So Peter had things where he wanted them. “Who
are those fellows?” he asked, and got the crowd
arguing over names. Of course they didn’t
argue very long before somebody mentioned “Nelse”
Ackerman, who was venomously hated by the Reds because
he had put up a hundred thousand dollars of the Anti-Goober
fund. Peter pretended not to know about Nelse;
and Jerry Rudd, a “blanket-stiff” whose
head was still sore from being cracked open in a recent
harvesters’ strike, remarked that by Jesus,
if they’d put a few fellows like that in the
trenches, there’d be some pacifists in Ameriky
sure enough all right.
It seemed almost as if Joe Angell had come there to
back up Peter’s purpose. “What we
want,” said he, “is a few fellows to fight
as hard for themselves as they fight for the capitalists.”
“Yes,” assented Henderson, grimly.
“We’re all so good—we wait till
our masters tell us we can kill.”
That was the end of the discussion; but it seemed
quite enough to Peter. He watched his chance,
and one by one he managed to slip his little notes
into the coat-pockets of Joe Angell, Jerry Rudd, Henderson,
and Gus, the sailor. And then Peter made his escape,
trembling with excitement. The great dynamite
conspiracy was on! “They must be got rid
of!” he was whispering to himself. “They
must be got rid of by any means! It’s my
duty I’m doing.”
Peter had an appointment to meet Nell on a street
corner at eleven o’clock that same night, and
when she stepped off the street-car, Peter saw that
she was carrying a suit-case. “Did you get
your job done?” she asked quickly, and when
Peter answered in the affirmative, she added:
“Here’s your bomb!”
Peter’s jaw fell. He looked so frightened
that she hastened to reassure him. It wouldn’t
go off; it was only the makings of a bomb, three sticks
of dynamite and some fuses and part of a clock.
The dynamite was wrapped carefully, and there was
no chance of its exploding—if he didn’t
drop it! But Peter wasn’t much consoled.
He had had no idea that Nell would go so far, or that
he would actually have to handle dynamite. He
wondered where and how she had got it, and wished
to God he was out of this thing.
But it was too late now, of course. Said Nell:
“You’ve got to get this suit-case into
the headquarters, and you’ve got to get it there
without anybody seeing you. They’ll be shut
up pretty soon, won’t they?”
“We locked up when we left,” said Peter.
“And who has the key?”
“Grady, the secretary.”
“There’s no way you can get it?”
“I can get into the room,” said Peter,
quickly. “There’s a fire escape,
and the window isn’t tight. Some of us that
know about it have got in that way when the place
was locked.”
“All right,” said Nell. “We’ll
wait a bit; we mustn’t take chances of anyone
coming back.”
