CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE SHADOW OF SONOMA


Of myself, during this period, there is not much to say. For six months
I was kept in prison, though charged with no crime. I was a suspect--a
word of fear that all revolutionists were soon to come to know. But
our own nascent secret service was beginning to work. By the end of
my second month in prison, one of the jailers made himself known as
a revolutionist in touch with the organization. Several weeks later,
Joseph Parkhurst, the prison doctor who had just been appointed, proved
himself to be a member of one of the Fighting Groups.

Thus, throughout the organization of the Oligarchy, our own
organization, weblike and spidery, was insinuating itself. And so I
was kept in touch with all that was happening in the world without. And
furthermore, every one of our imprisoned leaders was in contact with
brave comrades who masqueraded in the livery of the Iron Heel. Though
Ernest lay in prison three thousand miles away, on the Pacific Coast, I
was in unbroken communication with him, and our letters passed regularly
back and forth.

The leaders, in prison and out, were able to discuss and direct the
campaign. It would have been possible, within a few months, to have
effected the escape of some of them; but since imprisonment proved
no bar to our activities, it was decided to avoid anything premature.
Fifty-two Congressmen were in prison, and fully three hundred more
of our leaders. It was planned that they should be delivered
simultaneously. If part of them escaped, the vigilance of the oligarchs