Harper's Round Table, August 20, 1895 Part 2

"After the first question is answered, the Lawyer may address whomever he pleases, but the party addressed must remain silent; it is the opposite one who must answer. The Lawyer must of course ask questions that are possible to answer. If he should take advantage, there's the Judge to keep him in order."

"What kind of questions _would_ you ask?"

"Why, ordinary ones. Whether or not a person paints from nature? Who is your favorite musician? Which do you prefer, rowing or sailing, tennis or golf? All kinds of questions like that. I don't believe one of us could tell the date of the first crusade, or who invented ink and when.

"And another thing, never look at the individual you intend next to question. For both he and his opposite neighbor would then be prepared.

You must play very rapidly or it's no fun. And if any question or discussion occurs, the Judge must decide."

"That will be right jolly, Laura. Do you think the folks will all come?"

CORPORAL FRED.[1]

A Story of the Riots.

BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.

CHAPTER V.

For a mile after leaving its armory the regiment had marched through the beautiful residence portion of the city, cheered and applauded to the skies. Turning "column right," it had then threaded a narrow street, shop-lined and less sympathetic, had tramped in cool disregard through half a mile of railway property where, in groups of twenty or thirty, strikers and sympathizers recoiled, but scowled and cursed them, yet prudently refrained from further violence. Once in a while some street arab let drive a stone, then dove under the nearest car, and scurried away into hiding. Then came the lumber district, the swaying bridges where they broke their cadenced stride, and crossed at route step. Then in the gathering darkness the head of the column reached the outlying wards. Square upon square, section on section of frame two-story houses, the homes of citizens of only moderate means, and here, too, people cl.u.s.tered on door-steps or ran to gather at street corners and murmur G.o.d-speed and blessing, for less than a mile away now the western sky was lighting up with the glare of conflagration, and the direful word was going round that the mob was firing the freight-cars, and that, despite the efforts of fearless and devoted firemen, the flames were spreading to warehouses and factories along the line. Only a few minutes after sundown the first summons had banged on the gongs of the engine and truck houses of the west side. Then every fire-box for four miles along the lines of the Great Western seemed to have been "pulled," and in a wild confusion of alarms a.s.sistant chiefs were driving their clanging buggies, followed by rushing hose-wagons and steamers, all over the outlying wards, unreeling their hose only to have it slashed and ruined by swarming rioters, and they themselves, the fire-fighters of the people, men whose lives were devoted to duty, humanity, and mercy, brutally clubbed and stoned by overpowering gangs of "toughs" bent on mad riot and destruction. For hours from every direction the vicious, the desperate, the unemployed of the great city had been swarming to the scene, and the police force that, properly led and handled at the outset, could easily have quelled the incipient tumult, was now as powerless as the firemen. Oh, what if a prairie gale should rise and fan these flames, as once, long years before, it swept before it an ocean of fire that left only a ruined city in its wake!

Marching at route step now, but still in stern silence, the column seemed to quicken its pace and push eagerly ahead. Open s.p.a.ces between the houses or one-storied cottages became more frequent. Fiercer and wilder the flames seemed shooting on high. Over the low hoa.r.s.e murmur of the distant throng could now be heard occasional crackle of pistol shots, followed by fierce yells. Out at the front, a hundred yards in advance of the staff, an alert young officer, with a dozen picked men, scoured the streets, the front yards, the crossings, sweeping the way for the main column; and now as they came within six blocks of the scene, the roar of the riot mingling with that of the mounting flames drowned all other sounds about them. Women at squalid saloons and corner groceries were laughing and jeering. Women at quiet homes were weeping and wringing their hands. Somewhere up at the front, beyond the black bulk of a row of warehouses, a sudden flash and glare lit up the westward front of every house, and shone on scores of pallid faces. A volume of flame, a burst of beams, sparks, and billowing smoke flung high in air, and an instant later a dull roar and rumble shook the windows close at hand, letting some loose sashes down with startling clash and jangle. From the sidewalks arose stifled shrieks and louder wailing. From the head of the column, where some horses shied in sudden fright, came the firm, low-toned orders of the Colonel: "Forward the first company! Clear that street ahead!" For, as if hurled back by the explosion, a dense ma.s.s of rioters came flooding into the broad thoroughfare, blocking it from curb to curb. Promptly at double time the foremost company went dancing by, forming front into line as it cleared the group of mounted officers, and then the Colonel turned in his saddle, and looked back beyond his staff to a second rank of orderlies and buglers, to where a pale young fellow, hatless, and with heavily bandaged head, rode side by side with the signal sergeant, his dark eyes fixed on the soldierly form of his commander.

"Corporal Wallace!" called the Colonel, and our wounded Fred urged his horse to the commander's side. "You know all these buildings hereabouts.

Can you judge what they're blowing up?"

"That's near the shops, sir. They may have fired them."

"Which is Allen Street? The police officials are to meet us there."

"Second street ahead, sir; just this side of the crowd."

"What's that big plant off there to the northward?" asked the Colonel, indicating a group of factorylike buildings whose walls and windows were illumined by the glare of the flames in the freight-yards.

"The Amity Wagon-Works, sir, where Sercombe and I were discharged this afternoon."

"Yes. I heard about that. Similar cases occurred in town. Never you mind, my lad, there'll be employers enough for both of you when this trouble's over, and troubles enough for the employers who discharged you. Now ride close by me; we'll need guides here, and that's why you're mounted. What an infernal row they're making yonder," he added, as though to himself, as yells of rage and triumph mingling rose madly over the hiss of the flames.

Already the advance company was nearing the crossing of the second street. At the hydrant on one side stood a fire-engine blowing off its useless steam. In a buggy, surrounded by a dozen helmeted police on foot, sat an inspector of the department, alternately eying the flames and the surging mob on one side, and on the other the dim column swinging up the dusty street. Already dozens of excited men were rushing, ducking, and darting along the sidewalks, speeding to their fellows in the mob to say the soldiers were close at hand. The little squad in advance had reached the crossing, when the official in the buggy raised his hand, signalled halt, and, obedient to the time-honored republican principle of the subordination of the military to the civil power, the Lieutenant respected the order. The leading company marched straight to the crossing, then, too, in its turn, as one man, halted short at the command of its stalwart captain, and down came the musket b.u.t.ts on the wooden pavement. The Colonel spurred forward, his Adjutant and Corporal Fred following in his tracks. There was little of gratification in the soldier's face as he recognized the official in the buggy; but the laws of his State, which he had sworn to obey, as well as the orders of the Governor and the officers appointed over him, prevailed. The Governor's orders placed the troops at the disposal of the Mayor. The Mayor ordered the Colonel to report to the Inspector of Police. It was something unheard of in military tradition, but this was no time to expostulate or object. The gentleman and soldier touched his hat to the ex-ward politician. "Mr. Morrissey, I report with my regiment for your instructions." And the long column behind him, battalion by battalion, came to the halt.

Up the side street among some piles of lumber arose above the tumult, or rather pierced its low, deep-throated roar, the shrill cries of a child in mad excitement and distress. "Oh, let me go!" it wailed. "I must see the Colonel! I want my brother! They're killing my father! Oh, don't stop me! Fred! Fred!" it screamed, and in the grasp of a burly policeman at the outskirts of a crowd of women and children a little hatless boy could be seen madly struggling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN ANOTHER MOMENT HE HAD RAISED THE BOY IN HIS ARMS.]

"Ah, go home to your mother wid yer fairy stories," was the cajoling answer, as the officer strove to thrust the youngster back among the by-standers; but all in an instant a lithe young fellow in the uniform of a corporal had sprung from his saddle and rushed to the scene. In another moment he had raised the boy in his arms, and with his burden clinging sobbing at his neck, Fred Wallace came bounding back down the street.

"Hear him, Colonel, oh, hear him!" he cried. "He has come straight from the shops. Jim, my brother, sent him to beg for help. They're mobbing father."

"Sure they fired the shops good fifteen minutes ago. They're all in a blaze," said an officer of police, in a tone of remonstrance. "There's no use going there."

"Who sent the kid?" asked the Inspector, doubtfully. "How do you know this isn't all a fake?"

"It's my brother," cried Fred, nearly mad with impatience and dread.

"Oh, for pity's sake, let us go, Colonel! Jim sent you himself, didn't he, Billy?"

"Yes, yes," sobbed the little fellow, "and they were screaming and bursting in the door."

"Who is he, anyhow?" went on the official, still bent on investigation, when the Colonel sharply interposed.

"This is no time for talk. I believe the story. You can see--hear it's true. I demand the right to drive back that mob, or the whole country shall ring with the story of your refusal."

"My goodness, Colonel! I'm not to blame. I've got my orders just as you have. I'm told to use force only as a last extremity, and not to fire at all. You can't scatter that mob without firing."

"Can't I?" shouted the Colonel, eagerly grasping the implied permission.

"Out of the way there, you people!" he cried to some women and children scurrying across the street. "Come up with the rest of that first battalion!" rang his voice, clear and thrilling, over the throng.

"Mount, corporal, you must show us the way. The police will take care of the little man. Forward. Company B! Tumble that crowd into the gutter!"

"Forward, double time!" ordered the Captain, as the Inspector whipped his buggy out of the way, and the rifles bounded up to the right shoulder. "March!" he added, an instant later, and straight up the broad avenue, steady, solid, unswerving, went the long double ranks, the Colonel and his little party trotting close behind, the senior Major, with his three companies, following st.u.r.dily in their wake while the Lieutenant-colonel, ordering the bugle signals "attention" and "forward," prepared to support them with the rest of the column. Yelling and jeering, but scattering right and left, the nearest rioters leaped for the sidewalks, or turned and fled into the thicker ma.s.s ahead, less able from its own solidity to move. "Port arms!" was the next command, and down came the brown barrels across the broad blue chests. "Give 'em the b.u.t.t if they keep in the way," growled the burly Captain. "Steady there in the Centre. Keep in line," he cautioned, as some eager fellows strove to quicken the pace and lead in the antic.i.p.ated charge, and so tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, in the quick cadence of the dancing feet, sixty-six strong, the senior company led the ready column straight into the heart of the mob, straight through the gates, where two foolhardy fellows striving to lower them were flattened out by the whack of musket-b.u.t.ts, and went down like stock-yard cattle under the blow of the steel. Over the gleaming lines of tracks, in the glare of blazing rows of freight-cars, right, and left, sweeping the cursing rioters like chaff before them, reckless of flying missile or savage oath, through the broad gates beyond the yards, with clearer ground ahead, they kept their steady way, then slowed down to quick time, their triumphant pa.s.sage safely forced. Then, once outside the yards, leaving to their comrades in the rear the easy duty of facing and standing off the raging but impotent throng, the foremost company, led now by the Colonel, with Corporal Fred in close attendance, broke once more into column of fours, and plunged into a narrow street lighted by the flames shooting aloft from the repair shops of the Great Western road. Ahead of them, separated from the yards by the high picket-fence, was an open s.p.a.ce well nigh packed with rioting men, their savage faces ruddy in the glare. The fence itself was blazing from the neighboring cars, and a broad section almost opposite the shops had been hurled down by the mob.

"Back with you, Captain!" called the Colonel to his Adjutant. "Turn the second battalion into the yards and up to that gap. We'll hem them on two sides there! Close up! Close up!" he shouted to the rearward companies. "Now, Captain Fulton, form line again the moment you clear this lane." The Adjutant went clattering back full gallop. Another minute, and the rush and roar of the crowd beyond the fence told that the ready second was sweeping all before it down among the blazing cars.

Presently the long rows of drab felt hats could be seen dancing along in the fire-light.

"Never fear, corporal, we'll be there in time," said the Colonel. "See, the flames haven't reached half their length. Now, Fulton, right turn and drive them north. Split 'em up! Give 'em--fits!" he added, with a gulp, for he was a pious man, and opposed to the use of terms that come "far more natural" at such a time. And the next thing Fred knew Captain Fulton's men were again double-timing up another street, whirling the crowd before them. "G," "H," and "L"--Fred's own company--were sweeping the broad s.p.a.ce in front of the shops from one side, and fairly pitching the mob into the faces of their comrades of the second battalion as they neared the gap. If there were broken noses, blackened eyes, battered heads all through those suburban streets and lanes that grewsome night it surely wasn't the fault of the Colonel's "boys," but a score of these fellows, following the lead of the hatless corporal, who sprang from his horse opposite the blazing entrance, bending low to avoid the stifling smoke, pushed on across the little court-yard, past a wrecked and dismantled wing whose roof was just crackling and bursting into fierce flames.

Behind them, sure of protection now, a dozen linemen came dragging their hose. A knot of ragged, raging "toughs," issuing from a narrow door, burst away at sight of them--not so quick as to escape some resounding thumps of those hated rifle-b.u.t.ts, and through this smoking portal leaped Fred, closely followed by his comrades. The shooting flames overhead and down the main building lit a pathway even through the stifling clouds of smoke, and a moment more brought the foremost of the party to a little room part.i.tioned off. There on its accustomed peg hung old Wallace's coat.

Here, there, and everywhere, overturned benches and chairs and scattered tools, and sc.r.a.ping, struggling footprints on the dusty floor told of some recent and desperate battle. Something warm and wet was sprinkled all about the place, at touch of which Fred grew sick and faint; but not another sign was there of old Wallace or of Jim, until from under a blazing, half-finished car some fifty feet away the firemen dragged a battered, bleeding form, and the younger brother threw himself by the senseless elder's side, madly imploring him to say what had befallen father.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 821.

HIS SCORCHING WAS NOT IN VAIN.

BY WILLIAM HEMMINGWAY.

Arthur Clark believed himself the victim of gross injustice. His bicycle had brought him into disgrace. He had come home flushed with victory, ready to be hailed as the uncrowned king of scorchers, and here he was virtually a prisoner in his room, thither he had been sent directly after a wretched supper of oatmeal porridge.

"I wouldn't mind it if I had been ordered not to go into the road race,"