Rays Daughter | Page 8

want to know--didn't care. What he wanted was whiskey, and so long as the money was burning in his pocket he knew no reason why he shouldn't have it. Therefore, instead of obeying, he stood there, sullen and swaying, scowling up as though in hate and defiance into the grave, set young face. Another second and the thing was settled. Stuyvesant's right hand grasped the blue collar at the throat, the long, slender fingers gripping tight, and half shot, half lifted the amazed recruit across the swaying platform and into the reeling car ahead. There he plumped his captive down into a seat and sent for the corporal. Connelly came, rubbing his eyes, and took in the situation at a glance.
"I ordered him not to leave the car three hours ago, sir," he quickly spoke. "But after supper I got drowsy and fell asleep in my section. Then he skinned out. I'd iron him, sir, if I had anything of the kind."
"No," said Stuyvesant, "don't think of that. Just keep a watch over him and forbid his leaving the section. No, sir, none of that," he added, as in drunken dignity Murray was searching for a match to light his pipe and hide his humiliation. "There must be no smoking in this flimsy car, corporal. A spark would set fire to it in a second."
"Them was my orders, sir. This fellow knows it as well as I do. But he's given trouble one way or other ever since we started. You hear that again, now, Murray: no drink; no smoke. I'll see to it that he doesn't quit the car again, sir," he concluded, turning appealingly to the young officer, and Stuyvesant, taking a quiet look up and down the dimly lighted, dusty aisle, was about to return to the "diner," when Murray struggled to his feet. Balked in his hope of getting more drink, and defrauded, as in his muddled condition it seemed to him, of the solace of tobacco, the devil in him roused to evil effort by the vile liquor procured surreptitiously somewhere along the line, the time had come for him, as he judged, to assert himself before his fellows and prove himself a man.
"You think you're a better man than I am," he began thickly, glaring savagely at the young officer. "But I'll be even with you, young fellow. I'll----" And here ended the harangue, for, one broad hand clapped over the leering mouth and the other grasping the back of his collar, Corporal Connelly jammed him down on the seat with a shock that shook the car.
"Shut up, you drunken fool!" he cried. "Don't mind him, lieutenant. He's only a day at the depot, sir. Sit still, you blackguard, or I'll smash you!"--this to Murray, who, half suffocated, was writhing in his effort to escape. "A--ch!" he cried, with sudden wrenching away of the brawny hand, "the beast has bitten me," and the broad palm, dripping with blood, was held up to the light.
Deeply indented, there were the jagged marks of Murray's teeth.
"Here, Foster, Hunt, grab this man and don't let him stir, hand or foot. See what you get for giving a drunkard money. Grab him, I say!" shouted Connelly, grinning with mingled pain and wrath as the lieutenant led him to the wash-stand.
Another recruit, a stalwart fellow, who had apparently seen previous service, sprang to the aid of the first two named, and between them, though he stormed and struggled a moment, the wretch was jammed and held in his corner.
Stanching the blood as best he could and bandaging the hand with his own kerchief, Stuyvesant bade the corporal sit at an open window a moment, for he looked a trifle faint and sick,--it was a brutal bite. But Connelly was game.
"That blackguard's got to be taught there's a God in Israel," he exclaimed, as he turned back to the rear of the car. "I beg the lieutenant's pardon, but--he is not in the regular army, I see," with a glance at the collar of the young officer's blouse. "We sometimes get hard cases to deal with, and this is one of them. This kind of a cur wouldn't hesitate to shoot an officer in the back or stab him in the dark if he didn't like him. I hope the lieutenant may never be bothered with him again. No, damn you!" he added between his set teeth, as he looked down at the sullen, scowling prisoner, "what you ought to have is a good hiding, and what you'll get, if you give any more trouble, is a roping, hand and foot. We ought to have irons on a trip like this, lieutenant," he continued, glancing up into the calm, refined face of the young soldier. "But I can get a rope,