100%: The Story of a Patriot | Page 8

and plunged him thru abysses of terror and
torment.
And yet, many and strange as were the phantoms which Peter's sick
imagination conjured up, there was no one of them as terrible as the
reality which prevailed just then in the life of American City, and was
determining the destiny of a poor little man by the name of Peter
Gudge. There lived in American City a group of men who had taken
possession of its industries and dominated the lives of its population.
This group, intrenched in power in the city's business and also in its
government, were facing the opposition of a new and rapidly rising
power, that of organized labor, determined to break the oligarchy of
business and take over its powers. The struggle of these two groups
was coming to its culmination. They were like two mighty wrestlers,
locked in a grip of death; two giants in combat, who tear up trees by the
roots and break off fragments of cliffs from the mountains to smash in
each other's skulls. And poor Peter--what was he? An ant which
happened to come blundering across the ground where these
combatants met. The earth was shaken with their trampling, the dirt
was kicked this way and that, and the unhappy ant was knocked about,

tumbled head over heels, buried in the debris; and suddenly--Smash!--a
giant foot came down upon the place where he was struggling and
gasping!

Section 6

Peter had been in the "hole" perhaps three days, perhaps a week--he did
not know, and no one ever told him. The door was opened again, and
for the first time he heard a voice, "Come out here."
Peter had been longing to hear a voice; but now he shrunk terrified into
a corner. The voice was the voice of Guffey, and Peter knew what it
meant. His teeth began to rattle again, and he wailed, "I dunno anything!
I can't tell anything!"
A hand reached in and took him by the collar, and he found himself
walking down the corridor in front of Guffey. "Shut up!" said the man,
in answer to all his wailings, and took him into a room and threw him
into a chair as if he had been a bundle of bedding, and pulled up
another chair and sat down in front of Peter.
"Now look here," he said. "I want to have an understanding with you.
Do you want to go back into that hole again?"
"N-n-no," moaned Peter.
"Well, I want you to know that you'll spend the rest of your life in that
hole, except when you're talking to me. And when you're talking to me
you'll be having your arms twisted off you, and splinters driven into
your finger nails, and your skin burned with matches--until you tell me
what I want to know. Nobody's going to help you, nobody's going to
know about it. You're going to stay here with me until you come
across."
Peter could only sob and moan.

"Now," continued Guffey, "I been finding out all about you, I got your
life story from the day you were born, and there's no use your trying to
hide anything. I know your part in this here bomb plot, and I can send
you to the gallows without any trouble whatever. But there's some
things I can't prove on the other fellows. They're the big ones, the real
devils, and they're the ones I want, so you've got a chance to save
yourself, and you better be thankful for it."
Peter went on moaning and sobbing.
"Shut up!" cried the man. And then, fixing Peter's frightened gaze with
his own, he continued, "Understand, you got a chance to save yourself.
All you got to do is to tell what you know. Then you can come out and
you won't have any more trouble. We'll take good care of you;
everything'll be easy for you."
Peter continued to gaze like a fascinated rabbit. And such a longing as
surged up in his soul--to be free, and out of trouble, and taken care of!
If only he had known anything to tell; if only there was some way he
could find out something to tell!

Section 7

Suddenly the man reached out and grasped one of Peter's hands. He
twisted the wrist again, the sore wrist which still ached from the torture.
"Will you tell?"
"I'd tell if I could!" screamed Peter. "My God, how can I?"
"Don't lie to me," hissed the man. "I know about it now, you can't fool
me. You know Jim Goober."
"I never heard of him!" wailed Peter.
"You lie!" declared the other, and he gave Peter's wrist a twist.

"Yes, yes, I know him!" shrieked Peter.
"Oh, that's more like it!" said the