Part 21 (1/2)
Police officials ride now with the captain temporarily in command: a carriage has whisked the colonel over to head-quarters, but haste!
haste! is the word. On they go, silent, grim, with the alkali dust of the North Platte crossing still coating their rusty garb. A great swing bridge looms ahead: a dozen police deploy on either side and check the attending crowd. Over they go at route step, and then, turning to the right, tramp on down a roughly-paved street, growing dim and dimmer every minute with stifling smoke. Presently they are crossing snake-like lines of hose, gashed and useless; pa.s.sing fire apparatus standing unhitched and neglected; pa.s.sing firemen exhausted and listless. Then occasional squads of scowling men give way before their steady tramp and are driven down alley-ways and around street-corners by reviving police. Then the head of column turns to the left and comes full upon a scene of tumult,--a great building in flames, a great mob surging about it defying police interference and bent apparently on gutting the structure from roof to cellar and pillaging the neighboring stores. Now, men of the ----th, here's work cut out for you! Drive that mob! bloodlessly if you can, bloodletting if you must!
The colonel is again at the head. All are on foot. ”Left front into line, double time;” the first company throws its long double rank from curb to curb, Drummond, its commander, striding at its front; Wing, his subaltern, anxiously watching him from among the file-closers.
Already they have reached the rearmost of the rioting groups and, with warning cries and imprecations, these are scurrying to either side and falling into the hands of the accompanying police. Thicker, denser grows the smoke; thicker, denser the mob.
”Clear this street! Out of the way!” are the orders, and for a half-block or so clear it is. Then comes the first opposition. On a pile of lumber a tall, stalwart man in grizzled beard and slouching hatevidently a leader of mark among the mob--is shouting orders and encouragement. What he says cannot be heard, but now, tightly wedged between the rows of buildings, the mob is at bay, and, yelling mad response to the frantic appeals and gesticulations of their leader, at least two thousand reckless and infuriated men have faced the little battalion surging steadily up the narrow street.
”You may have to fire, Drummond,” says the colonel, coolly. ”Get in rear of your company.” Obedient, the tall lieutenant turns and follows his chief along the front of his advancing line so as to pa.s.s around the flank. He is not fifty paces from the pile on which the mob leader, with half a dozen half-drunken satellites, is shouting his exhortations. Just as the lieutenant's arm is grazing grim old Feeny's elbow as he pa.s.ses the first sergeant's station a brick comes hurtling through the air, strikes full upon the back of the officer's unprotected head, and sends him, face forward, into the muddy street.
In the yell of triumph that follows, Wing's voice for an instant is unheard. Obedient to its principle, ”Never load until about to fire,”
the battalion's carbines are still empty, but all on a sudden ”C”
troop halts. ”With ball cartridges _load_!” is Wing's hoa.r.s.e, stern order. ”Now aim low when I give the word. _Fire by company._ _Company_, READY!” and, like one, the hammers click. But no command ”Aim” follows. ”Look out! Look out!--For G.o.d's sake don't fire! Out of the way!” are the frantic yells from the throats of the mob. Away they go. Scattering down side streets, alley-ways, behind lumber-piles, everywhere--anywhere. Many even throw themselves flat on their faces to escape the expected tempest of lead. ”Don't fire,” says the colonel, mercifully. ”Forward, double time, and give them the b.u.t.t. We'll support you.” Down from the lumber-piles come the erstwhile truculent leaders. ”Draw cartridge, men,” orders Wing in wrath and disappointment. ”Now, b.u.t.ts to the front, and give them h.e.l.l. _Forward!_” And out he leaps to take the lead, das.h.i.+ng straight into the thick of the scattering mob, his men after him. There is a minute of wild yelling, cursing, of resounding blows and trampling feet, and in the midst of it all a single shot, and when Wing, breathless, is finally halted two squares farther on, only a dozen broken-headed wretches remain along the street to represent the furious mob that confronted them a few minutes before. Only these few and one writhing, bleeding form, around which half a dozen policemen are curiously gathered, and at whose side the battalion surgeon has just knelt.
”He's shot through and through,” is his verdict, presently. ”No power can save him. Who is he?”
”About the worst and most dangerous ringleader of riot this town has known, sir,” is the answer of one of the police officials. ”No one knew where he came from either--or his real name.”
And then in his dying agony the fallen demagogue turns, and the other side of his twitching face comes uppermost. Even through the thin, grizzly beard there is plainly seen an ugly, jagged scar stretching from ear to chin.
”This isn't his first row by any manner of means, if it is his last,”
says a sergeant of police. ”Look at that! Who shot him, anyhow?”
”I did,” is the cool, prompt answer, and Sergeant Feeny raises his hand to his carried carbine and stands attention as he sees the surgeon kneeling there. ”I did, and just in the nick of time. He had drawn a bead on our lieutenant; but even if he hadn't I'd have downed him, and so would any man in that company yonder.” And Feeny points to where ”C” troop stands resting after its charge.
”You knew him, then?”
”Knew him instantly, as a deserter, thafe, highway-man, and murderer,--knew him as Private Bland in Arizona, and would know him anywhere by that scar.”
A policeman bends and wrenches a loaded revolver from the clutching, quivering fingers just as Wing comes striding back and shoulders a way into the group.
”Is he badly hurt, doctor? That was an awful whack.”
”It isn't the lieutenant, sir,” says Feeny, respectfully, but with strange significance in his tone as he draws a policeman aside.
”Look!”
And Wing, bending over, gives one glance into the dying face, then covers his eyes with his hands and turns blindly, dizzily, away.
That evening a host of citizens are gathered about the bivouac of the battalion at the water-works while the trumpets are sounding tattoo. A few squares away the familiar notes come floating in through the open windows of a room where Jim Drummond is lying on a most comfortable sofa, which has been rolled close to the cas.e.m.e.nt, where every whiff of the cool lake breeze can fan his face, and where, glancing languidly around, he contrasts the luxury of these surroundings with the rude simplicity of the life he has lived and loved so many years.