Instant ebooks textbook Reconstructing Democracy How Citizens Are Building from the Ground Up 1st Edition Charles Taylor download all chapters

Visit https://ebookgate.
com to download the full version and

explore more ebooks
Reconstructing Democracy How Citizens Are Building

from the Ground Up 1st Edition Charles Taylor
_____ Click the link below to download _____

https://ebookgate.com/product/reconstructing-democracy-
how-citizens-are-building-from-the-ground-up-1st-
edition-charles-taylor/
Explore and download more ebooks at ebookgate.com

Here are some recommended products that might interest you.
You can download now and explore!
Kalman Filter from the Ground Up 1st Edition Alex Becker
https://ebookgate.com/product/kalman-filter-from-the-ground-up-1st-
edition-alex-becker/
ebookgate.com
The Global Commonwealth of Citizens Toward Cosmopolitan

Democracy Daniele Archibugi
https://ebookgate.com/product/the-global-commonwealth-of-citizens-
toward-cosmopolitan-democracy-daniele-archibugi/
ebookgate.com
No Place for Amateurs How Political Consultants are

Reshaping American Democracy 1st Edition Dennis Johnson
https://ebookgate.com/product/no-place-for-amateurs-how-political-
consultants-are-reshaping-american-democracy-1st-edition-dennis-
johnson/
ebookgate.com
Men Are from Mars Women Are from Venus John Gray
https://ebookgate.com/product/men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-venus-
john-gray/
ebookgate.com
Blessed Are the Organized Grassroots Democracy in America
Jeffrey Stout
https://ebookgate.com/product/blessed-are-the-organized-grassroots-
democracy-in-america-jeffrey-stout/
ebookgate.com
From Poverty to Power 2nd Edition How active citizens and

effective states can change the world Duncan Green
https://ebookgate.com/product/from-poverty-to-power-2nd-edition-how-
active-citizens-and-effective-states-can-change-the-world-duncan-
green/
ebookgate.com
The American Congress The Building of Democracy Julian E.

Zelizer
https://ebookgate.com/product/the-american-congress-the-building-of-
democracy-julian-e-zelizer/
ebookgate.com
Carpentry and Framing Inspection Notes Up to Code 1st

Edition Gil Taylor
https://ebookgate.com/product/carpentry-and-framing-inspection-notes-
up-to-code-1st-edition-gil-taylor/
ebookgate.com
Patterns Building Blocks of Experience 1st Edition Marilyn

Charles
https://ebookgate.com/product/patterns-building-blocks-of-
experience-1st-edition-marilyn-charles/
ebookgate.com
RECONSTRUCTING
DEMOCRACY
RECONSTRUCTING
DEMOCRACY
How Citizens Are Building from the Ground Up
Charles Taylor
Patrizia Nanz
Madeleine Beaubien Taylor
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2020
Copyright © 2020 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

First printing
Jacket design: Graciela Galup

Jacket art: background from Getty Images
9780674246638 (EPUB)
9780674246645 (MOBI)
9780674246652 (PDF)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Taylor, Charles, 1931– author. | Nanz, Patrizia, author. |

Taylor, Madeleine, author.
Title: Reconstructing democracy : how citizens are building
from the ground up / Charles Taylor, Patrizia Nanz,
Madeleine Beaubien Taylor.
Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University
Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019042310 | ISBN 9780674244627 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Community power. | Political participation. |
Democracy.
Classification: LCC HM776 .T37 2020 | DDC 321.8—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042310
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1. Remaking the Local Community 9
2. Helping to Rebuild Political Communities 29
3. Contributing to Democratic Renewal 85
Coda 93
A C K N O W LE D G M E N T S 99
INDEX 101
RECONSTRUCTING
DEMOCRACY
Introduction
Th er e is widespread belief in Western societies

that our democracies are in trouble. Numerous polls
show that people are losing confidence in democ-
racy as a system. Young people in part icu lar think
that democracy is a poor form of governance and
that an authoritarian or technocratic regime would
be a better alternative.1 At the same time, pol itic al
developments are causing deep divisions among citi-
1 “Democracy Perception Index 2018,” Alliance of Democracies Founda-

tion, Dalia Research, and Rasmussen Global, June 2018, http://w ww
.a llianceofdemocracies.org /w p - c ontent/uploads/2 018/0 6/D emocracy
-Perception-I ndex-2 018-1.pdf.
See also the World Values Survey: R. Inglehart, C. Haerpfer, A. Moreno,
C. Welzel, K. Kizilova, J. Diez-Medrano, M. Lagos, P. Norris, E. Po-
narin, and B. Puranen et al. (eds.). “World Values Survey: Round Six–
Country-Pooled Datafile Version,” 2014, www.worldvaluessurvey.org
/ W VSDocumentationWV6.jsp, Madrid: JD Systems Institute.
Here is the famous, more pessimistic interpretation of Foa and Mounk:
Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk, “The Danger of Deconsolidation:
The Democratic Disconnect,” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 3 (July 2016):
5–17, https://w ww.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/0 7
/FoaMounk-27-3.pdf.
1
RECONSTRUCTING DEMOC RACY
zens within democratic societies. For example, the

vote for Brexit in the United Kingdom and Donald
Trump’s successful campaign for the US presidency,
which invoked nostalgia for a lost past when Amer
ica was “g reat,” have resulted in xenophobic appeals
to exclude t hose deemed “outsiders.” T hese appeals
are directed at those who already feel that society has
left them behind.
The erosion of the welfare state and the encroach-
ments of the economic system have opened people’s
eyes to the fact that they live not only in market
economies but in capitalist societies where economic
affairs are no longer embedded within social interac-
tions. This separation is essential to the neoliberal
policies that have been dominant in recent years. In
fact, both democratic politics and various aspects of
everyday life have been subjugated to the managerial
logic of corporations and banks. The claims made
during and a fter the financial crisis of 2008 that cer-
tain banks were “too big to fail” and had to be res-
cued at all costs, and that there was “no alternative”
to the specific conditions that bailout deals pre-
sented to Greece and several other countries in the
eurozone, severely undermined these democracies.
By its very nature democratic politics must always
offer more than one avenue out of crises.
2
I nt r od u ction
Social media and digital communication technol-

ogies in general have also played a significant role
in the erosion of democ ratic culture over the last
dec ade. On the one hand, digitalization provides
citizens with easy and broad access to information
and conveys the impression that their views and ac-
tions m atter. Initiatives such as www.govtrack.u s
and @YourRepsOnGuns in the United States, www
.t heyworkforyou.com in the United Kingdom, and
www.openaustralia .org.au in Australia have greatly
increased the transparency of politic al decision-
making and enabled like-m inded people to build
networks and mobilize. On the other hand, the
largely anonymous social networks of Web 2.0—
together with depoliticized telev ision programming
(or pseudo-politicized, in the case of talk shows)—
distance citizens from the pol itical sphere. With its
focus on finding sympathetic o thers within “echo
chambers” that reject or excoriate dissenting opinion,
this form of media consumption acts as a barrier
to collective learning and meaningful deliberation.
Instead, it provides fertile ground for electronic
popu lism.
In a nutshell, liberal democracies face two major,
intertwined problems: the decline of their problem-
solving capacities and the gap between political elites
3
and the p eople. Democratic systems d on’t deliver

better futures (think of environmental policies) not
only because lobbies and corporations are so powerful
(for example, the car industry or oil lobby), but also
because elected officials often don’t know which pol-
icies are adequate or are afraid to take drastic mea
sures that might not be supported by their constitu-
ents. Politicians are afraid to take responsibility
because they are not sure what the people want or
would accept. Those courageous enough to advance
unpopular policies risk the kind of backlash that we
see in France with the gilets jaunes. This recent protest
movement against environmental policy reform in
France grew out of the (justified) sense that President
Macron’s plan to increase taxes on fossil fuels disre-
garded the dependency of lower-income, rural house
holds on affordable diesel. Soon, right-wing populist
politicians like Marine Le Pen managed to channel
at least part of the outrage.
Of course, national governments are constrained
by political globalization. But they are also limited by
global accords such as the Paris Agreement, with its
goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C
above preindustrial levels and decarbonizing the
global economy to prevent dangerous climate change.
4
I nt r od u ction
Transformations toward sustainability must be im-

plemented not only at the global level but also through
the adoption of sustainable modes of living that can
only be developed by politicians at the national and,
especially, the local level. It is h
ere that democratic
politics needs to be revitalized.
Many p eople believe that our representative sys-
tems have to be reformed, down to changes in the
structure and mode of operation of political parties
that play a central role in them, and that the exces-
sive power of money in these systems has to be curbed.
Others propose reforms in our public spheres, which
have become divided as never before in noncom-
municating echo chambers created by social media.
For example, they suggest the establishment of
public platforms as alternatives to Facebook and
other social media, or state-controlled platforms
to rein in the distribution of deliberately misleading
information.
We agree that changes of this kind are necessary,
but we would like to add to the agenda of reform.
We believe that to restore responsible government we
must reconstruct democracy from the bottom up.
Only if we enhance and reinvigorate democracy at the
base w
ill the citizenry find clarity about what to ask
5
for, or what f uture to envision for their community

or region. Only then can local communities put
pressure on their representatives in policy-making
bodies to push for more courageous policies.
In this book, we first delineate the challenges faced
by local communities and their residents. The degen-
eration of democracy is strongly connected to the
erosion of local communities. For example, localities
devastated by deindustrialization, such as those
found in the Appalachians or the Rust B elt in the
United States or in the Lausitz region in Germany,
often become strongholds of xenophobic “populism.”
Rebuilding those local communities requires po
litical action that can build new solidarities, align the
interests and goals of community members, and set
f ree creative powers to solve complex problems and
enable collective agency. In Chapter 2 we look at two
kinds of action: first, self-organization at the local
level—which may or may not have the same bound
aries as a unit of local government—in order to find a
consensus on the needs and goals of the community,
and ways to bring these to fruition; and second,
modes of government-initiated consultation with or-
dinary citizens, who w ill often have no official office
or function in government at any level, again with the
aim of defining common goals. We introduce various
6
I nt r od u ction
examples of successful community organi zing and

consultation to better understand how democracy
can be reconstructed from the bottom up. In the final
part of the book we will return to the mechanisms by
which the remaking of local pol itical communities
can work to reconstruct and renew democracy as a
political system.
7
CHAPTER 1
Remaking the Local

Community
R econstructing our democr acies must begin

from the bottom up. This means changing the way
local communities respond to their troubles and
grievances. Effective responses in practice would
mean something like this: various representatives of
local societies and organizations—chambers of com-
merce, churches, local associations, or just p eople
who want to take an active part—come together with
a view to determining how they can cope with their
situation, often a deteriorating one. They try to elab-
orate a plan, say, how to find new forms of employ-
ment where older or more traditional ones are begin-
ning to fail.
Currently many local communities do not respond
effectively to new challenges. We find a classic ex-
ample of this problem in Western countries which
9
realize that, in order to cope with global warming,

they have to scale down their coal extraction, such as
in the Appalachian region in the United States, or
Brandenburg and Upper Saxony (the Lausitz region)
in Germany. It also exists in the rust belts of the
United States and France, where a mixture of com-
petition from newly industrializing societies and
from automation has undercut local industries. In all
these cases, the regions have been devastated for de
cades by deindustrialization, neoliberal fiscal poli-
cies, and political neglect such that they find them-
selves lacking the resources to effectively respond to
their present and future challenges.
These communities lack not only financial means
and political influence, but also resources, which are
sometimes even harder to obtain b ecause they cannot
simply be transferred from one part of society to the
other, as the German government is attempting to do
in the Lausitz by channeling huge amounts of money
into the region. The resources and skills we have in
mind instead belong to social capital or culture.
Industries like coal, steel, or manufacturing have
shaped not only the skills and income of large parts
of the population but also the culture of the region,
such as the prevailing images of what it means to be
a worker or what it means to care for your family.
10
Remaking the L ocal C omm u nit y
With deindustrialization these communities have

also partly lost, among other t hings, their self-esteem
or their sense of self-worth, on both the individual
and the collective level.
Often hand in hand with the loss of self-esteem re-
sulting from economic decline, such communities
have also lost their sense of political efficacy. Politi-
cians have preached global f ree trade and neoliberal
labor-market reform and have promised that the
rewards would eventually “trickle down” to all
households. But in the Lausitz or the Rust B elt, de-
cline has been steady for decades now, so that p eople
have lost their faith in the pol itical system, feeling
more and more like passive victims of an anonymous
machine. Those who are able to leave for the urban
centers do so, while t hose who remain retreat to the
private realm.
In effect, the local community loses its capacity
to self-organize and to develop new ideas to move
forward. It also loses its capacity to effectively lobby
its representatives, so that a vicious self-reinforcing
cycle is set into motion: the political inefficacy of the
communities feeds back and reinforces the original
erosion of the local political community. This re-
sults in a fundamental decline in voters’ under-
standing of the mechanisms of change, of how they
11
might collectively take their fate into their own hands

and move on. It’s clear that this “Appalachian” kind
of predicament w ill become increasingly common.
Not just coal is at stake, but also oil, for instance
in the Alberta oil patch. The rest of Canada is be-
coming more and more hostile to oil pipelines, partly
out of a sense of the dangers they pose to the envi-
ronment when t here’s a spill, and partly out of the
general sense that we have to get away from carbon-
generated energy. At the same time, rust belts con-
tinue to develop owing to competition from the third
world, as well as from automation, particularly with
the striking new developments in artificial intelli-
gence. The erosion of local communities deeply affects
the pol itical systems of our current democracies, as
we will now explain.

What we’ve called here a decline in voters’ under-
standing of the mechanisms of change is part of a
wider phenomenon of disconnect between the needs
and aspirations of ordinary people and our system of
representative democracy. Modern democracies, un-
like ancient Greek poleis, have to operate through
representative institutions. Replacing t hese entirely
12
with direct democracy is not an option. But at the

same time, for democracy to really work, there has to
be a continued connection between t hese institutions
and the goals and requirements of citizens. Unfortu-
nately, this connection can fray, and even break, for a
number of reasons.
First, the agenda of modern societies is vast and di-
verse. Governments not only manage our economies
in a globalized world but also finance and administer
welfare systems, decide important issues concerning
marriage and f amily life, pursue foreign policy goals,
and so on. Not all of these can be salient all the time;
and what decides their saliency or their recession
from public attention is largely how they figure in
the public sphere, particularly in the major media. The
vital needs of some citizens can be relegated to the
sidelines because other issues dominate public dis-
cussion. This is what has happened in many Western
countries recently in relation to the skewed distribu-
tion of the economic benefits of f ree trade and glo-
balization. It took the menace of “populist” electoral
success against mainstream parties for this issue to
take center stage.
Second, money is very powerful in democratic
polities. It affords some individuals control of the
media and underpins the skewing of attention just
13
mentioned. It can also function more directly through

lobbies and the financing of election campaigns, as
we see perhaps most vividly in the United States
t oday.
Third, in recent decades, neoliberal illusions about
the nature of markets, and their supposed benign op-
eration to secure fair distributions of new wealth,
have obscured some of the most blatant inequalities,
or underplayed their significance, on the grounds
that t hings will work out in the end.
The last two trends have contributed to a develop-
ment that many describe as the present crisis of lib-
eral democracy in the West. The rise of right-w ing
populist movements, both in Europe and in the
United States, constitutes a serious challenge to the
egalitarian, open democracy that we have been trying
to construct throughout the postwar period, which
embodies the core values of both the American re-
public and the European Union.
The more spectacular feature here is the growth of
xenophobia, suspicion of the outsider, and resistance
to migration, even of desperate refugees. No doubt
what has contributed crucially to these movements
has been a widespread sense among working and
middle classes in many countries that their standard
14
of living has been falling; that a fter the prosperity of

the postwar years (what the French call Les Trente Glo-
rieuses), they have lost ground; that they, and even
more so their c hildren, face downward social mo-
bility, with a dearth of good, steady jobs; that they
face a world, in other words, where jobs will be scarcer,
more temporary, and more precarious.
In fact, the workings of globalization and automa-
tion, in a context of laissez-faire neoliberalism, then
exacerbated by the financial crisis of 2008 and ren-
dered more severe by politics of austerity, have to-
gether brought about a massive increase in inequality.
And they have produced a g reat downgrading in the
rust b elts and small towns of a number of countries,
notably the United States and France. This feeling of
having been downgraded has pushed many p eople in
these regions to vote for the illusory and discrimina-
tory politics of Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, and
the like.
Indeed, the objection formulated against main-
stream parties is that they have given preference
to “outsiders,” mainly immigrants or refugees, over
the “real” (French or American) people. And even in
societies where the economy is in much better shape
and employment is still high, like Germany, similar
15
reproaches are leveled against the traditional major

parties: specifically, that they prioritize refugees at
the expense of meeting the needs of Germans.
The decline in ordinary voters’ understanding of
the mechanisms of change in recent decades was
clearly crucial to the success of populist movements
like the Trump candidacy, the Front National in
France, and the AfD in Germany. It d oesn’t matter
how you explain the success of extraordinary appeals
to “make America great again” or the like by restoring
an impossible past, w hether you suppose that the
voters are too ignorant to see through such s imple
remedies or you suppose that they do indeed see
how hopeless they are as remedies, but in their frus-
tration are e ager to make a gesture that shocks bien-
pensant elites. All that matters is that this desperate
rhetoric could begin to recruit voters only once they
had lost the sense that they could effectively pro-
mote their needs and interests through the demo
cratic process.
The disconnect to the citizenry w e’re describing
has grave consequences and has to be reversed. But
these developments also should convince us that a re-
connection will not automatically come about through
the everyday workings of our democratic societies.
16
Nor will it be enough (but still, of course, necessary)

to just go on deflating the myths about the dangerous
outsider, particularly Islamophobic fantasies that
paint all Muslims as potential terrorists. We will not
win the battle against xenophobic popu l ism without
tackling the justified sense of neglect felt by many
working-and middle-c lass p eople. We have to act
decisively to bring their needs and aspirations to bear
on our representative institutions again.
Reconstructing democracy from the bottom up is
one important measure to do this. It is not the only
step we have to take, but it can be an important part
of the solution, as we show in Chapter 3; where a local
public can, at one and the same time, clarify the pro-
grams they need, and create solidarity around these
programs, they can become a political force that rep-
resentatives (at least on a local level) must listen to. A
new and powerful link is created between local needs
and aspirations, and the democratic system.
Or we could put it another way: the political sphere,
in Hannah Arendt’s sense of an open deliberation
among equal citizens about their common goals and
action, will have suddenly been enlarged to include
not only deputies in Parliament, but also the new
group of informed and engaged citizens. It is projects
17
that enable the expansion of the political that we

shall be looking at in this book.

Before we address the question of how remaking local
communities might have salutary effects for the wider
political system, we must look closely at the starting
point: What would a reconstruction of democracy
from the bottom up look like in communities such
as t hose of the Rust Belt, the Appalachians, or the
Lausitz? How would the remaking of local commu-
nities enhance their ability to cope with the h azards
of deindustrializing societies? How would it support
the renewal of democracy as a political system more
broadly?
Now this kind of self-organization is already hap-
pening in a number of local communities today.1 But
we need a lot more of these communities, and, as we
have seen when portraying regions like the Lausitz
1 For example, Thomas L. Friedman, “Where American Politics Can

Still Work: From the Bottom Up.” New York Times, July 3, 2018.
See also recent local economy initiatives in the United States: “Local
Economy Framework,” BALLE, accessed January 20, 2019, https://
bealocalist.org / local- economy-f ramework/.
18
or the Rust Belt, we usually need to start with the

question of how to initiate and foster the process
from the outside when it is badly needed and yet i sn’t
happening. For instance, a government may deter-
mine that it needs to close a coal mine and will try
to bring the local community on its side for this mea
sure, which is dictated by the urgent b attle against
global warming.
This is a daunting task. First of all, it requires
finding and making contact with local p eople who
are already asking the crucial questions; to continue
with our example, this means p eople who realize
that coal c an’t go on forever as a source of employ-
ment, and that the region needs some alternative
economic solution that can generate jobs. Second,
these people have to find each other (or be put in
touch with each other).
Then begins the hard task of working out what
such an alternative might be. This is where input and
insight from the local community become essential.
Outsiders might have some good ideas about alterna-
tive economic vocations for the region, but these
cannot get off the ground unless they somehow reso-
nate with the local community. This is not just a
matter of their economic promise; the proposed line
19
of work, production, or service provision must make

sense in terms of the skills and capacities of the re-
gion, as well as its identity.
For example, one of the g reat obstacles facing
any alternative to coal mining in the Lausitz area of
Brandenburg, Germany, is the strong sense of coal
mining as a historic identity, with its image of suc-
cessful strugg le against obstacles and difficulties—
even heroism—which surrounds the miners’ vocation
with a powerful aura. (Something similar may be
found in Appalachia, say, in West Virginia; Trump
exploited this in his campaign.)
Finding a solution—a vocation that both has pro
mise economically in relation to the larger society
and also can speak to the community itself—is a task
that neither insiders nor outsiders can resolve alone.
Here’s where someone from the outside with experi-
ence in such a process of deliberation and consensus
building can be an important resource. Such a person
should have some idea of what realistic options might
be, but their task would be to facilitate discussion, ex-
ploring various possibilities in search of meaningful,
“resonant” options.
In short, this person would function as what is
known in French as an animateur. The person con-
cerned would need special skills analogous to those
20
that ethnographers develop: the ability to listen

deeply and eventually come to understand the par-
ticularities of the local situation, the terms, and the
reference points of local identities. Articulating these
particularities may require forging terms that are not
already available in established social science disci-
plines. It requires a certain kind of sensibility to
recognize the differences, as well as the powers of
articulation to find / recognize the right words, the
key terms.
If we think of the typical situation faced by local
communities when a major employer pulls out, we
can reason through to the necessity of the kind of
bottom-up community organizing that the Incourage
community foundation engages in in the United
States. We return to this organization below.
What do you need for this kind of bottom-up com-
munity organizing? First, you need certain facts about
the external and internal environments, such as new
economic possibilities which could be v iable in the
region, and an inventory of skills and capacities of
the local population: t hose they already have, and
those they can easily acquire.
But this is not enough. Second, p eople must ex-
press their needs and find clarity about their aspira-
tions, or what they would ideally want to do. T hese
21
are, in fact, important constituents or determinants

of the first point above.
But it is not enough to learn these things from the
outside. Third, they have to be established in conver-
sation with the people concerned. Some aspirations
will only emerge in the exchange, and only the people
concerned can identify common goals through this
conversation. This kind of mutual encounter and dis-
cussion helps generate the common purpose essen-
tial for planning the f uture of the community, while
at the same time generating the sense that everyone
is on the same side, overcoming differences and gen-
erating trust. Everybody has to not only be heard, but
also feel heard.
We look into the details of such processes shortly
in Chapter 2. But we can already see how such delib-
eration, once it has started to work, can generate the
preconditions for its own expansion and consolida-
tion and can thereby become the engine of a recon-
struction of democracy from the bottom up. Once
people come together in this way, important change
can happen. We distinguish four different building
blocks of this change:
(1) It involves an existential shift in stance: From a sense

that we as a community are the victims of powerful
22
forces beyond our control, such as the “globalizing

elites” or “distant technocrats,” or the disloyal com-
petition of foreigners, we come to see ourselves as
capable of taking initiative, of d
oing something
to alter our own predicament. Therefore, the emer-
gence of a deliberative community, of the “pol itic al”
in Arendt’s sense, generates an empowering conscious-
ness of collective agency and possibility among the local
community.
(2) At the same time, the fact that we have to join forces
and work with others, from diff erent organizations,
confessions, outlooks, and even politic al convic-
tions, makes us listen to each other; we now have a
stake in working out something together with these
others. We c an’t sit back and simply criticize or de-
monize them. Face-to-face contact often softens our
stereot ypical hostilities t oward each other. Thereby,
deliberative communities build new inclusive solidari-
ties and trust among the participants.
(3) Once we come together, we also open up new alleys to
creativity. We might even bring about what has been
called “breakout innovation.” The thesis of Cea and
Rimington is that genuinely innovative solutions
often emerge, not from closed-door, top-down pro
cesses, but from inclusive processes in which a large
number of diverse actors involved in the activity or
23
community, including those whose lives are condi-

tioned or impacted by it, take part in planning and
decision-making from the beginning.2 The idea of
“creating breakout innovation” through wide co-
creative pro
cesses reflects ele
ments of the same
promise that we foregrounded in number 1 above:
namely, a realignment of both knowledge and mo-
tivation, both a clearer vision and shared power
around this vision. Notably, technical innovations
also seem to come about most readily in trustful
and co-creative exchanges among people of diverse
backgrounds.3
(4) Once we have gone through the common discussion
and once we have come up with some plan, such as
how to find new avenues of employment, or modes
of retraining, or new kinds of service to the commu-
nity, our standing as a group has significantly
changed. Our interpretation and understanding of
the situation, our interests and goals, and even our
motivations, values, and vision have become aligned.
Now we are in a position to know what we must de-
2 Joanna Levitt Cea and Jess Rimington, “Creating Breakout Innova-

tion,” Stanford Social Innovation Review (Summer 2017): 31–39.
3 Elvire Meier-Comte, Knowledge Transfer and Innovation for a Western
Multinational Company in Chinese and Indian Technology Clusters
(Augsburg: Rainer Hampp, 2012).
24
mand of higher levels of government—of the cen-

tral governments on the one hand, and the level of
state in the United States, province in Canada, or
Land in Germany on the other. We not only know
what to demand, but in virtue of having a program
based on a strong local consensus, we inevitably
have some greater pol itical clout. The elected repre-
sentatives for our area, on both the state (or prov-
ince) and the federal level, have a strong incentive to
listen, or at least to take account of this program in
some way. Once a responsive connection to the po
litical system has been successfully established, we
ecause we are empowered. B
feel empowered b ecause
of its potential for the alignment of goals, knowledge,
and motivation, the rebuilding of local deliberative
communities is both a mode of organi zation and a
means of pol itical mobilization.
On the one hand, effective community action re-

quires these four building blocks as a prerequisite to
change. To make people meet, share information,
build new understanding, create new knowledge to-
gether, establish common goals, and so on, requires
a minimal existing baseline of all four elements. But,
on the other hand, once you have put those building
blocks into place, they w ill sustain themselves. They
25
ill even generate their own dynamics of expansion

w
because they are resources that are not depleted when
they are used in effective community action but
rather are enhanced by such use.

In the following pages, we look at a number of ex-
amples of projects in which such creation of novel
programs winning wide assent has been successfully
carried through. We are not trying to look at the
gamut of forms that participatory democracy and
community organization can take. Interesting as
this would be, it is beyond our scope. We offer a brief
overview of this wider field. But our main interest
lies in projects that do pioneering work in creating
novel programs or establishing new forms of soli-
darity. We tell stories we know well about successful
examples of experiments of revitalizing democracy
from the bottom up.
This means, in the realm of political participation,
that we are less concerned with examining situations
in which an already well-formed question is being de
cided with significant input from citizens at the
base—as, for instance, when ordinary citizens are
given a say in shaping the municipal budget (as in
26
Porto Alegre), or in deciding where a new facilit y will

be situated. In the projects we discuss, the crucial
questions w ill be open-ended ones, such as the fa-
miliar search for a v iable alternative economic role
for a rust belt region, or the attempt in a run-down
quarter of a city to find a way to build a place with
which people can identify, and to which they are
happy to belong. In many of these cases, the suc-
cessful solution ultimately worked out was not—
even sometimes could not have been—imagined at the
start by the people concerned. This is why Bruno La-
tour, in the face of the many symptoms of the cur-
rent crisis in France, warns the French government to
limit the topics and questions of the “grand debate”
initiated with the citizens.4
Similarly, in the field of community organization,
we do not look at many important attempts to mo-
bilize citizens, such as the forms of neighborhood
organization pioneered by Saul Alinsky, which aim to
achieve certain defined goals and which are still being
carried on t oday.5 The enterprises in this domain that
we look at have wider-ranging and less fully defined
4 Bruno Latour, “Passer de la plainte a la doleance,” Le Monde, Jan-

uary 10, 2019.
5 Luke Bretherton, Resurrecting Democracy: Faith, Citizenship, and the Poli-
tics of a Common Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
27
goals; they aim not only to achieve certain defined

goals but also to increase citizens’ capacity to under-
take a wide range of goals in the f uture.
Thus, the projects that are our main objects of con-
cern are ones whose purposes are more complex and
less easily defined beforehand, in the hope that this
narrowing can nevertheless yield important insights,
because the projects we discuss fulfill a role, crucial
in today’s democracies, of enlarging the range of
v iable answers to the looming challenges and di-
lemmas of our global societies.
But our selection of examples is restricted in an-
other sense, too, of course: Our focus h ere is l imited
by the experience and expertise the three of us pos-
sess. Others could add considerably to the list and
widen the reflection. But the focus on the American
scene, and on the European context, reflects our
experience.
28
CHAPTER 2
Helping to Rebuild
Political Communities
Let ’s look at some examples of the kind of

open-ended innovative projects that we described in
Chapter 1. Several in Europe and the United States are
worth examining.

Langenegg is a linear settlement in Austria near
the Swiss border with a population of 1,100. At one
time local youths deserted Langenegg in search of
work elsewhere, and shops in the village center closed
one by one as life in the area ground to a halt. The
mayor commissioned several studies, leading to the
development of various strategies to halt rural flight
and guide demographic change. But nothing seemed
to work.
29
Finally, an experiment was launched using a s imple

process that empowered citizens to control the trans-
formation of their village. Fifteen randomly selected
residents were invited to join the process in its early
stages. At their first meeting, instead of drawing up
a list of changes that they wished to see, the partici-
pants talked about the positive aspects of life in Lan-
genegg, such as the fact that staff at the local bakers
still addressed their customers by name and that
those citizens who worked locally were able to spend
more time with their families because they d idn’t
have to commute. The group prepared a list of p eople
who contributed to the quality of life in the village.
The list identified two hundred individuals who w ere
then celebrated at a local festival. The group began
to grow in the months that followed as more and
more people joined the transformation process. A
small and diverse coordination team was established.
The mayor abstained from joining this body, allowing
active citizens to take the lead.
Twenty years have passed since then and much has
happened in Langenegg. Over time self-organization
has been systematically embedded in local planning
and led to a successful structural change. Local busi-
nesses have survived and thrived; a village shop has
30
H elping to Re b u ild P olitical C omm u nities
opened together with a h otel and a café next to the

village day care center. New employment opportu-
nities have emerged with the founding of a social
enterprise and a nursing facilit y. Langenegg’s popu-
lation is growing steadily. Citizens have embraced
sharing as a way of life, establishing sharing mecha-
nisms for cars, seasonal travel passes, and e-bikes.
With its numerous photovoltaic and solar power sys-
tems and biogas plants, Langenegg has also pio-
neered energy self-sufficiency, and in 2010 the village
was presented with the European Village Renewal
Award. Langenegg is not an isolated case. T here are
many similar examples at the local and regional
levels.

For another example, we turn to a community in the
United States that is still in a process of evolution, but
has already made significant headway. The commu-
nity is South Wood County (SWC), Wisconsin, and
it faced a crisis when the large paper mills that had
been the mainstay of the economy for more than
a century began to downsize a fter 2000. Nearly
40 percent of local employment was lost by 2005. Jobs
31
at the paper mills declined 35 percent between 2000

and 2010. And then the largest locally owned factory
was sold to a multinational corporation and produc-
tion was further reduced.
People looked for new jobs in manufacturing, but
there were few; the jobs that were available typically
required a different skill set from what most locals
possessed. The lack of jobs was bad enough, but the
withdrawal of the major sources of employment also
deprived the community of some of their traditional
leaders, because mill executives had served as public
officials and benefactors. This is where Incourage, a
local community foundation with a mission to model
participatory approaches to place-based develop-
ment, stepped in to try to remedy the situation. The
foundation understood that the best and most sus-
tainable solution was for community members to
come together and elaborate a common solution. But
for this to happen, new channels of communication
between residents had to be created.
Residents had relied on the Daily Tribune and a
local radio station as the main sources of local news
for decades. The Tribune originally had a paid circu-
lation of fourteen thousand, but a fter 2000, a new
publisher bought the paper and gradually reduced
local news to a single page. Soon local circulation was
32
down 63 percent. At around the same time, a widely

read company paper disappeared when the company
downsized. The nearest TV channel largely ignored
Wood County events. How could a high level of aware-
ness of local news be brought back? And how could
greater intercommunication between residents be
established?
Incourage h
adn’t originally imagined that it would
have to meet these challenges in order to make
headway in its main goal of helping a community
consensus take shape. But t hese obstacles to the cir-
culation of news and ideas turned out to be an impor
tant roadblock. The obvious solution seemed to be
to start communicating online, but it turned out that
a third of lower-income families d idn’t use the in-
ternet. Incourage somehow needed to start closer to
the ground to catalyze community involvement. In-
courage organized focus groups of more than eighty
residents who helped develop solutions to address
community information challenges, such as “tech
days” promoted by a local volunteer. The same person
later gathered information about the demand for
computer classes in her area, and then worked with
library leaders and the foundation to create them.
In a 2013 case study about Incourage’s work in
SWC, one Incourage employee recalled that she “saw
33
folks go from small (not believing their ideas made a

difference) to big (my ideas can make a difference and
I want to learn more).” The same employee noted that
catalyzing this “virtuous circle” is a crucial compo-
nent of Incourage’s work because it challenges old
habits of disengagement. Incourage CEO Kelly Ryan
commented that “it is promoting culture change—
residents begin to understand that they have power
and can make a difference.”1
In this way, a society with strong intercommunica-
tion can be built at the base, starting with single
capillaries, but building on the self-confidence they
create to multiply at an ever-faster rate. Fostering
communication, even on a small scale, like a focus
group, can have important consequences for the
larger community. This “flywheel effect” results when
a small but targeted investment of energy creates mo-
mentum for broader change.
To address pressing workforce issues, Incourage in-
vested deeply in creating Workforce Central, a Na-
1 T hese and other observations of community members may be found

in this case study prepared by FSG and Network Impact for the John S.
and James L. Knight Foundation: FSG and Network Impact, Case Studies:
How Four Community Information Projects Went from Idea to Impact, Feb-
ruary 2013, https://w ww.k nightfoundation.org /reports/case-studies.
34
tional Fund for Workforce Solutions site and a mul-

tisector workforce training initiative to serve SWC
businesses and workers. The early focus groups
helped the foundation identify gaps in how organ
izations that served job seekers shared informa-
tion with one another and with potential workers.
To fill these gaps, Incourage connected local agencies,
organizations, and businesses so that they could
share information on how education and support ser
vices for job seekers can be more efficiently aligned
with employer needs. Thus, the foundation began to
intentionally map and use information in its local
change work.
Results have included simple solutions, such as an
agreement from the city of Wisconsin Rapids to lower
transportation costs for trainees who attend classes
at a local technical college, and more complex collab-
orations, such as the launch of a new shared curric-
ulum on specific training for locally available jobs.
Greater understanding of the link between access to
information and job growth has also prompted
Workforce Central partners to incorporate digital lit-
eracy into credential training for under-and unem-
ployed workers, including former mill workers with
limited computer skills.
35
Connected with this work, Incourage hosted over

seventy-five community conversations that included
more than five hundred participants. “Several people
in the community conversations came from organ
izations that I had not seen participate before,” ob-
served one resident, echoing other participants’ sur-
prise that their less-i nvolved neighbors and friends
attended public meetings.2
Importantly, the process of gathering and sharing
information seems to have positively affected local
norms of civic engagement. More than 4,100 residents
completed a 2012 community survey, with 59 percent
of respondents indicating that they were interested in
future discussions to develop a community plan. The
overwhelming response rate for the survey dem-
onstrated that large numbers of SWC residents felt
ready to contribute to a broad-based community pro
cess. One resident noted that “five years ago, this
kind of t hing would have been unthinkable,” while
another resident, upon hearing that more than four
thousand people took the survey, observed, “We feel
now that we need to make things happen. Before, we
felt like someone else would take care of it.”
2 FSG and Network Impact, Case Studies.
36
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
sensational gold strike of the year. The account, conforming with the
style so popular among certain newspapers to swell their sales, was
staggering to the eye but hazy as to details, and merely hinted that
the new bonanza was situated in a range southwest of camp.
Now, while the coincidental appearance of the name of the man
of whom he had just been thinking, dumfounded Lex for the
moment, it had a diametrically opposite effect on Jule Quintell when
he saw it.
Following Sangerly’s departure, the boss of Geerusalem had
settled back in his chair and fallen into moody reflection.
“It just might be that this old fossil, Tinnemaha Pete, entered the
son’s name in those claim notices, instead of the mother’s,” he
muttered to himself. “Sangerly says he’s dead, and he spoke as if he
knew. Well, nothing like being sure.” He reached for a pencil and pad
and wrote:
Jerome Liggs, wanted for robbery of Marysville city treasury

three years ago, is operating claims on Lemuel Huntington
ranch near Geerusalem.
Leaving the note unsigned he read it over grimly and rang for
Harrison. That individual came bolting into the room almost instantly,
carrying in one outflung hand a copy of the Searchlight and banging
the door after him.
“McQuaid’s spilled the beans!” he cried. “Look at this, sir! He
published the story of the strike—the Huntington ranch story, sir!”
Quintell glared at his secretary in unbelief; then his big body
stiffened, and his face purpled with rage. He tore the paper from the
other’s grasp and skimmed through the account with flaming eyes. A
frightful oath burst from him.
“Damn him! The bonehead! Another traitor!” he sputtered
savagely. “I’ll teach the fool a lesson. He’ll pay for this——” He
snatched the receiver off the telephone and called up the Searchlight
editorial rooms. A man’s voice answered presently.
“Hello! This you, McQuaid?”
“Mr. McQuaid is no longer here. Is there anything I can do——”
“What do you mean—no longer there? Say, who is this talking? I
said, McQuaid—the editor. Tell him Quintell wants him.”
“I got you the first time, friend,” was the quiet reply. “Mr. McQuaid
sold out this morning. The Searchlight is under new management.”
Quintell took a slow breath. His rage cooled. “This is rather
unexpected news. I wasn’t prepared for it. May I ask who bought
him out?”
“Los Angeles people. We are reorganizing the paper, making a
change in policy, and all that sort of thing.”
“I see,” said Quintell and added: “Is there any truth to that Boyd
and Liggs gold-strike story? I see you’ve featured it.”
“Why, we’re trying to verify the report. I’d say it looks the goods.”
Quintell chuckled, but his eyes were smoldering venomously.
“Who started the rumor—got any idea?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Quintell, but we do not divulge our sources of
information,” said the other.
“Oh, certainly—certainly. Beg pardon. I should have known better.
I assume you’re the new editor?”
“Yes—Babcock. I have heard a lot about you, Mr. Quintell, and
hope to have the pleasure of meeting you——”
“The pleasure will be mutual, Mr. Babcock,” said Quintell
significantly, as he hung up.
For some moments the boss of Geerusalem sat motionless, his
gaze riveted on that prominently displayed first-page story which he
and his confederates had guarded so carefully for weeks past
against circulation, while they bided their time until Lemuel
Huntington should return to the solitude of his ranch and, under the
influence of their power, be forced to part with his holdings. Quintell
knew positively that whoever tipped the story off to the Searchlight’s
new management was well aware that the strike was on
Huntington’s land. An attempt to verify the rumor would result,
Quintell was certain, in the location of the bonanza and all the
details appearing, possibly in the very next issue of this paper over
which he and his gang had, with mysterious suddenness, lost all
control. Huntington would see the account, public attention would
be focused on the Huntington ranch, and Quintell & Co. would have
to pay a fancy price if they hoped to acquire the property.
Following a short interval of black reflection, Quintell sprang out
of his chair and stormed about his office. Harrison stood, toying
nervously with a pencil, watching his master.
“McQuaid sold us out—the rat!” roared the broker. “He had the
details. He got his price and crossed us, the cur! Jumped out of
camp before we could——”
“He may not have, sir,” interrupted the secretary suavely.
“McQuaid never impressed me as being that type.”
“No? Who, then? Who, then? These prospectors, who have no
legal rights? What a chance!”
“You forget, Mr. Quintell, that Dick Lennox also knew, and he
evaded capture.”
The other stopped in his furious pacing and wheeled, fastening
his penetrating black eyes on Harrison. He started to speak, then
changed his mind. His lips parted in a cold, triumphant smile.
“If Lennox is still in the country I’ll know it in half an hour,” he
said at last. “Wherever he is, I’ll know. I should have thought of this
before—fool, that I am!” He strode over to his desk, picked up the
unsigned note he had written, and handed it to the secretary. “Here,
wire this to Sheriff Warburton, at the county seat! See that it can’t
be traced back to us. Get Rankin up here as soon as you can. This
cocky new editor will never print the verification of that story,
Harrison. You can gamble on that! And listen: Don’t forget that little
job you have at the Lucky Boy to-night. I’m driving out to
Huntington’s around eight and I’ll be coming away from there not
later than nine thirty. If you’ll wait for me I’ll pick you up on my way
in. We’re putting over these two propositions, Harrison—possession
of the new strike claims and sale of the Lucky Boy group—if we have
to go to hell to do it.”
“I quite agree with you, sir,” said the other as he left the room.
True to his boast, half an hour afterward—following a brief talk
with the town constable over the telephone—Quintell got proof that
Lennox was in hiding in the district. The official reported in person to
say that, as the broker had suggested, he had gone to the post
office and, representing that Lennox was being investigated in
connection with a felony charge and that he wished to ascertain the
fellow’s whereabouts, had learned from the postmaster that the
mining engineer’s mail had been turned over to Lex Sangerly that
very afternoon, on presentation by the latter of a written request
signed by Lennox.
Since Sangerly had told him that he was staying at the Huntington
ranch, Quintell decided that it was the logical place to look for the
man who had betrayed the confidence of the gang.
CHAPTER XVII—ONE SILENT NIGHT
On the evening that Sheriff Warburton left Tinnemaha Pete
slumbering beside the camp fire at Blue Mud Spring and rode off for
the Huntington ranch, Lemuel prepared supper early for himself and
Lennox in order that he might have as much time as possible to
devote to the laborious task of writing Dot a letter.
In a large pantry off the kitchen, which prior to Lennox’s coming
had served as a storeroom, the mining engineer lay on a cot,
helpless; his broken leg was mending as rapidly as could be
expected, according to the doctor who had made his clandestine
visits under cover of darkness.
Around sundown, Lex Sangerly had returned from Geerusalem,
following his talk with Quintell, and stopping long enough to leave
the mail, motored away to the railroad construction camp, thirty
miles distant, declaring he would not be back until late.
So, after he had washed the dishes, Lemuel began elaborate
preparations, calculated to usher in becomingly his penmanship
ordeal. He trimmed the tall kitchen-table lamp, polished its chimney
carefully, got out a writing tablet, envelope, pen and ink, filled and
lighted his pipe, rolled up his sleeves, and finally squared himself
firmly before the table and started, after a long interval of painful
reflection.
He had so much to tell Dot. He must notify her that Lex was
making the ranch his headquarters; that Dick Lennox was there also,
after nearly having been killed by the Quintell gang; that the
Geerusalem branch of the Mohave & Southwestern was due to pass
in front of the ranch-house door; that he had sold four tons of
alfalfa; that her pet cow, Bess, was a proud mother, and that he had
collected forty-three eggs that day.
After considerable feinting with the pen, he got under way. It was
a warm, quiet night. The pen scratched and scratched hesitatingly.
The patient old clock on the wall tick-ticked on and on tirelessly. A
contented bullfrog out in the cool garden began a hoarse pæan, a
dedication to the silence, and broke off midway in a measure.
Lemuel finished his second page, then sat back and fired his pipe.
With a critical eye, he read what he had written:
Geerusalem, Aug. 29.

My own deares dorter: I jest got yore welcom leter an was
orful glad to heer you bin doin so fine in skule. Lex Sangerly he
tol me all about you givin him the $20,000. I allus knowed you
was as hones as the day is long, sweethart, an I tol him so an
he sed you sure was the fines gal he ever seen. An I sed they
didn make em no better, an I was proud of you. You orter herd
us. You sure wood a-bin stuck on yoreself. But lissen, honey, an
I want that you should bare in mind that bein yore ol dad Im
allus lookin out for yore interes. An that is, you gotter fergit this
Billy Gee galoot. I dont know why he give you that money xcept
that Sangerly sez it was to help us out. But you gotter figger
hes a outlaw, an aint no good nohow. So help me Moses, if I git
another chanct at him I sure will drag him off to the calaboose.
Grinning proudly, Lemuel picked up his pen again, dipped it in the

ink, and started on his third page. Then he stopped. The kitchen
doorknob was squeaking. He stared at it and saw to his dismay that
it was moving. Some hand was trying it. His heart quickened
suddenly. He remembered that he had not turned the key!
It was some distance to the door; but his rifle stood in the corner,
just out of reach. He slid cautiously out of his chair to get the
weapon. At that very moment, however, the door had opened and
closed, and a man stood in the room, his six-shooter covering
Lemuel.
“Pull down the shades, Huntington! Git a hustle on you!” the
intruder commanded quietly, as he locked the door.
The rancher gazed at him, horror growing in his eyes. His visitor
was Billy Gee! Arrived at last was the hour he had so long dreaded,
though he had believed it indefinitely postponed; for he had been
certain the outlaw would hesitate to make an overt move against
him while Lennox and Sangerly were there. But his Nemesis had
come, and now Lemuel vividly recalled the fellow’s dire threat, made
on that eventful morning in Warburton’s room in Geerusalem. He
grew faint with terror and, trembling violently, lost no time in
obeying the other’s order.
“Now, sit down!” directed Billy Gee. He waited until Lemuel
slumped weakly into his seat, then he drew up a chair to the
opposite side of the table, holstered his gun and, his eyes never
leaving the rancher’s face, got out the makings and flipped a
cigarette together.
Lemuel watched him in fearful fascination, trying to fathom his
intentions, hoping in vain that by some means, Lennox, helpless
though he was in the grip of the plaster cast, might rescue him from
his awful predicament. After a moment, it began to dawn on him
that Billy Gee was not displaying those evidences of rage and hatred
that he felt certain should forecast revenge. In fact, he thought the
outlaw seemed friendly, notwithstanding the steely glitter in his
eyes. At any rate, he told himself, the fellow looked well-fed, well-
groomed, handsome indeed, compared to that wan, hollow-eyed,
half-dead wretch he had delivered to Bob Warburton on that never-
to-be-forgotten morning.
“What’re you shakin’ about?” asked Billy Gee presently. “I had an
idea you was gritty, the way you acted that time you herded me into
camp.” He showed his even teeth in a hard grin. “I promised I’d
make you pay, Huntington. You remember that? I ain’t forgot it, but
I ain’t ready yet. I jest dropped in to have a quiet leetle chat with
you. I see Lex Sangerly is stoppin’ here with you, an’ the minin’
engineer, Lennox. How’s he gettin’ along?”
“He—what d’you want? I’m busy. I’m—I’m writin’,” burst out
Lemuel nervously.
“I hear Miss Dot is doin’ fine at the university,” said the other, with
a glance at the letter. “I wish you’d give her my best reegards. You
sure got a lady for a daughter, Huntington, an’ it ain’t from yore side
of the fam’ly either.”
A short, painful silence fell. Billy Gee’s glance wandered to the
storeroom where Lennox lay.
“Grab the lamp! I want to see how he’s makin’ out,” he said, rising
to his feet as he spoke.
Preceded by Lemuel bearing the light, he crossed the kitchen and
entered the little room. Halting beside the cot he smiled down at its
occupant.
“Hello, pard! How’re you feelin’?”
Lennox regarded him curiously a moment, then grinned. “You’re
the man who saved my life, aren’t you? I’m feeling better than I did
that night. My leg is knitting, but it’s hell lying here.”
“It sure must be. I reckon you’ll come out all right, though. Say,
I’d lay poorty low if I was you! The Quintell bunch’s after you, red
hot.”
“But why?” argued Lennox. “I’m not in Geerusalem. They’ve run
me out. I’ve quit.”
Billy Gee nodded. “That’s jest it. They’re skeert you’ll talk. You
know too much about their leetle game. I got the straight tip.
They’re set on gettin’ you.”
Alarm crept into the other’s face. “And I’m flat on my back, unable
to protect myself. That’s certainly cheerful news.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t give you nothin’ better,” said Billy Gee simply.
Some moments later he turned to leave the room. “Me and
Huntington’s got business together if you’ll excuse us. Hope you’ll
come out all right.”
Once back in the kitchen, the table between them, the outlaw
studied Lemuel speculatively for a few seconds.
“What did them two railroad detectives do the night I rambled off
in their automobile? Sorter jolted ’em, didn’t it?” he asked finally.
“They didn’t do nothin’. They was sore, of course, an’ started
quarrelin’ among themselves. I s’pose you knowed they left here to-
day?” Lemuel paused and added: “I—I oughter mebby thank you for
doin’ me a favor. They was goin’ to arrest me.”
Billy Gee laughed softly. “I heerd ’em gabbin’ about it. Miss Dot
turned the money back to Lex Sangerly, didn’t she? I’m glad she did
—now.” He shifted in his chair, placed his elbows on the table, and
covered the rancher with an intense look. “I come to ask a favor off
o’ you, Huntington. It ain’t a favor either. You owe it to me. I give
you yore start, so to speak. You made ten thousand dollars off o’ me
—sold me like you would one of yore cows. I’ll never forget that.
You’re goin’ to pay heavy for it some o’ these days. See if you don’t!
Right now I’m askin’ what’s part mine, savvy? I want you to give
Tinnemaha Pete a deed o’ gift to that hill on the far end of the
ranch.”
Lemuel sat bolt upright, then a hoarse exclamation burst from
him. He paled through his sunburn. “Good Lord, man! You don’t aim
to take the leetle I got?” he choked.
“If that hill was bringin’ you in anythin’, I wouldn’t ask it,
Huntington—bad as I’d like to hurt you,” said Billy Gee evenly. “But it
ain’t. A steer’d starve to death for the grass that’s on it, and you
know it. Tinnemaha is lookin’ to do some prospectin’ an’ he don’t
figger to deevelop another man’s property. He’ll be here to see you
to-morrow or nex’ day. An’ you see that you give him a deed, see, or
—well, I’ll be back, you kin gamble on that!”
“But can’t you see, I got two full quarter sections, an’ cuttin’ off
that strip’ll ruin ’em?” cried Lemuel, in desperation. “An’ there’s my
poor, leetle gal tryin’ to git a edjucation, an’——”
“Miss Dot’ll manage fine an’ dandy, I reckon,” asserted the bandit.
“I hear she’s livin’ with Mrs. Liggs, an’ I don’t know of a better
woman in the world than her. Mind what I’m a-tellin’ you,
Huntington! You give ol’ Tinnemaha Pete a quit-claim title to that
there hill, an’ don’t lose no time doin’ it. D’you understand? I’m goin’
to keep cases on you, an’ if I find out you ain’t done it, God help
you!”
He broke off short and flapped his hat suddenly at the lamp,
plunging the kitchen in darkness. His trained ear had caught a sound
outside the house. The next instant he had flitted around the table
and was standing over Lemuel.
“Don’t move! Don’t answer, no matter what!” he whispered into
the rancher’s ear.
Approaching from the direction of Geerusalem, now came the
gentle purring of an automobile. Lemuel in the grip of mixed
emotions waited breathlessly. He waited for Billy Gee to speak. He
was not sure where the outlaw was. He strained his ears through the
darkness, listening. The machine came to a stop before the ranch.
That could not be Sangerly, he knew. Who then? Ah, the doctor!
“You’d better git outside if you’re goin’ to do any shootin’,” Lemuel
said in subdued tones, addressing the gloom. “That’s Doc Porter
comin’ to see Lennox. Don’t go to killin’ him.”
There was no reply.
Heavy footfalls sounded on the kitchen porch. They stopped and
went suddenly blundering down the back steps and on through the
garden, bound for the front of the house. A revolver began roaring
savagely; a strident voice boomed on the night, commanding a halt.
Lemuel reached out a cautious hand for the outlaw, feeling for him,
but found he was no longer standing beside him. He sprang to his
feet, then caught up his rifle out of the corner, and groped his way
toward the front door.
“Mr. Huntington, what was that? Is that them after me?
Huntington, are you—— Give me a gun, man! Don’t let me die like a
rat,” cried Lennox wildly, his voice ringing through the house.
“Rat, be damned!” called back Lemuel. “It’s the bandit friend of
yourn I’m after. The skunk! Here’s where he gits what’s a-comin’ to
him.”
He charged along the dark hall and got to the front door. It stood
wide open. Billy Gee had fled. Halting undecidedly on the threshold,
his rifle held ready, Lemuel glared about. The automobile stood at
the gate, its headlights blazing. He heard the man of the heavy
footfalls plunging down the gravel walk, then his harsh, authoritative
tones.
“Stick up yore hands, in the name of the law! Up with ’em, I said,
or I’ll blow you to kingdom come!” A dramatic pause, then: “Now
march over to the house! Thought you could visit round free an’
easy, eh? Well, yore visitin’ days is about over, sport. Git a hustle on
you!”
“This is an outrage, officer. You’ve got the wrong man,” protested
the prisoner indignantly.
“Yeh? Well, we’ll see about that. You put it over pretty on the
train, kid, but you ain’t never doin’ it ag’in, let me tell you. If you
don’t shet yore face, I will. Hey, Lem! Make a light in there. This is
Bob Warburton.”
The sheriff, following the clew given him by Tinnemaha Pete—that
Billy Gee was at the Huntington ranch—had ridden direct from Blue
Mud Spring. Creeping onto the kitchen porch, he had heard the
outlaw and Lemuel talking. He had seen the light suddenly
extinguished, and had heard the approaching machine. Racing
around the house, he had caught sight of a man dodging into the
gloom of the garden shrubbery and had apprehended him.
Now, at the sheriff’s words, Lemuel hurried back into the kitchen
and lit the lamp. Presently Warburton appeared herding his captive
unceremoniously before him. Lemuel stared blankly at the latter, and
the official, giving him one look, burst into a torrent of curses. His
prisoner was Jule Quintell, pale, unnerved, but furious over the
rough reception he had received.
“Isn’t this rather cheap comedy for the sheriff of San
Buenaventura County to pull?” sneered the broker. His attitude was
one of contempt and defiance.
The sheriff, in the act of hurrying out to make a search of the
premises, wheeled, flushing with rage. “Say that ag’in, mister!” He
spoke in a voice that Lemuel, in the many years he had known him,
had never heard him use before.
“I’m Jule Quintell, of Geerusalem, Sheriff Warburton. I protest
emphatically against this sort of treatment,” began the man,
assuming an air of resentful dignity.
“Oh, you are! Well, let me tell you somepn, Quintell: You jest
make another crack like that, an’ see what happens. I’ve heerd
you’re the big I-am over in these parts,” continued Warburton,
glowering at the other. “An’ they tell me you got all kinds of pull. But
don’t you ever git in my way, Quintell. D’you understand?”
The broker extracted a cigarette from his dainty gold case. “That’s
more of an order than a threat, isn’t it, sheriff?” he asked coolly.
“You can find that out for yoreself,” retorted Warburton.
Quintell chuckled. “Very well, sheriff. Should the opportunity ever
present itself, I most certainly will make the test. Now, if you’ll
excuse me, I’d like to take up a small business matter with Mr.
Huntington here.” He turned toward Lemuel. “And how have you
been, Lem? I hear that Billy Gee is at large again. How unfortunate
—after you went to all the trouble and danger of capturing him!”
Warburton’s face flamed under the thrust. He opened his mouth
to speak, then closed it hard over his set teeth. Turning on his heel,
he walked out of the kitchen, gripping his six-shooter in a hand that
shook with rage.
CHAPTER XVIII—SKULKING SHADOWS
Meanwhile, Billy Gee had reached his horse tethered conveniently
near by and struck out across the plains. It was still early evening,
the sky thick-strewn with brilliant stars. He rode along for a short
distance, then stopped and listened for sounds of pursuit. He waited
for some time and, convincing himself that Sheriff Warburton had
not believed a night pursuit worth while, set his course for
Geerusalem. From the distant camp came the thunder of stamp mills
grinding loose the yellow treasure from the clinging pulp. A foraging
coyote, miles off, yelped dismally.
As he galloped on, Billy Gee laughed. Again he had outwitted the
doughty sheriff of San Buenaventura County. There was a reckless
pride in the thought. He felt the spur of hazard over the
achievement—an urge to do something rash for the mere pleasure
of doing it, to make those denizens of Soapweed Plains sit up and
take notice and marvel at his daringness. It was a consuming,
impelling fascination.
He gazed up at the stars. It was a “large” night out, he told
himself, and he felt fit as a fiddle. Yes, sir, he would ride into
Geerusalem and give it the once over, before returning to Blue Mud
Spring and the faithful companionship of old Tinnemaha Pete.
Anyway, he reflected complacently, he had arranged it so
Tinnemaha would get possession of the bonanza hill. Poor old
Tinnemaha, his one friend, had worked hard, slaved for what he had
found. And they were partners—partners of the richest ground in the
district! In the last two days they had uncovered a pay chute that
the desertarian vowed was rich beyond the conception of
prospectordom. They would sell the claims outright, fifty-fifty the
money, and leave Soapweed Plains forever.
There were a lot of fairer and more congenial climes to which he
himself could go. Sheriff Warburton would never let him alone,
would never stop until he had tracked him down and headed him for
the penitentiary. And yet, he was going straight now, had been
going straight ever since that wonderful night in the Huntington
hayloft, when Dot had called him a “poor, wounded wild animal.”
Funny how he had needed just that one little bit of interest from a
girl to make him change. He had promised her and he had made
good, thanks to that grand old wheel horse Tinnemaha Pete, and
that grandest little mother who stuck to him heroically, though he
had blighted her life with heartaches. He had been such a no-
account cur these last three years.
He reached the road, turned into it, and followed it, musing. He
recalled that his mother had written him that Dot was working on a
novel about Billy Gee. As he let his mind dwell on the thought, he
felt the blood warm in his veins. His heart beat faster. Yes, sir, he
decided, Dot must surely get an education—for was not an
education necessary to write books? He was pretty certain it was,
considering it was a painful piece of work for him to write so
common a thing as a letter. And there must be a girl in that novel.
Who was she? Did Billy Gee come wounded to the ranch, and was
he cared for by the girl friend of his mother? There was the arrival of
that persistent sheriff, Bob Warburton. And did the wonderful girl
hide the wounded bandit in her room?
From speculating thus, he presently became possessed with the
desire to see Dot. He wanted to hear her voice again, those musical
tones of hers that he had never forgotten. His being craved for the
pity she poured out to him, her splendid sympathy for him, her
understanding of him. Besides, he knew he could give her so many
interesting sidelights into Billy Gee’s career, that he was sure she
could use to advantage in her novel. For instance, how he had risked
two trips to San Francisco to inquire after her; how he had called on
his mother one night, while Dot was asleep, and confessed his love
for the girl; how he had met his boyhood chum, Lex Sangerly, on the
branch-road line of survey a few days ago, and conversed with him
for half an hour without being recognized; how he was keeping his
promise—going the straight and narrow for her sake.
The staccato sound of an open muffler in the distance back of
him, interrupted his trend of thought. He glanced over his shoulder
and saw the twin lights of an automobile coming from the direction
of the Huntington ranch. He was not certain whose car it was.
Sangerly, he knew, had driven toward Mirage at sundown, for he had
been watching from afar and had seen him go. He believed that the
oncoming car was the one which had stopped at the ranch while he
was making his escape. Doubtless Warburton, by some means or
another, had discovered the way he went and was seeking——No,
that couldn’t be it. More than likely, it was Warburton hurrying to
camp to organize a posse. That would be the average sheriff’s
method of working; never single-handed—always twenty to one,
playing safe.
He looked ahead. He had reached the mouth of Geerusalem
Gulch. A mile or so away, a few scattered lights twinkled, indicating
the outskirts of the settlement. The old rock shack, where he had
rescued Lennox from the Quintell gunmen, lay within pistol-shot
distance. It was a little too far off to make it unobserved, for it just
might be that the powerful headlights of the approaching machine
would reveal him. He could not afford to take a chance.
Spurring out of the road, he steered for a thick patch of brush
near by. He brought his horse to a halt behind it, swung from the
saddle, and waited, screened by the heavy foliage. The machine
came dashing up the road. As it got abreast of the hiding place, it
slowed down, and the headlights were switched off.
Mystified, Billy Gee crouched low to the ground, watching the
blue-black sky line, and gripped his revolver. Presently he heard the
crunch of gravel underfoot. He saw the shadowlike figure of a man
pass stealthily over the wash and vanish into the gloom.
“That you, Mr. Quintell?” suddenly came the low voice of another
man, some distance away.
A curse broke from the newcomer. “You damn boob! Are you
trying to advertise this thing? Come over here!”
A short pause followed, broken only by the sound of footsteps
blundering over the rocky wash.
Quintell spoke again: “Is it all right? Did you do exactly as I said—
the width of two claims?”
“Yes, sir. But I’m not—I did the best I could about marking the
spots. It’s too dark to see, and a pile of stones might excite
suspicion. I was afraid to strike matches.”
“Did you use up all the dust? How many spots are there?”
“Twenty-two. Yes, I used it all. That ought to be enough for an
assay test, I’d imagine—taking a little from each, you understand. I
distributed it so as to lead one to conclude that the entire gulch
prospects.”
“Let’s see one of the spots,” said Quintell curtly. “This business
has to go through without a hitch. The slightest hesitation would
mean failure. He’d become suspicious. You’ll have to go about the
job of picking the test gravel naturally. Make it appear that you’re
doing it haphazardly.”
Billy Gee heard them moving about, and curious to ascertain more
concerning what he knew to be a deliberate “salting” of worthless
ground for the purpose of selling it to some tenderfoot, he crept
after them. Soon he had made his way to within a few yards of
them. They were fumbling among the boulders. The broker growled
impatiently and struck a match. He shielded it with his hands so that
the light flashed downward, showing a diminutive monument of two
rocks, one laid upon the other. The match went out.
“That’ll do fine,” muttered Quintell. “They’re all like that, are they?
Now, as I said, Harrison, you’re to take charge of the samples. I
might not be able to get word to you to-morrow. Follow the right of
way, as near as possible. That’ll be the first test. The other can be
taken from any part of the gulch. I’m not dead sure of this fellow,
see? I found out this afternoon that he’s been making inquiries
about Jerome Liggs. It may be that he’s wise to the strike and that
he’s after the Huntington ranch, as a side issue. Just because he’s a
railroad man, don’t mean that he’d pass up a bonanza, by any
means.”
“You saw Huntington, of course?” said Harrison. “I dare say you
had matters all your own way?”
“I certainly did not—damn him! He laughed at me. I offered him
ten thousand for his brush ranch—think of that!—and he fussed and
giggled, and ended finally by telling me that his daughter and he
had agreed not to sell. I’ve seen the time when the old devil would
have sold his soul for a copper penny, if he could have jammed his
girl through college. He’s got a few beans, to-day, and—by the way,
Harrison, she’s a fancy skirt, and I hear she’s writing a novel with
your Uncle Dudley as one of the characters. Believe me, I’m
dropping in on her the very next trip to Frisco! Nothing like evincing
interest, you know.
“At that, I might have put the screws to Huntington and forced
the sale, if it hadn’t been for Sheriff Warburton. He was there, the
big bonehead. He rambled in while I sat there, check book in hand,
and eyed me like something the cat dragged in. He hates me for fair.
Let’s get to camp. I’m starting the boys after Huntington. I’ve given
him his chance. Now he takes what he gets.”
Billy Gee, listening, heard the two men moving off toward the car,
and followed them cautiously through the darkness.
“The proper thing, sir,” agreed Harrison. “By the way, did you
ascertain if Lennox is stopping there?”
“I’m not certain. That will be for Rankin to find out. But here’s the
situation, so far as Warburton and Huntington are concerned: As I
was going into the ranch, Billy Gee, the bandit—he’s back in the
country—was coming out. I don’t know what he was doing—talking
to Huntington, I imagine. Warburton was snooping around the house
after him and nailed me instead of him. The point is, we’ll circulate
the news that Billy Gee was staying at the ranch—hiding out, you
understand. In other words, we’ll frame Huntington, make him out
the outlaw’s friend, and the long hairs of the camp won’t make a
cheep at the action of a vigilance committee. If we work it smoothly,
we’ll have them with us. Here comes a machine. Quick! Run! Follow
me!”
Speeding down the road from the direction of the settlement, the
lights of an automobile appeared, visible now and again over the
boulders and clumps of brush. Quintell and his secretary dashed for
their car, sprang in, and went careening off for camp. Billy Gee stood
and watched the two machines whirl by each other. He stood in the
grip of conflicting emotions. The broker’s insulting reference to Dot
had been sufficient in itself to whip him into a murderous fury, but
the very urge he had felt to kill the fellow on the spot had been
restrained by an overwhelming discovery which he had made a
moment before.
Just now, he gazed vaguely through the night after the tail light
disappearing in the gloom of Geerusalem Gulch. Presently he tore
his eyes away from it to look at the other machine. It was
approaching at moderate speed, bouncing and swaying over the
rough road. Of a sudden, as it went bowling past him, a girl’s silvery
laughter smote his ears. The sound electrified him. He caught his
breath, and his body stiffened like steel. He thought he could make
out the forms of two women in the rear seat; the man driving wore
the regulation chauffeur’s cap.
The machine whirled on, and for many minutes he stared after it,
until it was swallowed up in the darkness toward the Huntington
ranch. He roused himself finally. It must be she, and that was his
mother with her. But why had they come? His heart began singing
within him. He threw back his head and smiled up at the stars. It
was a “large” night out, sure enough; but there was nothing in
Geerusalem to attract him.
Then his mind turned to what he had just overheard between
Quintell and Harrison, and a low whistle broke from him as he
realized the vast importance of the information he possessed. “This
powerful rogue, Jule Quintell, was preparing to sell salted ground to
the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company. To rob that company
—not openly as he had done—but stealthily, perfidiously, under the
guise of fair dealing. To-night, Quintell proposed to crush Huntington
too, to drive Dot’s father out of the country—probably kill him, as
had been done to others. He wanted the Billy Geerusalem claims,
did he? So, Mister Quintell believed it would be as easy as all that—
simply a matter of taking over the ranch and ousting Tinnemaha
Pete and himself? After they had found this big bonanza, Quintell
intended grabbing it, eh?”
He walked over to his horse presently and mounted. He was
chuckling harshly. He held Jule Quintell in the hollow of his hand.
The one menace now was Sheriff Warburton. Yes, Warburton was a
menace, but there was a way of winning him over, the only way. He
turned his horse about and went spurring off through the darkness
for Blue Mud Spring.
That voice! That face he had glimpsed by the light of the match!
“It’s a large night out, believe me!” he muttered grimly.
CHAPTER XIX—AN ENEMY IN THE RANKS
This particular August evening was destined to be the most
eventful one in Lemuel Huntington’s life, for hardly had he recovered
from the shock occasioned by Billy Gee’s visit, ere he received a
glorious surprise—Dot’s unannounced arrival from San Francisco.
She came bounding into the house, followed by Mrs. Liggs, caught
her astonished father in an ecstatic embrace, stifled his ejaculations
with kisses, and told him breathlessly the reason for her return
home. Even Warburton, scowling and furious over the outlaw’s
escape, came in for his share of Dot’s effusiveness and forgot for the
time the responsibilities of his office.
It appeared that Mrs. Liggs having received a letter from
Tinnemaha Pete, containing the disturbing news that Sheriff
Warburton was again in the neighborhood, presumably searching for
her son, that loyal little mother after consulting with Dot decided on
returning to Soapweed Plains and, regardless of Billy Gee’s
intentions to see that his old friend obtained ultimate possession of
the new gold strike, try to persuade him to leave the country and
take up his residence with her in the metropolis. Since the trip would
not occupy longer than a week, Dot had made up her mind to go
along—so Mrs. Liggs would not be lonesome, she had said. Though
the truth was, she felt a consuming desire to meet and talk again
with this romantic hero of her girlish dreams, to see how he looked
and acted in the full flush of health, to find out if he had forgotten
that tragic day of his advent at the ranch. She was curious to know
how he would treat her, what he would say to her, and she secretly
told herself that, once having met him, she could bring back with her
certain happy memories which would do much to make her studies
at the university more apparently worth while. Besides, there was
the novel she was writing around this knight of Soapweed Plains,
without knowing just exactly his character.
But Dot said nothing of all this to her father. According to the
agreement she made with Mrs. Liggs, the girl simply told Lemuel
that the little old lady had some important business to transact in
Geerusalem, and that she, Dot, had taken advantage of the
opportunity to pay a visit home. She went on to say that Lemuel
must accompany them back to San Francisco. He must see the
adorable bungalow where she and Mrs. Liggs lived. Then he would
have to spend a day at the University of California, and—— Oh, he
must hear what she had written on her novel!
She talked on breathlessly, recounting her adventures, plying him
with questions. Lemuel listened, open-mouthed, replying vaguely, his
eyes brilliant with admiration. She looked queenly and so thoroughly
refined, he thought, and she was prettier and far more vivacious
than he had ever seen her before.
Once he leaned over and whispered into Sheriff Warburton’s ear:
“Bob, you notice them big words she’s slingin’? Hear ’em? That’s one
of ’em—conspicuously. That’s what edjucation does. Listen to that,
will you! Rattles ’em off, like nuthin’.”
It was an epochal homecoming. Until after midnight, Dot regaled
them with incidents and painted glowing pictures of San Francisco
for them. Around one o’clock, Sheriff Warburton suddenly recalled
that the unexpected arrival of the two women robbed him of his
chances of a bed for the night.
Reluctantly he struck out for his own blankets at Blue Mud Spring,
getting a little comfort out of the thought that, although Billy Gee
had eluded him, he would be able to grill Tinnemaha Pete on the
habits and the probable whereabouts of the bandit the first thing in
the morning. None the less gratifying was the fact that Mrs. Liggs
was back in the district, where he could reach her when he needed
her. Why had she returned, he wondered? Unquestionably, her
presence had to do with Billy Gee. But what? Well, no matter. He’d
force it out of Tinnemaha Pete. The old fellow would give him a
straightforward story, or go to jail. Too bad, but he, Warburton, had
to do his duty.
However, when Sheriff Warburton reached Blue Mud Spring, the
camp fire was ashes, stone cold, and Tinnemaha Pete and his pair of
burros were gone. Warburton looked back undecidedly through the
gloom of the cool desert night in the direction of the Huntington
ranch. After an interval, he dismounted, unsaddled his mule, spread
out his blankets on the ground, and turned in, cursing. Billy Gee had
outwitted him a second time. The third time was a charm, he told
himself as he dropped off to sleep.
Lex Sangerly, however, was not so fortunate as Warburton. He

could not compose himself to rest. Shortly after the sheriff left the
ranch, he had driven in from his trip to the railroad construction
camp and found Lemuel waiting up for him, entertaining Lennox
with a detailed account of Billy Gee’s career of crime. After relating
to Lex the stirring events of the night, including the unannounced
arrival of Dot and Mrs. Liggs, the rancher concluded with a
dissertation on the virtues of education as manifested by the ease
with which his daughter handled words, that he proudly declared
were “jaw-breakers” of an unusual type.
Just now, Lex lay in Lemuel’s bed and tossed about nervously in
the grip of disturbing thoughts. From the parlor lounge across the
hall came sonorous evidence of Huntington’s blissful state of mind,
rumbling rhythmically through the house. The night was tomblike.
Lex rehearsed again and again the talk he had had that afternoon
with Jule Quintell, and on the heels of this there paraded before his
mind’s eye the damaging information he had gathered against the
broker from confidential sources in Geerusalem. These had
substantiated all that he had heard heretofore, and briefly, went to
describe Quintell as a tricky, unscrupulous wildcatter, associated with
a coterie of other like gentry, polished crooks all, whose sole aim
was to fleece the unwary, and who exercised their power in camp by
their manipulation of the ruthless “stingaree” element and control of
the civil authorities.
This meant to Lex nothing less than that Quintell and his placer-
claim partners were banded together to make the Mohave &
Southwestern Company pay heavily for the privilege of laying its
tracks across their ground. In other words, the broker’s reference to
fabulous gold-bearing gravel existing in Geerusalem Gulch was true,
but owing to the fact only that the ground had been salted to show
the existence of gold. He had heard of many cases where worthless
mines had been sold by the employment of such tactics. Why not in
this instance? He was suspicious of the whole matter, and had there
been another likely approach into the camp, he would have urged
abandonment of the gulch route. But there was not.
The Quintell forces held the gates of Geerusalem, as it were.
Though his surmise might be correct that they were faking their
representations to make his company meet their demands, how
could he prove it? How could he find out that they had salted those
claims? They had doubtless done it cunningly, secretly, for proof of
such an act laid them liable to arrest and prosecution.
Complicating the situation still more was the telegram he had
received that same day from his father, directing that negotiations
with Quintell be hastened, and details as to terms wired at the
earliest possible moment. Quite the contrary, it seemed as if the
broker was sparring for time. He had stated that the valuation of the
ground to be covered by the right of way must be determined by the
content of gold per cubic yard of gravel occupied by the roadbed.
This meant assaying the gulch, and assaying took time. And it
followed that the richer the ground, the greater would be the price
demanded. Lex sensed the scheme and writhed at the realization
that he was powerless to frustrate it. The mining laws of California
favored the owner who could show mineral in paying quantities.
His gloomy reflections were startlingly interrupted by a violent
pounding on the front door. Of a sudden, the silent night roared out
with a bedlam of men’s voices. From the rear of the house came the
crack of a revolver, the crash of glass from one of the kitchen
windows, Lennox’s terrified cry.
Lex sprang out of bed, pulled a curtain aside, and peered into the
darkness. The porch was jammed with men. He could hear the
hurried tramp of boots on the driveway leading to the barn, the
blows of an ax wielded on the barn door, breaking its padlock. The
pounding at the front of the house was resumed, accompanied by
kicks.
“Huntington, open up or we’ll bust her in!” shouted a man, with
an oath.
Lex groped about for matches and lighted a lamp. “Hold on there
a minute!” he yelled back. He began hurrying into his clothes. A
strange nervousness seized him. Vigilantes—a mob—had crept up
and surrounded the place. They had come to exact some tribute, to
wreak vengeance, to enforce summary justice. Which, and on
whom? He heard Dot’s voice in the hall, vibrant and fearless.
“What do you want?”
“Bust down the door!” chorused the crowd.
“We want the man who’s been befriending Billy Gee,” cried the
first speaker. “Are you opening this door or do we break it in?”
At this juncture Lex stepped into the hall. Lemuel stood half
dressed, pale with fright, holding a candle in one trembling hand.
Dot, clad in a dressing gown, her thick, wavy hair tumbled
charmingly over her shoulders, her eyes glinting with a strange fire,
was standing before the door, firmly gripping a six-shooter. Huddled
up against the wall, some distance back, was Mrs. Liggs wringing
her thin hands distractedly.
“The man who tries to come in here, dies! Do you understand
that?” called out the girl in harsh tones.
A wild jeer went up. The mob howled for action, and heavy
shoulders started heaving against the panels. Dot fired. The bullet
tore through the lintel, whined spitefully over the heads of the
crowd.
“Atta boy! Now, altogether! Get the back door, Shorty!” bellowed
the leader.
The front door bulged and creaked under a second attack, and
again Dot fired. A howl of rage broke from one of the men. There
was a mad scramble out of range.
“Smoke ’em out! Smoke ’em out!” rose the furious cry.
“Good Lord! They’re goin’ to burn down the house,” wailed
Lemuel hysterically.
“Say, men!” shouted Lex. “There’s some mistake. This is Sangerly
of the Mohave & Southwestern speaking. I’ll vouch for Mr.
Huntington. He’s never had any friendly relations with this outlaw
——”
“Is that so, Sangerly?” sneered the leader of the mob. “Well,
you’re not such a wise guy as you think you are. Huntington was
entertaining Billy Gee here this evening. He’s been hanging out at
this ranch right along. Say, Huntington, are you delivering yourself
up, or do we burn you out?”
Lennox, listening fearfully from his cot in the little room off the
kitchen, recognized the speaker as Big George Rankin, czar of
Geerusalem’s underworld.
“Why, that’s ridiculous,” cried Lex. “Mr. Huntington captured Billy
Gee and turned him over to the authorities——”
The roar of voices which had ceased during the brief parley, rose
again now, violent and menacing.
“It’s a lie! It’s a lie! I ain’t bin friends with the measly skunk,”
moaned Lemuel. Mrs. Liggs was staring at him, in a dumb,
bewildered way.
Dot still watched the door. Her eyes were glittering dangerously,
her whole manner betokening cool, desperate determination. Lex,
unused to frontier crises of this kind, had left his revolver in his
room. He now ran in to get it and found that the men on the porch
were trying the windows. He had barely discovered this fact, when a
revolver ripped suddenly down through the panes, showering him
with glass. At the same instant, he heard the kitchen door fall in with
a crash. Rushing back into the hall, he was just in time to come
under a bristling array of leveled guns in the hands of bandanna-
masked men, trained on the Huntington household.
In a trice, Dot was disarmed and Lemuel hurled into his room to
dress. The place was quickly overrun by the mob, rummaging and
ransacking bureaus, closets, trunks. Even the cupboard was swept
clean. To Lex, it seemed as if they went about their work with a
thoroughness that was almost painstakingly vicious. It was as if they
were following out some plan to render the house untenantable, to
strip its owner of his belongings.
Rankin, big and burly, his cruel eyes fiery over his red mask,
stopped before Dot.
“You be on your way out of the country before morning, kid! Get
me?” he growled. “And take this old dame along with you,”
indicating the half-fainting Mrs. Liggs whom the girl held in her arms.
“Get out and stay out!” He turned to Lex. “As for you, Mr. Sangerly,
you’ve got a room in the Miners’ Hotel. See that you occupy it, if
you’re not looking for a coat of tar. Outside, gang, and clean up the
works!”
The majority of the mob went trooping away in obedience to the
command, and presently Lex heard sounds which proclaimed the
destruction of the outbuildings, coupled with the frantic clamor of
the occupants of coop and sty.
A man hurried in from the kitchen and beckoned Rankin to one
side. “Lennox’s layin’ in there with a busted leg,” he whispered.
“Hell he is! Well, you know your orders, Shorty. Bump him off, but
wait till we leave, see? Tell Logan to help you. Make a good job of
it.”
A number of men dragged Lemuel from his room. He was in a
state of collapse. Dot relinquished Mrs. Liggs to Lex, and rushing
forward, threw her arms around her father’s neck, begging, pleading
hysterically with Rankin, to no purpose. Sangerly began an
impassioned appeal also, and received a brutal blow in the face for
his interference.
Out through the front door they hustled Lemuel. They bundled
him on a horse and set a guard over him, while Rankin rounded up
his gang preparatory to departing. At last, with a parting six-shooter
volley into the air and a chorus of wild shouts, the mob spurred
away. The first faint shafts of light were beginning to silver the
eastern sky. Soapweed Plains had never seemed so tragically silent,
so filled with woe and frightful foreboding.
Out on the front porch, Lex stood holding Mrs. Liggs. The little old
lady was moaning pitifully, clutching Dot’s hand in her own trembling
one. The girl was, for the moment, stricken dumb by the suddenness
of it all—the destruction of the ranch, the bold abduction of her
father, horror over his possible fate at the hands of that lawless
crowd. Then she roused herself and darted into the house. The next
instant she reappeared, hatted and cloaked, and sped down the
steps and along the walk leading to the rear of the premises.
Alarmed at her action, Lex helped Mrs. Liggs to a porch chair and
hurried after her. He overtook her as she was scrambling through
the wire fence into the field.
“Miss Huntington, where are you going?” he panted.
“I’m following them. Please help me catch a horse!” she cried
wildly. “Oh, the beasts! The beasts! They’re——” She broke off and
listened frantically into the night. “Hear them? They’re taking him
toward camp, but there is a trail branching off. They’re going that
way. I heard one of them say they intend to set him afoot in Lone
Mountain Pass. He’ll die out there. Quick! Mr. Sangerly, I——”
“My car,” he burst out. “If they haven’t destroyed it—tampered
with it.” He grasped her arm, and together they raced for the
roadster standing to one side of the driveway. “But we ought to run
into camp and report the matter to the authorities. We can’t hope to
do anything alone, Miss Huntington. It would be madness to oppose
them,” he argued, as they sprang into the machine.
By a streak of good fortune—which that arch-plotter Jule Quintell
could have easily explained, considering that he felt confident of
putting over the right of way deal—the night riders had left the
roadster severely alone.
Dot made no reply, and Lex started turning the roadster around in
the wide space of yard. At this juncture, two shots rang out inside
the house, followed by Mrs. Liggs’ terrified scream from the front
porch. A hoarse cry broke from Lex. He brought the car to a sudden
halt.
“My God—Lennox! I’d forgotten him. They’ve killed——”
There was a sound of blundering footfalls across the bare kitchen
floor. The next instant, a man staggered out of the back door,
toppled down the steps, and pitched headlong to the ground, in the
full glare of the headlights. Blood was issuing from his mouth.
Then, while Dot and Lex gazed horrified at the prostrate form, a
shriveled-up little figure appeared in the kitchen door, clutching a
revolver in one bony hand. It was Tinnemaha Pete.
“That you, Spangaree?” he cackled excitedly at the roadster. “Son
of a gun! Got ’em both—first pop. They was goin’ to drill Mr.
Lummox, an’ I dropped ’em. Poorty as ye please. First pop. Son of a
gun! Ain’t killed a man afore, either. That’s one of ’em. First pop,
Spangaree. Agatha! Looket, Agatha——” He went trotting through
the house, calling to Mrs. Liggs.
Dot, staring at the dead man, shivered.
Lex got the roadster under way. It sped out of the driveway and
into the road, gathering speed; plunging and swaying along, the
sand rattling like machine-gun fire against the under side of the
fenders. The girl, wide-eyed, her face bloodless, drawn with fear,
watched in awful suspense for sight of the mob.
“We’d better drive to camp, Miss Huntington, and get out the
constable—have him lead a posse after them. It’s the safest course,
all around,” said Lex presently.
A sob broke from her. “Oh, what terrible thing are they going to
do!” she cried in anguish. “We’ll have to save him. Can’t you see?
We can’t leave him. It’ll take time to get help. Oh, Mr. Sangerly——”
“It’s a terrible situation, I know,” he interrupted gently; “but you
must understand that these ruffians will hesitate at nothing. When
they would plan to murder poor Lennox, lying in bed, unable to
defend himself, what consideration would they give us?”
“Oh, I don’t know! I don’t know!” she moaned. “Perhaps you’re
right. I can’t think clearly. Merciful Father, have pity on——” She
broke off, glaring intently ahead. “There they are! There they are!”
As she spoke, the galloping mass of the night riders came into
view. The roadster bore down on it rapidly, and the powerful rays of
the headlights growing brighter and brighter, startled the horses.
Those in the rear began bolting in fright, swerving sharply,
unmanageable for the instant. But that instant proved sufficient in
which to throw the entire body into confusion. It split, scattering to
either side of the road, and Lex, a cold hand clutching his heart,
steered the car into the breach, stepping on the gas as he did so.
A deafening roar went up from the cavalcade. A hail of bullets
riddled the radiator. Racing alongside, several of the riders thrust
their six-shooters down on Lex and the girl, commanding a halt. Dot
got a fleeting glimpse of her father, bareheaded, his face ashen with
terror. He sat astride a horse, his hands tied behind him. Lex brought
the machine to a stop, and the mob surrounded it.
“Out of that buzz wagon, partner!” cried Big George Rankin,
spurring forward. “It seems to me you’re itching for that coat of tar I
promised you. You can’t monkey with a law-and-order bunch in
these parts without getting your feet wet. Kid,” addressing Dot, “you
hop out of there, too. I suppose, Mr. Sangerly, you were on your way
to spread the alarm, eh? Well, we’ll attend to you before we do
anything else. You’re a pretty wise bird—in Los Angeles,” he added
significantly.
The whole troop was by now drawn around the roadster—a grim
company, surely, what with their grotesque, blood-red handkerchief
masks and attitude of lawless abandon. Lex and Dot stood on the
ground near the roadster. The girl was weeping audibly, gazing with
distracted eyes through the press of horsemen for sight of Lemuel.
“Father!” she cried again and again, her agonized voice rising
above the chorus of menacing suggestions as to what should be
done with the meddlers of the night’s business. But she got no
answer to her passionate cry.
Day was breaking fast, as is usual on the Southwestern deserts.
Soapweed Plains lay cold and gray and mysterious to the eye, its
vast stretches of brush and sand resembling some gigantic crazy-
quilted design. The Geerusalem Hills rose near at hand, looking like
a great dab of mixed paint—a vividly mineralized pile of granite and
porphyritic rock.
Rankin and two other men were conversing in low animated
tones, trying to arrive at some decision concerning the disposal of
Dot and Lex. They were not agreeing.
Suddenly a shot rang out from beyond the circle, followed by the
gurgling cry of a man. There was a wild scamper of hoofs, then the
sharp crack of a quirt across a horse’s withers. A volley screamed
over the roadster. The riders clustered around it hesitated an instant.
Another volley scattered them like chaff, dropping three of their
number. This way and that they dashed madly, every man for
himself. Rankin roared out a command, hurling a string of oaths
after them.
“If you’re lookin’ for Billy Gee, here he is. Come take him! Come
on, you brave wallopers! You—Rankin!” shouted a lone horseman,
sitting his mount some distance away. He fired, and the leader’s hat
went sailing off his head. Emptying his revolver wildly at the other,
Rankin, fuming with rage, swung his horse about and sped after his
followers.
A wild thrill swept Dot. She stared in blank amazement at the
erect slim figure of their rescuer. Far behind him, racing across the
plains like mad, went another rider, her father, and Billy Gee, the
outlaw, the hero of her romantic dreams, was covering his retreat,
holding in nervous indecision two score ruffians who faltered at the
mere mention of that magic name, which stood for open defiance of
law! She knew that Billy Gee must have been a member of that
mob, that he had joined it with the express purpose of liberating her
father at the first opportunity.
While she gazed at him these things flashed through her mind;
and into her bosom came an ecstasy, sweeter than any she had ever
known. Out there in the cold gray dawn of Soapweed Plains, was the
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade
Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!
ebookgate.com

Instant ebooks textbook Reconstructing Democracy How Citizens Are Building from the Ground Up 1st Edition Charles Taylor download all chapters

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Instant ebooks textbook Reconstructing Democracy How Citizens Are Building from the Ground Up 1st Edition Charles Taylor download all chapters

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Instant ebooks textbook Reconstructing Democracy How Citizens Are Building from the Ground Up 1st Edition Charles Taylor download all chapters

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Visit https://ebookgate.

com to download the full version and

Reconstructing Democracy How Citizens Are Building

_____ Click the link below to download _____

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookgate.com

Kalman Filter from the Ground Up 1st Edition Alex Becker

The Global Commonwealth of Citizens Toward Cosmopolitan

No Place for Amateurs How Political Consultants are

From Poverty to Power 2nd Edition How active citizens and

The American Congress The Building of Democracy Julian E.

Carpentry and Framing Inspection Notes Up to Code 1st

Patterns Building Blocks of Experience 1st Edition Marilyn

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca

Jacket design: Graciela Galup

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Taylor, Charles, 1931– author. | Nanz, Patrizia, author. |

1. Remaking the Local Community 9

2. Helping to Rebuild Po­liti­cal Communities 29

3. Contributing to Demo­cratic Renewal 85

T­h er e is widespread belief in Western socie­ties

1 ​“Democracy Perception Index 2018,” Alliance of Democracies Founda-

zens within demo­cratic socie­ties. For example, the

Social media and digital communication technol-

and the p ­ eople. Demo­cratic systems d ­ on’t deliver

Transformations ­toward sustainability must be im-

for, or what f­ uture to envision for their community

examples of successful community organ­i zing and

Remaking the Local

R econstructing our democr acies must begin

realize that, in order to cope with global warming,

With deindustrialization t­hese communities have

might collectively take their fate into their own hands

with direct democracy is not an option. But at the

mentioned. It can also function more directly through

of living has been falling; that a­ fter the prosperity of

reproaches are leveled against the traditional major

Nor ­will it be enough (but still, of course, necessary)

that enable the expansion of the po­liti­cal that we

1 ​For example, Thomas L. Friedman, “Where American Politics Can

or the Rust ­Belt, we usually need to start with the

of work, production, or ser­vice provision must make

that ethnographers develop: the ability to listen

are, in fact, impor­tant constituents or determinants

(1) It involves an existential shift in stance: From a sense

forces beyond our control, such as the “globalizing

community, including ­those whose lives are condi-

2 ​Joanna Levitt Cea and Jess Rimington, “Creating Breakout Innova-

mand of higher levels of government—of the cen-

On the one hand, effective community action re-

­ ill even generate their own dynamics of expansion

Porto Alegre), or in deciding where a new fa­cil­i­t y ­will

4 ​Bruno Latour, “Passer de la plainte a la doleance,” Le Monde, Jan-

goals; they aim not only to achieve certain defined

Let ’s look at some examples of the kind of

Fi­nally, an experiment was launched using a s­ imple

opened together with a h ­ otel and a café next to the

at the paper mills declined 35 ­percent between 2000

down 63 ­percent. At around the same time, a widely

folks go from small (not believing their ideas made a

_ Click the link below to download _

Printed in the United States of America

2. Helping to Rebuild Political Communities 29

3. Contributing to Democratic Renewal 85

Th er e is widespread belief in Western societies

1 “Democracy Perception Index 2018,” Alliance of Democracies Founda-

zens within democratic societies. For example, the

and the p eople. Democratic systems d on’t deliver

Transformations toward sustainability must be im-

for, or what f uture to envision for their community

examples of successful community organi zing and

With deindustrialization these communities have

of living has been falling; that a fter the prosperity of

Nor will it be enough (but still, of course, necessary)

that enable the expansion of the political that we

1 For example, Thomas L. Friedman, “Where American Politics Can

or the Rust Belt, we usually need to start with the

of work, production, or service provision must make

are, in fact, important constituents or determinants

community, including those whose lives are condi-

2 Joanna Levitt Cea and Jess Rimington, “Creating Breakout Innova-

ill even generate their own dynamics of expansion

Porto Alegre), or in deciding where a new facilit y will

4 Bruno Latour, “Passer de la plainte a la doleance,” Le Monde, Jan-

Finally, an experiment was launched using a s imple

opened together with a h otel and a café next to the

at the paper mills declined 35 percent between 2000

down 63 percent. At around the same time, a widely

1 T hese and other observations of community members may be found

2 FSG and Network Impact, Case Studies.