eet.

As Koppy looked about on their massed faces a disturbing memory of
those strange moments with Tressa Torrance almost unnerved him. He
understood these men; he knew the forces that had brought them down to
railway work. And the flick of a still faintly breathing conscience
made him pale. The daily sight of Tressa Torrance and her simple
acceptance of him as a fellow-creature had roused within him thoughts
he imagined he had long since stifled. There were times when he
contemplated the possibility of carrying her away and leaving all else
behind. Never before in America had a decent woman looked at him in
such a kindly way. The many women he had known he had been willing to
pay for, as was expected of him; here was one he could not buy, yet she
was almost within reach for nothing.

Sometimes of late his mind had roved beyond a crude camp of logs, with
filthy bunks in tiers, with filthy straw on which to lie. Carpeted
rooms, with pictures on the walls, and shiny chairs and tables; smart
clothes and clean hands; evenings of mental peace in a home of his own.
And a woman to manage it and him. That was the bewildering part of
it--he wanted a woman to order him about, some one gentle and sweet, to
blot from his warped mind the hideous nightmare of strife and scheming
amidst which he seemed always to have moved. He longed to have to
change his clothes after the day's work, to wash and brush himself, to
smile and converse in his best of English. He owed nothing to the
I.W.W. that he had not repaid a hundredfold. He was a bit weary of his
own passions and the direction of others.

But from beneath his shaggy brows, as he stood towering above his
followers in the semi-darkness of the clearing, he read
expectation--nay, even demand--in every upturned face. And the old
surge of pride, the sordid memories that had kept him to his meanest
tasks and sometimes convinced him of a divine mission, bent him back to
his big plans. In long silence he returned their gaze, moving his head
sharply from side to side to fix every eye. None knew better than he
the value of silences, of the ponderous manner. Every art of the
leader of mobs was his.

As if delving to their very hearts he stared into every face. And they
recognised his leadership by stifled sighs and sudden breaths. Dull to
reason, as to pain and pleasure, their nerves were denied the
protective covering of sanity that comes with education. What they did
n