“Strogoff, by my soul,” ejaculated the doctor; “this young messenger said that a policeman had been hurt, but I had no reckoning that it was the fighting sergeant of headquarters staff. Let me have a look at you, man.”
“Ah,” he said, after quick examination, “a little concussion, that is about the extent of it; no bones broken; lucky, sergeant, that you were so well-cushioned by nature, and good feeding, I might add. You will be sore from this shake-up, but far from the hospital, my dear sir.”
“Here, give me a hand,” broke in the sergeant, addressing the officers standing behind the physician. “Now,” he continued, stiffly rising with the assistance rendered, “I want the pair of you to use your legs to best gait and give order of detention to the master of the wharf back of these buildings, to hold at all hazards the collier there loading. Go!”
With the doctor’s arm aid on one side and the druggist’s on the other, the sergeant was led, slowly and limping, out to the street.
Hailing a hack, passing through the square, Strogoff, aided by vigorous boosting, climbed in and motioned the boys to follow.
“Drive like the devil around to the river front,” he commanded the reinsman on the box, and the way the vehicle rattled over the pavement showed that the officer inside was not considered the kind of individual with which to trifle.
When the sergeant reached the wharf, a big transport occupied the offing, upon which troops were embarking, and small mountains of military supplies also being loaded with all possible dispatch.
Strogoff’s brother officers, who had been sent in advance to the wharf, had made no progress in their mission, owing to the martial preemption of the premises, and the sergeant’s attempt at argument with the irate lieutenant-colonel directing the getaway proceedings fell upon deaf ears.
It was not until the transport was in mid-channel and swiftly steaming up the river that the wharf master could be reached.
The sergeant, for the time being, had no regard for his aching head and back, and with renewed vigor was on the trail of the suspect who had given him the slip on the warehouse roof. “You saw the way that ape got into the coal boat, didn’t you?” was the first interrogation fired at the wharf master.