Some people two blocks and a half away saw the rescue. They said that the auto was nothing but a drab noise with a black speck in the middle of it for Chris, when a big bay horse with a lizard lying on its back cantered up alongside of it, and the lizard reached over and picked the black speck out of the noise.
Only fifteen minutes after Svangvsk’s last kicking at the hands—or rather the feet—of Engine Company No. 99 he rode Joe back through the door with the boy safe, but acutely conscious of the licking he was going to receive.
Svangvsk slipped to the floor, leaned his head against Joe’s and made a noise like a clucking hen. Joe nodded and whistled loudly through his nostrils, putting to shame the knowledge of Sloviski, of the delicatessen.
John Byrnes walked up to Svangvsk, who grinned, expecting to be kicked. Byrnes gripped the outlander so strongly by the hand that Demetre grinned anyhow, conceiving it to be a new form of punishment.
“The heathen rides like a Cossack,” remarked a fireman who had seen a Wild West show—“they’re the greatest riders in the world.”
The word seemed to electrify Svangvsk. He grinned wider than ever.
“Yas—yas—me Cossack,” he spluttered, striking his chest.
“Cossack!” repeated John Byrnes, thoughtfully, “ain’t that a kind of a Russian?”
“They’re one of the Russian tribes, sure,” said the desk man, who read books between fire alarms.
Just then Alderman Foley, who was on his way home and did not know of the runaway, stopped at the door of the engine-house and called to Byrnes: