The guard attempted to obey this order, but the striker, exhibiting a desperate ferocity, snatched his gun from him, and, pointing it at them, ordered both Mr. Watkins and the guard to leave or he would shoot. He even went so far as to cock the gun, and of course they were obliged to do as he told them.
Mr. Watkins immediately reported this outrage to him (Lieutenant Easter), and, taking a squad of a dozen of his best men, he went to Allen’s house, and arrested him just as he was getting into bed. While they were doing this a fire broke out in the very car-shop near which he had been discovered, and there was not the slightest doubt but that this Jacob Allen had set it. At any rate he would be tried for it, in connection with his other offences against the law, and he now occupied a cell in the town jail, where he was chained and handcuffed beyond a possibility of escape. In the meantime all the other strikers had taken to the woods, and he (Lieutenant Easter) could congratulate the town on being well rid of them.
Thanking the lieutenant for the information he had given them, Myles and the telegraph operator took their departure, the former to seek his bed in the hotel and get a few hours sleep, the latter to hunt up some particular friends for whom he had important news.
When Ben Watkins returned to his room, after his wicked attempt to burn the railroad building and his struggle with Myles, he was filled with such a fury of rage, shame, and hatred that his sole thought was of revenge.
For some time he paced restlessly up and down the room, trying to conceive some plan for the young reporter’s utter humiliation and overthrow. He felt almost sure that in consequence of the telegram he had sent to the _Phonograph_ the night before, Myles would be dismissed from the paper; but that was not enough. Could he not inflict some more serious injury upon the fellow who had just told him that he, Ben Watkins, was whipped and in his power?
“Whipped, am I!” cried Ben, bitterly, “I’ll show him yet who is whipped. I may be in his power or he may be in mine; but that question is not settled yet, as he will find out before long.”
Then the old evil smile crept over his face. A new idea entered his mind, and he paused in his hurried walk to consider it.