“Come on, me brave lads!” yelled a voice on the outside. “Let’s have the last one of ’em out of there an’ hang them to the brudge.”
A simultaneous rush was made for both the doors, but the maddened mob had no sooner appeared than a sheet of flame rolled toward them, and they retreated with the utmost precipitancy. Forbearance was no longer a virtue. His own life and the lives of the boys under his charge were seriously threatened now, and with the greatest reluctance Professor Kellogg gave the order to fire. It was obeyed, and with the most telling effect. After repulsing three charges that were made upon the car, the boys turned their guns out of the windows, and firing as rapidly as they could reload, they drove the mob over the railroad track and forced them to take refuge behind the embankment.
Although the students had full possession of the car, their position was one of extreme danger. They were surrounded by a rabble numbering more than three thousand men, sixty of whom were armed with their own muskets, while the students had only seventeen left with which to oppose them; the rioters were securely hidden behind the embankment, while the car was brilliantly lighted, and if a boy showed the top of his cap in front of a window, somebody was sure to see and shoot at it; and worse than all, some of the mob, being afraid to run the gauntlet of the bullets which were flying through the air from both sides, had taken refuge under the car, and were now shooting through the bottom of it. One of the lieutenants was the first to discover this. He reported it to Captain Mack, and the latter reported it to the professor.
“That will never do,” said Mr. Kellogg. “We must get out of here. Attention!”
The boys, who were crouched behind the seats and firing over the backs and around the sides of them, jumped to their feet and stepped out into the aisle, while Don opened the door so that they could go out.
“Where’s your gun, Gordon?” demanded the professor.
“It was taken from me, sir,” replied Don. “But I’ll have another before many minutes.”
Don knew very well that somebody would get hurt when they got out on the railroad, and if he were not hit himself, he wanted to be ready to take the gun from the hands of the first boy who was hit, provided that same boy had a gun. He secured a musket in this way, and he did good service with it, too.