 
 him with the unconscious appreciation of a trained 
 mind. 
 
 Then, as in an instant, the man from Caxton changed. 
 So immersed had he become in the tides of the matter 
 immediately before him that he had forgotten his sur- 
 roundings and the reason for his appearance in that 
 group, his presence in the midst of that industrial coun- 
 cil of war. Now he remembered only the logic of his 
 proposition and its inexorable conclusion. As one who 
 has suffered an overwhelming disappointment, who has 
 just missed his triumph, or rather, as one who has been 
 compelled to take something less than what he planned, 
 bargained and paid for, he concluded: 
 
 “Six thousand men went out; six thousand men, 
 
136 THE FURNACE 
 
 hardly less, went back,—but how did they go?” He 
 paused introspectively and whispered. “They went back 
 with hate in their hearts.” 
 
 The conclusion was a mental riot. President Bran- 
 son looked as though he would like to throw the orator 
 of the occasion into the street, but the first man to re- 
 capture his tongue was Colonel Frank. He said only 
 one word—almost he barked it. “Why?” he asked, and 
 Stephen Price, still in the clouds of his academic dis- 
 sertation, replied: 
 
 “Because we were too strong to be sane; too eager 
 to win a strike and too blind to win a peace. Because 
 we paid so great a price for what we got, that when 
 we got it we were bankrupt. Because we were too 
 sure of ourselves to be sure of those strikers, and so 
 we whipped them and lost them, and now, as sure as 
 the principles that hold for human relationship are 
 fundamentally the same with ‘hunkies’ and with 
 native-born, fundamentally the same whether in iron 
 or in. coal, we must make bricks without straw,—or, 
 pardon me, steel with a combination of heats that isn’t 
 good for the metal,—the heat of the furnace and the 
 whiter heat of men’s hate.”’ 
 
 These last words had come from the Caxton secre- 
 tary like a flood. His eagerness was a passion now— 
 the passion of a man who feels himself personally 
 wronged, and he rushed on, “Look at my broken test- 
 tube, my ruined demonstration. The night those men 
 went out I urged the company in the first conference 
 with the local officials to swear in deputies from among 
 the strikers. I said, ‘Take only known good citizens; 
 fathers of families, and deputize them to keep order.’ 
 
THE FURNACE 137 
 
 There was no threat in the air then,—that bunch was 
 like a huge picnic-crowd in the first good-natured relief 
 of a vacation. As I studied the situation I knew that 
 they would go back—that we could lead them back as 
 from a holiday.” 
 
 Now the speaker almost wept as he exclaimed, ‘We 
 had the prettiest chance for a perfect experiment in 
 industrial psychology this country ever saw, but we 
 shut the light off in the laboratory, dismissed the 
 classes, and went down to the mud-lot for a free-for-all. 
 We sent guards with guns,—and the guns went off. 
 Some folks were shot! The mills were stoned! Then 
 the militia came—” 
 
 But that sentence was never finished. From the 
 street below out of which sounds of a growing dis- 
 turbance had come at intervals all through the morning, 
 rose a mighty roar lifted by a thousand maddened men. 
 Every one in that room leaped for the great window. 
 President Branson, whose amazement had held him as- 
 tounded and dazed in his chair, had just risen violently 
 to interrupt the speaker when the more sinister inter- 
 ruption intervened. He reached the window first. 
 Those nearest him caught a fleeting glimpse of milling 
 workers battling with the police: then—‘Damn the 
 ‘Reds,’ ”’ thundered the purpling president of steel, as 
 he drove the raised window hard into its sill. 
 
 “Yes,” fairly shrieked the little man from Caxton, 
 livid with academic rage at the interruption, and still 
 dead to the ominous realities about him, “Yes, damn the 
 ‘Reds,’ and shut the window—but—’” 
 
 But the Bancroft Steel Company had shaken off 
 its coma, and for the next five or ten minutes its Presi- 
 
138 THE FURNACE 
 
 dent gave as complete a demonstration of chagrin and 
 wrath as has ever been seen in a room of conference. 
 It must be admitted that with three exceptions he had 
 a sympathetic audience. Stephen Price, who came out 
 of his stupor with a bang when Branson in his rage 
 called him “a fool,” a “traitor,” and told him that he 
 would ‘“double-cross his grandmother,” seemed at first 
 about to “crawl,” but suddenly went into “reverse.” 
 He turned his back on his astonished subsidizer and 
 walking at one and the same time from the office and 
 out of his moral bondage. Soon after, under cover of 
 the barrage laid down by the superintendents to relieve 
 the discomfiture of their superior, James Judson and his 
 associate withdrew. Their withdrawal, you may be 
 sure, was not finally overlooked. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OR some reason Malcolm Frank did not feel in- 
 clined to talk on the way out to the Oldsburg mills. 
 
 As for Superintendent Judson, it had been weeks since 
 he had opened any conversation with his associate that 
 related to controversial matters of the strike. Neither 
 of the silent men in the company car could avoid the 
 startling, the embarrassing, implications of the con- 
 clusions of the absent-minded specialist in the human- 
 ities, who had been carried so completely away by the 
 logic of his own “laboratory experiment,” but neither 
 cared for the moment to pursue the matter any farther. 
 
 Perhaps there would have been time and disposition 
 to stir the mixture in that crucible of surprise again 
 when they reached the office had Gene Stanton not been 
 waiting for them. She was sitting in the chair of the 
 assistant superintendent when they came in, and start- 
 ing up, she stood once more at the end of the desk where 
 Malcolm had first laid startled eyes upon her radiant 
 loveliness. He had scarcely time to remark her burn- 
 ing eyes and flushed face when she began speaking in 
 a voice that reassured them at once, for he perceived 
 that the fires consuming her were not those of any 
 physical fever. 
 
 “Superintendent Judson,” she said, in a voice con- 
 trolled with apparent difficulty,—a voice hurt, impa- 
 tient, angry,—and with an indefinable gesture that 
 swept both men into the intimate circle of the conver- 
 
 139 
 
140 THE FURNACE 
 
 sation, “Mr. Judson, when is this to stop?” She did not 
 hesitate, did not wait for, nor expect, an answer. 
 “When is this crime against women and children and 
 men to cease? When is it to stop, I say? When are 
 you going to put a stop to it? 
 
 “Two hours ago I came here, ran here, thinking that 
 in these offices I might speak as to the keepers of a city 
 of refuge,—came only to find you both gone, gone to 
 the city, to the general headquarters,—gone, both of 
 you,—conveniently gone? Oh, no, that cannot be, but 
 while you were gone a reign of terror swept over this 
 town, with no one to stay it,—man and boys beaten 
 over the head for no cause save the fact that they 
 crowded the front of that store waiting for bread,— 
 bread for the hungry. Go, look for yourselves,—see 
 the blood in the street, on the steps, blood of the hun- 
 gry, blood spilled by the will of this company. I saw 
 it spilled, saw the hoofs of those horses forced by mad, 
 uniformed boys into the crowd. I heard the cries and 
 the curses. Men, when will it stop? When will you 
 stop it?” 
 
 She raised her strong, ministering hands in clenched 
 fists to her breast with a gesture at once strong and 
 imploring, while her face, intense and set with the wrath 
 of the shame and horror of those moments, became an 
 inspired fury of justice. James Judson answered her 
 without an instant of hesitation, in a voice courteous 
 and almost an agony of quietness. 
 
 “Miss Stanton, you are kind to relieve us of the 
 responsibility, for knowledge of what you tell us. 
 Colonel Frank will go with you,—he has full author- 
 
 . bP] 
 
 ity. 
 
THE FURNACE I4I 
 
 “But,” cried the girl, “it is too late,—the thing is 
 done. What of to-morrow?’ And Superintendent 
 Judson answered as he had spoken before, ‘Colonel 
 Frank will go with you.” 
 
 Three minutes later they came to the Strike Com- 
 mittee’s relief station. In that brief interval Gene Stan- 
 ton had made the assistant superintendent acquainted 
 with the fact that the unexpected charge upon the crowd 
 at the store had been made by a score of troopers, and 
 that the affair had apparently been directed from a 
 closed car, a regular company car, that stood through- 
 out the riot at the grade crossing of the switching rail- 
 road two blocks away. 
 
 “T heard the shouting from my room at the ‘Y.W.’ 
 As I came running into the street by the car, a door 
 swung open, and for an instant that black fiend,’ she 
 spoke with horror of Brudidge, “looked out. He 
 called to me, but I ran faster. Then I saw it all.’”’ She 
 finished with a shudder. 
 
 About the street were unmistakable signs of con- 
 flict, broken hats, torn clothing, scattered, trampled 
 provisions and red stains. Nothing had been cleared 
 away. The “fragments” had not been gathered up; 
 rather they had been left as a “warning,” an ominous 
 sign. 
 
 Without hesitation and taking account of everything 
 as he went, Malcolm Frank pushed through the door, 
 instinctively making a shield for Gene Stanton, who 
 came close behind him. A practically deserted room 
 greeted him. John Webber, his head bandaged (he had 
 been beaten as he rushed to the entrance when the 
 first cries rang out), was bracing the handle of a crushed 
 
142 THE FURNACE 
 
 basket,—baskets were scarce and expensive. He 
 looked up and smothered a curse when he saw Frank. 
 The whispered conversation going on between the few 
 strikers standing against the wall had stopped in a sort 
 of sickening suspense when the door had swung on its 
 hinges. 
 
 “Webber,” said the assistant superintendent, ‘I’m 
 here from the company to say that the unfortunate 
 affair of to-day will be investigated at once,—to-night. 
 I don’t intend to pass a snap judgment, but I do intend 
 to see justice done. I'll be back within an hour. The 
 company wants the evidence.” 
 
 It was then that John Webber, no longer able to re- 
 strain himself, breaking at last under the load of the 
 curse placed upon him, leaped the counter as though to 
 come to grips with the representative of the institution 
 that had made his torment, and as he came he cried, 
 “Damn the company! and, Malcolm Frank, damn you 
 for a traitor to your kind!” 
 
 Thus for the second time in his life Malcolm Frank 
 had heard himself called the only name that could strike 
 him blind with rage. What the end would have been 
 cannot be told, for even as the assistant superintendent 
 braced himself for the impact of John Webber’s charg- 
 ing body, a singing bullet seamed his cheek and made 
 a burning way through the forehead and the brain of 
 that crazed and hapless man. Almost at the same in- 
 stant a terror-stricken Pole sprawled across the thres- 
 hold of the store with two dismounted troopers close 
 upon him. 
 
 The thing had happened in a lightning moment— 
 two men on the floor, one quiet, a fountain spurting 
 
THE FURNACE 143 
 
 from his head, the other shieking in the ignorance of 
 his fear, while the officers of the law, startled by the 
 unexpected ending of their chase, waited upon some 
 word from the man they recognized as an official of the 
 company whose property they were under orders to 
 protect. 
 
 Malcolm sensed rather than heard the smothered 
 gasp of the woman whose escape from death a moment 
 before had been almost as narrow as his, and putting 
 out a protecting arm she did not seem to need, he de- 
 manded peremptorily, “What does this mean? Who 
 fired?’ And one of the two young riders of the con- 
 stabulary replied, “My gun did it.” He held up the 
 still smoking weapon. ‘Ordered this fellow to halt, and 
 he ducked.” He touched the groveling striker with his 
 boot. “‘We ran him to cover here, and when he came 
 through I let him have it.” 
 
 “Let who have it?” barked Frank, pointing to the 
 dead roller, and bringing his finger back through the 
 crimson trail on his own cheek. The trooper stared 
 wild-eyed. ‘My God!’ he blurted out, “TI didn’t mean 
 to do it,’—like some victim of a sudden palsy he stood 
 before the colonel, who went on: 
 
 “This is the end of another day of shooting the 
 wrong parties, damning law and liberty and spreading 
 terror. Who—” and as though in answer to his half- 
 formed question there broke upon them the staccato 
 of an automobile’s churning as a great machine drew 
 up in front of the building. 
 
 “We are under orders from the office, Superintend- 
 ent. The man in that machine out there spotted this 
 fellow with a poster in his hand and told us to get 
 
144 THE FURNACE 
 
 39 
 
 him.” Still clutched in the man’s hand was a crumpled 
 white dodger of advertising size. Frank took it from 
 him. He read what the Pole who knew no English 
 could not read,—an inoffensive, well within the law 
 appeal to strikers, a call to loyalty and courage. 
 
 Lifting his eyes from the sheet, he said, ““Who’s in 
 the car?” but it was not necessary for the trooper to 
 answer. The occupant of the churning machine had 
 grown impatient. He was baffled, misled by the silence. 
 The waiting horses of the constabulary reassured him, 
 and so he stepped out and pushed the door of the 
 strikers’ store, which swung inward, slightly ajar. Be- 
 yond the heads of dismounted troopers Malcolm Frank, 
 who had caught the click of heels on the steps, saw the 
 movement, and rightly interpreting it, brushed aside 
 the men in front of him, and, reaching out, flung the 
 door back mightily and braced it open with his foot. 
 
 On the threshold, half as though to flee, stood Peter 
 Brudidge. Trapped, he turned at bay. 
 
 “Another dead man, Brudidge,” said Frank, and he 
 pointed to the body on the floor. “Help me carry him 
 out.” Startled, incredulous, Brudidge looked down 
 upon John Webber’s bleeding corpse, then up to the 
 stricken face of Gene Stanton,—even then Malcolm 
 felt the insult of the man’s eyes when they rested on 
 her. Even then he sensed the fear of evils yet to come. 
 But led by some impulse he could not define, Brudidge 
 came, and, stooping, took up the dead roller’s limbs as 
 the man he hated raised his shoulders. Down the steps 
 Brudidge followed, to the car, his car, for to it Frank 
 led him. There upon the deep seat they laid the bloody 
 striker, covered him with the robe of the company he 
 
THE FURNACE 145 
 
 had served, and thus they bore him, this form of a man, 
 an American worker and citizen, who “never knew his 
 kid,” who “hadn’t time,’—thus they came with him 
 to a tin-covered shack in Goat Hollow, where presently 
 they left a woman weeping. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Ae so another family was added to the growing 
 cares of Gene Stanton, who had already missed 
 one house-party and who would miss many another be- 
 cause of what a certain impatient young man, scion of 
 an ancient New York family, called “a darn whim that 
 needs some cave man stuff to drag her out of.” Let 
 it be remarked, however, that the aforesaid youth, 
 husky enough to smash a Yale formation, had not the 
 slightest idea of following his own suggestion. 
 
 It was mid-afternoon before Malcolm Frank had 
 completed his follow-up of the riot at the store. Not 
 a word had passed between him and Peter Brudidge 
 from the time they started with their bloody burden 
 until they separated in front of the widow’s shack,— 
 the assistant superintendent to return to his interrupted 
 task, and the man who was called the “black killer’ to 
 hurry out of the village. 
 
 Gene Stanton was not far behind the impromptu 
 death car. She anticipated the immediate needs of the 
 stricken family; made a mental note of the more im- 
 perative future requirements, and then, stopping here 
 and there as she went, turned her face toward the office. 
 When she came for the second time that day into the 
 great room of the superintendents of the Oldsburg 
 mills, she found the first assistant trying to reach her 
 by phone. With a look of unmistakable relief he 
 greeted her: 
 
 146 
 
THE FURNACE 147 
 
 “Mr. Judson has gone to the city,—is in the city,” he 
 volunteered, “but give me your orders,’ and he made 
 a fair attempt at a smile, a sort of reminiscent smile. 
 
 “Oh, don’t torture me,” the girl cried, “I can’t ask 
 you to forgive me, but I can, I do, tell you how I despise 
 myself,’ and as she spoke she sank into the great chair 
 of the superintendent. Malcolm could almost feel the 
 resentment of the chair at the other end of the room. 
 He despised himself for a certain elation he felt at her 
 mood, but as he looked down upon her pathetically 
 beautiful figure crumpled over the desk, the panorama 
 of that kaleidoscopic day swept before him in its high 
 and flaming lights, and he answered her: 
 
 “Forgive?” As aman ina half stupor he asked it. 
 “Forgive?” Mechanically he repeated it. ‘‘Forgive?” 
 and he lifted his voice. “If you can forgive us, you'll 
 do more than God has, and more than I’d have the nerve 
 to ask Him to do,” and at that moment he felt himself 
 the responsible party, the one to blame, the scape-goat 
 of the company. 
 
 Incredulously the girl held her eyes upon him,—new 
 eyes, eyes of new seeing,—and half-whispered, “Oh! 
 I am glad.” 
 
 For long minutes the great clock measured the time 
 unnoticed. The occupants of that room were con- 
 scious not of it, nor of each other. They had gone a 
 long way toward finding themselves and had stopped 
 to appraise some new values. Malcolm Frank it was 
 who took command of the silence. 
 
 “Superintendent Judson carried down the first draft 
 of our report on the riot, and he seemed to make much 
 of the fact that you saw it.” The speaker’s eyes ques- 
 
148 THE FURNACE 
 
 tioned her as he spoke, but she made no sign. “I will 
 meet him with later details and confirmations at dinner. 
 The officer whose bullet killed Webber is suspended. 
 As to the responsible party—he comes later.” There 
 was something ominous, almost sinister, in the way he 
 lingered over those last words, and Gene caught to- 
 gether the papers on the desk as she cried in uncovered 
 terror: , 
 
 “Don’t! Don’t! Don’t say it,—don’t think it! 
 Never have I feared as I fear him, but one thing I fear 
 more,” and then, hopelessly confused, she stopped and 
 waited, but the man had only heard, he had not under- 
 stood, and as though he had not heard, he went on: 
 
 “To-morrow I am going home,—to think; going 
 back for a day to the air where my old castles grew. 
 I cannot see them here. I have lost them in the soot and 
 grime. But for the days before us,’ and unconsciously 
 his tone had become intimate, “I need to see again 
 their shining walls. Won't you accept that invitation 
 now, and come with me? I'll forgive you for refusing 
 the other if you do,” he went on whimsically. ‘And 
 you'll find a bit of rest and perhaps a castle, too,” he 
 concluded. 
 
 As though the decision had been long made, she re- 
 plied, “Thank you very much. I will go.” 
 
 The next morning as they rode through the blackened 
 hills of western Pennsylvania, Malcolm Frank told the 
 quiet young woman seated in front of him, whose eyes 
 seldom turned from the parlor-car window, of his in- 
 terview with Superintendent Judson. It had been brief 
 and rather unsatisfactory. Mr. Judson had taken his 
 additional data, saying, “I am to see President Branson 
 
THE FURNACE 149 
 
 again at ten to-night. You will not need to stay.” His 
 dismissal, for it amounted to that, had puzzled the first 
 assistant; also the fact that when he had informed his 
 senior of the Sunday visit to Jonesville that gentleman 
 had appeared unmistakably relieved. 
 
 “Glad you are going, Malcolm,” he had said. ‘You 
 need the change. Stay on a few days. We will get 
 along.” James Judson had not been informed that the 
 plan included Gene Stanton, but the keen eyes of others, 
 unfriendly, suspicious eyes, saw them depart. 
 
 The three hours which brought them to the junction 
 a mile from the tipple town (no trains ran on the 
 branch line on Sunday) were for Malcolm Frank 
 very short: He might have improved the time by pre- 
 paring his traveling companion for the surprise his 
 home would bring to her, but he did not. He might 
 have bridged the gap for her between his childhood 
 and his coming to Oldsburg as an under official, but he 
 did not. 
 
 Her first surprise had come when she had been in- 
 vited to make the trip. She knew that he was a self- 
 made man, foreign-born; that he had come from the 
 lap of poverty, out of a “hunky” town, and up from 
 the pit. At first she could not understand his invitation 
 at all, even though she knew, too, that he was in com- 
 plete ignorance of her own background and home en- 
 vironment; but later she came to a very natural con- 
 clusion: “He is kind enough to wish me to have a 
 change, and complimentary enough to feel that as a 
 social worker and casual student of industrial affairs 
 I will be able to find new interest in a distinctively coal 
 miners’ village.” 
 
150 THE FURNACE 
 
 As for Frank, he only knew that he wanted her to go 
 with him to Jonesville to see his people and his hills. 
 Had there been more time for self-searching, he would 
 have known that he desired her to know the unat- 
 tractive, the worst about himself; the unattractive 
 and the worst, as quality is judged by accepted stand- 
 ards. 
 The footpath from the junction wound with the 
 stream. The later leaves of autumn were sliding down 
 the wind; the melting frost made tiny mirrors in the 
 trail as Gene Stanton and her guide followed the easy 
 grade. Now and then through the thinned foliage they 
 caught glimpses of the higher range. The walk was 
 altogether satisfying and ended all too quickly. 
 
 There was a real surprise for Gene Stanton in the 
 tipple town and in the home of Malcolm Frank—not in 
 the dirty, winding street, with its company store and 
 company shacks, nor yet in the emerald encircling hills. 
 The former she had known; the latter the assistant 
 superintendent had well described. Her surprise came 
 when she met the young colonel’s people. It was in 
 them. Afterwards she knew how foolish it had been 
 to assume that he was some foreign growth upon a 
 mean or unworthy stalk. 
 
 As she entered the Finnish miner’s humble home she 
 sensed the difference between the hangings and the 
 occupants, and even before the prematurely aged man 
 had courteously acknowledged the introduction of his 
 son, she felt the mystery of blood and lineage. That 
 the mean furnishings, the cramped quarters, the shawl- 
 draped woman who said little but whose eyes loved her 
 son with the depth of lights that linger on far-northern 
 
THE FURNACE 151 
 
 snows, would have added nothing to the knowledge of 
 her friends, she knew, but to her they told of hidden 
 things that yet will build the greater, freer nation. 
 Even before the afternoon she was grateful to Colonel 
 Frank for his invitation, and her heart warmed toward 
 him as she acknowledged his faith,—his faith in his 
 people and in her. 
 
 “Now for the royal crest,” Malcolm said eagerly, as 
 they rose from the simple noonday repast. Quickly 
 he changed from his business suit to his old field uni- 
 form, minus the blouse,—Miss Stanton had come in 
 her tramping outfit——and then up through the hickory 
 scrub, by straggling vine-maples and sturdier dogwood, 
 to the loftier pines he led the way. 
 
 A half hour of brisk climbing brought them to the 
 summit. Silently they stood in a boy’s holy of holies. 
 Far behind them lay a rich Ohio city of potteries and 
 furnaces. Like a yellowing silver thread the once beau- 
 tiful, now sordid, river wound through the smoke of 
 mills that had soiled it. Nearer were lesser hills that 
 rose from encircling fogs of richly laden smoke,—hills 
 that buttressed the summit all about. In front of them 
 and beyond, the sentinels of green and gold that held 
 the immediate foreground stretched away—a fence- 
 checked, road-rimmed valley of fatness. Below them, 
 at their feet, was the town, a smudge of black across 
 the bare elbow of a hill, a smear along a stream that 
 once was crystal clear. Above them was a faultless 
 sky, a vast bubble of a dome—God’s Taj Mahal. 
 
 Malcolm pointed toward a stump, a resting-place; 
 the girl only shook her head and whispered as to her- 
 self. 
 
152 THE FURNACE 
 
 “They sit not in the place of kings, who yet have 
 crowns to wear.” 
 
 How long they would have tarried, or what the end 
 would have been, no man may write, for Malcolm saw 
 again his shining walls, and stood once more beneath 
 the upflung turrets of his castled dreams. He looked 
 a poet or a seer, but cast\ in the lines | of, another 
 Hercules. 
 
 Gene Stanton, conscious now that she no longer mat- 
 tered, that for the moment he was quite alone, allowed 
 her eyes a freedom they had never before taken, and 
 they answered her, “Like no other man you have ever 
 known, is he—son of a new freedom,” and then, from 
 an almost forgotten page of an old romance she had 
 read in childhood, her memory picked up a name and 
 gave it back to her,—‘‘Fair God.” 
 
 How long they would have waited there above their 
 clouds no man may write, but this is written—the 
 ground beneath them trembled as from an earthquake. 
 The smaller rocks loosened and rolled into the dead 
 vines at their feet, while a muffled roar came to them 
 as though relayed from the mountain’s heart to the 
 entrance of the mine; and from the entrance to the 
 tipple and then upward. Startled, the young woman 
 sprang to the side of Malcolm. He, instantly alert, and 
 knowing, said, “Go back by the trail,’ and then leap- 
 ing over the edge, disappeared in a small avalanche of 
 bowlders and dead limbs that marked his wild down- 
 ward way. 
 
 Gene Stanton watched and waited. She had lived 
 through so many experiences of intense emotional pain, 
 —experiences unexpected, startling, overwhelming, that 
 
THE FURNACE 153 
 
 she was not overcome by the sudden, the appalling, 
 change from a mood of supreme exaltation and peace 
 to one of uncertainty and foreboding. As she watched 
 that hastening line of dust and débris she measured with 
 her sure eye the chance the man had of reaching what 
 she instinctively knew was his destination, the mine’s 
 mouth, without disaster, and not because of the chance, 
 but because of the man, she was reassured. She started 
 as she realized how she was coming to count on that 
 man. 
 
 What the trouble was, her city-born ears had not told 
 her, but a woman’s intuition had spelled out ‘‘disaster.”’ 
 Even as she turned and hurried to the head of the trail 
 up which they had climbed together, her eyes caught 
 the forms of men and women rushing toward the 
 tipple, saw Malcolm’s cloudlike trail stop at the moun- 
 tain end of the great slate dump, as a lone figure leaped 
 into a swirl of smoke that shut out the grimy maw of 
 the drift. 
 
 She knew, before she reached the house of Colonel 
 Frank’s people, that she would find it deserted. 
 
 “Thank God!” she thought, as she hurried on 
 through the deserted village toward the tipple. “Thank 
 God it is Sunday!” There would be few to suffer and 
 fewer to die. Once again the many would escape. And 
 so it had happened. The heavy fall of slate and the 
 terrific explosion had found the far-back galleries de- 
 serted. About the entrance a few guards and special 
 workers were caught by the first upward draft of the 
 fumes, as the fans went dead. But only four were 
 beyond help when carried out, and the town was saved 
 the harrowing experience of waiting for days while 
 
154 THE FURNACE 
 
 frantic miners tore through tons of fallen roof and 
 caved walls to find dead or dying men. 
 
 Malcolm Frank recognized instantly the explosion 
 for what it was, and practically falling down the moun- 
 tain to the mine entrance, had been the first to reach the 
 scene of disaster. Tearing his woolen shirt from his 
 back he soaked it in a black pool by the mule stable 
 as he ran across the dump. He bound it over his nos- 
 trils and mouth, and, dropping to his knees, plunged 
 into the entrance. Twice he went, and came, quickly, 
 each time bringing back a man. 
 
 Now others as willing as he have joined him,—five 
 minutes more, and the boss himself has gotten the great 
 fan started. The old priest kneels above the poor 
 fellows who, burned beyond recognition, are screaming 
 in their delirium of pain; about him are the shawl- 
 draped madonnas of tragedy, and everywhere are the 
 children. : . 
 
 This was the scene upon which Gene Stanton came, 
 two minutes after Malcolm, soaking his improvised gas- 
 mask again in that foul pool, turned to the mine for 
 the last time. One more man he had seen just behind 
 the second gallery door. He waved the eager crowd 
 back. 
 
 “You, Ding Cruce,” he called in Polish, and a veri- 
 table mountain of sinew leaped up to his side. At the 
 first door the young Finn left the young Pole,—broth- 
 ers they were now, grappling death. “Wait for me,— 
 I'll get him here,—you get him out.” 
 
 Flat on his belly Ding Cruce waited. On into the 
 dense night, the horror of smothering, Frank crawled. 
 He ground his nose to raw flesh, so closely did he hug 
 
THE FURNACE 155 
 
 the sanded slime on the floor. A thousand miles he 
 traveled! But now he was no longer in the mine,— 
 he was back at Cantigny, wallowing through No 
 Man’s Land. Ah, yes, now he remembered,—it was the 
 colonel he was after. He couldn’t go back after all,— 
 couldn’t go back till he found him. Another thousand 
 miles he crawled. He grew suddenly angry, and tried 
 to shout at the fiends who drove bayonets into his back, 
 through his chest. He tore at the gag they forced into 
 his mouth. Then, as he fell forward, he touched flesh 
 —and was sane again for a moment. 
 
 Back he whirled, dragging something; his colonel 
 again,—rolling him, pushing him, lifting him, pulling 
 him on by his hair. “A thousand miles! A thousand 
 miles! A thousand miles!’ he raved. Ding Cruce 
 heard him coming, disobeyed orders, crawled with un- 
 covered face to meet him. Back then they turned to- 
 gether, back they came from their foul tomb. But 
 Malcolm fell across the iron sill of the first inner door, 
 and Ding Cruce it was who staggered out into the light 
 with a dead miner on his back,—staggered out alone. 
 
 “Go get him!” he roared, and like one man that 
 village of Babel, that town of many-tongued peoples, 
 swept forward. They poured toward the first level 
 like water through a funnel, and the funnel it was that 
 stopped them, saved them. 
 
 “Stand back!” shouted the superintendent, and while 
 strong men pushed the throng back from the entrance, 
 others, strong as they, rushed to the side of their old 
 comrade, lifted and bore him to safety. 
 
 Gene Stanton it was,—Gene Stanton who had lived 
 an age in that scant ten minutes, who took charge of 
 
156 THE FURNACE 
 
 Malcolm Frank when they laid him on the blanket. 
 Gene Stanton it was who was soul to the hand of the 
 young company doctor. Gene Stanton it was who 
 poured out of her life new life into that madly driven 
 pulmotor. Gene Stanton it was who held back the 
 death that had claimed him. For down to his ear she 
 bent, till her lips brushed his flesh, brushed and lingered, 
 and with the beat of her heart she called, called, search- 
 ingly, passionately, commandingly, “Malcolm! Mal- 
 colm! Malcolm!” and out at the end of the world he 
 heard her, listened, obeyed, and turned back. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Tee papers that gave the story of that day said 
 little about the men who perished, but much 
 about the man who survived. Days afterwards he re- 
 marked bitterly, “They were—hunkies.’ I was— 
 Colonel Frank. God help the people of this country 
 to see coal,—the blood in its black. The blood we don’t 
 and can’t pay for.” | 
 
 Fortunately for Gene Stanton there were no re- 
 porters present at the time of the disaster,—fortunately, 
 and for many reasons. For many weeks, beyond the 
 Frank family and the grateful villagers, and those 
 others of the sinister eyes, only James Judson came to 
 know where she had spent her Sunday. 
 
 The news of the disaster and of assistant superin- 
 tendent Frank’s heroic part in it was received at the 
 general offices of the Bancroft Steel Company with 
 mixed emotions. Peter Brudidge broke furniture in his 
 room and cursed. President Branson’s face was a 
 study, but a statement issued by the company’s publicity 
 department indicated that somebody’s mind was still 
 functioning 100 per cent. “Again an official of the in- 
 dustry gives the lie to the charge that steel has no soul.” 
 With this as a text the country was given once more the 
 long list of commendable gratuities and benefactions 
 originating in the great corporation’s welfare depart- 
 ment. 
 
 At the end of ten days, in which the strike had 
 
 157 
 
158 THE FURNACE 
 
 dropped more and more from the public eye, but in 
 which it had gone steadily into deadlock, the deadlock 
 that only the company’s triumph would break, Malcolm 
 Frank returned to the office, not well, but “fit to fight,”’ 
 as he expressed it, to his delighted superior whose pride 
 in him had assumed new and larger proportions, and 
 whose love for him brothered his pride. 
 
 He learned that Gene Stanton was reported as having 
 gone home for a few days. He found comfort in the 
 intimation that she would return. Like some angel 
 from the old dream castle of his childhood, she had 
 been through the first two days after his near-suffoca- 
 tion. Never would he be able to tell where dreams 
 ended and reality began,—nor did he care to try. She 
 was gone when he became fully conscious; that is, she 
 was not about, but he had a satisfying feeling that 
 neither was she absent. At first he looked for a letter, 
 and then became satisfied without a written word for 
 he knew that no word from her now could be written. 
 
 When he found her gone from Oldsburg, he felt 
 along with his keen disappointment a certain relief,— 
 the relief that comes when one is suddenly spared a 
 delicious embarrassment, a relief that makes one angry 
 for experiencing it, and the regret that follows it doubly 
 hard to bear. Now for the first time, too, he thought 
 deeply of Gene Stanton’s people. Who were they? 
 What were they? Never a word had she told him 
 concerning herself. As he remembered her silence 
 he remembered also his own volubility, and was dis- 
 mayed. He was enjoined by honor from questioning 
 James Judson, and so he worried and waited. At least 
 
THE FURNACE 159 
 
 he knew, and the knowing was far from comforting, 
 that she had not been reared in a shack hard by a 
 tipple. 
 
 Then came a long letter from Haig Brant; a long 
 letter it was to make up for a long silence. Brant had 
 been busy. A long letter it was, too, because of the 
 long story it told: 
 
 “We are having a very important conference here 
 at the Hotel Pennsylvania; a meeting called by the 
 Industrial Bureau of the United World Movement,— 
 some name, that, Colonel, and some bunch are behind 
 it! Tm close to things because Brainard Roberts has 
 been engaged as a sort of special consulting engineer, 
 a kind of social specialist and human diagnoser. The 
 head of the department (unless he has written you, get 
 ready for a shock!) is Bruce Jayne. Now perhaps you 
 see the fine Italian hand that has juggled the balls of 
 fate to get part of this bunch together—‘C’est la 
 guerre.’ 
 
 “T can’t tell you about the movement itself, but it 
 looks something like the Allies looked in France after 
 we'd been licked to a frazzie, forced to establish the 
 High Command, and had elected Foch generalissimo. 
 This is, or is to be, unless the saints get cold feet and 
 call in the advance, ‘a united Christian battle line.’ 
 Thus does your sacrilegious correspondent express him- 
 self. They’re out to hang crépe on the door of the devil 
 wherever that Hun of all Huns or his children happen 
 to operate. 
 
 “I don’t know the folks they represent, but these guys 
 
160 THE FURNACE 
 
 around here are regular fellows; they mean business,— 
 you've tried a sample,—Bruce Jayne. I’m having the 
 time of my life trying to keep up with the ecclesiastical 
 procession without burning a hole in the sleeve of my 
 gown,—but let me repeat it, I am having the time of 
 Raviibeste wae 
 
 “Now as to the conference. All of these churches are 
 to send representatives. Jayne’s bureau is calling it in 
 the name of the various denominations. There will 
 be secretaries, plain-clothes and horse-collar parsons, 
 and full-grade bishops, Catholics as well as Protestants. 
 The chaplain runs true to his old generous form. Big 
 capitalists will be present, too, and long-haired parlor- 
 socialists, and John Peebles and a bunch of big labor 
 leaders. 
 
 “That crowd, if Jayne can keep them from choking 
 each other to death long enough to do it, will discuss 
 (emphasize that last word properly) ‘Christian rela- 
 tions in industry’ and “What would Jesus do in a strike 
 or a lockout ?’ 
 
 “Now, Colonel, Bruce Jayne has done a lot for us, 
 and we've got to stand by him. Why, he’s as brave— 
 or as crazy—as a man going into a den of wildcats with 
 a nut-cracker. Come on here to help cover his retreat 
 when that big offensive—and it’s sure to come—opens 
 on him. You have nothing to fear, for you are im- 
 mune. We discovered in France that man can’t make 
 a gas that will kill you, and now we know that God 
 won't.” 
 
 There was much more in the letter, which wound 
 up with: 
 
THE FURNACE 161 
 
 “Seriously, I want you to come. The big strike’s 
 bound to get into the discussion, and for yourself, for 
 the company and for the men you will some day return 
 to, you who believe you have never left them [and as 
 Frank read that he knew he had never left them] you 
 can’t afford not to be present.” 
 
 ‘This was the postscript: 
 
 “Addenda: Reference to gown not to be taken seri- 
 ously.” 
 
 However, Malcolm Frank had made his decision 
 some time before he reached the postscript, so that not 
 even the disappointment of missing the sight of the 
 major arrayed in vestments could keep him at home. 
 James Judson readily consented to the trip, but added, 
 as a sort of final word: 
 
 “Tt will hardly be necessary to leave a forwarding 
 address with the secretary,—he seems to be overworked. 
 Sometimes I fear that Peter Brudidge is more solicit- 
 ous concerning his health than I am. So we'll try to 
 relieve him as much as possible. I wouldn’t worry 
 President Branson, either—at just this time. [ll look 
 after your desk,—personally,—and should the fact of 
 your presence at this affair come back here, I think that 
 it will be easy to reconcile General Headquarters to your 
 absence—since you will be gone.” 
 
 The two men smiled at each other. Never had the 
 younger been more grateful for their perfect under- 
 standing. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 we Bruce Jayne returned from his memorable 
 
 trip to Oberlin, he showed his sister Josephine 
 a resignation,—the one he later gave into the hands of 
 the senior secretary of his Board. To that surprised 
 official’s query, ‘““Well, what does this mean? What 
 are you going to do?” he replied, “I don’t know what 
 I am going to do, but it means that I am not going 
 to do any longer what I have been doing,—I know one 
 job that isn’t mine and I am going a-hunting.” 
 
 His old contagious smile lighted up his face,—the 
 smile the office had missed since he returned. “Well,” 
 generously volunteered the veteran secretary, “I am 
 glad to see you feeling that way about the future. 
 You had us all worried. We will miss you, but I am 
 pretty sure we won’t altogether lose you.” 
 
 Thus with a hearty Godspeed Bruce Jayne pulled 
 down his old rolltop for the last time, and for the first 
 time since his ordination walked forth a jobless 
 worker, but a free man. 
 
 To the boy at home, the change, without being un- 
 derstood, was welcome. It meant hours, wild hours in 
 the day, with his father,—with his father who was 
 different now than the lad had ever known him,— 
 hours with a jovial teller of the most thrilling tales a 
 wee fellow ever heard, and a maker of toys more amaz- 
 ing than any the shops ever produced. 
 
 To Josephine the change in her brother was little less 
 162 
 
THE FURNACE 163 
 
 than a miracle. “Jo,” said he to her one day, “‘Wednes- 
 day is Faith’s birthday,—the first since the war, the first 
 since she left us. Let’s celebrate it.” His voice broke, 
 but he went on, “Let’s go to the woods with our 
 dinner.” And so began a custom that carried through 
 the years, and long after sister Jo had cares and kiddies 
 of her own, the two Bruces would celebrate in the open, 
 under the trees she had loved, the anniversary of the 
 “little mother’? who though always absent was never 
 away. 
 
 Just when the woman heart of Jo had begun to flutter 
 with vague panic because of what began to be for so 
 active a mind as Bruce Jayne’s a long vacation, a letter 
 came from New York,—‘“The letter I have been wait- 
 ing for,” the big fellow said. It was signed in the bold 
 scrawl, half smearing the page, of Dave Jenkins, the 
 great evangelist to men and a former chaplain in the 
 army, with service in the Spanish-American war: 
 
 “Just heard from Beckwith, and he tells me you’re 
 out of a job, that you fired yourself. Well, I’m glad, 
 and now I want you to run over for a long talk with 
 me. Come on Friday morning—the Giants play Pitts- 
 burgh in the afternoon, and then we’ll eat, and talk in 
 the evening.” 
 
 And so it came about that Bruce Jayne heard first 
 from his old friend Jenkins the story of the United 
 World Movement, felt his heart burn within him as he 
 listened, and his soul leap to welcome this prophecy 
 of the union of God’s children. To him it was as 
 though he had been led by his friend, whose eyes 
 kindled as he talked, to a rock in a weary world. 
 
 There were numerous details to be worked out, but 
 
164 THE FURNACE 
 
 within a fortnight the sister and son of Chaplain Jayne 
 were installed in a tiny apartment overlooking Central 
 Park on the west, where the boy could “‘put green grass 
 under his feet,” as his open-air father expressed it, and 
 Bruce, Senior, had been installed as Director of the 
 Industrial Bureau of the great new movement. 
 
 There had been a long and perfectly frank talk be- 
 tween Bruce and his sister before the final decision was 
 made. The big brother was growing daily more con- 
 cerned as he realized how dependent he and the lad had 
 become, how hopeless they would be without her, but 
 how fully they commanded her time and monopolized 
 her young life. 
 
 “Tt isn’t fair, Jo,’ he had said, as they sat together 
 one evening after “Sonnie” had been tucked under his 
 sheet. “It isn’t fair to you,’ but she stopped him al- 
 most fiercely, and cried out with a hurt, dry sob in 
 her throat: : | 
 
 “Oh, Bruce, don’t strike me like that. If you love me, 
 just take me for granted; just let me be selfish; please 
 let me be selfish and do what I want to do.” 
 
 There it ended. Never again in the half dozen years 
 that she gave her rich young life to his motherless home, 
 before the joy of her own home came to her, did he 
 raise that question. 
 
 Bruce Jayne found his new associations and associ- 
 ates most congenial. The men were all leaders and 
 nearly all in his immediate group, the executive group, 
 were outstanding figures in their own churches, before 
 they had come to the new venture. 
 
 The young chaplain was not selected to direct the 
 activities of the Industrial Department of the organiza- 
 
THE FURNACE 165 
 
 tion because he was a radical. Indeed, although he did 
 not know it, he was a compromise candidate. Bruce 
 Jayne was physically and morally a progressive, politi- 
 cally he was a progressive, but in vital particulars of 
 his personal faith and in Americanism he was soundly 
 conservative. Generous toward those who differed 
 with him in their thinking, he had no generosity to 
 waste upon those who had only a neurotic or sensual 
 communism to substitute for the sanctity of a home, or 
 a blatant “internationalism” with which to replace old- 
 fashioned love of country. He did believe, profoundly 
 believe, in the brotherhood of man, and believing in it, 
 knew that he did not understand it. He knew that the 
 words were as yet an easy and sometimes hollow phrase, 
 but he carried an open mind, and had his face set in 
 fearlessness toward the light of truth. 
 
 Indeed, it was just this latter quality that finally 
 decided him when the unfamiliar character of this new 
 work caused him to hesitate about accepting the invi- 
 tation formally extended by the General Secretary of 
 the movement, Dr. Searl Ballard. Haig Brant it was 
 who said to him, “Well, I can’t settle it for you; if I 
 could, you would be at that desk in the morning. But 
 this I know,—that organization needs you; and if it’s 
 as great a thing as you’ve been telling me, you’re bound 
 to have an embarrassing conscience forever if you 
 turn that invitation down. I tell you, they need you, 
 need your conservative old head and liberal young 
 heart.”’ 
 
 Brant made no attempt to conceal his great delight 
 when the whole thing was settled. ‘Man! now I 
 believe in that ‘Voice’ of yours. I have to; why I 
 
166 THE FURNACE 
 
 heard it myself!” And a few days later he came in 
 with his chief. 
 
 “‘Here’s the man I took for better or worse,” was his 
 introduction, “the man who practices what you fellows 
 preach, but who gets himself in bad by making that 
 mistake.’ 
 
 The chaplain remembered the description of Brainard 
 Roberts given by Brant on the old Aquitania, and often 
 again he had occasion to remember it, for Roberts was 
 a man among men, a “doer of the word, also,” a fear- 
 less gentleman of generous and gentle soul whose 
 trained and fruitful mind was searching out the way of 
 better human relationships and of larger, fuller life for 
 all. 
 
 It was not long until the organization of Brainard 
 Roberts was being drawn upon by the Industrial Bureau 
 for the technical advice and equipment, and the trained 
 research leadership that it, better than all the other 
 similar institutions and organizations in New York 
 City, was able to give. Soon Roberts himself was 
 called to the staff of the United World Movement in a 
 part-time relationship. 
 
 The conference in October, to which Brant sent 
 Malcolm Frank so urgent an invitation, called at the 
 Pennsylvania Hotel in the name of the social service 
 agencies of the various churches cooperating in the 
 United World Movement, was the result of the com- 
 bined thinking of three men. “But,” said Brant to a 
 friend one evening, “two men produced it—two men 
 who are as different as any two days of March—but 
 as alike as two hemispheres of any given truth.” 
 
 The conference itself had a stormy road to travel 
 
THE FURNACE 167 
 
 before it received the sanction of the executive com- 
 mittee of the movement. The reputation of Chaplain 
 Jayne for “sound doctrine’ and old-fashioned patri- 
 otism finally carried the day, however, and after a 
 concerted and intensive campaign of less than a month 
 the gathering already briefly described in Brant’s letter 
 to Malcolm Frank was convened,—a gathering des- 
 tined to have a large place in the history of industrial 
 and social relationships. 
 
 Bruce Jayne himself had no great personal en- 
 thusiasm for the meeting at the first; he rather feared 
 it,—at least he was suspicious of it. But he had become 
 convinced that the nation was suffering from a great in- 
 ternal sickness ; that the land he had so nearly died for, 
 now needed a lot of living for, and he knew that there 
 could be no hope of successful treatment for the patient 
 until the case had been thoroughly diagnosed. So, in 
 the name of the church, he set up the clinic, with at least 
 a half notion that the remedy must finally be spiritual. 
 
 To Roberts he said one night, “Jesus said, “I am the 
 way, the truth and the life.’ That means governments 
 as well as men; that means human relationships as well 
 as divine, and that’s why, whether I like it or not, this 
 conference ought to be held under the auspices and at 
 the call of the church,—not one church, nor two, but 
 the whole church, Catholic as well as Protestant, Jew 
 as well as Gentile,” and Roberts in his soft voice had 
 replied : 
 
 “That’s it—‘I am the way,’ and the way is, “Love 
 your neighbor as yourself.’ ” 
 
 The chaplain grinned at him affectionately and said: 
 
 “You old radical!—they tell me you'll ruin me; that 
 
168 THE FURNACE 
 
 your ‘Bolshevism’ will rock my boat until it fills and 
 sinks. I’m warned against you by nearly all my friends. 
 They say you train with the socialists, and they think 
 that war is ugly. You old radical !—talking like Jesus,” 
 ~—Bruce became sober as he finished—“‘and then dar- 
 ing to act like Him.” 
 
 The morning of the momentous day dawned bright 
 and clear. The chaplain and his two aides, Roberts and 
 Brant, were about early. 
 
 “Like all good religious, non-political gatherings, 
 this conference must have a slate,” the major reminded 
 them, and have a slate it did,—one that went through 
 without a hitch, and to the entire satisfaction of every- 
 body,—when at 9.30 that morning the nearly two hun- 
 dred delegates were called to order by Bruce Jayne who 
 briefly announced the purpose of the gathering. 
 
 Doctor James Justice was elected chairman, unani- 
 mously and enthusiastically. Christian statesman and 
 profound student of the humanities, perhaps as no other 
 churchman, he carried the confidence of that company 
 of thinkers, dreamers and workers when he came for- 
 ward to make his brief address,—an address that was 
 a challenge to a divine radicalism that would wither the 
 out-grown traditions behind which age-old industrial 
 wrongs were hiding. A divine radicalism that would 
 dare to believe the words of the great Teacher and then 
 dare to practice them. A divine radicalism that would 
 be terrible to sin and injustice wherever found, but so 
 discriminating because it was divine that only wrong 
 men need fear it, and only sinister institutions could 
 suffer because of it. 
 
 ‘The organization of the conference was quickly com- 
 
THE FURNACE 169 
 
 pleted, and then, after a few outstanding delegates had 
 been called for and heard, almost immediately a ques- 
 tion was thrown down which dominated the entire pro- 
 ceedings of the day. Brant had guessed right! A per- 
 fectly innocent individual, looking only for informa- 
 tion, and nearly frightened to death with what he actu- 
 ally got, caught the eye of the chair, and on being 
 recognized, asked: 
 
 “What are the facts about the steel strike; are we 
 getting them from—’” But he got no further. He 
 had asked for facts, and at least half of the men and 
 women present thought that they had them, and felt 
 called upon to deliver them. Before the vigorous pre- 
 siding officer had been able to restore order, one fact at 
 least stood revealed,—if the delegates in attendance on 
 that conference were correct, facts could be contra- 
 dictory! 
 
 The Doctor finally ruled that nothing was before the 
 body, and at once a determined, a very determined, 
 gentleman, without waiting for recognition, moved a 
 vote of censure against the great steel corporation. His 
 motion was seconded, but quickly saner counsel pre- 
 vailed, and a point of order was made that placed this 
 particular motion and any others like it, which may 
 have been contemplated, out of the scope of the con- 
 ference. 
 
 It was at this point in the deliberations that Colonel 
 Malcolm Frank arose. His train had been delayed; he 
 had arrived very late, missing the chairman’s address, 
 but hearing all of the discussion immediately following 
 it. He had been recognized by the chaplain who hur- 
 ried to him as he came into the hall. Then, seeing that 
 
170 THE FURNACE 
 
 the Doctor did not know the new arrival, Bruce Jayne 
 rose and begging the pardon of the chair for the in- 
 trusion, said: 
 
 “The gentleman just recognized is Colonel Malcolm 
 Frank, First Assistant Superintendent of the Oldsburg 
 mills of the Bancroft Steel Company.” 
 
 The stillness that came over the gathering as the 
 chaplain sat down was not only a striking contrast to 
 the riotous demonstration that had just preceded it, but 
 a testimony to the place that the strike itself and the 
 organization against which it was directed had in 
 the thought of these socially minded people. Perhaps, 
 too, it was a tribute to the name of the speaker who 
 stood now like a Samson among his brethren. 
 
 Never had Malcolm Frank been more grateful for an 
 interruption. Without the respite the words of his old 
 friend granted him, he was sure that he would have 
 utterly failed, for as his voice had challenged the atten- 
 tion of the presiding officer, and as the faces of the dele- 
 gates had turned toward him, he had recognized one 
 face, and after that he had seen only one,—the face of 
 Gene Stanton. At the extreme right of the gathering 
 she sat, handsomely though quietly gowned, beautiful 
 beyond any dream of woman he had ever known. She 
 was not alone; with her were a woman of middle age 
 and a man, a young man; but the others Malcolm saw 
 only vaguely. As in a fog they were out of focus. 
 Afterwards he remembered their outlines, particularly 
 those of the man, and felt shamed by the feeling of re- 
 sentment that memory roused within him. 
 
 That Gene Stanton was surprised to see him, and, 
 more, that she was startled,—was at once apparent. 
 
THE FURNACE sy 8 
 
 Her face flushed and she seemed to half rise in her 
 chair. Then she smiled,—smiled full into his eyes, 
 smiled so radiantly, so intimately, that she seemed to 
 bridge the distance between them and to stand again by 
 his side. Ah! he was glad for the chaplain’s inter- 
 ruption! 
 
 When at last the way was open for him to go on, his 
 iron will had chained his leaping heart, and he was mas- 
 ter of his voice. 
 
 “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “‘there is no other 
 question before you to-day than the steel strike. Be- 
 cause of who you are and because of the call that brings 
 you here, there can be no other. But it is clear, I 
 think, to us all that at the moment we are not in a posi- 
 tion to reach a decision, to pass a judgment. I have no 
 motion to make; my peculiar relationship to one of the 
 principals enjoins me from initiating an action. But 
 I wish that there might be a motion made to refer this 
 whole matter to a committee, a committee instructed to 
 bring in a report immediately on our reconvening this 
 afternoon.” 
 
 For just a moment he hesitated, and like one who 
 seeks for some added strength for a special need, he 
 turned his eyes again toward Gene Stanton. She did 
 not fail him. Again she smiled, and as though re- 
 leased from a great embarrassment, Malcolm Frank 
 finished with an impetuous eloquence that swept the 
 gathering: 
 
 “It may be unbecoming, presumptuous,” he con- 
 cluded, “for me to seem to suggest ; but—get the facts! 
 Let this free and representative body, this group of 
 Americans, this company of Christians, set about to find 
 
172 THE FURNACE 
 
 the truth, and ‘ye shall know the truth and the truth 
 shall make you free.’ ” 
 
 Like an inspired oracle the first assistant in the 
 Oldsburg Steel mills concluded. He sat down in a 
 burst of spontaneous applause that was at once a tribute 
 to his eloquence and a vote of confidence. 
 
 After the vigorous and sometimes verbose debate 
 which followed Frank’s brief remarks—for the gather- 
 ing came out of the spell his rather romantic figure had 
 for the moment cast over it, and discussed the motion 
 he had provoked, both for and against—the special com- 
 mittee was appointed and at once retired to deliberate. 
 Brant made arrangements for its members to have 
 lunch together, and the report was promised for two 
 o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 Colonel Frank was of course named on the com- 
 mittee. He begged to be excused, and, for reasons at 
 once apparent and not to be denied, his request was 
 granted. But it was insisted that he sit with the com- 
 mittee, along with a prominent labor leader. This re- 
 quest he could not well refuse. As the committee mem- 
 bers withdrew, Malcolm sought again the face of Gene 
 Stanton, and again she came to meet his gaze, but now 
 her countenance had changed. She did not smile. 
 More nearly stern than he had ever known her, she was 
 now. From her eyes leaped out to him a light that was 
 a call, a flame that was a challenge. Through the hard 
 weeks and desperate days to follow, often would he 
 feel the warmth, the power of her battle-eyes. 
 
 As quickly as he could, Colonel Frank withdrew 
 from the committee-room and returned to the con- 
 ference hall to be present at adjournment. The joy 
 
THE FURNACE 173 
 
 of seeing and of now meeting Gene,—meeting her for 
 the first time since the mine catastrophe,—overcame any 
 natural hesitation he may have felt at the thought of 
 coming to know her people and her home environment. 
 But when his eyes eagerly sought out the spot where 
 he last saw her, they found no reward. She was gone. 
 Nowhere in the room could she be located. His dis- 
 appointment was keen,—keen to a hurt. There was re- 
 sentment, too, with the hurt,—resentment that was not 
 entirely cured by a note given to him a little later by 
 Brant, who said: 
 
 “A young fellow handed me this; but if he wrote it, 
 it isn’t a love letter.”’ 
 
 On a sheet of hotel note paper Gene had written: 
 
 “Dear Colonel Frank: [Would she ever call him 
 anything else?] “I cannot tell you what your words 
 meant to me.” [At least she was personal, and his heart 
 sang.] “I am so sorry not to meet you for even a few 
 minutes, but so glad you are so nearly your old self 
 again. I have been delayed in my plans and cannot 
 return to Oldsburg as soon as I hoped to, but I am com- 
 ing back.” Malcolm seemed to feel something in the 
 abruptness of those last words that indicated resistance 
 and controversy, and he cordially detested a certain 
 young man whose face he had seen, but could not very 
 well remember! “Don’t let Superintendent Judson take 
 any risks, and please, oh, please! stay close to him!” 
 Now what did she mean by that? “Sincerely your 
 friend, Gene Stanton.” 
 
 No, that letter, while it followed two others into his 
 wallet, did not fully answer his silent query, “Why 
 didn’t she give me a chance to meet her? If not now, 
 
174. THE FURNACE 
 
 then later?’ And again the old nameless fear of her 
 past and her people rose like a specter before him. 
 
 The report of the special committee at two o'clock 
 that afternoon covered a great deal of territory and 
 treated many matters, but concluded with a recommen- 
 dation that the conference request the United World 
 Movement, through its Industrial Bureau, to organize 
 a special commission to investigate and get the full facts 
 concerning the steel strike and to publish the report. 
 After careful and generally friendly debate, though a 
 few extremists both for and against the recommenda- 
 tion gave a touch of color and a bit of heat to the final 
 deliberations, the report was adopted and if not unani- 
 mously, at least with no votes cast against it. 
 
 That night there was a First Division reunion in 
 New York. It began with an old “Field Kitchen” din- 
 ner in a cooperative restaurant on 23rd Street, a 
 project in which Brant was interested. As the three 
 friends sat together in the quiet basement room, they 
 went over with a good deal of satisfaction the events 
 of the day. 
 
 “A regular party, Jayne,—a regular party!” was the 
 major’s hearty comment; “and now for the big do- 
 ings,” he added, more soberly. 
 
 “Yes,” the chaplain replied, “and if I decide to favor 
 the request of the conference, and the investigation is 
 finally authorized, I’m ready now to announce two 
 members of the commission. I may have some trouble 
 to get both of them accepted by the Executive Com- 
 mittee, even if the investigating itself gets by; but 
 here they are; Chairman, Doctor Justice; Secretary, 
 Haig Brant,” and Haig Brant, for once taken com- 
 
THE FURNACE 175 
 
 pletely by surprise and willing to admit it, sat in open- 
 mouthed astonishment. 
 
 “Bruce Jayne,’ he said, when he found his voice, 
 “T would rather have that job than a trip to the Rhine,” 
 —they were to realize a little later just what that state- 
 ment meant,—‘“‘but you can’t do it. It would queer the 
 whole job to name me. You wouldn’t get by the open- 
 ing prayer with my appointment.” But the chaplain 
 answered quietly, “We'll sure try.” 
 
 As for Malcolm, he was happier and freer than he 
 had been for months. He loved the men who sat with 
 him,—loved them with all the fullness of his great 
 brother-heart,—and to be with them again was like 
 cleansing his soul and renewing his strength. In a 
 burst of generous confidence he said: 
 
 “Men, there was somebody present to-day that I 
 wanted to see, and I was terribly cut up when I missed 
 Her. 7; 
 
 “Oh!” began Brant, but Frank retorted, “Shut up!” 
 and went on, “She has made a heaven in hell in the 
 valleys of steel; so of course she is an angel. There 
 are several good reasons why I must see her, but only 
 one that really matters! Her name is Gene Stanton.” 
 
 When Frank finished he looked expectantly at Jayne 
 and then at Brant. He was sure they would know at 
 once the young woman in question,—so sure and so im- 
 patient that he had overcome his natural embarrassment 
 at revealing his feelings even to these comrades, and had 
 broken out of his suspense. But neither Jayne nor 
 Brant could give him any information. They sensed at 
 once his great earnestness, and became part of his mood, 
 but they knew no Gene Stanton, nor did her name 
 
176 THE FURNACE 
 
 appear among any of the lists of people invited, nor on 
 the roll of delegates. 
 
 “She must have been a visitor,—the fact that she 
 did not return for the afternoon session rather indicates 
 it,” finally concluded the chaplain, and to that conclu- 
 sion Malcolm gave despairing assent. 
 
 “Well,” contributed Brant, “I’m glad for one angel 
 out there—I rather thought that according to Biblical 
 lore and tradition, angels were males, but tradition isn’t 
 getting the benefit of a rising market these days, and an 
 angel of the masculine variety that I have banked upon 
 heavily hasn’t found his wings yet.” 
 
 “Brant,” snorted Jayne, and there was no mistaking 
 his exasperation, “cut that stuff out,—the conference is 
 over. For the rest of the night the steel strike is 
 settled.” 
 
 “T accept your apology,” Haig retorted dryly. 
 
 After the dinner, long lingered over and seasoned 
 with reminiscences, the friends spent an hour in the 
 open air. Up Fifth Avenue they tramped from Madi- 
 son Square to the Park, by the great office buildings of 
 recent origin, the high-spired churches—white marble 
 and brown sandstone—the Waldorf Astoria, the Union 
 League Club, the Library—standing in quiet distinc- 
 tion on the site of the first reservoir—and beyond 42nd 
 Street the art stores. 
 
 “We marched down with the old First in that home- 
 coming parade when I strained my chest trying to look 
 the part of a returning hero, but we have been walking 
 up ever since,” commented Haig Brant, as they stood 
 for a moment looking back upon the canyon-like way 
 they had come, before turning into the Park and stroll- 
 
THE FURNACE 177 
 
 ing leisurely across to Broadway. ‘And now, where 
 are we going—or do we have any objective in this ad- 
 vance?” continued the speaker. 
 
 “Let the visitor, our distinguished guest from the 
 Dark Ages, express his desire,’ suggested the chaplain 
 facetiously, and the “guest,’’ nothing loath, replied: 
 
 “Well, now that the padre has surrendered his chance 
 to steer us into a mission and invited me to give voice 
 to my worldly desires,—here goes. Back a few cen- 
 turies ago, when I was a valet to buck privates in Lon- 
 don, Doris Keane was playing ‘Romance.’ The only 
 night that I had a leave I went to see her. She was 
 wonderful. An air raid held things up in the middle of 
 the second act, but when the lights came on again, she 
 came back and there wasn’t a sign that she had heard 
 of the war. Did you fellows see her over there?” Both 
 men gave him the affirmative, and he went on: 
 
 “Chaplain, the rector in that play wasn’t your kind— 
 exactly ; I couldn’t imagine your surrendering the singer, 
 short of death,” and his hand in the dark found Jayne’s, 
 “any more than I could see you surrendering your faith 
 to get what you wanted; and Cavaleni in the play did 
 exactly what she wouldn’t have done in real life,— 
 but they both had a fight, and won. And, ye gods! 
 what acting! Well, Doris Keane opens here in ‘Ro- 
 mance’ to-night. Let’s help brighten her home-coming. 
 She missed our parade, but that wasn’t her fault, and 
 she doesn’t need to miss us altogether. Now,” drop- 
 ping even the suggestion of facetiousness, and falling 
 into a tone of reminiscence, he went on, “I’d like to see 
 whether Cavaleni will speak to me as she did in old 
 London.” 
 
178 THE FURNACE 
 
 It cost a fortune to get the tickets. The house had 
 been sold out for a week, but Haig’s old newspaper re- 
 lationships finally saved the day, and they landed at 
 last in a first balcony box. They spent an evening of 
 unalloyed enjoyment. Leaving the theater, the colonel 
 said, “She speaks the same language, but I tae to 
 hear better !” 
 
 Had Malcolm Frank been looking in the right direc- 
 tion and at the right time that night he would most cer- 
 tainly have lost much of the glory of the acting of Doris 
 Keane. As the three friends entered their box, a young 
 woman, seated in a loge directly across, started up, and 
 then, excusing herself, hastily withdrew. When she 
 returned, just a moment after the electric clusters had 
 dimmed, she dropped into the chair her escort had cour- 
 teously vacated as he moved into her former seat. 
 Each time the curtain dropped she anticipated the 
 lights. Yes, had Colonel Frank looked in the right 
 direction at the right time that night he might have 
 missed much of ‘‘Romance.” 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Mess left at midnight on the Express. 
 
 “Good luck, fellows,” he said, as they stood to- 
 gether on the lower platform, “good luck!’ and with 
 an exaggerated shake of his head, “Here’s hoping the 
 papers don’t get me into the story. It will be my 
 obituary if they do, and winter is at hand!” 
 
 “Yes, here’s hoping,” replied Brant, “that you're 
 dead as a mackerel with the pirates you serve before 
 you hit horseshoe curve!” 
 
 A little later, and just before Haig separated from 
 Jayne at the subway entrance, the latter queried, “What 
 is Malcolm going to do? He’s so quiet that I know he 
 is going to do something. I would be sorry to see him 
 make a break with the company. He has a great chance 
 to do good and get on. This strike will be over pres- 
 ently. Then will be the time for constructive work 
 and the colonel is the most valuable man in the industry 
 when that hour comes.”’ 
 
 “T don’t know what the old boy has in his bean,” an- 
 swered Brant slowly, ‘“‘and I’m not half as sure now as 
 I was this morning, before some of those social quacks 
 got through prescribing, that I would like to tell him. 
 I’m just sure of one thing,—the country needs to know 
 the facts. Perhaps when our commission gets through 
 we will understand why Frank stuck to the company.” 
 
 “Well,” ejaculated Bruce, looking the amazement he 
 felt, “the world do move!’ 
 
 179 
 
180 THE FURNACE 
 
 But the commission to get through had to get 
 started, and for a time the starting seemed a long way 
 off. The conference had been given wide publicity. 
 Newspaper men were not present, but the copy released 
 by the chaplain’s department, in the parlance of edi- 
 torial rooms, “went big.”’ The presence of the assistant 
 superintendent from the Oldsburg mills was not pub- 
 lished, but it could not be kept altogether a secret, and 
 when word of it reached the general offices of the com- 
 pany there was a near riot. But James Judson was as 
 good as his word, and the shock had spent itself before 
 it reached Malcolm. 
 
 But so much commotion disturbed greatly the peace 
 of mind of certain distinguished leaders in ecclesiastical 
 circles, and these leaders made their fears felt at the 
 headquarters of the United World Movement. “You 
 will have trouble enough,” they cautioned, “the general 
 church meetings were about all you could weather. 
 You have been given clear definitions of your field and 
 the scope of your activities. Don’t enter new fields. 
 There’s a wide difference of opinion among churchmen 
 themselves as to whether industrial relations are a legit- 
 imate sphere for organized church interference or 
 even investigation. The questions involved in the steel 
 strike are technical; the issues can be met only by spe- 
 cialists. Let the government go forward with its Con- 
 gressional investigation, and let the United World 
 Movement remain where it can command united sup- 
 ‘port and a respectful hearing because it speaks with the 
 authority of training and knowledge.” 
 
 It cannot be said that the head of the Industrial Bu- 
 reau had been wildly enthusiastic over the action of the 
 
THE FURNACE 181 
 
 conference appointing the special commission. The 
 fact that the Colonel, a company official, suggested it 
 helped to reconcile him to the idea, but he listened with 
 a more than an open mind to the objectors and it is 
 hard to say just what his final decision would have been 
 had a certain incident not occurred. 
 
 At a meeting of the Movement’s executive commit- 
 tee called to consider finally the request of the con- 
 ference for the naming of a commission to investigate 
 the strike, among those who argued against the or- 
 ganization’s having anything at all to do with the mat- 
 ter was a clergyman from a center of the steel in- 
 dustry. He made a strong and fair plea until he 
 reached his conclusion, when he said: 
 
 “To authorize this commission would be not only to 
 enter a new field, a dangerous field, a field that as I see 
 it is not ours; but it would be a slap in the face of some 
 of the finest church-men and philanthropists in the 
 country. It would serve notice on these men that their 
 methods are questioned; their moral integrity doubted. 
 By no stretch of the imagination could this proposed 
 action help the United World Movement.” 
 
 Chaplain Jayne felt himself change under the words 
 of the speaker, and when he had finished, was instantly 
 on his feet, but the general secretary, claiming, as he 
 seldom did, the right of seniority, was the first to speak. 
 
 “Do I understand the Doctor to intimate that this 
 movement will suffer,—suffer perhaps the withdrawal 
 of moral and financial support,—if it investigates the 
 steel strike? that great Christian laymen will resent our 
 enquiring carefully, impartially, after the facts?” and 
 with impressive frankness the clergyman answered: 
 
182 LHE TORNACE 
 
 “That is exactly what I mean, and beyond that, such 
 an inquiry will make the task of these men harder, give 
 comfort to alien elements of our population that have 
 no part with us in ideals and standards of living, and 
 perhaps delay settlement of the strike, though it is cer- 
 tainly on its last legs already.” 
 
 Searl Ballard had remained standing while the other 
 had spoken, and now in a voice that all who were close 
 to him came quickly to associate with the dynamic, im- 
 perative action that made him their ideal of leadership, 
 —a voice at once quiet and restless, deliberate and im- 
 patient, he said: 
 
 “As I see it, the question for us to decide is not, will 
 the United World Movement be injured by such a 
 program as this request contemplates, but, is there a 
 chance to help a sad social and industrial situation by 
 going forward? The question is not only, what will 
 these honored and, we believe, honest, but powerful, 
 church laymen think about us and perhaps refuse to do 
 for us, but it is, as well, what. will these workers now 
 out on strike, aliens to be sure, ignorant often, and 
 helpless enough so far as hurting us is concerned, but 
 human souls, nevertheless;—what will these workers 
 think if we refuse? 
 
 “T don’t know a thing about this strike that headlines 
 have not told me, and that means that I’m prejudiced 
 against the strikers, for I’m an American citizen whose 
 relatives fought in every war since Bunker Hill, and 
 I am against the disloyalty that seems now to be lead- 
 ing this steel war in the Middle West. But I can’t see 
 any reason under the sun why the great industry should 
 oppose such an investigation as is proposed here—an 
 
THE FURNACE 183 
 
 investigation that we are bound to see is made by hon- 
 est, competent, American, Christian men and women. 
 An investigation that before it can become an action 
 of this body must pass through both the hands and 
 minds of this committee,—a committee that not by the 
 widest stretch of the imagination could be called radi- 
 cal. 
 
 “Mr. Chairman, are there any labor leaders, any 
 strikers here, to protest against the proposed investiga- 
 tion?” | 
 
 “There are none that I know of,—there are none,” 
 the presiding officer replied. 
 
 “Then, sir,” concluded the General Secretary, with 
 that fine courtesy and loyalty that endeared him to those 
 who stood by his side, “I am ready to support the 
 recommendation that Chaplain Jayne may have to bring 
 this matter finally before us.” 
 
 There was an interval of silent expectancy. It was 
 quite generally known that the director of the Industrial 
 Bureau had reached no conclusion before that meeting 
 had been called. The most encouragement that even 
 Brant had been able to wring from him had been the 
 statement that he would let the trustees reach a decision 
 uninterfered with: that his own final action would be 
 based very largely upon the developments of the meet- 
 ing itself, 
 
 Now that Dr. Ballard had put the proposition’ 
 squarely up to him, giving him the opportunity to 
 practically indicate the course of action for the body, 
 no one doubted what the general secretary’s support 
 would do for whatever recommendation the chaplain 
 might make—the trustees waited in uncertainty for the 
 
184 THE FURNACE 
 
 word of their director. But from that gentleman’s 
 mind all uncertainty had been removed. He arose and 
 said quietly : 
 
 “Because I do not believe the United World Move- 
 ment can afford to refuse, because I have come to see 
 clearly in the last thirty minutes that the United World 
 Movement has here a far-reaching ministry,—a minis- 
 try so far-reaching that I am unable now to envision it, 
 I urge favorable action. I recommend first that a spe- 
 cial commission of nine people, the names to be sub- 
 mitted to this committee for final review and confirma- 
 tion, be authorized and organized to investigate fully 
 the steel strike and to get the facts. Second, that the 
 report when finally adopted by this executive committee 
 be published.” 
 
 And though there was still opposition, particularly to 
 the second part of the recommendation, this was the 
 form in which the resolution was finally adopted. 
 
 “Man! but I prayed for your poor uncertain soul,” 
 said Haig Brant, when he heard the news, “‘and who 
 says that even a preacher gets beyond prayer?” 
 
 The organization of the commission was pushed 
 rapidly. The work, if it was to be done at all, and 
 particularly if it was to be done thoroughly, must be 
 begun quickly. As Chaplain Jayne had announced in- 
 formally to his friends at their dinner after the con- 
 ference, Doctor Justice was asked to accept the chair- 
 manship, and the entire personnel of that commission 
 as finally elected by the Executive Committee, which in 
 every instance was representative of the church’s ac- 
 credited leadership, was generally of outstanding dis- 
 tinction and training as well. 
 
THE FURNACE 18s 
 
 One of Bruce Jayne’s first suggestions to Doctor 
 Justice was that Brainard Roberts’ organization be 
 drawn upon for technical experts and trained investiga- 
 tors. “Let us spare no expense; let us spare nothing to 
 make this investigation ‘fool-proof,’ scientific and 
 sound, more than superficially true,” and the chairman 
 had replied: 
 
 “Good! we need Roberts in this. Of course the re- 
 port must be ours; every line of it; every word of it; 
 every conclusion; ours by first-hand participation, re- 
 search and study; ours so that we are bound, legally 
 and morally bound, to its last word. But for the co- 
 operation and assistance that any such commission must 
 have, let us call in only the best,’ and a little later it 
 was the discriminating Doctor who asked the cabinet 
 of the United World Movement to assign Major Haig 
 Brant for all of his time as secretary of the commis- 
 sion. 
 
 The request was granted without a single objector 
 appearing, and the major entered upon a period of in- 
 tensive activity that was to nearly wreck his health, but 
 one that was to round and season his character while it 
 gave him a reputation as wide as the socially minded 
 reading public. 
 
 As for the chaplain, while not formally a member of 
 the commission, he devoted all of his time and concen- 
 trated practically every activity of his department upon 
 its program. He sat through the public hearings; was 
 present at every important interview with representa- 
 tives of the two principals, and did as much actual work 
 in the field as any regularly employed investigator. 
 
 The field staff, as soon as selected, was organized by 
 
186 THE FURNACE 
 
 Brant and sent into the strike districts. Fortunate in- 
 deed was the commission in having the support of a 
 public spirited woman of means who gave discriminat- 
 ingly but liberally to further the work of Doctor Justice 
 and his associates. 
 
 It was agreed in one of the first meetings of the full 
 commission that as soon as possible the leaders of the 
 great industry should be interviewed, just as later the 
 strikers would be visited. This first interview was not 
 difficult to arrange. The chairman, with the director of 
 the Bureau, the secretary, and two of the commission- 
 ers, was received in the private offices that looked from 
 their great height down upon the lesser buildings out 
 across the teeming river and crowded harbor to New 
 Jersey and the open sea. The visitors were greeted 
 courteously, and when they elected to leave were dis- 
 missed cordially, 
 
 “We believe you have a chance to do some real good, 
 if, as you say you will, you impartially look at and as- 
 semble facts. We will send a letter down to our presi- 
 dents asking them to put at your disposal such material 
 and such information as will help you get hold of the 
 real reason for this strike. Also our welfare depart- 
 ment will give you its latest reports. However, the 
 newspapers carry enough to satisfy the ordinary 
 reader.” Thus the interview closed. 
 
 “For a cross section of power,” said the major to 
 Bruce, a little later in the day, “did you ever see any- 
 thing like that picture gallery in those offices ?—gov- 
 ernors, presidents, judges,—why, there were auto- 
 graphed photographs of chief justices of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States!’ 
 
THE FURNACE 137 
 
 But here the chaplain took command of the conversa- 
 tion. “You make me tired, Haig,” he said, with some- 
 thing of the spit of a machine gun, “you make me tired, 
 —awtul tired. Why not? Are men to be judged ad- 
 versely, questioned as to their character and deeds, 
 because good men trust them? because wise men honor 
 them? because great men are their friends? Be con- 
 sistent,—what about that autographed picture of Gen- 
 eral Pershing on your bedroom wall?—or perhaps 
 you've taken it down!” 
 
 “No,” answered Brant quietly, and when Brant an- 
 swered any one quietly it was ominous. ‘No, I haven’t 
 taken it down and I don’t intend to. You don’t get me, 
 and you ought to. Here it is! Look who I am, and 
 look who they are. What chance has a ‘hunky’ with a 
 setup like that? Far be it from me to question the in- 
 tegrity of our courts, though there have been some most 
 disturbing decisions recently, and far be it from me to 
 question the integrity of any public man, but when 
 steel has a picture gallery like that, it is high time for 
 the church or somebody else to hand ‘John Polinski’ a 
 tintype or two,—I’ll tell the world!” 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Vso aay a few days after the interview with the 
 great organization the entire commission went 
 to the strike center. “Arrange your affairs to give un- 
 divided time to the great task we have been assigned. 
 Come prepared to remain at least a week. Our investi- 
 gators are assembling volumes of material. This will 
 of course be given attention, but our particular program 
 should be first-hand investigation and open hearings.” 
 Thus Doctor Justice had written his associates in call- 
 ing them together. 
 
 The newspapers of the city to which they went gave 
 only slight attention to the announcement of the arrival 
 of the commission, and the commissioners were not 
 long in discovering that they were not regarded with 
 any degree of enthusiasm by the general public, nor by 
 company officials. Rev. Paul Arthouse, a local clergy- 
 man who had shown a fearless interest in every detail 
 of the strike from the beginning, met with the investi- 
 gators at the opening of their first session. 
 
 “The city is a little nervous because of your presence. 
 The people are seventy-five per cent or more against the 
 strike,—for reasons you will discover. They believe 
 the men are whipped now. Without questioning your 
 good intentions they feel that your coming in at this 
 stage can do no good, can only serve to give comfort 
 to the strikers. I say this is the feeling of the city 
 
 generally. Naturally it is the sentiment of the industry, 
 188 
 
THE FURNACE 189 
 
 but more it is the judgment of all classes not directly 
 related to the workers, and it is unquestionably the con- 
 viction of two-thirds of our preachers.” 
 
 Mr. Arthouse hesitated, and concluded, “Personally 
 Lam glad you came. I thank God you came, and I say, 
 God pity the Christian Church if you fail to get and 
 tell this story.” The man’s eyes spoke even more than 
 his lips. He was to suffer much for his refusal to ac- 
 cept unchallenged the propaganda of one of the great 
 strike’s principals, but he was of a moral fiber that in 
 other times not even the flames of martyrdom could 
 destroy. 
 
 “You have not over-spoken yourself, Arthouse,’’ one 
 of the commissioners answered, “I came in on Saturday 
 and went to one of your greatest churches on Sunday 
 morning. I heard a sermon that belongs with the Dark 
 Ages. A sermon from a man who talked like a thumb- 
 screw manipulator of the Inquisition. Here is a choice 
 passage from this modern disciple of the Galilean: 
 
 ““Let these preachers of sedition and riot be run to 
 earth! Let these foreign defamers of the fair name of 
 our city be sought out like evil beasts and when the pun- 
 ishment suits the crime, let them be strung up as de- 
 serters and traitors, —these were the words of my Sun- 
 day morning preacher as he dealt with the strike. 
 
 “No, we are not wanted here, but we are needed,” he 
 concluded. 
 
 The daily order of procedure as adopted by the com- 
 mission called for open hearings in the morning, when 
 representatives of the industry, the men on strike, the 
 workers loyal to the organization, and spokesmen for 
 the general public might be heard: field work by the 
 
190 THE FURNACE 
 
 commissioners in the afternoon, when by twos the men 
 and women went into the strike districts to visit the 
 mills, the local officials of the municipalities and of the 
 company, as well as the leaders and the rank and file 
 of the strikers; and finally the evening when the com- 
 mission reconvened to compare notes and make a daily 
 summary. | 
 
 From the beginning the investigators found the 
 strikers eager to testify; the general public and its rep- 
 resentatives reluctant, and the leaders of the industry 
 unwilling if not outspokenly hostile. As the chairman 
 expressed it at the conclusion of the second day of 
 work: 
 
 “These men, these strikers, know they are whipped. 
 They won’t confess it, of course. They are eager to 
 get their story into the record, eager as drowning men 
 to get hold of something, anything, that will keep their 
 heads above the flood. We must not forget this as we 
 listen to them, and we must check against their testi- 
 mony with special care. The company and the public 
 generally have the very natural attitude of near-con- 
 querors. From their viewpoint the less we get and 
 the quicker we get it and get out the better.” 
 
 The testimony at the hearings was illuminating, often 
 startling, and sometimes appalling. With no excep- 
 tions every bit of vital evidence was later followed 
 through by the commissioners in their capacity as in- 
 dividual investigators. 
 
 The first witness appearing, and of course all testi- 
 mony was voluntary, was a retired employer of labor 
 who, while not in any way connected with the great 
 steel organization, expressed clearly and somewhat in 
 
THE FURNACE 191 
 
 particular the viewpoint of the company, insisting that 
 this viewpoint was representative generally of the local 
 citizenry. When it became apparent that, conscious 
 of its strength, the industry would allow none of its 
 representatives to appear before the investigators, the 
 testimony of James Henry Smith became of more than 
 ordinary value and importance. Invited to express him- 
 self freely Mr. Smith said: 
 
 “The handling of labor, particularly foreign-speak- 
 ing labor, is never easy. Always an employer is a large 
 target for the fluent, self-seeking, soft-handed labor 
 leader, who, speaking the worker’s language and know- 
 ing his superstitions and prejudices, can influence him 
 to act against his own interests as well as against those 
 of the company. The refusal of this industry to treat 
 with outsiders is in harmony with the policy—and I 
 may say a policy that I subscribe to,—of insisting upon 
 your right to run your own business. The fact is that 
 if a man wants his business to succeed, he cannot afford 
 to have any other policy.” 
 
 Mr. Smith was asked whether he endorsed the re- 
 fusal of the organization to meet the strike leaders 
 when the President of the United States, in an effort to 
 avert the impending disaster, had publicly requested 
 such a meeting. He replied: 
 
 “Yes, Ido. At the risk of being misunderstood by 
 the country this action was taken, taken for the sake of 
 principle, and knowing that the President did not under- 
 stand the real issue involved.” 
 
 Following Mr. Smith one of the local strike leaders 
 came to the stand and presenting the viewpoint of the 
 men, insisted that “while the record shows that they 
 
192 THE FURNACE 
 
 do not make such a selection, if they want a jackass to 
 represent them, that right belongs to them: not the right 
 to tell the company how to run its business, but the in- 
 alienable right to tell the company what they want, 
 what they think they ought to have. The right to speak 
 through spokesmen, spokesmen of their own choosing, 
 spokesmen who cannot be discharged for speaking. 
 They tell us the present plan is O. K.—well, who thinks 
 itis? Not the thousands of men who are directly con- 
 cerned, and who are striking against it.” 
 
 The testimony before the commission as to hours and 
 wages left no room for doubt as to the fact that the 
 workers felt that they had a grievance; a grievance so 
 great that they were ready to sacrifice comfort and even 
 the necessities of a bare existence to seek redress. That 
 skilled, individual workers were receiving amazingly 
 large wages, while thousands of others, hundreds of 
 them with helpless dependents, were earning less than 
 enough to keep them in decency, was established beyond 
 contradiction, as was the further fact that the country 
 at large had an utterly mistaken idea of what the actual 
 wage and labor conditions in steel were. 
 
 As to the tales of physical violence,—stories of 
 crimes committed against the helpless and innocent as 
 well as against the active participants in the bitter strug- 
 gle,—they increased in number daily and yielded, to the 
 investigating eye, pictures so sordid in their details as 
 to leave the unpartisan observer nauseated when not 
 despairing. 
 
 Nor was the story a one-sided tale. Monsters were 
 released by the passions of that industrial war to work 
 the will of hate; to prowl down the trails of arson, rape 
 
THE FURNACE 193 
 
 and murder; monsters who bore the sign of both con- 
 tending camps upon their foreheads. But always the 
 hand of authority and the will of power were against 
 the worker who had dared to leave the belching furnace 
 to give voice to his grievance and to join the forces 
 that rallied under the flag of protest. 
 
 On the morning of the last day of public hearings 
 the Rev. Arthouse requested the privilege of making a 
 statement. 
 
 “Have you weighed the import of the testimony 
 brought here yesterday by a representative of more than 
 five hundred spies furnished by one organization to the 
 great company in this struggle—testimony that only a 
 chance discovery made available to your commission ?”’ 
 and Mr. Arthouse read from a copy of the official pro- 
 ceedings of the preceding day the letter of an ‘“‘under- 
 cover” worker: 
 
 ““My instructions from the company sending me on 
 a secret mission among the steel strikers was, “We 
 want you to stir up as much bad feeling as you possibly 
 can between the Serbians and Italians. Spread data 
 among the Serbians that the Italians are going back to 
 work. Call up every question you can in reference to 
 racial hatred between these two nationalities. Daily 
 maxim sent to every one of our workers to-day: con- 
 serve your forces on a set point; begin before the other 
 fellow starts.” ’ 
 
 “This,” concluded the minister in tones of indigna- 
 tion that trembled hot with the fever of a clean man’s 
 wrath, “this is our fighting front; this our mailed fist, 
 —rather, our assassin’s stiletto for these people who 
 ask for a chance to be decent and the right to live a bit 
 
194 THE FURNACE 
 
 above the level of the animal. Sleuths of questionable 
 character to say the least spy upon them, seek for evi- 
 dence, always easier for the unscrupulous to manufac- 
 ture than to secure honestly. 
 
 “That they are not attractive as residents I know as 
 well as any man. That some of them are vicious as 
 we have been told, you will not doubt when you have 
 the information I possess. But, what have we done to 
 make them better? We have allowed them to come 
 when we have not brought them. We have used them. 
 With our twelve-hour day we have made their ‘Amen- 
 camzation’ a physical impossibility. Only when dire 
 national necessity compelled us, have we granted them 
 a measure of equality in treatment and opportunity. 
 They brought a blank in their skulls when they came, 
 and ours, gentlemen, was the first chance to furnish the 
 empty chamber. God pity us for our failure, and God 
 save us, if that may be, from the catastrophe our crim- 
 inal neglect surely invites!” 
 
 The stirring words of Mr. Arthouse were the first to 
 give more than a commonplace emphasis to the com- 
 mission’s proceedings. They were not entered upon the 
 record; they constituted no evidence, but to silent men 
 who sat about that somber chamber they came as a 
 message of hope, a prophecy of wiser and more gen- 
 erous days. 
 
 Among the steel workers who listened to the speak- 
 er’s words and who seemed gradually to take fire under 
 them, was a young Hungarian, a World-War veteran, 
 maimed for life. He had been a constant attendant on 
 the sessions of the commission. Now for the first time 
 he signified his desire to be heard. He was one of the 
 
THE FURNACE 195 
 
 many foreign-born who, not being subject to the draft, 
 had nevertheless enlisted in the first enthusiasm of those 
 mighty emotional tides which engulfed the country 
 when America entered the colossal struggle on the side 
 of the Allies. After months of overseas service he had 
 returned with an empty sleeve and a deep-seated cough 
 to the country he had come to feel regarded him as a 
 son. 
 
 Questioned as to his previous relationships, he told 
 of his apprenticeship in the mills, and then in halting 
 English of how he came to feel himself a new creature 
 under the stimulus of the great fraternity of interest 
 that leveled the barriers between the classes and races, 
 when humanity found in the war a common voice with 
 which to give expression to her common trials and pur- 
 poses. No pen will ever adequately describe the utter 
 pathos of bitterness in the young Hungarian’s accents: 
 
 “But soon all has changed,” he said, “again the boss 
 calls me ‘dam’ Hunky’—he treats me better than others, 
 because of my arm, but only because of that. ‘Dam’ 
 Hunky’ I am; all the good jobs go to Americans,— 
 things are no better than before the war. They seem 
 worse because we had so believed. What do I want,— 
 wages? Yes, but I don’t need money as others do. 
 Better hours? Yes, and how can I get on with such 
 hours as these perhaps we soon go back to? But more 
 than hours and wages I want to be treated like a man. 
 I want what I got when I first enlisted. I want to be 
 an American!” 
 
 In a rage, forgetting his surroundings, he cried, with 
 tears streaming from his eyes, “It is a lie! Iam 
 not a ‘Red.’ This is what makes ‘Reds.’ But I fought 
 
 
 
196 THE FURNACE 
 
 for this country. My friends were killed for it. This,”’ 
 and he grasped his empty sleeve with his free hand, “‘is 
 back somewhere in the dump of a field hospital. Often 
 I wish that I were there, with the flag above me, and 
 those good words all men spoke of us then covering 
 me. 
 
 “They say here the company will run its own busi- 
 ness; that they put their money in, that the mills are 
 theirs. But who are we? What do we put in? Our 
 legs and arms, our skin that burns and shrivels, our 
 bodies, our youth, our all. My father died in the mill 
 —you remember when tons of molten metal broke loose 
 and poured over seven men; buried them so that they 
 were never seen again? I stood beside that when the 
 priest said the last prayer for their souls. I was a little 
 boy. I could not understand when they told me he 
 was there in the heart of the dead iron. I tried to see 
 his face. But now always I see his face, my father’s 
 face, in the oceans of flame that heave within the fur- 
 naces and pour from the stacks. Whose business is it? 
 Whose business is it? I say it is the business of us all!” 
 
 Following that last open hearing, Chaplain Jayne, ac- 
 companied by Haig Brant, drove out to Oldsburg to 
 have a last word with Malcolm before the final local 
 meeting of the commission and their return to New 
 York. , 
 
 As they swung into the narrow street that brought 
 them to the mill’s entrance, they were hailed and 
 stopped by two mounted officers who sat facing each 
 other; their horses neck against neck,—a rather ideal 
 arrangement to guard against surprise. 
 
 “What’s your business ?”’ questioned the older of the 
 
THE FURNACE 197 
 
 two troopers, a sergeant, and his voice seemed familiar 
 to both occupants of the car. Before either could 
 speak, a figure that had approached rapidly through the 
 dusk came up to the machine, and the voice of Mal- 
 colm Frank answered quietly: “It is all right, ser- 
 geant.” The words of the assistant superintendent 
 were electrical. The trooper straightened himself to 
 attention, saluted, and replied, ‘““Very well, sir.’’ 
 
 “Did you recognize the sergeant?” questioned Mal- 
 colm, as a few minutes later the three men were sepa- 
 rating on the steps of the Oldsburg offices. 
 
 “His voice was very familiar,” replied Bruce. 
 
 “Well, it should have been.”’ Malcolm stroked his 
 cheek as he spoke. “You've both heard it before. His 
 name is Johnson. When he’s sober he makes a good 
 soldier.”’ 
 
 At the hard picture brought back by the memory of 
 that night in old Montebaur, the men were silent. The 
 chaplain recovered his tongue first. 
 
 “There are some things as beastly and brutish as 
 that,” he exclaimed. ‘A sad mess we are making of 
 the world we so recently saved from enemies we called 
 Huns.” 
 
 But Brant seemed unwilling to close the interview in 
 despair. He turned a quizzical look on the colonel, 
 “Well, there may be some things to be thankful for,— 
 even in a night like that at Montebaur,”—both of his 
 friends would have occasion to remember that speech, 
 —“‘and even in a strike like this. Malcolm,’ he con- 
 cluded, “I haven’t seen any angels since I came to this 
 valley of death.” 
 
 “Nor have I—lately,” replied the assistant superin- 
 tendent soberly. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 T midnight, after the brief visit of Bruce and Haig 
 
 with Malcolm, the commissioners were hurrying 
 
 New Yorkward on the “Limited.’”’ The closing ses- 
 
 sion of the commission had been featured by a brief 
 statement from the chairman. Said he: 
 
 ‘“‘We have such a mass of testimony that it will take 
 weeks to put it into shape. Our secretary and Chaplain 
 Jayne have our sympathy. In the meantime other dis- 
 tricts are to be visited by us personally, and our field 
 force will be constantly adding to our material. I feel 
 that we have much to be thankful for,’ and he smiled, 
 “at least we have survived the facts. Whether the 
 country will, remains to be seen.” | 
 
 “A great boy, the Doctor,’’ commented the major 
 later, as he sat in the washroom, while Bruce, to avoid 
 the early morning congestion, shaved before retiring. 
 “Between you, you two sanctified and judicial minds, 
 we ought to get out of all the stuff we have and will 
 have a report that even my rashness and heterodoxy 
 can’t ruin.”’ 
 
 Jayne stopped lathering long enough to remark, 
 “Well, I’m not over-optimistic, old stormer, but we'll 
 try. What did you make out of Malcolm to-day?” he 
 finished. 
 
 After a long interval, during which the chaplain got 
 as far as talcum powder, Brant replied, ‘““He’s having 
 
 a—pardon me—nasty time. Between being in love 
 198 
 
THE FURNACE 199 
 
 with an angel and hating himself he doesn’t get much 
 hilarity out of life these days. There'll be a smash 
 there,—sooner or later. It’s coming. Not even James 
 Judson can hold him forever, but when it will come, I 
 don’t know; and how ?—well, God knows I don’t want 
 to think.”’ . 
 
 “No,” said Bruce, as he put away his kit, “neither do 
 I. That man has so vivid, so romantic, so old-fash- 
 ioned, a faith in fundamental Americanism, in the free 
 opportunity of men under the constitution and flag, that 
 I tremble for him when he breaks with the institution 
 in which he invested his superb dedication. I can see 
 the logic of his reasoning from the beginning until 
 now,—his reason for doing exactly as he has. Always 
 with him the company and the men have been one; mis- 
 understanding each other, fighting each other, broken 
 into halves, but belonging to each other, and eventually 
 bound to be reunited.”’ 
 
 Bruce stood for a moment deep in thought, and then 
 concluded, ‘‘Should he once decide that he has been mis- 
 taken, that the halves will never come together, that 
 the differences are too great, too fundamental, or that 
 one half denies the other,—then God pity him, for he 
 will hit bottom!” 
 
 In the morning at ten o’clock the chairman of the 
 investigating commission and the director of the Indus- 
 trial Bureau came before the executive committee to 
 make a preliminary report. Doctor Justice, who had 
 other pressing engagements, left after briefly giving the 
 history of the commission’s activities to date. 
 
 Following a perfunctory statement of appreciation 
 by the chairman, one of the leading forward-movement 
 
200 THE FURNACE 
 
 secretaries of a great denomination arose and said im- 
 pressively, “Brethren, I am deeply concerned. I see 
 grave trouble ahead for this movement if the work of 
 Doctor Justice.and his associates continues. I have no 
 criticism for them. If there is any criticism merited 
 we should accept it, for they carry our sanction. But if 
 their activities go on, the cause of Christian unity may 
 be put back in this country half a century,’ and with 
 skill and earnestness he covered again the ground of 
 the former meetings, emphasizing the newspaper com- 
 ments from the strike area, the futility of any effort 
 now to adjust the differences, and pleading for a dis- 
 continuance of the entire investigation, saying: 
 
 “We can publish the fact that the stage upon which 
 the controversy has entered makes any outside inter- 
 ference, particularly that of a religious organization, 
 untimely, and that when the present trouble is over we 
 will conclude our work. Let us go about our business 
 as a United World Movement; complete our organiza- 
 tion; prepare to make the further readjustments and 
 concessions we must make to hold the denominations 
 together behind us. If we do, we may save our life 
 in the financial drive just ahead of us.” 
 
 The speech was not only impressive; to a good many 
 of the men present it was convincing. After an inter- 
 val of silence, not uncomplimentary to the speaker, 
 General Secretary Ballard turned to the gentleman who 
 had just concluded and with a half smile said: 
 
 “Somewhere I have read, ‘Whosoever will save his 
 life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my 
 sake, shall find it.’ ”’ 
 
 Instantly the distinguished denominational leader, 
 
THE FURNACE 201 
 
 with a flush of annoyance mantling his scholarly face, 
 rose to reply, but prompt as he was, another had taken 
 the initiative from him. As Chaplain Jayne listened 
 with only half-concealed anxiety to the strong adverse 
 statement which followed the report of Doctor Justice, 
 his eyes gradually focused on one man seated at the 
 great table,—the latest addition to the Board of Trus- 
 tees,—David Strong, numbered among the supreme 
 captains of industry, a philanthropist and churchman. 
 The securing of his final acceptance of the invitation 
 which had been extended to him to serve on the com- 
 mittee had been regarded as an achievement in itself. 
 
 As Bruce now watched his finely chiseled features, 
 which were habitually masked, he found himself re- 
 calling with consternation the fact that the same David 
 Strong now controlled the Central Metal Company, 
 and that he was a large stockholder in the great steel 
 corporation. What would he do now? ‘That speech 
 fitted him exactly,—and like a flash came the thought, 
 —it was made for him! 
 
 But now the gentleman in question was speaking for 
 himself,—with a deferential bow the clergyman who 
 had risen to answer the cryptic quotation of Searl Bal- 
 lard gave right of way to the even more distinguished 
 layman. With practically every trustee reaching out 
 an imaginary hand of sympathy to the Movement’s gen- 
 eral secretary and the departmental director he was so 
 loyally supporting, David Strong began: 
 
 “Dr. Ballard’s quotation, which I thought most apt, 
 reminds me of another, ‘No man having put his hand 
 to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom 
 of God.’”’ 
 
202 THE FURNACE 
 
 The words so quietly spoken, and so unexpectedly, 
 were like a bombshell. The speaker hesitated and, as 
 one unaccustomed to public speech, searched for words. 
 Then he concluded: 
 
 “T do not believe that I would have supported the 
 creation of this investigating commission had I been a 
 member of this body when that action was taken. I be- 
 lieve the church should confine her activities in industry 
 to proclaiming the great principles that underlie all right 
 relations between men; calling upon them to search their 
 hearts; to take account of their actions, and inspiring 
 them to do justly at whatever cost. I do not believe 
 that immediately, at least, we serve the cause of peace 
 and equity by entering a controversy for whatever pur- 
 pose—and in this case our purpose is good and only 
 good—but a controversy in which some truth will be 
 found on both sides. A controversy dealing largely 
 with technical problems,—entering a controversy at 
 such a time and in such a way that we are practically 
 bound to reach conclusions supporting one principal in 
 the struggle against the other, thus losing and antago- 
 nizing one when we should have retained our tradi- 
 tional strategic position so as to rebuke and keep both. 
 Rich and poor equally need the Gospel of Jesus and 
 His everlasting truth.” 
 
 And now David Strong had dropped another bomb. 
 Bruce Jayne wiped his brow and moistened his lips. 
 Major Brant, who had been an interested spectator 
 throughout the hearing, looked like a man contem- 
 plating murder, but the clergyman who had precipitated 
 the emotional riot beamed effusively. Again the speaker 
 hesitated, and now as though he had struck his tent 
 
THE FURNACE 203 
 
 and was ready for the last forced march, he concluded: 
 
 “This is my mind, gentlemen :—I may be wrong.” 
 He seemed to allow just a moment for introspection. 
 “T begin to see some difficulties in the path of such a 
 program, and perhaps there must be exceptions made. 
 There are at least problems in the way of its applica- 
 tion. But, be this as it may, and whatever my academic 
 convictions may be, the quotations stand. We face not 
 a theory, but a fact. We have told the world and 
 promised ourselves that we will investigate this strike 
 and publish our findings. Gentlemen, unless we want 
 to destroy this movement morally, we have got to keep 
 our word.” 
 
 “Ye gods!” gasped Brant, as he assembled himself 
 in the chaplain’s office a few minutes later after the 
 committee had adjourned without a motion being 
 made. “One more and I would have been a corpse. 
 As it was, only the fact that I was beyond moving kept 
 me from giving the old boy a double-cheeked French 
 salute.” 
 
 “Yes,” said Bruce Jayne, as he collapsed over his 
 desk in a very good imitation of complete exhaustion, 
 “and what about the brother who ‘viewed with alarm’? 
 —have a heart!’ 
 
 “Well,” snorted Brant, “virtue hath her own re- 
 ward. I should worry! You just thank God for us 
 both that Searl Ballard and David Strong learned 
 Bible verses when they were kids.” 
 
 Scarcely had Brant finished and hurried to his own 
 office than he came rushing back: 
 
 “Come at once,” he whispered. “As you love God, 
 be quick and quiet and come to my office.” There was 
 
204 THE FURNACE 
 
 no mistaking that note in the major’s voice. He spoke 
 as a man fairly beside himself with concern. Jayne 
 followed Brant hurriedly down the corridor. At the 
 latter’s office door he stopped. Within a man was 
 sobbing. 
 
 When the door swung open, an appalling sight 
 greeted him. A huge, hulking figure sat huddled in the 
 office chair,—hands and arms streaming down its sides, 
 limbs broken backward under it; chest sagging into its 
 lower torso, and the great head overturned on its chin, 
 which plowed into the swollen throat and choked the 
 sobs into half-gasps. Brant, who had been just ahead 
 of his chief, laid a hand on the collapsed shoulder and 
 said: 
 
 “Mr. Patrick, this is Chaplain Jayne; tell him your 
 story.” 
 
 Thus Bruce Jayne met Abe Patrick, organizer of the 
 great strike, the captain of a score of successful labor 
 battles, trusted comrade of half a million toilers, greater 
 in heart than in mind, but a genius in the crude humani- 
 ties of industrial conflicts and born a leader of men. 
 The interview that followed the introduction was the 
 first of its kind, and of its kind the most unique in the 
 history of the Church. But for one refusal, it might 
 have been the opening of the industrial “millennium.” 
 
 When Abe Patrick came to life, he became dynamic 
 agony: ‘““Preacher,” he cried in a whisper, and not once 
 during the hour of that conference did he lift his voice 
 above that whisper, “I have come here for men and for 
 their women and kids—men who are growing des- 
 perate, men who are cold and starving, but who don’t 
 
THE FURNACE 205 
 
 care,—who don’t care for themselves any more, but 
 who live in a hell because their families are hungry. 
 
 “And, Preacher, these men have followed me out, 
 have stood on my word and my faith through desper- 
 ate weeks, and now, when the battle is lost, I can’t lead 
 them back. The country has been poisoned against us, 
 against me and against them. The corporation has 
 controlled every channel of publicity. Has branded us 
 with the red of treason. Has beaten us,—yes, beaten 
 us, but beaten us with lies. And that doesn’t bother 
 me, Preacher; I can take a beating; I have lived on 
 beatings since I was a colliery kid, and always I have 
 gotten up out of the dirt to fight again. But, God! 
 Preacher, I can’t watch women and children suffer and 
 starve. And now, unless the men who followed me out 
 can go back,—back to slavery, but back to food,— 
 there is death, vast and terrible, in the steel valleys.” 
 
 Thus Abe Patrick released the agony of his soul. 
 For his cause he did not despair,—yes, he could rise to 
 fight again, but for those who must eat or die, who 
 must work now or perish soon, he poured out his an- 
 guished heart. Nor were any illusions remaining in his 
 mind. He knew himself a discredited leader, and his 
 strike a failure. While he came, reserving to himself 
 the right to make no terms with the foe for the mo- 
 ment triumphant, refusing to surrender his cause, he 
 came, willing in his own person to suffer any humilia- 
 tion for the people who had followed him. 
 
 “I come to you,” he went on, “you of another faith 
 than mine, because you and your companions entered 
 our situation uninvited, answered our first suspicions 
 
206 THE FURNACE 
 
 with good faith, and seem now, of all the institutions in 
 the country that might have asked for the truth, to be 
 looking for the facts: I came to you because you and 
 your commission seem to represent all the churches ; be- 
 cause you appear to be a united movement, and, sir, I 
 come to you because you came to us in the spirit and 
 name of the One who talked about justice and love 
 and brotherhood, as though He meant that men, rich 
 and poor, high and low, should practice them.” 
 
 While Abe Patrick had poured out his scourged, 
 though untamed, soul, Bruce Jayne had listened as a 
 man in a strange country might hear of things about 
 which he had dreamed, but never hoped to see. He 
 sensed the elemental in the hour. Instinctively he felt 
 the pulse of a new life stirring. The moment became 
 suddenly one of spiritual invitation, the call of an ad- 
 venture down untrodden ways in human relationships, 
 a challenge to his faith. He saw the lonely distraught 
 man before him, but quickly lost him in a vast multitude 
 that came surging about the portals of the church 
 claiming their birthright and crying for entrance. 
 Then, as from another world he returned, and in a 
 voice that caused Haig Brant to marvel—so strong, yet 
 tender; so eager, yet restrained, had it become—he an- 
 swered : 
 
 “Mr. Patrick, you have broken my heart and opened 
 my eyes. What would you have us do?’ And Brant 
 knew that the man whose scar ran now as it always did 
 in times of supreme emotion, like a red river of pain, 
 or danger, across his temple, had made some high cove- 
 nant with his soul. 
 
 The two men waited on their strange visitor. He 
 
THE FURNACE | 207 
 
 seemed dazed, swept into helpless silence for the mo- 
 ment by the sudden acceptance of his plea. For weeks 
 he had fought against refusal; his mind had become an 
 armed camp of defense. Now, like the opening of 
 leaden skies through which the sun appears, his de- 
 spair was shot through with the hope that came in the 
 acknowledgment and invitation of the chaplain. His 
 countenance changed, and with a new note, a resurging 
 note of eagerness, he said: 
 
 “Take the cause of these men out of our hands. Go 
 to the corporation in their behalf. Forget the basis we 
 have made the fight on; the askings of our strike com- 
 mittee. Secure the terms that you as commissioners 
 believe are just and humane; the best terms you can se- 
 cure. Forget us, the leaders. We will take ourselves 
 out of the situation. We will become as men that 
 never were. And if the corporation will accept you as 
 mediators, mediators unhandicapped by restrictions, we 
 of the strike committee before we retire will lead the 
 men back to the mills unconditionally, and work will 
 resume while you negotiate.” 
 
 Again Bruce Jayne was swept by tides of emotion, 
 —tides that carried him beyond all previous spiritual 
 experiences of his life. He felt the moment as the vin- 
 dication of the founders of the United World Move- 
 ment. He accepted the invitation of Abe Patrick as 
 the seal of God’s approval in the acknowledgment of 
 men, who, won by the first gesture of brotherhood, 
 turned their backs upon traditional suspicion and cast 
 themselves into the arms of the church. He seemed 
 to see the iron heavens opening and the hatreds of a 
 thousand years give way before the spirit of the Gali- 
 
208 THE FURNACE 
 
 lean. With difficulty he shook himself free of a mood 
 that called for a cloister rather than a conference, but 
 Brant marveled again at the self-mastery of the man 
 who, when he spoke, said: 
 
 “But, Mr. Patrick, this unprecedented thing that you 
 ask,—how can it be done? Again I say it,—you have 
 stirred me as I think I have never been stirred before. 
 I have difficulty to control my enthusiasms when I think 
 of the possibilities that lie in this meeting,—difficulty 
 to think clearly. But how can we translate into sober 
 action these declarations of yours and your own emo- 
 tions? I have nothing with which to go to my asso- 
 ciates. You speak bravely, heroically, but for your- 
 self—what—” and the strike leader interrupted eag- 
 erly: 
 
 “But I speak for half a million men; half a million 
 men who will do in this what I tell them to. I see your 
 difficulty. Listen—I will go back and get my com- 
 mittee together and secure from these representatives 
 of more than a score of national unions confirmation 
 of what I have said and official authorization for the 
 proposition I have made. Then will you act?” And 
 like shot answering shot came the chaplain’s answer: 
 
 “Tf you deliver on that proposition, Mr. Patrick, as 
 I know our commission and this Movement, we will 
 act! We will act and nothing but an absolute refusal 
 from the corporation can block a new deal in the steel 
 industry. Yes,—bring back that confirmation and au- 
 thorization, and I pledge you our acceptance.” 
 
 Hours after the termination of that epochal inter- 
 view and the precipitous departure of the strike leader, 
 Bruce Jayne and Haig Brant moved as men who 
 
THE FURNACE 209 
 
 walked on holy ground. Then came inevitable reac- 
 tions and depressing fears,—the fear of repudiation on 
 the part of Patrick’s strike associates, the fear of re- 
 fusal at the hands of the Movement’s Executive Com- 
 mittee, the fear of rejections at the headquarters of the 
 industry. 
 
 The chaplain came to the conclusion that in anticipa- 
 tion of at least the possible return of Mr. Patrick, he 
 could not afford to keep General Secretary Ballard and 
 the chairman of the executive committee in ignorance 
 of the unusual conference he had participated in, and 
 so on the morning of the day following the meeting in 
 Brant’s office he secured an interview with his two su- 
 periors. He found them amazed and sympathetic. 
 They cautioned him against committing the Movement 
 to any policy for final action, but suggested that should 
 the strike committee confirm its chairman’s proposition, 
 the investigating commission might ascertain from the 
 officers of the great company whether such mediation 
 would be acceptable. Should assent be given to the 
 informal proposal, the matter could then come formally 
 before the executive committee. Should there be a re- 
 fusal, nothing further could be done, and the records 
 of the Movement would be clear of an embarrassing 
 reference to the proposition. 
 
 “Perhaps,” said the chairman of the executive com- 
 mittee, “God is preparing a unique and powerful min- 
 istry for us,—but let us be judicial and cautious. At 
 this critical time we dare take no unnecessary risks.” 
 
 And the chaplain replied, “Surely, no organization on 
 earth can refuse the human plea of this situation. 
 With the strike leaders out of it, the last and the great 
 
210 THE FURNACE 
 
 objection of the employers is removed. If Patrick 
 comes back as he promised, steel must say ‘Yes.’ ”’ 
 
 Haig Brant, who sat by, a silent party to the con- 
 versation, smiled his old, half-cynical smile as Jayne 
 concluded, but deep in his heart he longed for some- 
 thing of his old comrade’s faith. And so the matter 
 was left waiting on word from the West. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 iif was in the midst of the suspense attendant upon 
 the interview with Abe Patrick that Chaplain 
 Jayne’s office was favored with another unexpected visi- 
 tor,—a young woman. She came one morning, unan- 
 nounced save for a hurried call from General Secretary 
 Ballard’s office, and a few minutes later the General 
 Secretary himself ushered her in and introduced the di- 
 rector of the Industrial Bureau to her. Had Malcolm 
 Frank been present, he would have experienced one of 
 the shocks of his life, for Gene Stanton it was who, 
 when Dr. Ballard retired, began the interview by say- 
 ing: 
 
 “Chaplain Jayne, I am in deep trouble.” 
 
 Gene Stanton, surely, for among all other women 
 she could not be mistaken, but not as Gene Stanton had 
 she come down the corridor with the General Secretary, 
 and not as Gene Stanton did Chaplain Jayne recognize 
 her as the young woman who had attracted his atten- 
 tion and indeed the attention of all eyes in the opening 
 session of the now memorable Hotel Pennsylvania In- 
 dustrial Conference. 
 
 “Chaplain Jayne, I am in deep trouble,” the girl re- 
 peated. “I am between the obligation that a hostess or 
 the daughter of a hostess feels for the confidence of a 
 guest, and the responsibility, the good faith, that binds 
 one to a friend,’—the last word she said softly,— 
 
 “and to a cause. Yes, I am in deep trouble, but 
 ail 
 
212 THE FURNACE 
 
 3 
 
 I have made my choice,” and she smiled radiantly ;— 
 not since Faith died had he been so kindled by a smile. 
 
 “T am for friendship, and even more I am for a 
 cause.” She continued then in sure and positive sen- 
 tences. “Yesterday at tea mother entertained Mr. 
 Randolph Ranson of Buffalo,—general secretary of a 
 society our family had been interested in. He talked at 
 length about the steel strike,—against it. But he had 
 even more to say about the investigating commission of 
 the United World Movement and hinted at grave dis- 
 closures that would soon be made. 
 
 “Later in the evening I sat with mother while Mr. 
 Ranson, who had come for his annual subscription,” 
 and the girl laughed, “went into details with regard to 
 the intimations he had dropped earlier. He said that 
 he had sent special investigators into the offices of the 
 Movement—into your offices; that very damaging ma- 
 terial had been found; that without doubt radicals and 
 worse were employed here, employed in responsible po- 
 sitions, and that the commission investigating the steel 
 strike was in the hands of ‘Reds.’ 
 
 “Mother seemed surprised that I was so interested in 
 Mr. Ranson.” The girl colored as she continued, “I 
 have never admired him, never cared for his story. 
 Perhaps I have greatly misjudged him. Certainly very 
 good people give him their support—but always he has 
 appeared to me as chiefly a fighter of windmills, or— 
 a parasite. But last night his story held my attention, 
 you may be sure, and when he gave mother the galley 
 proofs of the charges he has already sent in secret to 
 the offices of the steel organizations, as well as to other 
 great industrial leaders, I was even more interested.” 
 
THE FURNACE ais 
 
 Here Gene Stanton became greatly azitated, but as 
 words seemed to fail her for a moment, she took from 
 her muff a package of documents, hesitated an instant, 
 and then impulsively thrust them into the hands of the 
 chaplain saying: 
 
 “Here are the findings of that miserable man,—I 
 took them from mother’s desk, leaving her a note tell- 
 ing her just what I had done,—and would do. Oh!’ 
 and the crimson that had mantled the girl’s cheeks now 
 swept like a red flood over her forehead and throat, “‘it 
 was a terrible thing to do, but it would have been 
 wrong, terribly wrong, not to have done it!” 
 
 She rose now, and with a regal lift of her glorious 
 head went on, “It is just a little cruel for mother,— 
 she will have some explanations to make for me when 
 she can’t return the documents, or perhaps, as she has 
 often done before, she will find a way to shield her im- 
 petuous daughter, but,’’ and the old smile returned, 
 “there is no doubt now about these copies being hope- 
 lessly ‘lost? to Mr. Ranson. Very likely the check which 
 is his chief concern will be larger than it would have 
 been, and that will atone for the loss of these,’’ and 
 she tapped the papers that Jayne had placed upon his 
 desk as he had risen with his guest and continued : 7 
 
 “Randolph Ranson has missed father’s annual con- 
 tribution this year, and has not been able to understand 
 father’s absence when he calls. I think he hoped these 
 charges would come into father’s hands. Do what you 
 think best with them; they are yours. Forget how they 
 came to you,—please ?” 
 
 The eager plea in the girl’s eyes found a satisfying 
 answer in the face of the man who had heard her 
 
214 THE FURNACE 
 
 through without a single comment, and she concluded, 
 “T am grateful for your patience and I hope,—oh, I 
 hope your commission will succeed. There are many of 
 us hoping—and praying. Good-by!”’ 
 
 The girl had gone before Bruce Jayne had recovered 
 from his first great surprise at her coming. Often 
 again he would recall to the last detail that strange in- 
 terview,—one of the few in his life that he had failed 
 to dominate. | 
 
 As to the documents his visitor left with him, they 
 compared, in matter and general spirit, with many 
 anonymous attacks already in hand. Their form, how- 
 ever, was quite different, and gave evidence of rather 
 more than ordinary ability and intellectual training on 
 the part of the “agent.” They constituted a serious at- 
 tack on three of the leading figures in the steel strike 
 investigation; definitely charged the United World 
 Movement with subserviency to certain “radical ele- 
 ments in its leadership,’ and called upon those who 
 received the material to refuse all financial and moral 
 support to its appeals. Accompanying the documents 
 was the carbon of a letter addressed to one of the off- 
 cials of the steel organization which revealed the mo- 
 tive behind the attack and which read as follows: 
 
 “T am enclosing copies of interviews with certain 
 gentlemen in important positions in the United World 
 Movement. You will be particularly interested in the 
 material, because this organization proposes to raise 
 hundreds of millions of dollars for its work. I am sure 
 you and your friends will be interested. Please return 
 the enclosures.” 
 
 While Bruce Jayne’s personal knowledge of the ac- 
 
THE FURNACE 215 
 
 tivities of Randolph Ranson was limited, he was sur- 
 prised to find him in the role of a sleuth, particularly 
 in the unsavory role of a rather crude currier for a 
 great corporation’s favor at the expense of a religious 
 movement and by the use of material that even casual 
 investigation at first hand would have revealed as abso- 
 lutely misleading where it was not utterly false. 
 
 But Jayne did not find himself greatly aroused 
 against the man Ranson. He accepted the appraise- 
 ment of the young woman and dismissed him. As to 
 the charges, he reread them, decided at once that noth- 
 ing could be done immediately, that action must wait 
 on future developments, and with increasing admiration 
 for the courage and sound judgment of the one who 
 had, at the risk of great embarrassment to herself, 
 placed the material in his hands, he filed the documents 
 among his personal papers without even informing 
 Haig Brant of their existence. 
 
 One thing had impressed the chaplain in that rather 
 unusual conference—his visitor’s reference—the very 
 manner of it, to a “friend,” a friend who was some- 
 how involved in that report. Following his curiosity 
 he read the galley proofs for a third time without being 
 able to locate the possible “friend.” Only four men 
 were involved,—three directly connected with the New 
 York organization. Aside from general charges and 
 innuendoes affecting the entire management and im- 
 pugning, indirectly at least, the motive of the United 
 World Movement, only one other man was involved in 
 the report, Malcolm Frank. Malcolm Frank was re- 
 ferred to as “a hybrid company official with some real 
 military distinctions, but a poor sense of honor, for he 
 
216 THE FURNACE 
 
 attended and participated in the radical industrial con- 
 ference which initiated the movement for a church- 
 men’s investigation of the steel strike. He is a close 
 friend of the director of the movement’s Industrial 
 Bureau, and of Haig Brant, the socialist who serves as 
 secretary to the Investigating Commission. Also there 
 is now evidence in the hands of a trusted official of the 
 Bancroft Steel Company proving that he is sympathetic 
 with the strikers.” 
 
 As Bruce Jayne read that paragraph for the third 
 time, a great light broke upon him. He saw again the 
 eager face of Colonel Frank as he waited for informa- 
 tion concerning Gene Stanton, while the three friends 
 sat together after the closing session of that fateful con- 
 ference. He remembered Malcolm’s sorrow of disap- 
 pointment when she could not be found,—and then he 
 remembered his visitor of the morning, and remem- 
 bering her, saw her again as she sat that day in the 
 glory of her ardent youth among the conference dele- 
 gates. 
 
 “No,” he exclaimed, unconsciously speaking aloud, 
 “no! it can’t be possible.” But for hours he could not 
 escape from a growing conviction which as it grew was 
 more and more companioned by fear,—fear for his 
 friend who stood now so bitterly alone in the valley 
 of trouble and despair. Finally he gave his secretary a 
 scrap of paper on which was a telephone number and 
 aname. “Call me just as soon as you get that through,” 
 he said casually. 
 
 A. few minutes later the voice that had so stirred him 
 that morning challenged him again,—over the wire. 
 “Pardon me,” he said, “but you must trust me and 
 
THE FURNACE 217 
 
 Know that your confidence will be kept. For reasons 
 that are imperative I must know one thing,—have you 
 been in the strike district lately, as a special investi- 
 gator or worker, perhaps?” and the voice, now vibrant 
 and low, but clear as a soft-toned bell, replied: 
 
 “T trust you,—yes,”’ and then, after just the sugges- 
 tion of a pause, “Chaplain Jayne, you must trust me.” 
 
 Bruce Jayne turned from the telephone to sit for 
 many minutes, head in his hands and bowed over his 
 desk. At last, shaking himself free from what ap- 
 peared to be a painful revery, he rose, slipped into his 
 overcoat, and then, standing with his hand upon the 
 door-knob, and speaking to some one, though he was 
 quite alone in the office, he said, ‘“We know what it 
 means,—God pity them both!” 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 WO days later, just five days after Abe Patrick 
 
 left the conference with Chaplain Jayne and 
 Haig Brant to hurry back to his strike associates, the 
 most remarkable and in some respects the most im- 
 pressive and pathetic document ever issued by trade 
 unionism arrived at the New York headquarters of the 
 United World Movement. It was the formal, the of- 
 ficial, statement of the proposition first brought in per- 
 son by Abe Patrick to the director of the Industrial 
 Bureau. Every admission of that stirring interview 
 was incorporated, and in this direct language the ap- 
 peal was voiced: 
 
 “We feel that the workers can look to the Commis- 
 sioners representing the United World Movement to 
 safeguard and protect their interest; also we feel that 
 no other institution combines all of the elements neces- 
 sary to go into this very difficult situation. We are 
 ready now to place ourselves and our cause in their 
 keeping for such action and consideration as they will 
 be able to secure. 
 
 “In the event that these commissioners secure au- 
 thorization to act as mediators for the adjustment of 
 this controversy, we will induce the workers to return 
 to work and to accept such programs as the commis- 
 sioners may secure and recommend. 
 
 “Finally, we do not ask nor expect the United World . 
 218 ! 
 
THE FURNACE 219 
 
 Movement to use our original demands as a basis of 
 negotiation, but we specifically free them to start anew 
 with whatever requirements they feel justice demands. 
 
 “General Committee for Organizing Workers in Metals, 
 (Signed) Ase Patrick, Chairman, 
 SIDNEY JENSSEN, Secretary.” 
 
 Immediately on receipt of the communication from 
 Chairman Patrick, telegrams were dispatched to Doc- 
 tor Justice and others of the commission, and within 
 seventy-two hours a committee composed of the Doctor 
 and two associates waited on the organization’s high- 
 est officers. With this committee went Chaplain Jayne 
 “to serve as a special convoy,’ as he expressed it. Let 
 it be recorded that later the sanguine and optimistic 
 chaplain was very glad that secretary Haig Brant was 
 not in the group which filed into the now familiar com- 
 pany offices. 
 
 With scant attention to the ordinary amenities of 
 such an occasion, the “Company” opened the confer- 
 ence. ‘‘Gentlemen,” the spokesman said, “I have here a 
 document that I wish to call your attention to.” The 
 commissioners looked at each other in surprise. They 
 were under the impression that they were in conference 
 to consider the matter entrusted to them by the strike 
 leaders, to discuss informally mediation. The grant- 
 ing of their request for a hearing had left them unpre- 
 pared when their hosts took the initiative. 
 
 “We have here, or we did have until a few minutes 
 ago,’ and a secretary was called to bring the now miss- 
 ing papers, “‘very serious charges against certain of the 
 agents employed by your commission; charges too that 
 
220 THE FURNACE 
 
 raise vital questions as to the good faith in which you 
 are prosecuting your activities.” 
 
 “Pardon me.” It was the quiet voice of the chaplain 
 that interrupted the speaker, and now the commission- 
 ers registered fresh surprise, while their hosts fairly 
 gasped in their amazement at the interrupter; but the 
 chaplain, who had risen, continued without embarrass- 
 ment, “I think that I can help you! Until you find 
 yours, here is my copy of those charges,” and, drawing 
 from a pocket his old service wallet, he placed in front 
 of the now completely astonished company representa- 
 tive the anonymous documents received from Gene 
 Stanton. It would be very difficult to describe the im- 
 pression made by the dramatic turn in the opening 
 events of that interview. Doctor Justice and his asso- 
 ciates were as startled at the chaplain’s strategy as was 
 the company. But the representative of the employers 
 accepted the papers extended to him and proceeded 
 after the manner of a cross-examiner to interrogate his 
 visitors. 
 
 For an hour the momentous business of that occa- 
 sion waited on the autocratic whim and will of steel. 
 Extracts were read from the report; name by name and 
 searchingly the visitors were questioned as to the truth 
 of the charges. Thus a shameless creation of false- 
 hood held the stage while the business that affected the 
 lives of hundreds of thousands of children and women 
 and men waited on the doorstep of industry’s ‘“abso- 
 lutism.” 
 
 The company representative stated firmly in answer 
 to a question from Doctor Justice that he did not know 
 the author of the charges. However, he dealt with 
 
THE FURNACE 221 
 
 them as one who was familiar with their general 
 method, and only with great reluctance did he turn 
 from them to meet the request of the distinguished 
 churchmen that a hearing be given the matter that had 
 brought the commissioners to the corporation’s general 
 offices. Then, immediately and persistently, the repre- 
 sentatives of steel refused to hear any plan of media- 
 tion. For Bruce Jayne, as for Doctor Justice and the 
 other commissioners, the refusal was a heart-breaking 
 disappointment, but from it there was no appeal. 
 
 “This whole strike movement is a movement of Red 
 radicals,’ again and again was insisted. Against all 
 arguments the mighty organization was adamant. “Our 
 positive word is a declination to arbitrate,’ was the in- 
 variable answer, nor was the word “mediate” given a 
 better reception. 
 
 “As to these striking families you say are suffering, 
 we feed the strikers. But as to these men you would 
 represent, these men who have not gone back—we won't 
 have them, they are nothing but Red radicals. Bear in 
 mind that the very foundations of the American gov- 
 ernment are involved in this matter!” 
 
 Hours later Doctor Justice said, “And they spoke 
 with hopeless sincerity. No man on earth could have 
 convinced them that the corporation’s policy in this 
 strike, in these closing stages of it, especially, is doing 
 more to destroy the solidarity and divine hopefulness 
 of the American democracy than a million ‘Red radi- 
 cals’ could possibly do.” 
 
 When the company spokesman was with difficulty re- 
 minded of the publicly expressed favorable attitude to- 
 ward collective bargaining, he said: 
 
222 THE FURNACE 
 
 “We are heartily in favor of collective bargaining, 
 provided it be through the right kind of an organiza- 
 tion, but we are greatly disappointed at the Central 
 Conference failure with its company union plan,—those 
 men are still out and refuse to go back.” 
 
 “But,” interjected one of the commissioners, “a very 
 distinguished proponent of the Central plan insists 
 that it suffers through no weakness of its own, but be- 
 cause the rest of the organization, the great corpora- 
 tion itself, has no plan—that the fact the Central 
 men are out is proof of the failure of the industry’s 
 policy in dealing with its men.” 
 
 But the reply was the final word of the ill fated day, 
 “Gentlemen, there is absolutely no issue.” 
 
 Thus high hopes were dashed. Thus was locked ab- 
 solutely, arbitrarily, a door that might have swung toa 
 new era in the industrial life of America. 
 
 Haig Brant was waiting for the commissioners when 
 they came silently into the chaplain’s office. He asked 
 no questions,—their faces spoke volumes that would 
 never be written. A few minutes were spent in pre- 
 paring a statement to be forwarded to Mr. Patrick, a 
 statement closing an incident instead of opening an 
 epoch. Also a letter was written to the company ask- 
 ing for specific information in the cases referred to 
 where the company had fed strikers,—a letter that 
 couched again in the language of diplomacy and cour- 
 tesy the desire of the investigating commission to find 
 the truth and present the facts, but a letter, though de- 
 livered by messenger, to which a reply never came. 
 
 Nor was the commission ever able in all of its inten- 
 
THE FURNACE 223 
 
 sive field operations to find one such case of company 
 assistance. 
 
 Bruce Jayne seemed crushed and aged as he made 
 the first draft of the Bishop’s dictation. Silently Jayne 
 and Brant went out together; silently they walked up 
 the now crowded avenue,—it was five o’clock, the eve- 
 ning hour when offices and high lofts pour their living 
 streams through the streets and avenues, into the sur- 
 face cars, the subways, and the “Ls.” Unmindful of 
 the jostling multitudes, the two men pressed on. 
 
 Suddenly, just off Madison Square, the major laid a 
 restraining hand upon the chaplain’s arm. ‘‘Look,” he 
 whispered, and following his gaze, Bruce saw upon an 
 old brick wall an ancient sign. Upon its faded back- 
 ground stood a pointing figure, and across the sky-line 
 streamed in great letters still clear enough to send their 
 challenge to the eyes these words, “I am for men.” 
 
 It was less than a week after the “great refusal,” as 
 the Major came to refer to the memorable conference 
 with the officials of steel, that Chaplain Jayne received 
 a stirring letter from Colonel Frank. It was the old 
 leader of men who wrote,—the war man of San Mihiel 
 And the Argonne: 
 
 “T am near the end,” the communication began. 
 “God knows I have done my utmost to meet this issue 
 as an official of the company,—the whole company. 
 God knows, too, what an agony my mind is these days 
 as I sit and watch these stacks,—and the face of James 
 Judson. ButIam near the end. Better face the break- 
 ing of a bad compact, or a compact that has become un- 
 
224. THE FURNACE 
 
 worthy, than consent to injustice and wrong, for, chap- 
 lain, when I so consent, as I must if I remain, I em- 
 brace dishonor and am damned. 
 
 “T would give a limb to have an hour with you, but 
 I dare not leave. I need the feel of your hand, the 
 sound of your voice. Only a little longer, unless the 
 heavens open, dare I wait. To know that you are 
 standing ‘post’ with me these days and nights is my 
 rock, for I am alone.” 
 
 The face of a beautiful woman rose before Bruce 
 Jayne as he read that last, and his eyes for a moment 
 went blind. 
 
 The letter had a postscript and contained an en- 
 closure: 
 
 “T have broken a perfectly good chair because of that 
 undercover attack on you men. Thank you for the 
 copy. Of all the miserable features of the whole rot- 
 ten business, the spy system angers me most. I fear 
 that it will send me to the violent ward yet. I have a 
 sort of premonition that in the end it will somehow 
 get me. Here is a clipping from Caxton, Ohio. ‘Red’ 
 Poluskiani wasn’t the only man changed to a Judas.”’ 
 
 The clipping referred to was the confession of Wil- 
 liam J. George, treasurer of the Caxton Central Labor 
 Union, a member of the Bricklayers’ Union, and a 
 candidate for the City Council. The confession read 
 in part: 
 
 “On or about seven months ago I was approached 
 by a man named Wallace who put a proposition up to 
 me. . . . The duties were to send in reports of things 
 that happen in the Bricklayers’ Union to the Con- 
 tractors’ Service Corporation. . . . Salary connected 
 
THE FURNACE 228 
 
 with this was $110 per month. . . . No checks were 
 used, and the employees never visited the office as the 
 company seldom used the same name any length of 
 time. . . . Monthly allowance of expenses were from 
 $10 to $15. . . . All employees were numbered as no 
 names were used. My number was 201-A.” 
 
 The confession was signed, “William J. George, 
 Traitor.” 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Oe be right up.’”’ The voice was Haig Brant’s, 
 
 and as he spoke he slammed his receiver into the 
 hook and started for the door. He had spoken in 
 response to an urgent call from Bruce Jayne. 
 
 “What is it?” he enquired anxiously, as two minutes 
 later he rushed into the chaplain’s office on the floor 
 above, “‘another document?” 
 
 “No,” replied Jayne, “read this,” and he handed the 
 major Malcolm Frank’s letter. There was silence in the 
 room while Haig read. 
 
 “Tough! Tough and terrible,—isn’t it!’ he ex- 
 claimed, when he finished the postscript, “and no chance 
 for him to find any relief,—for a long time. It seems 
 a cowardly thing to leave the old boy—alone,”’ and 
 eagerly the chaplain took up the cue. 
 
 “Haig, we can’t leave him alone any longer—throw 
 an extra collar into your bag and take the ‘Limited’ out 
 to-night.” | 
 
 “What!” fairly shouted the astonished major. ‘Me? 
 —Read that letter, he wants you, a father confessor— 
 you Protestant priest! He wants you, I say, not one 
 of the fallen angels. What the—” but Bruce Jayne 
 refused to smile. 
 
 “Haig,” he continued, “he wants us; he happened to 
 address that letter to me. Do you suppose that he had 
 the slightest idea I would waste any time getting it on 
 
 to you? You know how I’m fixed here,—that I can’t 
 226 
 
THE FURNACE 227 
 
 go—not to-night, and when a man gets an S.O.S. from 
 a friend, he can’t wait until morning. Here’s the tele- 
 gram I sent him just before I called you up,” and Brant 
 read on the carbon handed to him: 
 
 “Haig will see you in the morning.” Signed, 
 “Bruce.” 
 
 And so the major caught the “Limited” at eleven. 
 In the long conference with the chaplain preceding his 
 departure it had been agreed that Malcolm should be 
 apprised of the “great refusal.’”’ There had been no 
 publicity given to this interview, for in the minds of 
 the commission it was regarded as confidential. When 
 months later, through other channels, a distorted im- 
 pression of it was given to the public, the matter dic- 
 tated by Chairman Justice immediately after the con- 
 ference in the corporation’s office was released. 
 
 But that Malcolm Frank should have the complete 
 story both the major and chaplain were fully per- 
 suaded. Already he had an intimation of Abe Pat- 
 rick’s visit to New York, and for days he had hoped 
 against hope for some form of arbitration. In the 
 Gethsemane where he now wrestled to a fateful de- 
 cision, his friends knew that he needed, not cheap 
 words of sympathy, but strong words of truth. 
 
 The trip across the Alleghenies was not a restful one 
 for Brant that night. As the train changed engines at 
 Altoona, he was shaving, and a few minutes later he 
 opened his portfolio and began the final reading of cer- 
 tain portions of his report to the commissioners. Pres- 
 ently another early riser hesitated at his section (his 
 was the only one made up), and a voice that no man 
 has ever yet described said: 
 
228 THE FURNACE 
 
 “Pardon me, Major Brant, but may I bother you?” 
 
 Looking up, the startled major found himself star- 
 ing into the laughing eyes of a young woman. As he 
 stammered to his feet she sat down and continued: 
 
 “I am Gene Stanton.” 
 
 “Gene Stanton!” the now thoroughly aroused man 
 ejaculated, and he recalled vividly Malcolm Frank’s face 
 that night in the old codperative restaurant as he had 
 eagerly tried to locate his “angel” of the steel valleys. 
 
 “Yes,” and the girl started,—almost apprehensively, 
 it seemed to Brant. “Yes,” insistently now she said it. 
 “Gene Stanton, and I imagine that we are not only 
 going in the same general direction, but to the same 
 general destination,’ and she laughed, now quite her 
 confident self again, as the major, recovering his own 
 self-possession, entered into the spirit of her informal 
 greeting. 
 
 “You must pardon me, major,” she continued, “for 
 my undignified as well as informal introduction. But 
 you see I knew you, and then there wasn’t another seat 
 in the, car’ 
 
 “Pardon you, Miss Stanton?” Brant replied. 
 “Rather, congratulate me on my good fortune, while 
 I congratulate one of the best friends that I have in 
 the world on the return of spring to the dreariest, lone- 
 liest town on earth.” 
 
 And now the already radiant face in front of the 
 major took on an added hue. The rich, full lips, half 
 parted, the eyes, already luminous, became liquid, and 
 with a candor that was exquisite, but as a shield for 
 deeper things an exquisite failure, Gene Stanton re 
 plied: 
 
THE FURNACE 229 
 
 “Of course you speak of our mutual friend, Colonel 
 Frank; a wonderful man he is. But it will take more 
 than one flitting swallow to change the season just now 
 in Oldsburg.” And suddenly the light seemed to go out 
 in her eyes, and she became sober and listless. 
 
 “Oh, what a desperately hard world it is,” she went 
 on. “For weeks I have been trying to reconcile my 
 conscience to the wishes of my people; to drive my 
 mind by the mandates of my friends, and to satisfy my 
 heart with the husks of society. But it just couldn’t 
 be, and so I ran away,—again.” 
 
 She turned from the window and with a half smile 
 looked full into the eyes of the major. ‘With all the 
 sadness I am rushing towards, I have a joy and eager- 
 ness this morning that I have not known since I turned 
 my back on the noises and passions and smoke of the 
 steel valleys.” 
 
 “No wonder Malcolm has been thinking about angels 
 since she left,’’ Brant mused, as he watched the play 
 of rich emotion upon the face of the beautiful woman, 
 and then he discovered that he had been asked a 
 question. 
 
 ‘“‘What is the end to be?” were the words that she re- 
 peated. Then began a conversation that lasted until the 
 brakes went down for the station, a conversation that 
 gave Major Haig Brant a very convincing picture of 
 Gene Stanton, a picture that revealed her as far more 
 than a mere society slummer or casual settlement 
 worker, and that left him fully persuaded that what- 
 ever her family relationships might be (and he knew 
 that Malcolm Frank believed her somehow connected 
 with the powerful governing class in steel) she herself 
 
230 THE FURNACE 
 
 was a friend, a friend in spite of environment, in spite 
 of bitter opposition, perhaps,—a friend of the strike. 
 
 As he hurried through the gate carrying the young 
 woman’s traveling bag, he ran squarely into the ample 
 front of Jasper Branson, who, having seen Miss Stan- 
 ton and ignoring the “Exit” right of way, was block- 
 ing the passage. 
 
 “Why, my dear girl,” he was saying, “your telegram 
 was a shock. Your father—” and then the collision 
 occurred. Mutual apologies were made, but the presi- 
 dent of the Bancroft Steel Company lost no time in 
 breaking up the informal party, and the gray limousine 
 whisked Gene Stanton away, while the major waited 
 for the next local to Oldsburg. 
 
 Malcolm was at the station when Haig swung from 
 the platform, Pale and gaunt he was, but with the 
 eternal fitness that distinguished him for pel uee 
 super-endurance in the service. 
 
 “Man! but it is good to get my eyes on you,” Mal- 
 colm said, as the two men came to grips. 
 
 “Well,” countered the irrepressible major, “the 
 preacher couldn’t come so they sent the undertaker. 
 When do we eat?” 
 
 Straight to the Judson home they drove, and an hour 
 they spent over their breakfast before they repaired to 
 the quiet and comfort of the library. The superin- 
 tendent was gone when they arrived, so that they were 
 quite alone in the great house. 
 
 As both Bruce and Haig had known it would be, the 
 story of the refusal of the company was a disappoint- 
 ment, a heart-breaking disappointment to Malcolm. 
 For him it was the end of the trail. Where he had 
 
THE FURNACE ake 
 
 hoped to find a rising way leading out of the valley of 
 hate and death, he found only a sheer granite mountain 
 of brutal denial. Like a man wounded unto death he 
 sat. Haig Brant concluded his long and comprehensive 
 statement with, “And so you see, Malcolm, this great 
 structure of steel’s benevolence,—these houses and 
 playgrounds and pensions and safety devices,—is not an 
 honest house, but a trap,—a trap baited with benefac- 
 tions, a bribe, or Atalanta’s golden apple.” 
 
 For a long interval after Haig concluded the two 
 men sat in silence, and it was then that the major 
 wished for the chaplain. The colonel it was who 
 spoke first: 
 
 “Haig, do you remember,” he said, as a man who 
 has returned from a far country of thought, “do you 
 remember what you said that last night on the Aqui- 
 tania, after I stood in my pride and read Branson’s 
 letter? Do you remember? Well, Ido. I suppose that 
 I remember so well because I have tried so hard to for- 
 get. This is what you said: 
 
 ““Branson promises one thing and you accept an- 
 other. There will be a crash some day, and you and 
 he will fall on opposite sides of the heap.’ ” 
 
 “Go on,” said Brant, “go on,” but the colonel had 
 finished, and so the major concluded, “ “You are not 
 your own, and steel can’t buy you.’ That is what I 
 remember.” And again there was an end of speaking, 
 while one man sat amid the tumbled ruins of his shin- 
 ing walls, and another stood by through the travail 
 hour of his friend. 
 
 Not until mid-afternoon did Malcolm go to the office, 
 and then only to seek a brief conference with James 
 
232 THE FURNACE 
 
 Judson. The superintendent had been waiting for 
 him, and the anxiety that of late seemed to blend the 
 strong lines of his face into a mask of habitual grief 
 was like a blow to the young first assistant as he began 
 what he believed would be an interview of disappoint- 
 ment and sorrow with the man who was infinitely more 
 than his chief. | 
 
 Briefly he told the story that he had heard from the 
 lips of Major Brant. “I have the major’s permission 
 to tell you,” he said, and the white-haired man bowed 
 in acknowledgment of the confidence. “God knows, 
 only God knows,” continued Malcolm, “what it costs 
 me to say what now I must say,’ and his voice broke. 
 “But God knows that to longer remain silent would 
 mean to lose my soul. 
 
 “This is the end, Superintendent. I resign,—but, 
 James Judson, as God hears me now and will judge me 
 later, I do not leave you. ‘Till death and beyond I 
 stand on the compact. The Corporation has left us. 
 Now I know it. Too long I have been blind. To-night 
 I will wire my resignation to President Branson, and to- 
 morrow I go out with the strike.”’ 
 
 Not a word, beyond that of recognition, had James 
 Judson spoken since Malcolm came into the office. 
 Scarcely had he seemed to breathe as his first assistant 
 talked on, and now when the younger man’s voice, as 
 it concluded, became so intense and vibrant that the very 
 air of the room seemed to become charged he only 
 turned to the great window that looked out upon the 
 mills. | 
 It was the turn of the shift. To any but an ex- 
 perienced eye the throngs entering and departing were 
 
THE FURNACE 233 
 
 as large and as orderly as those of the pre-strike period, 
 and even the strike leaders were nearly ready to confess 
 that their fight was lost. 
 
 When at last the superintendent turned back to his 
 friend, there was a strange gray smile upon his face, 
 and Malcolm remembered the expression that had 
 played there on that memorable morning of the en- 
 counter with Pete Brudidge. 
 
 “You are late to-day, Malcolm,” Mr. Judson began, 
 as though the younger man had not spoken. “But let’s 
 call it a day and go home. By the way, your stenog- 
 rapher is out,—I excused her,—didn’t think you would 
 care to use her with the major here. President Bran- 
 son will be in at nine,—nine in the morning, for a con- 
 ference. I arranged it for you,’ and then he added, 
 even more quietly, “For us.” 
 
 Half in a daze Malcolm accompanied his chief to the 
 car and together they drove home. Brant had been 
 resting and reading; not once had he opened his port- 
 folio. “Worn to the bone,” as he expressed it, he had 
 taken the interval between his friend’s departure and 
 return for complete relaxation. There was no strike 
 talk at the table. The superintendent seemed to Mal- 
 colm more like himself than for weeks. 
 
 Following the meal, the host suggested billiards, and 
 for an hour the three men gave themselves over to the 
 spell of the ivories. Then Mr. Judson said: 
 
 “Pardon me, but this has been an unusual day, and 
 to-morrow promises to be much like it. Unless you re- 
 fuse to release me,” and he laughed, “I'll retire. Better 
 not follow me at too great a distance,” and he cast a 
 fatherly glance at Malcolm,—a glance that had become 
 
 wad 
 
234 THE FURNACE 
 
 with him a habit, an instinct, and again the first assist- 
 ant’s memory was busy. He recalled how his friend 
 had gone upstairs to take a bath practically in the 
 midst of a previous conference that was to them both 
 an hour of destiny. He was amazed with himself that 
 he should feel no surprise at this abrupt ending of 
 the day. No chance would there be in the morning for 
 
 a personal interview before that fateful meeting with 
 Jasper Branson. What did it mean? But even as his 
 mind tried to raise the question, his heart refused, and 
 he felt in his soul an assurance that left him calm and 
 comforted. Somehow he knew that whatever hap- 
 pened on the morrow, James Judson would understand. 
 
 The two younger men were not far behind their 
 host. Nothing was said until both were under cover 
 and the lights were out. Then Brant remarked casu- 
 ally : 
 
 “Malcolm, I saw an angel to-day,—yea, more. Oh, 
 my friend, I beheld a heavenly host!” 
 
 _ The breathing in the other twin bed stopped, and the 
 major felt the compulsion of that electric silence as 
 surely as he would have felt the impact of a bayonet 
 thrust. Like a man who comes to attention under a 
 peremptory order, he answered the unspoken command 
 of his friend. 
 
 “Gene Stanton came in on the ‘Limited’ this morn-- 
 ing and will be in Oldsburg to-morrow. Good-night!”’ 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 HE morning came at last, cold and dark, black 
 with the smoke which banked against the hills 
 standing like prison walls about the old mill town. 
 Three quiet men sat together at an early breakfast, and 
 later two of them drove down from the hill to the sooty 
 offices of the great mill. As Haig and Malcolm stood 
 for a moment by the car while the superintendent lin- 
 gered conveniently behind, the former said: 
 
 “This morning takes me back to the Argonne. I 
 wish that I could ‘go over’ with you, but remember I’m 
 here in reserve, and reénforcements are coming. Read 
 this.” 
 
 Malcolm took the telegram which Haig had received 
 only a few minutes before and read: 
 
 “Coming to city for final meeting with local com- 
 mittee on strike hearings. Meet me at Hotel Stratford 
 noon. Best to Frank.” Signed, “Jayne.” 
 
 As Malcolm looked up, and with a new light in his 
 eyes returned the message, Haig concluded, ‘The God 
 Jayne talks to didn’t get you out of that over there to 
 let you fail in this,—over here.” 
 
 James Judson made no effort to engage his associate 
 in conversation during the drive to the office; indeed, 
 his very attitude discouraged conversation. And so 
 they came to their desks without a word having passed 
 between them on the anticipated portentous events of 
 the day. 
 
236 THE FURNACE 
 
 Within a few minutes after their arrival Jasper 
 Branson was announced, and with him came Peter 
 Brudidge. The sinister face of the latter was just the 
 tonic that the first assistant of the Oldsburg mills 
 needed to fit him for the ordeal at hand. 
 
 It was the visitor who opened the conversation. 
 There was no mistaking the light in his eye,—it was 
 the familiar battle eye before which men of the in- 
 dustry, high and low, were wont to quail that he turned 
 now upon James Judson. 
 
 “Judson,” he snapped, “only your years and your 
 service and our long association brought me here to- 
 day. Your call was rather unusual, I should say, under 
 the circumstances. Perhaps peremptory is the word,” 
 and he paused ominously, as though waiting for James 
 Judson to speak, but James Judson made no sign, and 
 with an added jump to his words the president went on, 
 “Let’s finish it,—whatever it is,—let’s finish it quick!” 
 and the superintendent replied: 
 
 “President Branson, Colonel Frank has something to 
 say to you, and I am sure that he will not detain you 
 long.” 
 
 In a half fury of surprise Branson swung about 
 and leaped to his feet. “What!” he cried. “You bring 
 me here to talk to your assistant? [Il be—’ but James 
 Judson was on Mis feet now, and as the gray men faced 
 each other, there was nothing needed by either to match 
 them well. As a finished boxer picks his opponent’s 
 blows out of the air, the superintendent snapped up the 
 president’s words and retorted: 
 
 “You will be favored by both of us, sir, and the 
 Colonel speaks first.” 
 
THE FURNACE 237 
 
 Malcolm Frank had been so completely amazed by 
 the way in which the conference opened and at the im- 
 mediate clash between the two high officials that he sat 
 as though bound in his chair, while Brudidge, appar- 
 ently a victim of the same surprise, watched the pre- 
 liminary skirmish with open-mouthed astonishment. 
 But that last sentence of James Judson’s was a bugle 
 to his associate, and as a man leaps from the stu- 
 por of sleep at the call of some tocsin, Malcolm re- 
 sponded. 
 
 “President Branson,’ he said quietly, even as the 
 superintendent’s last word left his lips, “J resign to 
 go on strike.” 
 
 Then it was that for the second time that week the 
 president of the Bancroft Steel Company felt the rush 
 of blood to his head, the swelling in his throat, and the 
 singing as of bullets in his ears. He reeled and would 
 have fallen had the superintendent not assisted him to 
 his chair. But in a moment the seizure passed and 
 left him with a new and unfamiliar calm. Breathing 
 heavily for a few minutes, he seemed to be collecting 
 his faculties, marshaling his powers. Then brushing 
 courteously aside the second glass of water offered by 
 his old associate, and refusing absolutely to allow a 
 call for a physician, he said very quietly: 
 
 “Colonel, the Bancroft Steel Company never goes to 
 its knees for any man, and we don’t treat with unions, 
 but we do give our employees a square deal and a chance 
 to speak. Tell your story.” 
 
 And so out of the battle storm with which the con- 
 ference opened came unexpectedly an unnatural calm 
 in which Malcolm Frank uncovered his soul. Swiftly, 
 
238 THE FURNACE 
 
 with the sure and powerful passion of seasoned re- 
 straint, he told his story: 
 
 “T came to this office,” said he, “‘and to this company, 
 with the physical and soul scars of a war in which ten 
 million men died to give the living a chance to make a 
 new world. I came, sir, with your generous invita- 
 tion making me glad,—an invitation that through no 
 fault of yours I did not understand. To this hour I 
 have given my best to the Bancroft Steel Company, 
 but with growing misgivings. I have heard the cry 
 of the men and the deeper cry of the women and chil- 
 dren. I have waited for the answer of the corporation. 
 I have refused to accept the shame of the spy, the black- 
 mail of the parasite, the murder of the thug, the long 
 hours, the unequitable wage adjustment, and the denial 
 of conference as that answer. I have blackened my 
 conscience and walked away from my kind, while I 
 commanded my soul to wait on the will of the powers 
 in steel. Newspapers have denied a voice to the work- 
 ers’ grievances, and I have waited; civil liberties have 
 gone to the discard, and I have waited; my truest 
 friends, the men with whom I watched death come 
 across the fields of France, have been maligned, and I 
 have waited. But now, when at last with these strikers, 
 who never had a fighting chance, crushed and helpless, 
 steel denies the upward eye and turns its thumb down,— 
 I wait no longer.” 
 
 Still President Branson was silent—was it the elo- 
 quence, the leashed fury of the speaker? was it the 
 inner warning he had just received? or was it a hand 
 that reached up to him from the pit where he began 
 
THE FURNACE 239 
 
 and turned him to old memories? But still he waited, 
 and Malcolm spoke on: 
 
 “You say that these things which are just, the things 
 we concede as just, cannot be done; that the wage ad- 
 justments cannot now be made; that to adopt the eight- | 
 hour day is impossible because of new problems so 
 revolutionary a change would create. But, sir, I say 
 that any industry in which human life is staked against 
 profit and which arrogates to itself arbitrary power 
 has no moral alternative as to whether it can pay a liv- 
 ing wage; as to whether it can change to the eight-hour 
 day or adopt any other program to which it consents 
 in principle. Jt must! It must, or die. If steel arro- 
 gates to itself the prerogative of industrial absolutism 
 then, sir, it must accept the responsibility of that ab- 
 solutism,—unconditionally accept. ‘“Can’t’ is not an 
 excuse, is not an answer, but an indictment. President 
 Branson, this is the ultimatum of law, and against law, 
 though laws and courts and public opinion be laggard, 
 
 not even steel can stand.” 
 
 Still Jasper Branson remained silent while the vocal 
 soul of Malcolm Frank continued, “The tragedy in steel 
 to-day and the crux of this crisis 1s not that the com- 
 pany refuses to deal with union leaders, is not that 
 the corporation denies the plan of the strikers; the 
 tragedy is that steel has no plan, and, God pity us all, 
 turns her back upon mediation.”’ 
 
 And now Frank had reached the conclusion of the 
 whole matter; his countenance, which had until now 
 burned with a Jovian flame, became dull, and his tone 
 the cry of a penitent. “Until this morning I have 
 
240 THE FURNACE 
 
 walked in the paths of this colossal sin, What all the 
 world could see, what you, sir, tried to tell me, I refused 
 to believe. I saw only a cleavage between two parts of 
 an absolute whole, and I strove, sanguine as a child of 
 the Santa Claus myth, to heal the breach. But the 
 cleavage was a chasm, and the parts were two hemi- 
 spheres of everlasting difference. President Branson, 
 this strike is not an industrial conflict; it is the eternal 
 struggle; it is man battling upward. It is dollars and 
 dolomite and slag and scrap against the immortal soul, 
 and, Mr Branson, so help me God, I am for men.” 
 
 For a minute that was an emotional age, silence took 
 command of the room, and then Peter Brudidge spoke. 
 Fiercely he spoke, resentful of the mastery of his hated 
 rival Challengingly he spoke, as though to drag the 
 young Finn down from a great height to wallow in 
 the mire of a petty wrangle. 
 
 “President Branson, I tried to prepare you for this; 
 he didn’t make that speech for the first time to-day.” 
 
 But no man seemed to hear him. Jasper Branson 
 turned inquiringly, almost appealingly, to James Jud- 
 son and then back to the first assistant. Moistening his 
 lips with his tongue, he said, in a voice so changed from 
 the former robustness of his speech that three men 
 started, ‘Colonel Frank, do you realize that the strike 
 is over, that we have won?” 
 
 There was no mastery in the man with which to meet 
 the mood of the younger, and in utter futility of words 
 he spoke as from an outgrown manual. Malcolm 
 Frank replied: 
 
 “Yes, this strike is over. But this strike is an inci- 
 dent ; the real strike has just begun.” 
 
THE FURNACE 241 
 
 With apparent difficulty the president squared him- 
 self in his chair, and as though dismissing a hopeless 
 situation spoke to the superintendent. With a trace 
 of the old brusqueness in his voice he said, “Well, Jud- 
 son, I will leave Mr. Brudidge here. You will need a 
 strong man as first assistant now.” And many mean- 
 ings might have been attached to his words. 
 
 But quickly they were forgotten, for the superin- 
 tendent of the Oldsburg mills arose and with an ashen 
 face and lips that were bloodless replied, “Branson, 
 you must leave him as superintendent, for I go out with 
 the colonel.” 
 
 Already that day the depths had been sounded. AI- 
 ready the minds of three men had been so churned by 
 intense, conflicting passions that they were incapable of 
 further violent reactions. ‘There was an emotional 
 numbness upon them. Jasper Branson arose, turned 
 mechanically to Peter Brudidge, and said, as in utter 
 weariness, “Report here at nine in the morning to look 
 after things until permanent arrangements are made. 
 You may go now.” 
 
 As Brudidge strode exultantly from the room, Bran- 
 son walked unsteadily over to his old superintendent. 
 “Jim,” he said, and his voice broke, “we are old men; 
 a hundred years old I feel to-day. I begin to think that 
 I’m nearly done, Jim,” and his right hand sought the 
 other’s shoulder. “You remember the day that we came 
 into the mill together. Now you are going out. Forty 
 years isn’t long, but the end is lonely. You seemed 
 more fortunate than I. Kate left you the boy. I had 
 only a grave. Then the war evened us up,” and at 
 thought of the war he stopped and became conscious 
 
242 . THE FURNACE 
 
 again of his surroundings—the occasion, and the young 
 giant who sat spellbound in the chair of the first assist- 
 ant. But his mood was too deep to be shaken off, and 
 he went on, “Jim, good-by—and God bless you!’ and 
 from the sight which followed that Malcolm Frank 
 turned his eyes away. | 
 Presently he heard shuffling feet, the shuffling feet of 
 a man, of an old man, turning toward the door,—the 
 feet of a man who as master was part of an evil system 
 which mastered him along with the men it enslaved. 
 Then, after an interval, James Judson’s voice, muffled 
 and anguished, said, “Malcolm,—Malcolm, meet me 
 at home when you have done what you think is best.” 
 
GUA Dri OX LV) 
 
 ND so Malcolm Frank was left alone, alone in the 
 office out of which he would presently go for the 
 last time. For fully an hour he steadied himself and 
 prepared for the next step, as he went through his per- 
 sonal files and arranged the details of his leaving. 
 Later he learned that for weeks James Judson had been 
 preparing for what he had long since come to regard 
 as inevitable. 
 
 On first thought he was inclined to telephone the 
 Stratford and attempt to reach Jayne and Brant, but 
 later decided not to do so. He found himself wonder- 
 ing what President Branson would do; whether he 
 would anticipate a possible publicity statement from 
 Oldsburg by issuing a colored announcement from the 
 general offices. Malcolm knew that the resignation 
 of the two Oldsburg superintendents, while bound to be 
 a spectacular and startling event, could in no way in- 
 fluence the termination of the strike itself, but with a 
 growing eagerness he sought for some plan by which 
 to capitalize the matter for the cause of the men, the 
 cause of industrial freedom itself. 
 
 Later he found that not even to his closest friends 
 had Jasper Branson told of his conference in Oldsburg, 
 and that when Peter Brudidge had practically demanded 
 the issuing of a statement to the press that unsavory 
 individual had been peremptorily ordered from the 
 room. ‘The first the general public knew of James 
 
 243 
 
244 THE FURNACE 
 
 Judson’s resignation from the high position he had 
 held for so many years, and of Colonel Frank’s with- 
 drawal from the institution in which his advancement 
 had been so rapid, was when the morning papers of 
 the next day, forced from their silence by the irre- 
 sistible tide of events, told the story of the most re- 
 markable strike meeting ever held in those valleys or, 
 for that matter, anywhere else in the country. A story 
 it was that swept the continent as no publicity event 
 since the war; a story that when told left men thought- 
 ful and questioning, nor would it be forgotten when the 
 mighty mills again ran “full-handed” and the proud in- 
 dustry entered the strike as a closed incident upon its 
 records. 
 
 Before leaving his old desk Frank called the local 
 strike headquarters and very shortly thereafter the 
 leaders were on their way to the home of James Judson. 
 “Not here,’ Malcolm had said to himself, as he closed 
 his door, “it is war now and this is company ground. 
 We will meet these men on our own territory.” And 
 so in the old library the strange group assembled. The 
 conference was brief, but eventful. The strikers were 
 at first stunned by the announcement with which they 
 were received, and then wildly excited by it. They had 
 hoped for some offer of conciliation when they re- 
 sponded to the summons, and one that perhaps would 
 enable them to save a fragment of their self-respect. 
 To be told that “the company,’—for in this light they 
 regarded Judson and Frank,—had joined the strike, 
 drove them into a frenzy and left them with wild hopes 
 utterly impossible of realization. 
 
THE FURNACE 245 
 
 But out of the conference which came gradually 
 under the control of the two greater leaders grew a 
 plan that promised to the workers at least a nation-wide 
 voice of protest. It was agreed that a meeting, a public 
 meeting, should be held that night; that it should be 
 held in the home of James Judson, and that the strike 
 leaders from the general headquarters should be in- 
 vited to speak along with both of the former superin- 
 tendents. 
 
 “Tf we overflow the house, we will go outside,” Mr. 
 Judson had said, and now that he had made his com- 
 mitment, a commitment that as he saw it then would 
 send him out as an industrial Ishmaelite among men, he 
 was quietly, but nevertheless eagerly, determined to 
 make the blow of his resignation fall in such a way 
 as to count most heavily for the cause he had espoused. 
 
 But while it could have been foreseen that the Jud- 
 son house would be too small to entertain the meeting, 
 not even the most sanguine would have suggested a 
 crowd that overflowed the porches and filled the lawns 
 until literally thousands of people, men and women and 
 children, babbling in a score of languages, tried to press 
 close enough to the great front entrance to hear the 
 voices of the speakers. Such a throng had never before 
 been gathered together in those valleys. The long pent- 
 up emotions of the suppressed multitude took advantage 
 of this first opportunity to send the feet of the people 
 to the place of public assemblage. By the word of 
 mouth which in massed communities and under the 
 stimulus of some common thought seems to travel with 
 the speed of light, the announcement went down the 
 
246 THE FURNACE 
 
 deep gulches and over the black hills until the farthest 
 village of the mighty industrial district had heard the 
 word and turned its delegation toward Oldsburg. 
 
 While the place of the meeting gave both James 
 Judson and his younger associate complete confidence 
 that the speakers would not be interfered with, there 
 was no desire to even seem to play a sharp game with 
 the authorities, and so in a special trip to the head- 
 quarters of the constabulary, the colonel asked for the 
 presence of officers and tried to convince them of the 
 exact nature of the assemblage. They were hardly to 
 be censured, however, for failing or refusing to under- 
 stand so preposterous an announcement. Two troopers 
 were assigned to the meeting,—one of them Sergeant 
 Johnson, and first in the entrance hall and then on the 
 porch, where they shivered behind their greatcoats, the 
 reporters of the city dailies awaited the events they had 
 been hurriedly ordered to cover. 
 
 But between the setting of the stage for the drama 
 and the gathering of the audience, there elapsed several 
 hours, which to the principals were crowded ones. Al- 
 most immediately after Mr. Judson and Malcolm 
 reached their rooms, on returning from the call on the 
 local authorities, they were summoned downstairs for 
 a conference with Chairman Patrick and Secretary 
 Jenssen of the General Strike Committee. 
 
 Both of the visitors were manifestly ill at ease, and 
 particularly was this true of Patrick. “Never before in 
 my life,’ remarked Mr. Judson later, “was I so im- 
 pressed with the injustice of what we of the company 
 have been pleased to call our ‘man-to-man’ policy. 
 Those men, even with the known changed relationship, 
 
THE FURNACE 247 
 
 didn’t have an equal chance with us on our own ground 
 in my home. What a fool I have been to think that the 
 poor devils in the mill were getting a square deal. Why 
 they couldn’t stand up and tell their story to a foreman 
 even if they should find the foreman inclined to hear 
 them. You can’t give the company all the handicaps 
 of tradition, training, intelligence, and power, lay the 
 course forever in company environment, and then ex- 
 pect the ‘hunky’ to have a fair chance at the winner’s 
 end of the purse. And,” concluded Mr. Judson, ‘‘when 
 even a ‘hunky’ doesn’t get a fair chance in America, 
 this country is going back on the word of the fathers.” 
 
 Instinctively the two strike leaders looked now to 
 James Judson and Malcolm Frank for leadership, 
 waited on their suggestions. The evening program 
 as finally outlined was as follows: Abe Patrick pre- 
 siding; a statement of "the strike situation by Sidney 
 Jenssen, followed by a brief address from James Jud- 
 son, and closing remarks by Colonel Frank. 
 
 It was five o’clock before the two visitors left,—less 
 than two hours remained before the crowd would begin 
 to gather, but whatever may have been the thoughts of 
 James Judson, those of his young associate were not 
 with the impending events of the night. 
 
 All through the day he had surged blindly ahead, fol- 
 lowing the path of duty, heeding the voice of the first 
 and then each succeeding obligation, but restless to be 
 about other business, impatient and eager to take up the 
 trail of another quest,—the quest of his heart’s de- 
 sire. Even before he left for the office that morning 
 he had called Gene Stanton’s old lodgings only to find 
 that she had not yet left the care of Jasper Branson, 
 
248 THE FURNACE 
 
 who resided with his two widowed sisters. He had had 
 to be content with leaving his number, but had asked 
 that the call be marked urgent. 
 
 And now, all through the day, even in the most in- 
 tense moments of it, he had kept one ear, as it “were, 
 locked against all save her call. But she had not called. 
 Twice, between five and six, he rang the Y.W.C.A. 
 again, but each time the answer was, “No, Miss Stan- 
 ton has not arrived, and there is no word.” 
 
 Finally he had become rash in his impatience and had 
 rung President Branson’s home, but to no comforting 
 effect. Miss Stanton was not in, had not been in since 
 noon, would not be back that day, and had left no 
 address beyond saying that she expected to make her 
 headquarters indefinitely at the Y.W.C.A. in Olds- 
 burg. 
 
 Malcolm had also tried with no better success to 
 reach Jayne and Brant at the Stratford. Both were 
 out. Finally he wired the major. It seemed that he 
 was doomed to disappointment in every direction; that 
 on the night of all nights when he most needed the sup- 
 port and encouragement of his friends, he was sen- 
 tenced to go forward alone. 
 
 But while seated with Mr. Judson at the supper table, 
 the first rift appeared in the encircling clouds. Brant 
 called up and said, “Just got your message about the 
 meeting to-night. I have been busy helping Jayne clean 
 up details. He just naturally ordered me out of the 
 conference, having some sort of a premonition you 
 might need one of us. Then I found your wire here 
 at the room. I feel like a traitor to leave him, but I’d 
 have the same feeling about you if I stayed, and besides 
 
THE FURNACE 249 
 
 I’m strong for discipline, and he is my superior! He 
 will be out early in the morning; but, man! if he knew 
 of the meeting, not even stern duty could hold him here 
 to-night ! 
 
 “And, say! Gene Stanton will be with me. She 
 rang the hotel just now from some town up the river, 
 just before I called you, and said that the people there 
 had word of a meeting, a strike meeting, to be addressed 
 by James Judson and yourself. She had tried twice 
 to reach you by ’phone, but always the line was busy.” 
 (Malcolm bit his lips as he remembered how cease- 
 lessly he had hung on that wire!) “She had been com- 
 pelled to change her original plan, and would not have 
 reached Oldsburg until to-morrow evening; but when 
 she finally got hold of me here, she changed her plan 
 again. Now she’s coming to-night,—will meet me at 
 the hotel. As soon as she arrives we'll be off. 
 
 “And, say! old man, I think that if Jayne were here 
 he would want me to say, You are not your own,— 
 you should worry!” 
 
 Up went the receiver with a bang, and like a man 
 who had come out of darkness into a great light, Mal- 
 colm returned to James Judson, “Friend,” he said, 
 “the major is coming out for our début, and he is bring- 
 ing Gene Stanton!” 
 
 The announcement of the return to the strike district 
 of that young woman was not only a surprise to Mr. 
 Judson, but as Malcolm watched his face he saw it reg- 
 ister apprehension, fear, regret. “I’m sorry, lad,’’—the 
 older man called the younger by that name for the first 
 time,—‘“‘I’m sorry, terribly sorry,” he said. “Do you 
 remember what I told you once before,—a long time 
 
250 THE FURNACE 
 
 ago?” and Malcolm nodded. ‘More I cannot say even 
 now,” James Judson continued, “but as I would spare 
 you pain and tragic regret, I warn you again.” 
 
 “You speak like an evil genius, Superintendent,” re- 
 plied Malcolm with only a half jest in his tone, “TI ask 
 for no quarter, but some things are written in the stars, 
 and for that matter, all of us are on the knees of the 
 gods. Don’t worry. I take my medicine, bitter and 
 sweet. I'll drink my cup whether to life or to death, 
 God helping me, like a man. But, by the Eternal, I’m 
 glad she is coming!’ and with the eagerness of a boy, © 
 he rushed off to put the finishing touches on his per- 
 sonal plans. 
 
 At seven-thirty that night, when Strike Chairman 
 Abe Patrick called the meeting to order, and in a brief 
 statement announced the purpose of the gathering, he 
 made the first public statement of the resignation of 
 James Judson and Malcolm Frank as company officials, . 
 and of their espousal of the cause of the strikers. A 
 vast and motley crowd that practically filled the spacious 
 grounds of the former superintendent raised such a 
 shout that Sergeant Johnson and his fellow trooper 
 turned apprehensively to the Colonel. Frank’s smile 
 was reassurance enough for his old army associate who 
 grinned rather sheepishly and swung his eyes again out 
 over the jabbering, gesticulating, evil-smelling throng 
 of men, women and children. 
 
 Sidney Jenssen was heard with enthusiasm, but also 
 with a growing inclination to impatience,—the crowd 
 had come to hear Judson and Frank. As the strike 
 secretary finished his comprehensive statement of the 
 difficulties the cause of the workers had faced, the in- 
 
THE FURNACE 251 
 
 superable obstacles placed in the way of success,— 
 for he did not attempt to raise false hopes, nor did he 
 dodge the issue of impending failure,—Malcolm Frank, 
 whose eyes roved restlessly, ceaselessly, over the 
 audience before him, heard the siren of a taxi just 
 turning back from the entrance to the grounds, now 
 blocked by people, and, presently, far down the drive 
 he caught the signal of a woman’s upflung hand. 
 
 Haig Brant walked beside Gene Stanton, but even he 
 no longer mattered, and was unnoticed. As in a flash 
 of light, the multitude disappeared, and the audience 
 dwindled to one, but for Malcolm that one filled the 
 universe. The girl stopped in a bit of an opening made 
 for her by the people who knew and loved her, just 
 where the old dead rose-garden skirted the drive. 
 Against the trunk of a great elm she leaned with her 
 furs drawn closely about her, and the flickering light 
 of a gasoline torch throwing mottling shadows like a 
 coarse veil over her face. 
 
 Malcolm felt himself lifted on the wings of the inner- 
 most mysteries of his being as he feasted his eyes upon 
 her. Now he knew; dear God—how he felt it!—the 
 emptiness of life without her. Only the thunder of 
 many-tongued cheers greeting James Judson awoke him 
 and even then he heard the words of his friend as words 
 spoken in a whisper far away. Well it is for the rest of 
 us that reporters were present to take down the speeches, 
 and Haig Brant to stow away in his unfailing memory 
 the impressions of that unprecedented occasion. 
 
 “Friends,” began the gray superintendent, “I stand 
 before you a living though a broken example of the 
 failure of steel to find a way to meet its men. Upon this 
 
2n2 THE FURNACE 
 
 hill I have had my home for thirty years, and in the 
 valley I have gone to work for forty. You have been 
 kind enough to remember me at Christmas with gifts 
 that often carried on their wrappers in your own lan- 
 guages the name “Fair boss,” and that, as I see it now, 
 was my pay. 
 
 “I came into power among you after the bloody riots 
 of the other great strike. I heard the guns of that war, 
 and saw its dead. It was then that I promised my God 
 to give men, all men, nothing short of a square deal, 
 and as God is my judge, and you are here to witness, 
 I have tried to keep my vow.” Like a vote of confi- 
 dence rang up the unanimous shout, “You have!” but 
 the speaker’s voice continued: 
 
 “To-night I stand before you a living, broken monu- 
 ment of failure. Noman can speak for another against 
 the other’s will, and no act of generosity, no gift of 
 benevolence, can take the place of freedom and justice. 
 Rather would I be free, to fail, than, bound, to succeed. 
 And, men, what I claim for myself is your right. It is 
 to this that I give my life now. I am on strike with 
 you, on strike not against steel, but for the right of 
 the humblest among us to talk and to work like a man.” 
 
 Very quietly James Judson had spoken, so quietly 
 that although the crowd had been breathlessly still, 
 much of his brief address had been heard only by the 
 hundreds immediately about the improvised platform. 
 But as he concluded, he lifted his voice, and his final 
 sentence carried to the edge of the throng. Now the 
 many voices became one, and a cheer of pent passion 
 rose from that residential hill that sent hundreds below 
 in anxiety to their windows. 
 
THE FURNACE 253 
 
 _ But it was for Malcolm Frank that the hapless people 
 had come. It was to hear him that the multitude had 
 waited; and now he was standing before them. Im- 
 pressively he stood through their cheers; cheers that 
 swept the old slate clean of their doubts and their 
 disappointments; cheers that rose a mighty vocal tide 
 to flood away the revilements they had spoken against 
 him when it seemed that he had been ashamed of his 
 people in their hour of need and had broken with his 
 kind. 
 
 When at last quiet came upon the place and even as 
 Malcolm was slowly dropping to his side the hand he 
 had long held extended in mute appeal for silence, an- 
 other interruption, and an intérruption of another sort 
 unexpectedly appeared. Out of a swirl of figures—men 
 and women with children, who were charged from the 
 rear, taken suddenly unawares—came a score of armed 
 men. Over the veranda rail they leaped into the full 
 light of the great entrance,—Peter Brudidge and his 
 mill guards. Ignoring the officers of the meeting, 
 Brudidge turned on the crowd. “Get to —— out of 
 here!’ he roared and, swinging his automatic, called 
 to the guards, who in the face of that vast throng in- 
 stinctively drew back. 
 
 Taken completely by surprise, the people were as 
 hypnotized—fear, amazement and, above all, doubt, 
 were blended in their faces. It was Malcolm Frank 
 who acted first. As the automatic of Peter Brudidge 
 swung for the second time wildly about the “Black 
 Killer’s” head, the young giant’s right arm shot out, 
 and with the impact of a trip-hammer his fist landed 
 just below the hand that held the weapon. Back into 
 
 
 
254 THE FURNACE 
 
 the entrance, high above the heads of the men on the 
 platform, the gun flew. With a howl of rage Brudidge 
 leaped for his enemy. 
 
 But even as he leaped and as the guards who had 
 been loath to obey his first command sprang forward to 
 assist him, Sergeant Johnson struck him fair on the 
 head with a club that never before had been used upon 
 a company official. Half stunned, he toppled against 
 the speaker’s table; swaying there he glared ludicrously 
 about as he struggled to regain his senses. 
 
 “What in I say!’ Johnson demanded angrily 
 of the armed men about him, and they, in the presence 
 of the tunexpected uniforms of the constabulary, 
 cowered in silence. It had all happened in a second 
 of time,—the charge, the revilement, the assault, the 
 collapse. 
 
 But the crowd out in front was beginning to find it- 
 self. Men became conscious of the screams of women 
 and children who had been brutally handled in that first 
 rush of Brudidge and his guards. A roar as of beasts 
 who have come upon their wounded young rose from 
 the throats of the mob, and it surged toward the plat- 
 form in a jam that would have ended in tragedy. 
 
 Then Malcolm Frank took command. Like some 
 god of battle he leaped on the neck of the great marble 
 lion that lay as though guarding the right of the 
 entrance. Reaching down to a grimy faced boy who 
 had wriggled close to the porch and who was sinking 
 beneath the weight of the frenzied multitude, he lifted 
 him—lifted and held him high above the heads of the 
 people. 
 
 “Stand fast!’ he cried, “stand fast! for the love of 
 
 
 
THE FURNACE 255 
 
 God, stand fast!” and like soldiers who halt on com- 
 mand the mob stopped dead in its tracks. 
 
 Now fully recovered from the blow of the sergeant, 
 Brudidge watched the scene before him with fierce 
 apprehensions. Like a fool he had blundered into a 
 fresh humiliation if not into the end of his career, for 
 there was no mistaking the temper of that mob. With 
 a curse he acknowledged it,—Malcolm Frank and Mal- 
 colm Frank alone stood between him and death. He 
 had heard of the meeting, and asking for no details had 
 embraced with avidity what he hastily concluded was 
 an opportunity to humiliate both Judson and Frank, 
 while he inaugurated his administration with a show 
 of power that would put terror into the minds of the 
 strikers. 
 
 Now he was trapped. Over him stood the trooper, 
 ready to repeat that first dose of the club. Behind 
 him, crowding into the protecting hall, were his thor- 
 oughly terrified companions, while in front of him the 
 man he hated kept ten thousand clawlike hands from 
 reaching for his throat. 
 
 Only an instant did Malcolm Frank awe the multi- 
 tude with the uplifted boy. Then as he swung him to 
 safety behind him and before the hypnotic spell had 
 been broken, he cried, in a voice that rang far out upon 
 the night, a voice that to a white-faced woman, safely 
 sheltered in front of a great elm that had protected 
 her from that first mad rush which had carried her 
 escort away, was as the sound of mighty, healing 
 waters: 
 
 “If you love your women and kids, don’t move!”’ and 
 there, like frozen images with life in them, but fixed 
 
256 THE FURNACE 
 
 under his eye, they stood until he released them. Now 
 he spoke, and so gripped by the man and the message 
 was that multitude that no one seemed to notice when 
 Brudidge withdrew. Piloted by James Judson, he went 
 to the rear of the house and out through the old stable 
 yard he passed with his men. The superintendent’s 
 only comment as he left the shaken wretch was: 
 
 “You made a bad mistake, Brudidge,—nine o’clock 
 in the morning was the hour.” 
 
 As for Malcolm, perhaps it was the face that called 
 to him from the great elm; the face that only once,— 
 when he swung on Peter Brudidge,—had escaped him 
 since she flung up her hand in greeting. Perhaps it 
 was her face that changed his speech that night, for no 
 words that he had planned to speak came from his 
 lips. His message became the incarnation of his life. 
 
 “Comrades,” the great voice boomed, “‘there is only 
 one word greater than justice and right, and that word 
 is duty. There is only one thing more important to me 
 than what I own, and that is what I owe.’ There 
 were thousands in that babel of tongues who caught no 
 meaning from the words, but even they were captured 
 by an all-infolding sense of truth that seemed to come 
 upon the place. Others as they heard and understood 
 were lifted into a new consciousness of self, into a new 
 conception of power, and all, as just a moment before 
 they had been one in elemental passion, were now, for 
 the moment, one in the mind of peace. Upon them 
 the inspired speaker wrought his will. He reiterated 
 the great declaration of his morning decision; he re- 
 viewed his own covenant and renewed in the presence 
 of those who bore in their bodies the marks of the 
 
THE FURNACE 267 
 
 battle with steel the vow of his consecration to the 
 cause of the rights of man. 
 
 But then, as from some chamber of his soul never 
 before unbarred, he sent forth the voice of his faith: 
 “T am here to-night, not because of any right of mine, 
 but because of what I owe to you, to my country, and 
 to my God. Men,” he cried, “‘all is lost if we go out 
 from these grounds, down to the mills that have de- 
 feated us, cherishing our wrongs and remembering only 
 the injustice that power has fastened for the time being 
 more firmly upon us. All is lost, I say, for we have lost 
 our way, lost ourselves. This is the lesson poor and 
 rich alike must learn—not a man’s right, but a man’s 
 duty, and not a corporation’s prerogative of power, just 
 or unjust, but a corporation’s obligation to society.’ 
 
 Now the speaker’s voice softened without falling. 
 His eyes, to one who searched them deeply, became in- 
 trospective, and his face exalted. ‘“Together,” he went 
 on, “we must save America for her mission; together 
 we must pay the price of her greatness,—pay in faith 
 and love and loyalty; pay in service and in sacrifice; 
 pay as Lincoln paid, and as those of whom he spoke,— 
 pay with ‘the last full measure of devotion.’ 
 
 “What matters now this strike? What matter our 
 losses and our hurts? They only win who pay. Those 
 who presently will send out to the world word of their 
 fancied triumph have not paid. Men and women, our 
 war has just begun.”’ 
 
 From that hill of homes the multitude went down in 
 murmuring awe as in another time men descended from 
 a Mount from which they had looked into the face of 
 another world. 
 
= 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 VA anaes the memorable meeting on the grounds of 
 James Judson broke up, Malcolm Frank shook 
 off a score of hands that sought to detain him and 
 hurried down the steps. Almost brusquely he turned 
 aside the eager people who crowded forward to greet 
 him. His eyes were fixed upon the great elm against 
 which Gene Stanton leaned, and with fear,—the fear 
 of old disappointments in his heart,—the fear that once 
 again he would lose her, he pushed forward. 
 
 But Gene Stanton did not move from her place be- 
 neath the protecting tree, and as he came now into the 
 circle old friends had formed about her, he knew that 
 at last she had waited for him. Like a snow queen she 
 was; her form lost among the furs that seemed, as did 
 everything she wore, to caress her. There had been no 
 opportunity to change to the garments of her service, 
 and now her radiant face was set in all the richness of 
 her station. 
 
 As he came, she turned full upon him, and again, 
 impetuously, threw up her hand in greeting. “Mal- 
 colm,” she cried, “I am glad!’—and at that all words 
 left him. He lost the consciousness of time and peo- 
 ple. As he took her hand within his two, he only knew 
 that she had called him Malcolm. 
 
 How long they would have stood together there can- 
 not be told. In happier times, beyond great tragedies, 
 
 he would remember that night as the morning of his 
 258 
 
THE FURNACE 259 
 
 “day.” He would recall her voice upon his name as 
 her love’s first avowal. But even as he felt her nearer 
 presence, and in the spell of her acknowledgment would 
 have drawn her to him, a hand was laid upon his shoul- 
 der, and the voice of James Judson called him to atten- 
 tion. 
 
 “Colonel Frank, I am sorry, but the men are wait- 
 ing. The major here will run Miss Stanton down 
 while we finish up this business.’’ The words were 
 simple enough, but they were more than words; they 
 held a note of warning and command. Malcolm felt 
 the hand within his lose its tenseness, withdraw its re- 
 sponse. 
 
 Instinctively he met her new mood, and released her, 
 but as he did so he caught a light, half of defiance and 
 half of fear, in the glance she flashed at the superin- 
 tendent, and even in his regret he felt exultation. Now, 
 strong in his knowledge, he leaned toward her and 
 once again unconscious of the tides about him whis- 
 pered, “Gene, I love you,’—and she smiled. 
 
 It was a wondrous smile. The chill of the frost was 
 on the ground, the lights had flickered low, and the 
 long shadows had grown dense beneath the tree; but 
 when she smiled the darkness was illumined. 
 
 Only one word the girl whispered in reply,—‘To- 
 morrow.” Then she turned away with Brant. Mal- 
 colm watched as without a backward glance she disap- 
 peared along the drive. Only then did he give atten- 
 tion to his old friend: 
 
 “Superintendent,” he said to the gray man who stood 
 quietly, almost ominously, by, “‘we will finish the busi- 
 ness with the men now.” There was no reply, and he 
 
260 THE FURNACE 
 
 went on, “I don’t know what you know—but that 
 doesn’t worry me now—it doesn’t matter—now that 
 I know what I know!” Still there was no reply un- 
 less a quick intaking of breath by the older man might 
 have been a sign of regret. 
 
 Nothing more passed between the two friends that 
 night. They spent nearly an hour with their new as- 
 sociates, met several newspaper men and then with their 
 customary salutations retired,—James Judson to re- 
 main lone awake while he pondered a problem deeper 
 than strikes, and Malcolm Frank to fall asleep at last 
 with a woman’s “To-morrow” ringing softly in his 
 ears, 
 
 The morning meal in the Judson dining room was a 
 hurried one. The two men seemed by mutual agree- 
 ment to avoid discussion of the events of the preceding 
 day and evening. The superintendent had greeted his 
 young associate with a quietly spoken commendation: 
 “You were in great form last night,” he said. “You 
 saved the old house from riot and murder and made a 
 speech worthy of the occasion.” 
 
 Malcolm’s answer was quite as generous, “But for 
 you,” he replied, “there would have been nothing more 
 than the announcement of another man fired in the 
 papers this morning. As it is,’ and he turned the daily 
 with its front page, flaming, spread, toward his friend, 
 “the city is shaken, and I believe the country will be 
 moved.” 
 
 But as the two men faced each other across the great 
 table, each knew that the thoughts of the other were 
 not of the strike and the momentous changes that had 
 come so quickly. When they rose James Judson looked, 
 
THE FURNACE 261 
 
 with an unspoken question, at Malcolm. The younger 
 man met the eyes of his benefactor, who, he knew, 
 had never been more his friend than he was now, with 
 eyes that evaded nothing, and he answered: 
 
 “T’ll not ride down. Don’t wait for me. I'll be 
 stopping at the Y.W.C.A., and I may not be in for 
 lunch. I’m expecting Chaplain Jayne before ten, and 
 will meet you both at the store. I haven’t seen Major 
 Brant this morning, but am leaving word for him to 
 join us all later,’ and then as though he would take the 
 superintendent into his innermost confidence, he con- 
 cluded : 
 
 “Don’t be anxious about—us. I know what you 
 want to say, but don’t say it. There must be a way 
 through everything and—we will find it.” Those last 
 words were spoken with so deep a conviction that James 
 Judson, even as he felt the weight of foreboding and 
 anxiety increase within his soul, was reassured by them. 
 He made no direct reply, but as he slipped into the ulster 
 his friend held for him he remarked, “I'll be waiting 
 for you at ten then,’’—and so they separated, but for 
 a longer time than had been spoken, 
 
 Five minutes later Malcolm Frank swung down the 
 long drive with the stride of a conqueror. Once again 
 he felt himself a free man. The restraints of troubled 
 months were thrown off. The doubts and misgivings 
 that had so grown in the immediate past were left be- 
 hind, and with a mind set to the edge of the crisp air, 
 he thought with eager tenderness of the moment of 
 meeting toward which he hurried. 
 
 He was no dissembler,—far from it. He was at 
 times almost hopelessly, pathetically, transparent. He 
 
262 THE FURNACE 
 
 realized this now as he recalled how from that first 
 day in the office James Judson had anticipated his heart, 
 and how both the chaplain and major had known im- 
 mediately how deep was his “‘wound.” But he only 
 smiled, and with keen satisfaction as he remembered, 
 —a satisfaction that grew immeasurably as he recalled 
 the words of Gene Stanton and the glory of the ac- 
 knowledgment in which she had spoken them by the 
 old elm only a few hours before. What mattered the 
 secret that James Judson shared with President Bran- 
 son? What mattered anything? And in this mood 
 he came to the door that had become to him more than 
 the entrance to an institution. 
 
 In response to his request for Miss Stanton the girl 
 at the dask handed him a sealed note, which, with a 
 rush of misgivings, he tore open, only to experience a 
 great reassurance. 
 
 “Malcolm,” the note began,—and how he reveled 
 in his own name as he saw it there, “I will be waiting 
 for you at the Shuskis——-where you used to live and 
 where once we went, together,—oh, so long ago! 
 Somehow I feel that this is the one and only place for 
 us to meet to-day. Last night a wild plan came to me, 
 and I almost caught that early morning train for the 
 green hills and your shining walls. I thought that to 
 wait for you there above the town where you left me 
 on that Sunday afternoon would be most wonderful, 
 but then I remembered that a soldier, even a colonel, 
 should never leave an action until it is finished,—and 
 besides I found that the next train wouldn’t bring you 
 to Jonesville until evening!” 
 
 How he drank in the words, and all that he felt, un- 
 
THE FURNACE 263 
 
 spoken, behind them, rejoicing as he did so, that not 
 even for his “shining walls” had she postponed their 
 meeting. Then in a flash he gathered up the last sen- 
 tence and hurried to the street. ‘Don’t hurry, if there 
 is work*to do, but it has been so long since last night. 
 Gene.” Thus concluded the first love letter Malcolm 
 Frank had ever received. 
 
 Perhaps it was a half mile from the lodgings of 
 Gene Stanton to the home of the Shuskis,—a half mile 
 that the young Finn traveled as a man under peremp- 
 tory orders. 
 
 When he swung into the familiar alley-like street, 
 for the first time since he saw his name on that damask 
 page he became conscious of his surroundings. Then 
 it was that a frenzied cry called him back to realities. 
 Out of a gate, the broken gate through which he used 
 to pass daily, came a woman, disheveled and frantic— 
 the widow of “Deeds” Shuski—came, wringing her 
 hands and screaming. Only one name Frank heard,— 
 then he went deaf and blind. 
 
 The frightened eyes that turned upon that portion 
 of the street when those first shrieks pierced the quiet 
 of the morning, saw a man, with one prodigious leap, 
 clear fence and porch, and as the floor of the latter 
 crashed beneath him, hurl himself, as though propelled 
 by the muscles of a lion, through the door that had 
 swung wide behind the frantic woman. 
 
 “Brudidge!’ the mother of “Deeds” Shuski’s chil- 
 dren had cried as she staggered forth from some hor- 
 ror, and “Brudidge’”’ it was that sent Frank from 
 Heaven to Hell as, led by mad instinct, he plunged up 
 the dark stairs. The locked door in front of him was 
 
264 THE FURNACE 
 
 less than a challenge,—he hurled it from his shoulders 
 and crashed over the threshold. | 
 
 Out of the far corner came the “Black Killer” ; from 
 behind him there was no sound, but as the fiend came 
 on the vengeance in front of him, that had been a man, 
 took account of baffled fury, thwarted lust, and then 
 engaged to keep a rendezvous with death. 
 
 The giants met like mighty brutes in that first rush, 
 —met, battered, and swayed. Matched they were,— 
 matched like jungle apes, like primordial bulls. No 
 word was spoken—the struggle was a silent madness. 
 Brudidge gave ground first, but only to find an advan- 
 tage. Swinging free from the other’s hold, he leaped 
 backward upon the burning stove, caught it up in his 
 dripping hands and hurled it from his steaming flesh. 
 Like the bolt of a Hercules it crashed down upon 
 Frank who, only half evading it, came on through 
 smoke and fire to bloody grips again. 
 
 And now for the challenger a new element entered 
 into the conflict—the horror of the flames. He must 
 destroy,—destroy the foul thing in front of him, but 
 he must save her. There had been time before; now 
 there was no time; now eternity was a second. He 
 staggered back as though overcome. Brudidge lunged 
 forward, leered and lunged, but as he lunged his half- 
 closed eyes saw life for the last time. 
 
 His chin met the pneumatic drive of the Finn’s 
 mighty hammer,—great knuckles mashed against a 
 splintering jaw. The “Black Killer’ sagged sideways 
 in his fall, and as he came tumbling down remorseless 
 arms lifted him, mangled hands swung him against the 
 jamb of the doorway, bent him backwards, twisted him, 
 
THE FURNACE 265 
 
 buckled him until there came from somewhere a sound 
 that was like the crackling of a blazing cedar log or 
 the snapping of a seasoned stick. 
 
 And then, with the thing that had been Peter Bru- 
 didge on his shoulders, that which had been Malcolm: 
 Frank staggered through the burning door opening on 
 the roof of the porch,—a crude sleeping place for extra 
 boarders it had been. For an instant he stood looking 
 down upon the rapidly filling street; men, women and 
 children rushing with cries and curses toward the out- 
 raged home of the murdered “Deeds” Shuski; then 
 he lifted his burden high above his head, and, crying as 
 he had cried the night before, “Stand back!” he hurled 
 it from him. Crashing through the frail fence in front 
 of the narrow yard it came to rest half upon the street 
 and half upon the walk. 
 
 But even as he cast the thing from him, the fury 
 on the roof turned back through the now flame-cased 
 door. Into the far corner he groped his choking way. 
 There he gathered up a broken, silent form, wrapped 
 his bloody coat about the bruised face, and crawled, 
 sobbing and changed, behind the draft that sucked out- 
 ward, to the door through which he had entered. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 S the choking, reeling man that had been Malcolm 
 
 reached the top of the stairs Judson and Jayne 
 
 met him; Brant came close behind. They had fought 
 
 their way up through the smoke, and now they caught 
 
 up his precious burden as he fell. Other eager hands 
 
 lifted Malcolm and carried him from the furnace into 
 the street. 
 
 “Take care of him,” the old superintendent had cried, 
 “take care of him. Don’t leave him,” as he drove away 
 with the senseless and apparently lifeless form of Gene 
 Stanton in his arms. His call was a cry of utter agony 
 to Brant and Jayne. That there was a chance, one 
 chance in a thousand, to save Gene the two men knew 
 who worked now over Malcolm Frank, and they 
 knew, too, that it was for this that James Judson had 
 left the side of the one he loved dearer than his own 
 life. 
 
 Nor was James Judson too prompt. Scarcely had 
 his car disappeared when the constabulary swarmed 
 into the street, crowding the already frenzied people 
 against the fences, but opening a way for the delayed 
 fire equipment which, while it could not save the house 
 of the Shuskis, did avert a greater disaster which for 
 a time threatened that entire quarter of the city. Only 
 the group about Malcolm Frank remained,—only that 
 group and the red thing, half in the gutter, which no 
 man had touched, 
 
 266 
 
THE FURNACE 267 
 
 It was Sergeant Johnson who came forward when 
 the lines were established. “My God! What does it 
 mean?” he questioned, horror growing upon him. 
 Jayne and Brant who, arriving early from the city and 
 following the surge of the crowd from the store only a’ 
 block away, had come upon the scene just in time to 
 witness the tragedy on the porch, did not reply. Nor 
 was there need. 
 
 Relentlessly the spirit of the young giant commanded 
 his body; no hand of mercy reached down to hold his 
 eyes,—they opened upon the memory of his desolation, 
 and as they opened they looked first upon his empty 
 arms. He uttered a throating cry, and, before his 
 friends could restrain him, floundered over upon his 
 face and to his knees. 
 
 “Judson has her,’ Jayne whispered, as he held the 
 anguished man from further violent effort. 
 
 Sergeant Johnson turned to the dead—blankets were 
 brought and presently a delivery wagon was requisi- 
 tioned. 
 
 Meanwhile Jayne and Brant with other willing assist- 
 ants had moved Malcolm into an adjoining house 
 where he was given the attention of a physician. His 
 condition was pitiable. He was bruised and battered 
 almost beyond recognition,—for one moment of agony 
 Brant looking up at the terrible sight on the porch had 
 not known who was the victor. His face was a great 
 open wound, while his body was a welter of burns. 
 Not until hours later were they to know that he had 
 not suffered fatal internal injuries from the flames, and 
 to his grave he would carry the deeper scars of that 
 hideous struggle. 
 
268 ‘THE FURNACE 
 
 But it was less than an hour after the climax of the 
 tragedy that the patient insisted upon seeing the Ser- 
 geant. “No, I want him now,” he demanded, when he 
 was importuned to wait to husband his returning 
 strength. “Now, I say,” he persisted. When the 
 young officer came into the room his former superior 
 was sitting up swathed in bandages and propped 
 against the men he had long since come to hold as 
 brothers. He greeted quietly the man who had once 
 known his magnanimity and forgetfulness, and then he 
 said as quietly, “Sergeant, where are your handcuffs?” 
 
 The officer started with surprise, but the handcuffs 
 hung conspicuously from his holster, and the quick eyes 
 of the former colonel saw them. With just a hint of 
 the old military imperiousness as he held out his hands, 
 one padded with bandages, he said, “Sergeant, snap 
 them on,—I killed him.” 
 
 The silence in the room deepened, became tense, and 
 then the distraught officer spoke, ‘Killed what?’ he 
 said, and it was not a question. “I didn’t see anything 
 dead,’ he continued, “anything that ought to have 
 lived. I—” and with what he would have concluded 
 will always remain an interesting query in the minds 
 of those who were watching his deeply troubled face, 
 for even as he was speaking, the doctor who had just 
 been in attendance on the former assistant superintend- 
 ent returned hurriedly and as one who has no time to 
 lose said: 
 
 “Colonel Frank,—I have bad news for you,—news 
 you should be protected from, but I have no choice in 
 the matter. Your father is here; he has been injured, 
 seriously hurt,—he insists upon seeing you.”’ 
 
THE FURNACE 269 
 
 The medical man spoke rapidly, and the sound of 
 paired feet falling heavily came in from the narrow 
 hall, and a canvas stretcher appeared at the door. On 
 a folded blanket lay a gray head. The face was very 
 white, the eyes were closed, and through the half-open 
 mouth came the sound of slow and labored breathing. 
 
 Malcolm looked down upon the form that lay on the 
 rude frame they placed now close by his bed. For a 
 long minute he gave no sign of understanding. Then, 
 leaning forward and drawing his friends with him, he 
 brushed the white hair far back on the high, seamed 
 forehead. Still the aged and now gasping man made 
 no movement of consciousness. But a sense of fore- 
 boding, an intuition, came to the younger. His eyes 
 were suddenly fixed; deep fear flooded them, and with 
 a touch of mastery he stroked the pallid face. 
 
 “Father!” he cried. The eyes that had been closed, 
 opened—quietly, freely, as from sleep. A smile illu- 
 mined the countenance; a deep sigh, as of one who has 
 rested, escaped the lips. For a moment the concen- 
 tration of pain relaxed, and a voice whispered as 
 though from a motive of great happiness, “Malcolm,— 
 my son!” 
 
 Long the two men looked upon each other, while the 
 younger still caressed the elder with his one free hand. 
 Presently the coal miner began to talk. 
 
 “Malcolm,—my son,” he said again, speaking as 
 though he loved to linger on the words, and hesitating 
 after he had spoken them, as though he would repeat 
 them yet again. But he went on, as from an inner urge, 
 “T read the papers this morning. I came to tell you I 
 am glad,—and proud. I—I—have been hurt,—here.”’ 
 
270 THE FURNACE 
 
 He raised one hand and it fell upon his chest. He 
 writhed with pain and coughed. Blood started in a 
 hemorrhage from his mouth. Anxiously the physician 
 worked over him, but when the spasm had passed he 
 insisted upon speaking, and as a man who has a great 
 fear of not being able to finish what he has in mind, he 
 went on, but in a voice lower and weaker. 
 
 “Don’t blame the soldier—he was excited—afraid, 
 —just a boy; the horse got his head—broke through 
 the crowd—I was—in—the way.” Again he tried to 
 raise his hand, but failed now altogether, and piteously 
 his eyes dropped from Malcolm’s face, whose bandages 
 he either did not see or would not question,—dropped 
 from the anguished face of his son to his own breast. 
 
 Malcolm caught the feeble gesture, and tenderly 
 searched within his father’s garments. Presently he 
 brought forth a tiny, faded, cotton flag,—a bit of old 
 red, white and blue. The dying man’s eyes lighted and 
 strained toward it. Again he smiled as he whispered: 
 
 “You wore it in your blouse when we came through 
 Ellis Island, and when—you—rode—upon—my— 
 shoulders—through—the—station-gates. For years— 
 I have had—it—there—upon—my—heart. Take it— 
 back, and wear—it—now,—for me.”’ 
 
 Again he smiled, and then was silent for many min- 
 utes. His breathing became yet more labored. The 
 group about him scarcely stirred. Malcolm, supported 
 by the unfailing arms of Bruce and Haig, leaned closer 
 to him. With his unmaimed hand he clasped the broad 
 expanse of his father’s brow, or with his palm com- 
 forted the now sightless eyes that had again closed. 
 
THE FURNACE 271 
 
 Once and again sobs shook and wracked his burning 
 frame. 
 
 But the end was not yet. The lips of the broken 
 miner were moving; he was speaking again. “I—came 
 —to—tell—you. I—am—glad—my—son,—and— 
 proud,” he repeated with great effort, and once more a 
 smile sent shining rivers down the deep furrows of his 
 face. Now to all but one he seemed to wander as his 
 soul no longer waited for his will, but ran on with 
 mingled words of happier times. Malcolm understood 
 and bending close above the snow-white head felt him- 
 self again a little boy beside a prophet’s knee. 
 
 “There—was—Washington—and Lincolh—and—” 
 
 So died Joseph Frank of the Foreign-Born, 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 Beane called the four months following the death 
 
 of Malcolm’s father ‘“‘the dark ages’’; they found 
 the young Finn who had destroyed Peter Brudidge be- 
 hind prison walls,—charged with murder; they passed 
 with only one message from Gene Stanton,—a single 
 wire received from James Judson five days after his 
 disappearance,—a telegram sent from the city’s Union 
 Station to Malcolm, a telegram which could not be 
 traced, and which read, “Alive and will surely recover. 
 Fear for nothing. Weare with you and will be at your 
 side when needed.” 
 
 Those same months saw the end of the United World 
 Movement, so far as its world-wide program was con- 
 cerned, and all but the final disposition of the report 
 of the special investigating commission. They recorded 
 the dissolution of a great kingdom vision for a united 
 Christendom. Here was the bravest dream since the 
 fall of Constantine, and the mightiest gesture of Chris- 
 tian unity since Jesus was crucified. Created by world 
 needs the war made apparent, it grew at the first in a 
 war psychology, but burned out as with the war fever. 
 No man, no men, killed it; it died. Why those who 
 should have been its friends failed to save it, why they 
 watched it perish without giving their lives for it, gen- 
 erations yet unborn will question, and great men will 
 say, as they look back upon it, “Ah, there was a cause 
 worth living and dying for!’ and when they have said 
 
 272 
 
THE FURNACE 273 
 
 that, the spirits of those who joined themselves to it, 
 believed in it, toiled for it, suffered with it, and turned 
 broken-hearted away because its dream was denied, 
 will have their reward, for then they shall know that the 
 United World Movement was a living soul, and that 
 death could not destroy it. 
 
 It was the movement’s general secretary, Dr. Searl 
 Ballard,—“greatest prophet of modern Christianity” he 
 had been called,—who, when one mighty denomination 
 after another withdrew vital elements of strength from 
 the central body and demanded increasingly its sub- 
 serviance to the peculiar programs of the separate 
 sects, declared, “‘For the church the war ended too 
 soon. She had not yet passed under her rod... . 
 With these fundamental principles surrendered to 
 achieve a temporary respite from sectarian attack, or to 
 placate the threat of denominational withdrawal, I can 
 see no hope of success. We may for a time engage in 
 many activities, but we shall go forward no longer. 
 We will be as those who move mightily up the narrow 
 lane of a treadmill.” And then in his confidential 
 memorandum to his executive associates he concluded, 
 “T feel bound to give you this, my frank judgment. 
 Personally I would rather lose a great church to the 
 movement than surrender a great principle, but the 
 committee has willed otherwise, and I cannot find it in 
 my heart to withdraw. I would rather live a year with 
 this vision and die with it than live a hundred years 
 anywhere else.” 
 
 Only too soon Searl Ballard’s confidential prophecy 
 was to be realized; the United World Movement, as the 
 church had known it, was to pass; men were to ascribe 
 
274 THE FURNACE 
 
 to many causes its failure; but no leader was to diag- 
 nose its fatal malady more clearly than this man who 
 gave to it his all, and, in giving that, gave more than 
 any one else. 
 
 But when the books of the movement were finally 
 audited, and the last balance was struck, one abiding 
 contribution was to remain, a contribution which would 
 finally be judged as so great and vital as to justify the 
 movement itself, which fell like a dead sun from the 
 ecclesiastical sky,—that contribution was the work of 
 the Bureau of Bruce Jayne. 
 
 But those months which witnessed the passing of the 
 United World Movement did not witness the end of 
 the nation-wide upheaval which followed the published 
 accounts of the tragic events occurring in Oldsburg on 
 the fateful day chronicled in the preceding chapters. 
 
 “In Oldsburg,” we have written, but in one particular 
 at least they were not confined to that wildly agitated © 
 community, for when the news of the sudden and 
 violent end of Brudidge reached the general offices of 
 the Bancroft Steel Company, Jasper Branson fell dead 
 by his desk. Perhaps it were better to record the full 
 truth—these are the details of the unexpected passing 
 of the president of the great company: 
 
 For several days, or ever since his stormy conference 
 in the Oldsburg offices, the man of iron will had been 
 changed. Strangely unlike the old unyielding master 
 of men he had been, and when a white-faced secretary | 
 in the first horror of the word from the old Judson 
 stronghold rushed in to him, he was standing as though 
 in deep thought before a faded war poster that hung 
 on his door. 
 
THE FURNACE 275 
 
 “Mr. Branson,” the wild-eyed young man cried, “Mr. 
 Branson, Brudidge is dead,—killed by Colonel Frank.” 
 
 The president started at the announcement and 
 swung half about; the color surged into his face. 
 “What?” he gasped, and then swaying slightly, but 
 steadying his great body with a hand dropped heavily 
 upon the back of his chair, he asked a strange ques- 
 tion,—strange indeed it sounded to the secretary,— 
 “Why ?” 
 
 Startled, the youth at first seemed at a loss for words. 
 As he hesitated his chief’s face became livid, “Why ?” 
 he thundered. 
 
 “T do not know, sir,” the thoroughly frightened 
 fellow replied, “but my information is that the colonel 
 killed Brudidge and threw him from a burning house 
 into the street and then collapsed while carrying out the 
 body of a girl,—a special visitor of ours named Gene 
 Stanton.” 
 
 As that name came from the subordinate’s lips, 
 the form of Jasper Branson stiffened and seemed sud- 
 denly to shrivel. His eyes started from their sockets; 
 his hand clutched at his collar, ““Gene—Gene Stanton ?”’ 
 he gasped incredulously, “My God!—Gene—” and 
 horror gripped him with an ague. 
 
 But what he would have said was never finished. 
 His words were lost in a throaty gurgle. His limbs 
 crumpled under him, and as a giant oak, twisted from 
 its foundations by an incredible storm, falls back a life- 
 less trunk upon the earth, he collapsed upon the floor of 
 the chamber that had been for a generation the throne- 
 room of his power. He never spoke again. When 
 assistance reached his side, he was quite dead. 
 
276 THE FURNACE 
 
 As to Malcolm Frank, the case would have been > 
 simple enough but for one thing. Even in the city of 
 steel his release would have been prompt had it not 
 been for the dropping out of sight of two people, James 
 Judson and the young woman in defense of whose 
 honor the Widow Shuski swore the young Finn de- 
 stroyed the company official. As it was, with the strike 
 ended, and the organization flushed with victory, arro- 
 gant with confirmed power, a strong group insisted 
 upon an example being made of the former assistant 
 superintendent. 
 
 Publicity channels were filled with inspired stories. — 
 Every advantage was taken of the embarrassment faced 
 by the defense in the absence of two of its three most 
 important witnesses, and a ruthless campaign was 
 organized to send Colonel Frank to prison for life. A 
 death sentence while ostensibly the goal of the prosecu- 
 tion was never considered seriously. 
 
 The story of Mrs. Shuski that Brudidge, under the 
 influence of liquor and completely in the control of his 
 brutal passions, had followed the young woman into the 
 Shuski home, that he had insulted her there, and then 
 violently attacked both of the women, who were alone; 
 that he had carried the unconscious settlement worker 
 up the stairs just as her distracted companion had 
 rushed screaming into the street was believed by every 
 worker in the city and by every friend of the young 
 prisoner. 
 
 But it was found by the District Attorney’s office to 
 be full of opportunities, and it lacked vital corrobora- 
 tions. 
 
 Through the weeks of suspense and suffering, Mal- 
 
THE FURNACE 277 
 
 colm waited. Only the one message had come to re- 
 lieve his agony of soul. In it he found a reassurance 
 that steadied him, Had he known all the details that 
 later were not withheld from him, he would have been 
 even more miserable than he was. Between the pain . 
 of his physical hurts and the deeper wounds of his 
 mind, he was often in a state bordering on distraction. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, in his darkest hours the 
 death of his father, the memory of those last moments 
 and last words, assuaged his grief. He was glad the 
 end had come before the knowledge of his own vast 
 trouble. His faith, though now and again obscured, 
 never failed. He believed that truth would finally have 
 her way, and with a kind of prophetic fatalism he held 
 himself in hand against the time of his court ordeal. 
 
 Of Gene he thought and dreamed constantly, and, 
 thinking of her, came again to the spiritual foundations 
 of his boyhood, stood once more firmly upon the high 
 resolve of his soul. He knew that he would not fail. 
 He knew that they would find each other. 
 
 Bruce Jayne and Haig Brant were never long away, 
 and one always stood by. Theirs was the task of meet- 
 ing the company propaganda and meet it they did, save 
 where the influence of steel controlled arbitrarily the 
 organs of publicity. That Chaplain Jayne knew Gene 
 Stanton,—knew who she really was,—neither the major 
 nor Frank were aware, but immediately on returning 
 to New York he made certain inquiries which left him 
 no less anxious, but much less uncertain. 
 
 However, not all the time of the two friends could be 
 devoted to the personal interests of the colonel, nor 
 would he have had it so. Often he said, “Cut me out, 
 
278 THE FURNACE 
 
 fellows—I’m safe. Keep that report in the open. T’ll 
 be more worried about it than about some other things, 
 until I know that it is safely through your committee 
 and off the presses.” 
 
 That there was some ground for his anxiety both 
 Brant and Jayne knew. Never had the work of the 
 investigating commission been nearer disaster than it 
 was on the morning Bruce returned from the West 
 with his report. 
 
 It was forty-eight hours after Malcolm’s catastrophe 
 before the chaplain could secure his own consent of 
 mind to start for New York, and then only after it had 
 been arranged for Brant to remain in the West in- 
 definitely. In the meantime the details of the tragedy 
 had reached the farthest ears of the United World 
 Movement, and the inevitable coupling of the names 
 of the director of the Industrial Bureau and the sec- 
 retary of the investigating commission with the terrible 
 affair had driven the old enemies of the investigation 
 into a bitter determination. 
 
 When Bruce reached the Movement’s headquarters 
 on the morning of his return, he went at once to Dr. 
 Ballard’s private office. None of the staff had arrived, 
 but he waited for his chief. The greeting of the two 
 men was mutually reassuring. The general secretary 
 said quietly, “Jayne, it begins to look as though God is 
 keeping us alive to hear your report,” and the chaplain 
 smiled as he replied, “Perhaps even God won't be able 
 to keep some men alive afterwards.” 
 
 With a smile Dr. Ballard replied, “The executive 
 committee meets at nine—we will need you then.” 
 
THE FURNACE 279 
 
 There was a full attendance at the nine o’clock meet- 
 ing. Almost immediately occurred an incident that 
 every man present would always remember,—an inci- 
 dent the memory of which would remain with those 
 who gathered in that soon-to-be-deserted conference | 
 room as confirmation of the courage and moral sound- 
 ness of the leadership of the Christian Church. 
 
 One of the chief and most persistent objectors to the 
 work of the investigating commission arose and said, 
 “T move to dismiss the commission investigating the 
 steel strike, and to indefinitely postpone the publication 
 of its report.” 
 
 As the speaker sat down, David Strong addressed 
 the chair. He had come in late; he had not been ex- 
 pected. For several days he had not been available for 
 even the most important business conferences at his 
 own Offices. But during the remarks of the last speaker 
 he had slipped quietly into his chair, and now as he 
 stood to speak, his appearance caused every man who 
 turned his eye upon him to start with surprise. The 
 strong face was drawn, hard and set; the eyes were 
 those of one who has not slept, but the voice was quite 
 natural : 
 
 “Gentlemen,” he said, “I am, as I am sure you are, 
 profoundly disturbed by this motion.” 
 
 The speaker went on in the same quiet tone, “I hope 
 that this motion will not be seconded, and that nothing 
 will be done here to interfere with the work of Doctor 
 Justice and his associates. I come to-day to tell you 
 that if it seems wise to this executive committee to 
 take the action indicated by the gentlemen who made 
 
280 THE FURNACE 
 
 this motion, then I must resign and publish my reason 
 even as IJ shall later surely publish the result of the in- 
 vestigations into the steel strike.” 
 
 The speaker paused now, but did not surrender the 
 floor, and no man disputed him. But afterward every 
 man bore witness that David Strong’s authority as he 
 stood there was, for the first time, not the authority of 
 his wealth and position; it was moral,—the authority 
 that in a supreme crisis makes a Luther or a Von Wink- 
 elried, and that stops for neither poverty nor riches, but 
 commands both. 
 
 “Mr. Chairman and gentlemen,” he concluded, ‘“‘if 
 there is no motion before us,’—and there was none— 
 “TI move that a committee of five be appointed by the 
 chair, from this body, to receive and consider the ma- 
 terial of the commission investigating the steel strike; 
 that it report back to us at the earliest possible date; 
 and that this report be made on the basis of the facts 
 and findings. There is no need for anything further, 
 since we have already voted to publish. We do need, 
 however, this smaller group to do for us what it is 
 manifestly impossible for each member of this body 
 to do for himself, within the limits of time that should 
 elapse before we open our books to the public,”—and 
 this was the only motion considered, the only action 
 taken by the executive committee that day. 
 
 The special committee of five was duly named, and 
 immediately began its work. The long and exacting 
 field and office service for Haig Brant was at an end; 
 the labors of the commissioners were practically com- 
 pleted, and the fruit of their prodigious activities came 
 now into the hands of the five who had been entrusted — 
 
THE FURNACE 281 
 
 with the delicate task of practically passing, for the 
 executive committee of the United Movement, upon the 
 whole investigating program. 
 
 The task assigned to the committee of five was so ex- 
 acting and so voluminous that instead of days or weeks | 
 months passed before it was ready to make its final re- 
 port. In the meantime the former executive leaders 
 and trustees of the United World Movement, which re- 
 mained little more than a name, were becoming more 
 and more familiar with the actual circumstances under 
 which the strike investigations had been carried on, 
 and were quite prepared to deal finally with the matter 
 when it came before them. 
 
 As for Chaplain Jayne, when with Haig Brant he 
 was not devoting himself to the interests of Malcolm 
 Frank, he was spending his time with Doctor Justice, 
 and the Doctor it was who first dreamed the dream that 
 a few years later sent another Bishop, the youngest 
 ever elected in a great church, to the Orient, there to 
 become one of the mightiest social and evangelistic 
 prophets of his time—but this is far beyond our writ- 
 ing, and does not concern our story. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 HE trees were green again and the grass in its 
 
 first velvet when the week of Malcolm Frank’s 
 trial arrived. The case had been long in the public eye, 
 but interest in it had not waned. The attorneys for the 
 defense had mapped out a plan of campaign which de- 
 manded a change of venue, exploiting the fact that the 
 “city” was hopelessly prejudiced against the defendant, 
 and that the record of that portion of the state in the 
 abridgment of civil liberties was conclusive proof that 
 Colonel Frank could not be given a fair trial in its 
 atmosphere and environment. 
 
 But to this proposal the defendant refused to con- 
 sent. His attorneys were stunned. They used every 
 persuasion and argument in their ample repertoire, but 
 he remained adamant. “No,” was his final answer, 
 “if I can’t be cleared here, I won’t be cleared any- 
 where.” 
 
 It was not until the state revealed its hand in the 
 opening statement that the seriousness of the situation 
 became apparent even to Frank’s counsel—as for his 
 friends they were thrown almost into a panic. ‘We 
 will show,” the prosecution declared, “that there was a 
 feud of long standing between the murdered man and 
 the defendant. That there had been constant differ- 
 ences and several previous physical encounters between 
 them. That only a few hours before the tragedy Mr. 
 
 Brudidge had replaced the prisoner in the offices of the 
 282 
 
THE FURNACE 283 
 
 Oldsburg mills. We will show that there were causes 
 for others to have the most malignant feelings against 
 the murdered man” (an intimation of the effort that 
 would be made to impeach or discount the testimony of 
 the widow of “‘Deed’”’ Shuski) “and we will also present 
 reasons for the disappearance of certain principals, be- 
 yond any that thus far have been revealed.” 
 
 And in the five days that followed a net was drawn 
 about the man who sat with the pallor of his confine- 
 ment and the agony of his suspense, in the prisoner’s 
 dock, that gave the distinguished attorneys who labored 
 to free him grave and growing concern. 
 
 The facts that passed unchallenged for the defense, 
 though not uninterpreted by the prosecution, were the 
 screaming exit of Mrs. Shuski, the entrance of Mal- 
 colm Frank, the hurling of the body of Peter Brudidge 
 from the roof, the fire, the carrying away of the young 
 girl by James Judson. But under the skillful hands 
 of the prosecutor these very facts were made to but- 
 tress sinister deductions. Mrs. Shuski in her cross- 
 examination became confused, and though she never 
 wavered in her story and told it with a naked honesty 
 that swept the court with conviction, under the lash of 
 her tormentors she cried out the agony of her own 
 erief and declared in utter abandon that she hated 
 Brudidge as the murderer of her husband, nor was she 
 loath to confess the benefactions that had come from 
 the hands of the defendant. ‘‘We would have starved, 
 but for him,” she wept. 
 
 The testimony of both the chaplain and the major 
 was impressive, but inadequate. They had seen only 
 what others had seen, save for the incident at the head 
 
284 THE FURNACE 
 
 of the burning stairs, and Sergeant Johnson it was who 
 established the fact of the killing by words of the 
 prisoner’s own mouth. Reluctantly he told the story of 
 the scene by Malcolm’s bed, immediately after the 
 tragedy. The statement of the young officer had ample 
 corroboration. “But for that,’ the attorneys fumed, 
 “there would be an open question as to how Brudidge 
 died—he was thrown from a burning building, and 
 the only witness to what happened within the place is 
 the defendant,—but, ye gods, if his testimony helps us 
 as much as his previous statements, he will be both 
 electrocuted and hanged.”’ 
 
 “Where are Judson and the girl?” again and again 
 thundered the prosecution. “Why are they not here?” 
 and there was no answer. But often Bruce Jayne 
 turned to the door expectantly, fearfully, and like a 
 man released from some curse he felt himself when 
 his own cross-examination had been completed without 
 those questions having been asked him. But as for 
 securing answers to their questions, the prosecution 
 seemed quite willing to go without the information, and 
 only concerned to keep before the jury the suspicions 
 that the questions conveyed. 
 
 The day on which the prisoner was called to the stand 
 was one never to be forgotten. It will remain to mark 
 a sort of epoch in the history of the criminal courts of a 
 state, for the defendant deliberately gave testimony 
 which under the circumstances and under the law 
 seemed to convict him. Gave it with his own counsel 
 fighting like mad to keep it out of the record. Gave it 
 with the judge sitting by in open-mouthed astonish- 
 ment, and the jury leaning forward spellbound, while 
 
THE FURNACE 285 
 
 the attorneys for the state remained silent lest they 
 weaken their own case. 
 
 Quietly Malcolm Frank told his story; told it to the 
 last detail; told it so vividly that those who heard 
 seemed to live through that flaming battle themselves. | 
 A juryman fainted when the prisoner described the 
 crash of the burning stove, and fainted again when he 
 heard him say, in answer to a question, “Yes, I went 
 up those stairs and into that room to destroy Peter 
 Brudidge; I did not know what I would find,” he shud- 
 dered, ‘but somehow,” he continued, “I knew that I 
 would not find the worst; I knew that I would not be 
 too late, but I knew,” and a terrible conviction was in 
 the speaker’s words, “I knew that I would destroy 
 Peter Brudidge.” 
 
 When the defendant finished his direct testimony 
 he was a free man so far as the jury was considered, 
 but he had laid foundations upon which the prosecu- 
 tion would presently turn against him a tide, that only 
 Providence could overcome. 
 
 The cross-examination was appalling; an ordeal that 
 made the prisoner again a frenzied destroyer, for it re- 
 vealed the foul slander that had been planned against 
 the woman he loved. “You went to kill Peter Bru- 
 didge?”’ was the first question of the prosecutor. “I 
 went to destroy Peter Brudidge,—so help me God,” 
 responded Malcolm Frank with startling confirmation. 
 
 The next question was as the setting off of a mine 
 under the inner defenses of a citadel. “Did you ever 
 make a railway trip into another state with the woman 
 in this case, with Gene Stanton?” the prosecutor asked 
 in a voice of sinister quietness. The three hours 
 
286 THE FURNACE 
 
 following that were a bedlam and a fury. Through 
 them the man on the witness stand was more nearly 
 master of himself than any of the others who joined 
 with him or against him in the infuriated struggle, a 
 struggle which to him was no longer a struggle for his 
 life, but which had become a battle for the honor of 
 the woman he loved. Again and again he felt the pas- 
 sions of the caged animal as he saw the fiendish sug- 
 _ gestiveness of the theory developed by the state. 
 Again and again he felt the futile, thwarted fury of one 
 who watches in helplessness the treasures of his soul 
 dragged through shame. 
 
 His own townsmen, the frightened friends of his 
 boyhood, were made to offer testimony that must count 
 heavily against him. Every fact marshaled by his 
 defenders, and clean, brave facts they were, must first 
 be strained through the dirty sieve of that foul ques- 
 tion, nor could the attorneys who sought to save their 
 client,—save him from worse than death or life im- 
 prisonment,—break down the far-reaching and cumula- 
 tive impression made upon the minds of the jury by 
 the plausibly drawn and impressively supported theory 
 of the state. 
 
 Nothing short of acquittal could ever save Malcolm 
 Frank,—not even the prosecuting attorney expected the 
 death penalty, nor even life imprisonment, but that the 
 jury, this first jury, would disagree, and that when 
 finally the case had gone the way of all such cases, the 
 defendant would be stripped of every vestige of his 
 former high standing and moral distinction,—seemed 
 assured. For this, in the name of the law, and in the 
 atmosphere of the city; for the pride of professional 
 
THE FURNACE 287 
 
 distinction, and in the absence of an unknown woman, 
 the prosecution battled with all the trappings and mental 
 equipment of skilled debate. 
 
 Nor was the great organization unmindful of the im- 
 plications and opportunities of the case, now hurrying. 
 into its concluding phases. The mills beneath the 
 towering stacks were not busier than the machinery of 
 the great offices that sent forth the implications of the 
 former great hero’s double living and undoing. 
 
 It was the last question of the cross-examination that 
 sent Bruce Jayne in a rush for the door,—a mad rush 
 that seemed to be the final surrender of one of the de- 
 fendant’s staunchest friends. But though surrender it 
 was, quite of another sort it was than appearances in- 
 dicated. 
 
 The prosecuting attorney had stepped close to the 
 prisoner in asking his final questions. They were these: 
 —‘“Do you believe the woman, Gene Stanton, to be 
 alive?” The answer had been “Yes.” “Do you know 
 where she is?” The answer had been “No,” and then, 
 barked out with all the sinister cruelty of that other 
 question, came these words, “Do you believe that the 
 name Gene Stanton is the real name of the woman you 
 carried from the Shuski house?” 
 
 It was then that Malcolm Frank found relief. Out 
 of the mental and spiritual torture of his Calvary he 
 rose like some veritable god of faith. Leaping to his 
 feet, he cried, “I believe in Gene Stanton as I believe in 
 my mother. Finish this business,—I’m done.” 
 
 When Bruce Jayne rejoined Haig Brant that night, 
 he was a deeply agitated man. ‘Where have you 
 been?’ the major fairly shouted, as he came into the 
 
288 THE FURNACE 
 
 room the two occupied together, and the chaplain re- 
 plied dully, “To the end of the world,—and I’m still 
 there.’ After a long interval of silence he concluded, 
 “T’ve been trying to do the only thing that can save 
 Malcolm from a public stigma that will be to him im- 
 measurably worse than death,—and I seem to have 
 failed.”’ He bowed his head in his hands. Brant 
 waited for the words he knew would follow, and pres- 
 ently Bruce finished, “After to-morrow I must tell you 
 something you did not know I knew,—just now I can’t; 
 it doesn’t matter. But, Haig,’ and the bowed man 
 lifted to his friend a grief-stricken face, “there is one 
 person who suffers worse than Malcolm Frank to- 
 night,—Gene Stanton.’”’ Brant never knew why he 
 did not demand the chaplain’s secret then. He could 
 never understand what kept him from claiming immedi- 
 ately his friend’s confidence,—perhaps both men were 
 too mentally and physically spent to do the normal 
 thing. 
 
 The next day was given over to the argument. For 
 hours the trained and impassioned eloquence of great 
 counselors was trained upon the vital elements and cen- 
 tral figures of the now famous case. The defense de- 
 manded and fought for acquittal,—acquittal full, imme- 
 diate, absolute, was the irreducible minimum, the least 
 with which it could be satisfied. ‘To win less was to lose 
 all. The prosecution fought in reality for anything 
 short of a vindication, though ostensibly the attorneys 
 for the state were determined for a verdict of guilty 
 and a sentence. | 
 
 It was three o’clock in the afternoon. The argu- 
 ments had been concluded. The crowded court-room 
 
vO 
 
 THE FURNACE 289 
 
 waited breathlessly for a sign from the venerable 
 judge. It was the hour for the charge to the jury,— 
 or would there be a postponement until morning? 
 Bruce Jayne had sat with his eyes shifting back and 
 forth between the defendant and the door,—the door. 
 through which their hope must come if hope there was. 
 
 Let his hurried exit of the preceding day be ex- 
 plained. He had gone to Blackstone, a city thirty miles 
 away and called a number in New York. After nerve- 
 wracking delays he had gotten his party on the ’phone. 
 In reply to his frantic appeal, ‘“They must come; she 
 must come,—come to-night,—or all is lost,” he had re- 
 ceived an answer, the answer of a woman’s anguished 
 voice and breaking heart. “Chaplain, she is not here. 
 Now I must tell you,—she has never been able to come. 
 You must know that she would be with him were it 
 possible. Believe me—” and a long sob strangled the 
 words on the wire, whatever they may have been. 
 
 Then it was that hope came near. to dying in the 
 chaplain’s breast, but yet he watched that door. It was 
 three o’clock, we have written, and the arguments were 
 finished. The judge had settled back with his familiar 
 gesture of weariness and was turning to the great clock, 
 which ticked off the minutes of life and death just 
 above his head, when the door opened, the door upon 
 which Bruce Jayne’s eyes had been set, the door against 
 which his faith had battered,—the door opened, and 
 James Judson stepped into the chamber. 
 
 Quietly and unhindered he came directly to the coun- 
 sel for the defense. No other hand than that of death 
 would have stopped him, for breathless, helpless in their 
 first surprise, the court, the jurymen, the attorneys, the 
 
200) THE FURNACE 
 
 witnesses and spectators sat. A whispered word or two 
 passed between James Judson and the defendant’s coun- 
 sel, and then the senior member of the staff arose and 
 addressed the court: 
 
 “Your Honor,” he said, in a voice that trembled so 
 that it was with difficulty he spoke at all, “I crave your 
 indulgence for just a moment.” The venerable jurist 
 nodded his head. The whispered conference went on, 
 and then when it seemed that the suspense would precip- 
 itate another crisis, or that the prosecution would score 
 another point at law, the old attorney stood again and 
 with a great light in his eye addressed the court: “Your 
 Honor, in the interests of justice, to receive new evi- 
 dence directly involving the life of the defendant, and 
 to hear witnesses who could not be produced’—and 
 impressively he added—‘“who could not because of 
 physical disability appear before this time, I ask that 
 this case be reopened.” : 
 
 The prosecutor was on his feet now; his face was 
 livid. “I demand an explanation,” he cried, but with- 
 out losing the new composure that had come upon him, 
 the counsel for the defense answered, “Your Honor, 
 we are asking for that privilege, and, sir, I pledge you 
 my reputation, my honor, that this court will be neither 
 delayed nor deceived.” 
 
 The judge answered deliberately, ‘In the interests of 
 justice, then, on the word of the eminent counsel,” 
 and for just a fraction of a second the court looked 
 in the direction of the prosecuting attorney, “with no 
 objection from the state the case is reopened to hear 
 important witnesses who by no fault of their own were 
 not able to appear before this hour. And,’ he added, 
 
THE FURNACE 291 
 
 “they will of course be subject to cross-examination.”’ 
 
 As the chamber settled down, sank from its latest 
 emotional summit to the level of listening attention, the 
 counsel for defense announced, ‘‘Call James Judson to 
 the stand.”’ The story James Judson told was brief, . 
 but illuminating, nor did the prosecution seem inter- 
 ested in cross-examining him. 
 
 “TI drove with the unconscious girl to the home of 
 President Jasper Branson,’ was the answer the former 
 superintendent gave to the first question addressed to 
 him, and in reply to the query which immediately fol- 
 lowed, he said, “‘She has been there with the late Presi- 
 dent Branson’s sisters ever since.” 
 
 Men and women looked now upon that scene within 
 the bar of the gray old court room as they might have 
 looked had their eyes been turned upon another world. 
 But to one man, Malcolm Frank, the picture was part 
 of something that lies beyond death. Only a few more 
 questions were asked the former company official, and 
 only a few additional words were spoken by the witness. 
 He stated that almost simultaneously with the injuries 
 and terror of her experiences at the hands of Peter 
 Brudidge, Gene Stanton had suffered a well-nigh fatal 
 attack of brain-fever; that she was still desperately 
 weak ; that her condition was such that for her to appear 
 in court was to run a grave risk, that his own seclusion 
 was made necessary by the life and death interests of 
 the young woman, but that she had determined upon 
 her course; that her physicians found her in such a 
 state that they had advised compliance with her request 
 as the lesser of two grave dangers, and that she was 
 now in an adjoining room ready to be called. 
 
292 THE FURNACE 
 
 “But,” concluded the witness, as he begged the len- 
 iency of the court, “will not Your Honor and the prose- 
 cuting attorney in consideration of all the circum- 
 stances, the possible tragedy that may result, allow the 
 young woman’s father to speak for her in so far as that 
 is possible ?”’ 
 
 Before either the court or the attorneys for the prose- 
 cution could make a sign, a call of anguish came from 
 the man in the prisoners’ dock. ‘Tears were streaming 
 from his eyes that until now had been dry. “For the 
 pity of God, stop!’ he cried, but it was the voice of 
 James Judson that answered him, and again no hand 
 was raised to stop him, “For the hope of God, Mal- 
 colm, she must go on.”’ 
 
 And then she came. Like some spirit but lightly held 
 in a body frail with suffering, she lay upon the 
 stretcher the attendants bore carefully from the judge’s 
 private chamber. Her eyes were closed. Her face was 
 slightly flushed,—the first faint promise of the life that 
 was returning, the promise strong men wept to see so 
 soon, so cruelly, challenged. At the head of the 
 stretcher walked, with head lifted and gaze fixed, a 
 man who was a stranger to all but a few in that crowded 
 chamber, but the few who recognized him, had they 
 been speaking, would have been stricken dumb with 
 their surprise. The man who stood now by his daugh- 
 ter’s dark head, caressing tenderly her wasted cheeks, 
 was David Strong. 
 
 Bruce Jayne, who knew, was only glad. Haig Brant, 
 who had never had the slightest suspicion of the rela- 
 tionship between David Strong and the young woman 
 who was called Gene Stanton, was as one in a stupor, 
 
- THE FURNACE 203 
 
 while Malcolm Frank, who knew nothing beyond the 
 appalling fact that the woman he loved, with her father 
 by her side, was lying there to hold up the flickering 
 candle of her life that the way of his release might be 
 made plain, plumbed at once the depths of peace and 
 woe. 
 
 But presently he, too, knew all, for in answer to the 
 first question of the defense, immediately after the 
 witness had been sworn, David Strong, without objec- 
 tion from the prosecution, had answered for his daugh- 
 ter, “Elizabeth Stanton Strong,’ and added with just 
 the suggestion of a break in his voice, “Gene we call 
 Hers: 
 
 After that the defendant never turned his eyes from 
 her face, and when, now and then, he saw her red lips 
 move in his soul he joined her prayer. Thus it was 
 that when at last, in confirmation of all her father had 
 declared, she opened her eyes and whispered in a voice 
 that scarcely reached the jury, “I swear it all,” his heart 
 had been comforted, his mind -had been reassured, and 
 his faith had been confirmed. 
 
 But when that moment came, the prosecuting at- 
 torney was on his feet. “Your Honor,” he said, in a 
 voice that shook now as his opponent’s had only half 
 an hour before, ‘‘we will not cross-examine; if it were 
 possible, and if it were for the best interests of the de- 
 fendant, we would move that this case be dismissed. 
 As it is, we ask that it be given—if this is your own 
 mind—to the jury at once, and, sir,—would that the 
 case for the state might be stricken from the records 
 and from the memory of men. This other word, and 
 I am done,—Your Honor,—we did not know.” 
 
204 THE FURNACE 
 
 While the jury had its verdict to bring in, and proper 
 court procedure could not be denied, the defendant was 
 a free man from the time James Judson walked into the 
 chamber, and when the voice of Elizabeth Strong, who 
 would remain forever Gene Stanton to the man of her 
 heart, spoke out the confirmation of what her father 
 had testified to, in her stead, he was given back the 
 honors and the confidence which the fickle public mind 
 had taken from him. 
 
 As he watched the stretcher carried out and knew 
 the long weeks with their suspense that must elapse be- 
 fore he might even hope to see her face again, his 
 courage, so long tested, so sternly tried, almost failed 
 him. And only of her he thought,—not of her father, 
 nor her station. 
 
 Court had been dismissed at once, even as the witness 
 was being removed. The final chapter could not be 
 formally written until the next morning, but almost 
 immediately after leaving the bench the white-haired 
 judge returned to the chamber and said, “Bailiff, bring 
 the prisoner to my room.” It was then that Malcolm 
 found again that God was good. Gene lay as he had 
 seen her last. Her father sat beside her, a doctor and 
 a nurse bent above her, but there was reassurance in 
 their faces. They seemed to have been relieved of some 
 great burden. 
 
 Turning to the bailiff, the judge said, “I am re- 
 sponsible for the prisoner; you may retire,” and then, 
 as the court official withdrew, he also disappeared. 
 David Strong released the transparent hand that clung 
 to his and, rising, came forward. His firm lips were 
 trembling now, and when at last he spoke, he was no 
 
THE FURNACE 295 
 
 longer the man of affairs, the captain of industry,— 
 he was supremely a man, the man of his home, the 
 father of his child. 
 
 “Colonel Frank,” he said, and then, with unwavering 
 eyes fixed upon the pallid face of the young giant tower- . 
 ing above him, “Malcolm,—I thank God for what you 
 saved her from; for what you save her for,—I thank 
 God for you.’ Then for the first time their hands 
 met. 
 
 Behind them came a faint stirring as of impatience, 
 and the younger of the two men, standing there in what 
 had been a room of judgment, saw wide eyes of 
 wondrous depths and meaning, turned upward to him, 
 from what had been so recently a cot, but had so soon 
 become a throne. He caught the flicker of a smile; the 
 fluttering of her hand that would have made that dear, 
 familiar gesture, and as he dropped upon his knees to 
 meet her lips, he heard her whisper, ‘“Malcolm,—my 
 beloved!” 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 UST four weeks to a day after Malcolm Frank’s 
 
 acquittal the executive committee of the United 
 World Movement came together formally for the last 
 time. Called to consider the report of the special com- 
 mittee of five, it met under a cloud of deep sorrow, for 
 Thomas Harrington, the man who had written the re- 
 port and given direction to the searching and con- 
 scientious investigation and study which preceded its 
 writing, was not present. Killed suddenly, cut off in 
 the prime of his physical and mental maturity, more 
 than ordinary significance attached to the reading of 
 the words that represented the last work of his broad 
 mind and searching pen. 
 
 While there had been no opportunity to anticipate in 
 any way the findings of Dr. Harrington and his fellow 
 members, the conclusion, “We recommend the adop- 
 tion of this report and that immediately publicity be 
 given to it in all parts,’ was not unexpected, for the 
 trustees of the United World Movement were practi- 
 cally unanimous in the conviction expressed by Dr. 
 Harrington’s document. 
 
 “The normal presumption in a case of this sort, with 
 a commission of such personnel as has conducted this 
 investigation and prepared this document, would be 
 that the conclusions are entitled to full confidence, and 
 that they will constitute a valuable contribution to the 
 solution of the problems involved.” And the sentence 
 
 296 
 
THE FURNACE 207 
 
 immediately following this, coming now almost as the 
 judgment of another world, meant much to Doctor 
 Justice and his associates: “It is your special com- 
 mittee’s judgment that this presumption is amply con- 
 
 firmed by the character of the report.” | 
 
 The concluding sentences were an unequivocal en- 
 dorsement of the investigators’ findings and read, 
 “Taken as a whole this voluminous report consti- 
 tutes a serious indictment of a great corporation and 
 of public authorities in many places. ... So far as 
 your committee of five can see, such impressions corre- 
 spond wholly to the facts discovered. Also your com- 
 mittee feels that however distasteful may be the duty 
 of pointing out what appears to be a grievous wrong, 
 we have no option in the matter. The Church has, not 
 only the privilege, but the duty of witnessing against 
 injustice no matter by whom it may be done.” 
 
 After the reading of the words that the now silent 
 pen had written, Doctor Justice was introduced and 
 presented briefly the major findings and the principal 
 recommendations of his commission. Said he: 
 
 “We are bound by the facts to declare that the 
 strikers had grievances, grievances unredressed and 
 under the system of control unredressable. 
 
 “We are bound by the facts to declare that arbitrary 
 control on the part of the corporation affected the 
 workers, not only as employees of the company, but as 
 citizens and social institutions in the communities. 
 
 “We are bound by the facts to declare that the length 
 of the working day, the arrangement of the shifts, the 
 unequal and unjust distribution of wages, the opera- 
 tions of the undercover and spy systems, defeated 
 
298 THE FURNACE 
 
 Americanization and created a situation not good for 
 the nation. 
 
 “We are bound by the facts to declare the abridg- 
 ment and cutting off of civil liberties, and that a reign 
 of fear was created at the expense of justice and funda- 
 mental democracy. 
 
 “We are bound by the facts to declare the silence or 
 partisanship of great sections of the daily press with 
 the perversion of facts in the interests of one of the 
 two strike principals, and 
 
 “The silence or partisanship of a majority of the 
 churches and religious leaders in the central strike area. 
 
 “And, finally, we are bound by the facts to declare 
 with grave forebodings that the end of the strike has 
 been the beginning of yet more sinister trouble for the 
 country.” 
 
 “What a tragedy, gentlemen,” the Doctor added to 
 his final statement of conclusions, before proceeding to 
 the recommendations of his report,—“What a tragedy, 
 that this mighty industry not, only has refused the hand 
 of mediation, but that for all this chaos of bitterness it 
 has no other alternative than absolutism, no other plan 
 than arbitrary control; and, gentlemen, what a tragic 
 pity that for the statesmanlike efforts of its own associ- 
 ates who seek a better way, who experiment, even as I 
 speak, with the shop committee, it has only suspicion or 
 derision, voiced in language but thinly veiled.” 
 
 There was an uneasy stirring near the door as the 
 Doctor spoke those last sentences, and presently a note 
 was handed to the chaplain, but the speaker was not in- 
 terrupted, and he proceeded at once with the recom- 
 mendations of his document: 
 
THE FURNACE 299 
 
 “We recommend: 
 
 “First, that the Government of the United States 
 be requested to initiate immediately an effort to bring 
 together both sides to the present unsettled controversy. 
 
 “Second, that the Federal Government by Presi- . 
 dential order, or Congressional resolution, set up a com- 
 mission representing both sides, and the general public; 
 a commission similar to the commission resulting from 
 a former coal strike; that this commission consider 
 at the earliest possible date the twelve-hour day, the 
 seven-day week, the readjustment of wage rates, and 
 that it be empowered to evolve an adequate plan of 
 permanent free conference. 
 
 “Third, that the Federal Government inaugurate a 
 full inquiry into the past and present state of civil 
 liberties in the strike area; also the operation of the 
 system of espionage and social slavery revealed in this 
 investigation.” 
 
 As Doctor Justice sat down Chaplain Jayne arose. 
 “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have a surprise for you,—a 
 happy surprise, I believe you will regard it. Colonel 
 Malcolm Frank reached the city last night and came 
 with me to the office this morning. He has had no 
 warning, but unless there is objection, I will do my best 
 to bring him in.” 
 
 And so, a few minutes later, Colonel Frank, still 
 bearing the marks of his supreme ordeal, came before 
 the distinguished religious leaders. The four weeks 
 since his trial had been quiet ones; first he had gone to 
 his mother; then with James Judson he had found a 
 retreat far back in the Alleghenies. Only one man had 
 known his exact whereabouts,—David Strong,—and 
 
300 THE FURNACE 
 
 while the rest and quiet did much for the weary man, 
 the word that came weekly from Gene’s father did 
 vastly more. 
 
 As he stood now before the officials of the United 
 World Movement, who knew intimately the details of 
 his public career, his old self-mastery had fully re- 
 turned. He expressed his appreciation for the privi- 
 lege of speaking,—even at the disadvantage of its un- 
 expectedness, and then said: 
 
 “The workers of America and of the world need this 
 report, and because they need it, Christianity needs it. 
 That it is true, I know.” There was the depth of un- 
 spoken things in his voice. “I think first, I suppose, of 
 these people who have never really lived; who as one 
 of them said to me months ago, ‘have never seen 
 America.’ They need this report and because they 
 need it, America needs it,—and every other nation. 
 
 “The conditions in the steel industry, the conditions 
 your representatives found and now report, are not 
 good for the country—are not good for internation- 
 alism. They create distrust and bitterness, and dis- 
 trust and bitterness defeat peace,—make for war.” 
 The speaker became animated now. “When _ these 
 ‘hunkies’ and ‘dagoes’ return to their old homes—and 
 thousands are going—they will carry evil tidings to 
 their people, and the faces they turn backward will 
 be faces of hate. My father,’ and the young man’s 
 eyes dropped unconsciously to the bit of color on his 
 lapel, which had been drawn into a ruffled badge held 
 within a metal button, “used to tell me that when 
 America was young and weak, she was not afraid; that 
 the men who wrote her constitution were men of faith 
 
THE FURNACE 301 
 
 and not of fear; that while they were setting up their 
 own government and taking their first uncertain steps in 
 liberty, they opened their shores and hearts to the 
 oppressed of all lands. They believed that to save 
 America they must serve the world.” 
 
 Now as the speaker concluded the spirit of his ideal- 
 ism took on a voice of prophecy. “This vision and 
 this courage we must not lose. The report which you 
 have here is a brave and truthful declaration of condi- 
 tions within us that are the fruits of injustice and fear ; 
 conditions that must be remedied if America is to face 
 her future as she has met her past. Many will criti- 
 cize you for entering a field foreign to your customary 
 activities, and charge you with meddling in things that 
 are not the business of the church, things the church 
 knows nothing about. But this report deals with the 
 fundamental principles that first of all affect the bodies 
 and souls of men, and of women and children; the 
 principles that Jesus lived and taught, the principles 
 that He called upon His followers to practice and de- 
 clare. A hundred years from now, when your critics 
 are forgotten, this report will be remembered, and in 
 the end the United World Movement will be judged, 
 not by what it failed to do in other things, but by what 
 it did in this. 
 
 “And if you will allow one who owes all that he is 
 to this country and to the father who brought him to 
 it,—the father who taught him to love it,—if you will 
 allow him to venture a prophecy, the time will come 
 when history will include the statement that the action 
 of the religious leaders who accepted the challenge of 
 industrial absolutism and, discovering the facts, de- 
 
302 THE FURNACE 
 
 clared them, saved America from a worse trouble than 
 the Civil es and set up the standard of a new in- 
 dustrial era.’ 
 
 When he finished, Malcolm Frank turned as though 
 to retire, but the voice of David Strong arrested him, 
 “Unless there is objection,” said the distinguished 
 capitalist, “I wish that the Colonel would remain a few 
 minutes longer, until the vote is taken; then we can 
 leave together. I assure him and you,” turning to the 
 men about the great table, “that I will not be long with 
 what I have to say. We,” and again the speaker ad- 
 dressed himself to the colonel, ‘‘are keeping others wait- 
 ing.” 
 
 A warm flood rushed into the cheeks and swept over 
 the face of the young giant as he dropped into a chair. 
 The officers and trustees of the United Movement felt 
 the surge of fine emotions as they caught the meaning 
 of the frank avowal in the words of the father of 
 “Gene Stanton,’’—who now went on with what proved 
 to be the only speech delivered by any member of that 
 body before the final vote was taken, a vote that was 
 unanimous. 
 
 “Colonel Frank has said,’’ David Strong began, “that 
 we will be misunderstood, criticized—and he is right. 
 The very temper of these times indicates that this re- 
 port will be attacked as radical, the work of socialists. 
 Well, it is radical if we are to measure it by church 
 reports of the past. However, if the report itself is 
 sound, attacks will only strengthen it; counter-publicity 
 will only keep it before the people. 
 
 “Gentlemen, this momentous document will stand, 
 not upon what its friends or its enemies say about it, 
 
THE FURNACE 303 
 
 ’ 
 
 but upon what I find here,” and his hand came down 
 firmly upon the summary of the report which lay before 
 him, and through which he had been leafing during the 
 events of the preceding hour. “Upon what I find 
 here,” he repeated, and went on in a voice slightly. 
 raised : 
 
 “Tf this report falls, it falls of its own weight, and 
 not because of any attack that those opposed to it can 
 make against it. 
 
 “Gentlemen,” David Strong continued, “whatever 
 we of the industry, we who control it, may say about 
 “Red radicals’ and uninformed or prejudiced investi- 
 gators, these findings as to hours, wages, and arbitrary 
 control will give us no peace. They will rise up to 
 embarrass us at every turn. They will call for con- 
 stant explanations and apologies. They will keep us 
 always on the defensive.” 
 
 David Strong grew more and more intense as he 
 proceeded, and now, as he spoke, he said, as one who 
 takes a vow, “From this hour on everything that I have 
 is dedicated to the solution of the. problem this report 
 discloses. It is an appalling problem, gentlemen,—I 
 know something about it, but I must either accept its 
 challenge or step, shame-faced and defeated, out of the 
 industry. I have no pet plan and no pet theories that 
 I will not sacrifice or change. But I do have some 
 very dear and personal reasons for believing that the 
 way of justice and goodwill, the way of participation in 
 direction and control, as well as in returns, is the way 
 out; that if we begin by the Golden Rule instead of the 
 iron rule, we will find peace as well as profits.” 
 
 He turned now to Malcolm Frank and, reaching out 
 
304. THE FURNACE 
 
 his hand, said, “Colonel, I here publicly ask you to 
 come with me; to invest your idealism and your 
 genius for leadership, along with what I may contribute, 
 in the task of solving steel,—not to make money, sir, 
 but to help make a better world,—’”’ | 
 
 With kindling eyes Malcolm Frank arose and took 
 the outstretched hand. When, five minutes later, the 
 vote had been taken—the unanimous vote to adopt the 
 report and publish it—every man of that notable com- 
 pany came to his feet as David Strong and Malcolm 
 Frank left the room together. 
 
CEU EL in) XR 
 
 cd area last formal session of the executive committee 
 of the United World Movement had adjourned. 
 The great conference room was almost deserted. Only 
 two men remained. One of the two was speaking: 
 
 “Bruce Jayne,” he said, “I don’t care about myself, 
 —that is, I don’t care as many of the others must, and 
 it rends my soul when I think of what this breaking up 
 means to them,—but with me it is different. You 
 didn’t know, but when I came on here, the doctors 
 called me a fool and dismissed my case. I had deep- 
 seated physical troubles. They said, ‘Rest a year now 
 or you will be down and out at the end of the year,’ 
 and I replied, ‘T’ll take the year now.’ ” 
 
 It was Dr. Ballard who was speaking, “Well, Jayne, 
 I’ve had my year, my year with the dream,” his voice 
 grew husky, “and whatever else has died, the dream 
 is still alive.’ He paused for a long time, and then 
 went on, “I’m taking to the open. TIl not see you 
 again,—soon. I know a desert where the sun seldom 
 fails, and where the air carries healing. Perhaps out 
 there I will find something more than bodily health. 
 Good-by, old man, God bless you,—and don’t forget the 
 dream.” 
 
 General Secretary Ballard turned as he finished, 
 gripped the hand of the chaplain, who had been stand- 
 ing with him looking down from the great window of 
 
 the now nearly deserted conference chamber upon the 
 305 
 
306 THE FURNACE 
 
 crowded avenue. Then, swinging abruptly about, he 
 left the room. 
 
 Now all were gone save one. Jayne felt no inclina- 
 tion to withdraw ; he stood where his chief had left him. 
 His thoughts were of another springtime, and of an- 
 other separation, another broken dream. But there 
 was no bitterness in his soul, and he said, half aloud, 
 “T have given my life,—I cannot take it back,—I’ll not 
 forget.” 
 
 The air swirled up through the ventilator on the 
 window-sill and played upon his brow,—played upon 
 his brow like the soft ringlets of a woman’s hair. 
 
 Presently Haig Brant came in quietly. He sat 
 down upon the old table; waited for a long minute and 
 then whistled softly, ‘“Can’t—get—him—up—can’t 
 —get— him—up—can’t— get— him—up—at—al-l.” 
 Bruce turned about and smiled. ‘Well, old stormer?” 
 he questioned,—it was the first time in months that 
 he had used that familiar and affectionate saluta- 
 tion. 
 
 Haig slid to the floor and came over to the window. 
 He slipped his lean arm under that of his friend, and 
 both turned again to the busy street. “No one weeping 
 down there—over us,” the major said, with a quizzical 
 smile. ‘What is it, Padre?—the end of the world, or 
 just the beginning?’ and Bruce replied, “The begin- 
 ning.” 
 
 Again a long silence, which the major interrupted, 
 “T came to tell you I’m taking ‘holy orders’ to-morrow, 
 —no, that isn’t it,’ and he left off his half-banter, 
 “Bruce, I’m lining up with your bunch to-morrow,— 
 
THE FURNACE 307 
 
 I’m joining the church.”’ The man addressed started in 
 surprise. Spasmodically his arm closed like a vise 
 over the arm of his friend and he turned, half-believing, 
 only half-believing, eyes upon the speaker. 
 
 “Yes,” continued Brant slowly, as though searching. 
 his own heart before going on, “‘and you’re to blame,— 
 you and she,” he snapped open his watch, and looked 
 steadily in the faded pictured face of his mother, “but, 
 Bruce, this is really what I came to tell you, and please 
 don’t say anything when I finish,—not now, old man. 
 This is what I came to say,—I’m lining up with your 
 bunch to-morrow because you came out to me. I never 
 would have come in to you. I think that you begin to 
 know why. But you went out to me,—went out where 
 I was; took me as I was, and, Bruce Jayne, there are 
 millions like me, millions as hungry as Jesus found 
 them nineteen hundred years ago.” 
 
 Again a long silence before the window, and again 
 the major interrupted it. Now his voice had taken 
 on a subtle change, but a change so great that, again 
 startled, the chaplain turned full upon him, “Bruce, I’ve 
 made arrangements for our vacation,—we’re going 
 abroad, back to Seicheprey and Gondrecourt, Cantigny 
 and Soissons,—back to the graves of Bill Thomas and 
 ‘Wick’ Sanders,’ he whispered the names softly, and 
 Jayne, who had stiffened to make his refusal, hesitated 
 and waited, “I’ve made the reservations on the Aqui- 
 tania,—not our old accommodations, obviously not,” 
 and the speaker smiled as he remembered the palatial 
 suite on Deck A, “but the cabin is comfortable. I 
 planned for three, but Malcolm is out of the question 
 
308 THE FURNACE 
 
 now,” and tlie warmth of deep gratitude took hold upon 
 the hearts of both men as they thought of him and 
 his joy. 
 
 “We will travel down the old lines again,” the 
 speaker continued, “hang our feet over the old parapets 
 in the great peace and rest our souls. Then we'll come 
 back,—back to take up again this ‘trail to the hearts of 
 men,’ this trail that I once heard you say ‘rises and 
 dips, but remains permanently at no lower level.’ ” 
 
 Again a long silence while Jayne waited and waiting 
 thought of Jo and “Sonnie,’—Jo and “Sonnie” the 
 neglected, but when again the major spoke, he swept the 
 last objection from the mind of his tensely silent audi- 
 tor. “But when we return, you'll need another cabin,” 
 he continued, ‘‘and so perhaps you'd better take that 
 blessed sister of yours along, and the little fellow who 
 hasn’t seen too much of his father this last wild year. 
 Yes, old man, you'll need another cabin, for Mrs. Brant, 
 Mrs. Haig Brant and daughter, will be coming back 
 with me.” 
 
 And now Jayne gave it up; stared in frank and wide- 
 eyed amazement at the speaker, who smiled without 
 even a hint of cynicism as he concluded, “Yes, Mrs. 
 Haig Brant—knew it would go hard with you, but 
 bear up—pack up your troubles, and don’t forget your 
 dust-covered book—the little black book you used to 
 baptize the living and bury the dead by. There is one 
 page in it I never heard you read from during the war, 
 but I’m dead in earnest about hearing you read from 
 it in an old German house of Montebaur out from 
 Coblenz on the Rhine.” 
 
THE FURNACE 309 
 
 And now again there was silence that there is no 
 reason for us to disturb. 
 
 Out along the north shore of Long Island drove the 
 heavy car of David Strong—on by Flushing Bay and 
 Douglastown, Little Neck and Manhasset. What 
 passed between the two men who sat within will never 
 be written, but when the great gate swung shut behind 
 them, and the engine caught the challenge of the heavy 
 grade of the long drive beneath the elms, the elder of 
 the two said, “Malcolm, you will find no questions in 
 your welcome here,’ and a few minutes later when 
 _ they shot under the canopy that looked out upon Hemp- 
 stead Harbor and the Sound, it was a queenly woman 
 —a woman the younger man had seen but once before, 
 and then at a conference which had brought to him a 
 great disappointment—a queenly woman with wet and 
 shining eyes who lifted her white hands to his cheeks 
 and, gazing long into his face, said, ‘‘Malcolm, I’m glad 
 you have come.” 
 
 Half an hour later a tawny-headed, refreshed giant, 
 impatient and eager, stepped out upon the wide veranda 
 which faces the sea. The Boston boats were passing; 
 the gulls hung low over the returning fishing smacks, 
 and the path of the setting sun made a way of beaten, 
 quivering gold toward the “Gate.” The eyes of the 
 man saw neither sun nor gulls nor boats; they searched 
 the unfamiliar lawn, the tree-sentineled and flower- 
 bordered paths that led away from the great steps at 
 his feet. They spoke a heart that would not longer 
 be denied. They called for one and only one. 
 
310 THE FURNACE 
 
 And then a child’s voice in the hush of a child’s first 
 embarrassment piped out at his very side, ““Mr. Colonel, 
 my sister sent me for her shawl, and said perhaps you’d 
 be kind enough to bring it back—here it is.’”’ There was 
 just a suggestion in the lad’s tone of a small boy’s per- 
 fect willingness to help complete the errand. But a 
 deep voice said joyously while a great hand snapped 
 into a salute: 
 
 “Very fine, major, point the way and stand ‘post’ 
 here until the detail returns.” Then down the path 
 a wavering finger indicated, a soldier marched in 
 “double-quick.”’ 
 
 Upon a stone bench she sat—a great seat that stood 
 alone upon a grassy slope; no trees nor shrubs obscured 
 its view or shut it in. And so he saw her first. She 
 rose to meet him. 
 
 “O God of goodness,” his heart cried, as her hand 
 flung up in that first glad gesture of her love’s avowal 
 —then on he came across the sod, his eyes no longer 
 saw. Like a knight of old he knelt before her won- 
 drous beauty. | 
 
 She filled her hands with his hair, and laughed,— 
 laughed with joy unspeakable. Then she bent until her 
 lips were on his head, and once again she whispered, 
 what he only once before had heard, ‘Malcolm, my be- 
 loved.”’ 
 
 An hour later—or was it a century?—a small boy, 
 who had been quite unnoticed as he came across the 
 lawn, stood before two unabashed young people and 
 said, ‘“Mr. Colonel, I waited, but mother said it was 
 getting cool for invalids, and sent me down to tell you 
 that dinner has been ready for an awful long time.” 
 
THE FURNACE 311 
 
 And then Malcolm cradled Gene in his arms, held her 
 close against his heart, and with her white hands clasped 
 behind his neck and the wind blowing her hair across 
 his face, bore her, as that which is most precious, back 
 to the glowing house. 
 
 And thus they went in together. 
 
 THE END 
 

 

 

 

 
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 CANTON, OHIO. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 
 
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