When Paul Judson arrived, to what had been home, in answer to Mr. Kane's wire, it was to find that Tom Hewin, whose sub-contract still controlled this part of the estate, had begun removing the rich outcrop where the north end of the cottage had rested.
"This is outrageous, Hewin! We don't want this touched----"
"It's the contract, Mr. Judson. In section seven. I supposed----"
An injunction the next day stopped the theft of the outcrop, and removed the Hewins from their connection with the property and the strike.
Only Ed was left to his mother to arrange for the burial of Diana and Will. Neither of them knew, although Stella suspected, that there were three dead in the two graves.
Life at the Hernandez home had its definite compensations, Pelham found. A nearby garage held the indispensable car; and there was now no one to censor his comings and goings. As long as he slept on the mountain, Mary clung to this rôle; the relief of the lifted restraint was immediate.
His mining inspector's badge gave him the run of the mountain property, although he was careful not to use it in direct union propaganda.
One afternoon late in August, Jim Hewin came up to him on a downtown avenue. "Howdy, Mr. Judson. Say," and the shifty eyes nervously agitated toward Pelham's face, "I could do you a good turn if I wanted to."
"I got some dope you'd give a heap to know."
The other regarded him with suspicion. "What about, Hewin?"
"I know what the company's got up its sleeve. I can put you wise, all right. What's in it for me?" He waited, expectant.
Pelham choked down his disgust. "Not a cent. If you'd sell out my father, you'd sell us out as quickly." He walked off in impotent anger against the go-betweens seeking to fatten on the bitter struggle.
The local mining board assigned Pelham to the property he was most familiar with: either for that reason, or through a grim irony. As mining inspector, he secured access to all the books of the company. This gave him needed statistics for his report on the strike situation, and kept him busy, and, against his will, away from Jane, and the solace and spur of the hours with her.
The problem began to shape itself more clearly, now that he had become to a greater extent weaned from mountain and family. The whole opposition to the miners' demands was summed up and centered, in his mind, in that dominant personality of Paul Judson. Similarly he felt that he embodied the opposing forces. Without his presence, his thinking told him, the strike would have come just the same; but he knew that his cordial efforts had stiffened the fight of the workers more than they imagined.