But the expression of sullen hostility had returned to Monahan’s face. “Traile’s decent enough, but a swell,” he growled.
“Rot! Traile’s father’s rich; so’s mine. No difference at all. I’m a swell, too,” Stacey observed, almost gaily.
“You can call yourself names at your pleasure, Captain,” said Monahan, “but let any one else say that about you and I’ll break his head.”
Stacey laughed and departed.
He and Traile found more zest in their work next day. Not being fools, they accepted Peters’ quiet advice that all six of them make the arrests together. Even so, they had their hands full. These, thought Stacey grimly more than once, were the men they were after. Four they took, with difficulty, in the attic of a disreputable boarding-house, four in a brothel, and five on a river barge after a running fight during which Traile got a knife thrust in his arm and Jackson a bullet in the shoulder. The rest they picked up separately or in pairs. But by five in the afternoon they had got them all—all twenty. Tired and grimy, Traile with his arm in a sling, they reported to the colonel.
“Good work, gentlemen! Good work!” he said soberly. “You even got Voorhies?”
“We did, sir,” replied Traile quietly, “but with two bullets in him, which the captain here put there on my account. Two of our men are hurt—Jackson shot in the shoulder—at the hospital—will be all right; Morgan laid out with a brick—came around after a while—a bit groggy now, that’s all.”
“And you, Lieutenant?”
“Nothing, sir. A scratch. Hardly notice it.”
“You’ve done well. I’ll let the general know. I think this ends it. You can retire into the bosoms of your families and cease calling me ‘sir’—always a strain on National Army men, I observe. Congratulations, Captain Carroll.”