Part 11

"Take her along, Davy," said Hastings, his big head wagging with delight. "She's a caution--SHE is!"

Hull could not control himself to speak. As they sat in the carriage, she finishing the pulling on of her gloves, he stared out into the heavy rain that was deluging the earth and bending low the boughs. Said she, half way down the hill:

"Well--can't you talk about anything but Victor Dorn?"

"I saw him this afternoon," said Hull, glad that the tension of the silence was broken.

"Then you've got something to talk about."

"The big street car strike is on."

"So father said at dinner. I suppose Victor Dorn caused it."

"No--he's opposed to it. He's queer. I don't exactly understand his ideas. He says strikes are ridiculous--that it's like trying to cure smallpox by healing up one single sore."

Jane gave a shiver of lady-like disgust. "How--nasty," said she.

"I'm telling you what he said. But he says that the only way human beings learn how to do things right is by doing them wrong--so while he's opposed to strikes he's also in favor of them."

"Even I understand that," said Jane. "I don't think it's difficult."

"Doesn't it strike you as--as inconsistent?"

"Oh--bother consistency!" scoffed the girl. "That's another middle class virtue that sensible people loathe as a vice. Anyhow, he's helping the strikers all he can--and fighting US. You know, your father and my father's estate are the two biggest owners of the street railways."

"I must get his paper," said Jane. "I'll have a lot of fun reading the truth about us."

But David wasn't listening. He was deep in thought. After a while he said: "It's amazing--and splendid--and terrible, what power he's getting in our town. Victor Dorn, I mean."

"Always Victor Dorn," mocked Jane.

"When he started--twelve years ago as a boy of twenty, just out of college and working as a carpenter--when he started, he was alone and poor, and without friends or anything. He built up little by little, winning one man at a time--the fellow working next him on his right, then the chap working on his left--in the shop--and so on, one man after another. And whenever he got a man he held him--made him as devoted--as--as fanatical as he is himself. Now he's got a band of nearly a thousand. There are ten thousand voters in this town. So, he's got only one in ten. But what a thousand!"

Jane was gazing out into the rain, her eyes bright, her lips parted.

"Are you listening?" asked Hull. "Or, am I boring you?"

"Go on," said she.

"They're a thousand missionaries--apostles--yes, apostle is the name for them. They live and breathe and think and talk only the ideas Victor Dorn believes and fights for. And whenever he wants anything done--anything for the cause--why, there are a thousand men ready to do it."

"Why?" said Jane.

"Victor Dorn," said Hull. "Do you wonder that he interests me? For instance, to-night: you see how it's raining. Well, Victor Dorn had them print to-day fifty thousand leaflets about this strike--what it means to his cause. And he has asked five hundred of his men to stand on the corners and patrol the streets and distribute those dodgers. I'll bet not a man will be missing."

"But why?" repeated Jane. "What for?"

"He wants to conquer this town. He says the world has to be conquered--and that the way to begin is to begin--and that he has begun."

"Conquer it for what?"

"For himself, I guess," said Hull. "Of course, he professes that it's for the public good. They all do. But what's the truth?"

"If I saw him I could tell you," said Jane in the full pride of her belief in her woman's power of divination in character.