"Can't I?" shouted the Colonel, eagerly grasping the implied permission. "Out of the way there, you people!" he cried to some women and children scurrying across the street. "Come up with the rest of that first battalion!" rang his voice, clear and thrilling, over the throng. "Mount, corporal, you must show us the way. The police will take care of the little man. Forward. Company B! Tumble that crowd into the gutter!"
"Forward, double time!" ordered the Captain, as the Inspector whipped his buggy out of the way, and the rifles bounded up to the right shoulder. "March!" he added, an instant later, and straight up the broad avenue, steady, solid, unswerving, went the long double ranks, the Colonel and his little party trotting close behind, the senior Major, with his three companies, following sturdily in their wake while the Lieutenant-colonel, ordering the bugle signals "attention" and "forward," prepared to support them with the rest of the column. Yelling and jeering, but scattering right and left, the nearest rioters leaped for the sidewalks, or turned and fled into the thicker mass ahead, less able from its own solidity to move. "Port arms!" was the next command, and down came the brown barrels across the broad blue chests. "Give 'em the butt if they keep in the way," growled the burly Captain. "Steady there in the Centre. Keep in line," he cautioned, as some eager fellows strove to quicken the pace and lead in the anticipated charge, and so tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, in the quick cadence of the dancing feet, sixty-six strong, the senior company led the ready column straight into the heart of the mob, straight through the gates, where two foolhardy fellows striving to lower them were flattened out by the whack of musket-butts, and went down like stock-yard cattle under the blow of the steel. Over the gleaming lines of tracks, in the glare of blazing rows of freight-cars, right, and left, sweeping the cursing rioters like chaff before them, reckless of flying missile or savage oath, through the broad gates beyond the yards, with clearer ground ahead, they kept their steady way, then slowed down to quick time, their triumphant passage safely forced. Then, once outside the yards, leaving to their comrades in the rear the easy duty of facing and standing off the raging but impotent throng, the foremost company, led now by the Colonel, with Corporal Fred in close attendance, broke once more into column of fours, and plunged into a narrow street lighted by the flames shooting aloft from the repair shops of the Great Western road. Ahead of them, separated from the yards by the high picket-fence, was an open space well nigh packed with rioting men, their savage faces ruddy in the glare. The fence itself was blazing from the neighboring cars, and a broad section almost opposite the shops had been hurled down by the mob.
"Back with you, Captain!" called the Colonel to his Adjutant. "Turn the second battalion into the yards and up to that gap. We'll hem them on two sides there! Close up! Close up!" he shouted to the rearward companies. "Now, Captain Fulton, form line again the moment you clear this lane." The Adjutant went clattering back full gallop. Another minute, and the rush and roar of the crowd beyond the fence told that the ready second was sweeping all before it down among the blazing cars. Presently the long rows of drab felt hats could be seen dancing along in the fire-light.
"Never fear, corporal, we'll be there in time," said the Colonel. "See, the flames haven't reached half their length. Now, Fulton, right turn and drive them north. Split 'em up! Give 'em—fits!" he added, with a gulp, for he was a pious man, and opposed to the use of terms that come "far more natural" at such a time. And the next thing Fred knew Captain Fulton's men were again double-timing up another street, whirling the crowd before them. "G," "H," and "L"—Fred's own company—were sweeping the broad space in front of the shops from one side, and fairly pitching the mob into the faces of their comrades of the second battalion as they neared the gap. If there were broken noses, blackened eyes, battered heads all through those suburban streets and lanes that grewsome night it surely wasn't the fault of the Colonel's "boys," but a score of these fellows, following the lead of the hatless corporal, who sprang from his horse opposite the blazing entrance, bending low to avoid the stifling smoke, pushed on across the little court-yard, past a wrecked and dismantled wing whose roof was just crackling and bursting into fierce flames.
Behind them, sure of protection now, a dozen linemen came dragging their hose. A knot of ragged, raging "toughs," issuing from a narrow door, burst away at sight of them—not so quick as to escape some resounding thumps of those hated rifle-butts, and through this smoking portal leaped Fred, closely followed by his comrades. The shooting flames overhead and down the main building lit a pathway even through the stifling clouds of smoke, and a moment more brought the foremost of the party to a little room partitioned off. There on its accustomed peg hung old Wallace's coat.
Here, there, and everywhere, overturned benches and chairs and scattered tools, and scraping, struggling footprints on the dusty floor told of some recent and desperate battle. Something warm and wet was sprinkled all about the place, at touch of which Fred grew sick and faint; but not another sign was there of old Wallace or of Jim, until from under a blazing, half-finished car some fifty feet away the firemen dragged a battered, bleeding form, and the younger brother threw himself by the senseless elder's side, madly imploring him to say what had befallen father.