CHAPTER LXVI

THE PICK-HANDLE BRIGADE

Benito found his son awaiting when he returned from the Citizens' Mass Meeting at midnight. Robert, insisting that he was "fit as a fiddle," had nevertheless been put to bed through the connivance of an anxious mother and the family physician, who found him to have suffered some severe contusions and lacerations in the morning's fray. But he was wide awake and curious when his father's latch key grated in the door.

"It must have seemed like old times, didn't it, dad?" he asked with enthusiasm. The Vigilance Committee of the Fifties in his young mind was a knightly company. As a boy he used to listen, eager and excited, to his father's tales of Coleman. Now his hero was again to take the stage.

"Yes, it took me back," said Windham. "I was about your age then and Coleman was just in his thirties." He sat down a trifle wearily. "The years aren't kind. Some of the fellows who were young in '56 seemed old tonight.... But they have the same spirit."

"Tell me what happened," said Robert, after a pause.

Benito's eyes flashed. "You should have heard them cheer when Coleman rose. He called for his old comrades and we stood up. Then there was more cheering. Coleman is all business. He commenced at once enrolling men for his pick-handle brigade; he's refused fire-arms. He has fifteen hundred already, divided into companies of a hundred each--with their own officers."

"And are you an officer, dad?" asked Robert.

"Yes," Benito smiled. "But my company is one man short. We've only ninety-nine."

"How's that?" Robert's tone was puzzled.

Windham rose. "I'm saving it," he answered, "for a wounded hero, who, I rather hope, will volunteer."

"FATHER!" cried the young man rapturously.

* * * * *

At the Mount Zion Hospital Po Lun fought with death on Tuesday. The bullet was removed; but though this brought relief, there came an aftermath of fever and destroying weakness. Alice and her son were at his bedside, but Po Lun did not recognize them.

Mrs. Windham turned a tear-stained face to the physician. "Can nothing be done?" she pleaded. "He saved my boy.... Oh, doctor! You won't let him die."

The young physician's sympathy showed plainly in his eyes. "I've done everything," he said. "He's sinking. If I knew a way to rouse him there might be a chance."

As he spoke Francisco Stanley entered, viewed the silent figure on the cot and shook his head. "Poor Po Lun. At any rate he's been a hero in the papers. I've seen to that ..."

"He was delirious all morning ... stretching out his arms and calling 'Hang Far! Hang Far!' Do you know what it means?"

"I do," Alice answered; "it's the girl from whom he was separated nearly twenty years ago."

"Why--that's funny," said Francisco. "Yesterday a woman by that name was captured by the mission-workers in a raid on Chinatown. I wonder.... Could it be the same one?"

"Not likely," the physician answered. "It's a common name, I think. Still--" he looked at Po Lun.

"Run and get her," Alice urged. "It's a chance. Go quickly."

Half an hour passed; an hour, while the watchers waited at the bedside of Po Lun. Gradually his respiration waned. Several times the nurse called the physician, thinking death had come. But a spark still lingered, growing fainter with the minutes till a mist upon a mirror was the only sign that breath remained.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet, a door flung open and Francisco entered, half dragging a Chinese woman by the arm. She gazed with frantic eyes from Alice to Robert till her glance took in the figure on the bed. She stared at it curiously, incredulously. Then she gave a little cry and flung herself toward Po Lun.

What she said no one there present knew. What strange cabal she invoked is still a mystery. Be that as it may, eyes which had seemed closed forever, opened. Lips white, bloodless, breathed a scarce-heard whisper.

"_Hang Far_!"

"Come," said Alice. "Let us leave them together."

Half an later, in an ante-room, the doctor told them: "He will live, I think. It's very like a miracle...."

* * * * *

At the foot of Brannan street lay the Pacific Mail docks, where the Chinese laborers were landed. Many thousands of them had been brought there by the steamers from Canton. They had solved vexed problems as house servants, fruit pickers, tillers of the soil; they had done the rough work in the building of many bridges, the stemming of turbulent streams, the construction of highways. And while there was work for all, they had caused little trouble.

Now half a thousand jobless workers, armed and reckless, marched toward the docks. They bore torches, which illuminated fitfully their flushed, impassioned faces. Here and there one carried a transparency described, "The Chinese Must Go."

[Illustration: Half a thousand jobless workers, armed and reckless, marched toward the docks. They bore torches.... "A hell-bent crew'" said Ellis.]

Chief Ellis and a squad of mounted policemen watched them as they marched down Second street, shouting threats and waving their firebrands. "They're a hell-bent crew," he said to William Coleman. "Is your posse ready?"

"Yes," he answered, "they've assembled near the dock. I've twenty companies."

"Good.... You'll need 'em all."

As he spoke a tongue of flame leaped upward from the darkness. Another and another.

"They've fired the lumber yards," the chief said. "I expected that. There is fire apparatus on the spot.... It's time to move."

He spurred forward, rounding up his officers. Coleman rode silently toward the entrance of the docks. Very soon a bugle sounded. There were staccato orders; then a tramp of feet.

The Citizens' army moved in perfect unison toward the fires. Already engines were at work. One blaze was extinguished. Then came sounds of battle. Cries, shots. Coleman and his men rushed forward.

Stones and sticks flew through the air. Now and then a pistol barked. The mounted police descended with a clatter, clubbing their way into the throng. But they did not penetrate far, so dense was the pack; it hemmed them about, pulling officers from their horses. The fire engines had been stopped. One of them was pushed into the bay.

More fires leaped from incendiary torches. The rioters seemed triumphant. Then Coleman's brigade fell upon them.

Whack, whack, whack, fell the pick-handles upon the backs, shoulders, sometimes heads of rioters. It was like a systematic tattoo. Coleman's voice was heard directing, here and there, cool and dispassionate. A couple of locomotive headlights threw their glare upon the now disordered gangsters. Whack! Whack! Whack!

Suddenly the rioters, bleating, panic-stricken, fled like frightened sheep. They scattered in every direction leader*-less, completely routed. The fire engines resumed work. An ambulance came up and the work of attending the wounded began. The fight was over.

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