One thing that encouraged Don to make so desperate a struggle for the possession of his piece, was the heroic conduct of a little pale-faced fellow, Will Hovey by name, who occupied the seat in front of him. Will didn’t look as though he had any too much courage, but his actions proved that he had plenty of it. He was confronted by a ruffian big enough to eat him up, who was trying to disarm him with one hand, while in the other he had a formidable looking knife with a blade that was a foot long.
“Give it up, I tell you,” Don heard the striker say.
“I’ll not do it,” was Will’s reply. “I’ll die first.”
The knife descended, and Don expected to see the brave boy killed before his eyes; but he dodged like a flash, just in the nick of time, and the glittering steel passed over his shoulder, cutting a great hole in his coat and letting out the lining. Will lost his gun in the end, but he wore that coat to the city, and was as proud of that rent as he would have been of a badge of honor. He was a soldier all over, and proved it by stealing a gun to replace the one the strikers had taken from him.
When Don was pulled over the back of his seat, he fell under the feet of a party of struggling men and boys, who stepped upon and knocked him about in the most unceremonious way, and it was only after repeated efforts that he succeeded in recovering his perpendicular. No sooner had he arisen to an upright position than he fell into the clutches of a striker who seized his waist-belt with one hand and tried to cut it from him with a knife he held in the other, being under the impression that if he succeeded, he would gain possession of the boy’s cartridge-box. But there’s where he missed his guess, for the cartridge-box which hung on one side and the bayonet scabbard that hung on the other, were supported by breast belts; and the waist belt was simply intended to hold them close to the person, so that they would not fly about too much when the wearer was moving at double time. Don, however, did not want that belt cut, and he determined that it should not be if he could prevent it. The striker was larger and much stronger than he was, but Don fought him with so much spirit that the man finally became enraged, and turned the knife against him. If he had had any chance whatever to use his weapon, he would certainly have done some damage; but he and Don were packed in so tightly among the strikers and the students, who were all mixed up together now, that neither one of them had an inch of elbow-room. The struggling crowd was gradually working its way toward the rear door, and Don saw that he must do something very quickly or be dragged out of the car into the hands of the outside mob. After trying in vain to disarm his assailant, and to free himself from his grasp by breaking the belt, he set to work to unhook it; but he was knocked about so promiscuously by the combatants on all sides of him, that he couldn’t even do that.
How long the fight over the guns and cartridge-boxes continued no one knows; and the reports in our possession, which are full and explicit on all other points, are silent on this. But it took the strikers a long time to disarm the boys, and even then they had to leave without getting all the guns.
Up to this time not a shot had been fired or a stone thrown. The mob outside could not bombard the car for fear of injuring some of their own men, and the students could not shoot for the same reason. Besides, the order not to pull a trigger until they were told to do so was peremptory, and in his report Professor Kellogg takes pains to say that this command was strictly obeyed. The order to fire on the mob would have been given before it was but for one thing: The only officer who had the right to give it was being choked so that he could not utter a sound. The strikers were quick to see that Professor Kellogg was the head and front of the company, and believing that if they could work their will on him, they could easily frighten the boys into submission, they laid hold of him and tried to drag him out of the car; and failing in that, the door being blocked by their own men, who were anxious to crowd in and take a hand in the fracas, they bent the professor backward over the arm of a seat and throttled him. The students in his immediate vicinity defended him with the utmost obstinacy and courage, and a sword, and at least one bayonet, which went into the fight bright and clean, came out stained. At any rate the rioters did not succeed in killing the professor, as they fully intended to do, or in dragging him out of the door. After a desperate struggle he succeeded in freeing himself from their clutches, and as soon as he could speak, he called out:
“Clear the car! Clear the car!”
This was the order the students were waiting for, and if the order had not been so long delayed their victory would have been more complete than it was, for they would have had more guns to use. They went to work at once, and the way those rioters got out of that car must have been a surprise to their friends on the outside. Swords, bayonets and the butts of the muskets were freely used, and when the last rioter had jumped from the platform, the real business of the night commenced. All on a sudden the windows on both sides were smashed in, and stones, chunks of coal, coupling-pins, bullets and buck-shot rattled into the car like hail.